January 18, 2010- Stage 1.2

(click on pictures to enlarge them)

Note: You may notice that I changed last night's title to "Stage 1.1" (and I also changed the date, since it's not yet 2019). I'm labeling them as stages because I don't want to say "Another CAW update...Another another CAW update...Guess what? Another CAW update!". That'd get somewhat confusing and tiring. So I'm labeling them as "stages" instead. Right now, I'm in stage 1 (early development) part 2 (basics). I'll also be putting down a time stamp.

4:00 PM - 5:00 PM

I started the texture I wanted to use for the water/waterfall in the tropical jungle. It is called the Straits of Evripos and I found it with my handy dandy google search engine! I modified it slightly by playing with the contrast and hues; I think that it now looks more detailed and darker. I'm going to test it in game to see if it improved any.

Obviously, the terrain was meant for water and not terrain, but it actually looked like it was supposed to on terrain and not water. I borked up the view somehow (minimized the render panel by accident) so no pictures, but I'm going to re-load the tiny map again and show you the revised version.

I made the revised version lighter and a bit more monotone in hopes that the terrains and ponds will warm up to it a bit more.

It seemed to be okay on the terrain, but a bit too bright.

And this is the best I could do with the water. Any more than that and it would have overwhelmed the pond. I think it needs to be darker.

So now I've basically de-saturated it to the point where it's almost black, but very grey. Almost like actual water, in terms of clearness. So, hopefully, it'll come out well in CAW.


So this one actually came out pretty well on both water and terrain. If you set the opaqueness to 7, then you could easily use it as a pathway, and it'll look good in the pond. I was still hoping for something less blue, but I think that's just because of the depth of the pond. I probably should have made it a bit higher...

And since it wasn't 5PM yet, I went ahead and tested out the Deep Freeze, which was another texture that I found and converted with Google. I don't think it's really suitable for ponds ( 7 opacity), but it would work rather well for snowy mountains (97ish opacity). And that's fantastic, since my neighborhood is going to need some snowy mountains.

I also tested out my water texture (labeled "water 6"), and I raised up the terrain in the pond a bit. It had a really nice texture effect, and I'm beginning to learn that 7 is my lucky number when it comes to water, lol! I think I should have turned down the opacity a wee bit more though. This would be perfect for certain types of water.

5 PM - 6 PM

I began working on the Bistro in the coastal area, and I'm pretty happy with the results. I might go back and revise it later, but for now, I'm keeping it this way.

And I also did the bookstore, and I'm happy with how that came out as well.


And I also did some work on the day spa. There was a bit of space left over, so I put in a fountain in the back with some more benches. I didn't use the traditional park benches because I felt that they weren't "beachy" enough. I really need to change that terrain; as I was building, I noticed it looked more like dirt in a desert rather than sand on a beach.

The coast's progress so far...

6 PM - 10 PM

The new park/fishing hole. I really like the lighting, and in that little building thing are two bathrooms and upstairs is a rec room. The third floor is basically for show. And behind it is the Lofty Cerulean Pool that was in Sunset Valley. I plan on making most the lots myself, but if I need some help, I'll just borrow from EA.


This is the art gallery (it's small, since I plan on having a main one in the city area) and it has plenty of little empty display stands and pedestals in case your simmies find some gems they want to give to the art gallery. :) (Note, I don't know if that will actually work since this is a community lot, but I'm willing to test it out)

I'm going to try and make this world with as little custom content as possible. The pedestals are custom content, but that's easily replaceable. If you are interested in the pedestals, you can find them here.

Anyway, that's about 6 hours of creating, lol! I think I'll call it a night. :)