And now for something completely different : Altensimmen in Sims 3 - Update 17

[kbieniu7]

Oh dear!

Das ist wunderbar! Das Landschaft ist großartig, das ist eine andere Dimension des Raumbildung in dem Spiel...

I'm really impressed! It's a brand new level of city creation. The photo showing the river flowing trough the town covered by snow and fog, it's one of the best in-game shots, I've ever seen. Your winter-time atmosphere is stunning, feeling like almost a photo of a real place, that I would like to visit and feel that charm.

All of your work is great. I didn't expect, that this game could give such possibilities to recreate each scale -a scale of the town and, up to a scale of the street and single house.

What is more, I used to build a town in TS2 but I've never thought about building castles...

Keep it going!

[vortext]

You know, I actually hoped to see more of the cloister but didn't say anything out of fear of jinxing it. The garden with the walls and stairs is very nice. A pitty sc4 doesn't allow for such intricate handling of small height differences.

And yes the supermarket is an excellent eyesore! 

[catty]

....And yes the supermarket is an excellent eyesore! 

Very much a ditto   

Everything else looks great as well worth popping in for   

[c.p.]

Congratulations on the OSITM

The interior detail of the supermarket is amazing

Also, good work on the walkways/steps around the cloister.

Have you ever looked into 3dwarehouse.sketchup.com? (i.e. Sketchup models).  There are building models with complete interiors there, as well as lots of furniture, etc, if you are looking for stuff to fill the "abandoned" houses.  I don't know how difficult it is to convert from Sketchup to Sims format though.

[art128]

That supermarket is a perfect example of ugly supermarkets. Nice work! Also, great to see you thought about making the private area of the supermarket.

[Dantes]

The small supermarket or drugstore looks awesome! It's amazing what you cast out of the game. Great work!

[benedict]

Congratulations on being selected for OSITM.

And extra congrats - your MD was number one on BTT for the week ending Nov 27.

[carlfatal]

Heya,
here comes the next OSITM update.

Like always, replies first:

@romualdillo,
indeed, CC is the salt in the soup here. And ATS is one of my primary resources, I really love her stuff.
To your question: you can change the height of a wall in 16 steps. With shift and klicking on a stair you will get a stair with only one step. (For all not Sims-addicted: you need to dig a hole, place a wall into there and then you can change the height of an exisisting wall on level 0 to the height you want by using a cheat. Important is, that you count the steps you dig in, cause they will be cutted from the wall on level 0. I hope, this is understandable).

@kbieniu7,
thank you Kamil! And I see, you mastered your studies of German language! 
Sims 3 has great graphics indeed, and using imported textures and models changes it from EA to some more realistic looking thing. But all the honor should be given to the ones, who made the CC I use. Without their work Altensimmen wouldn´t exist. 

@vortext,
thank you! This cloister was a lot, that really scared me. Nothing else needed more time to grow. BUT: today it is finished, and I hope, you like the pictures.

@catty,
thank you too! 

@c.p.,
thanks a lot! Today you can see the finished state. And yes, I know Scetchup, but I can´t use models made with it.
One reason is, that every house here is usable ingame later. It needs to have the right routing and all objects you need to let sims live in there.
And the other eason is, that the use of CC in sims 3 is very similar to SC4. You will need the model/mesh file as a dependency to see downloaded objects ingame. Different to SC4 is, that some creators allow to share their CC with built lots or worlds, as long as you give credits. I prefer to give links to the stuff I use here, but nonetheless: most scetchup stuff is copyrighted and not free to use. And also there is an unbelievable amount of things, I can download on all the Sims sites, - so much, that I never will be able to use it all.

@art128,
thank you! And yes, I try to build "realistic" everywhere. So you also will find rooms with waterpipes (like baths or kitchens) mostly on top of each other, although this is not necessary ingame. And to have social rooms for workers, an office for the boss, and some small storage room - well, without it would look odd, wouldn´t it? 

@Dantes,
thank you! But like I said: I am playing with models made by great artists. I am only bringing them together.

@benedict,
thank you too! And like I said in your thread: it is hard to believe, that there is so much interest for a game, the most here don´t even play.


And now to the update: the cloister is done, and I can´t count all the hours I needed to finish it. It is not only one of the biggest lots in the town, it also is one of the most detailed. And it is one of the most faked lots here, the borders aren´t visible anymore. 
To the butresses: I wasn´t able to continue them around the choir of the church, and also I have to deal with the strange texture issue there (the upper part uses the same like the bottom). But I think, it gives the church some kind of realism though, and I will let it be like it is now. It was work enough. 


The first two pictures were made during the building process. I am using a lot of brushes for the ground textures. But if I use the terrain paint tool, I don´t have any grid on the ground, so it is not easy to shape. To avoid unwanted results I am working like people, who brush pictures: I use floor tiles to cover the parts, that shouldn´t been painted. After finishing the paint job, I can delete the floor tiles, and everything looks fine then.

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Then (still done while working on the file) the floorplans. I am starting with the upper level, and I have to admit: the cellar and the crypt aren´t yet done. 

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The rest of the series are random shots of the lot and the surrounding area after finishing.

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I hope you like it. Seeya Soon!

[romualdillo]

Of course I do!!!  The cloister looks fantastic!!! And thanks for the tip!!!

[vortext]

The area around cloister turned out great! The interiors are great too. Not to mention the courtyard, wow! The shot through the window onto the courtyard is superb!   

[Themistokles]

The contrast between wild vegetation along the riverbanks, the tamed cloister garden and the medieval buildings themselves is absolutely splendid! And picture 34 kind of makes me wish I was a sim, just so I could live in Altensimmen...

[catty]

....And picture 34 kind of makes me wish I was a sim, just so I could live in Altensimmen...

I think for me its got to be picture 24   

[benedict]

Congratulations on being OSITM, and well done - your MD was the Christmas number one on BTT!

[catty]

Congratulations on being OSITM, and well done - your MD was the Christmas number one on BTT!

Well done it just shows how much interest your Sims 3 MD is getting from people   

[carlfatal]

Heya and sorry for the delay,

but I wanted to show something finished - more or less - more less...   
But the progress is visible, and some nice scenes and places are grown. I placed around 300 new duct covers, and around 50 street lamps. Silly me put them into the wrong layer. And instead of cutting them out together and pasting them into the right directory, I had to change this manually with every single object. It did took round about three hours... 

Since the file becomes bigger and bigger, crashs appear more often. The last one was after two hours of gardening, some last details like the small ponds... and luckily this time the CTD happened immedietly after the end of the 15 minutes, that the saving process needs.
If I only count the time, I waited for saving during the last 2 weeks, it´s more than ten hours later now. Crazy... 
But - the progress is visible, at least for me...

Replies:

@romualdillo,
thank you again, my friend!

@vortext,
thanks, and I hope, this update is also to your like!

@Themistokles,
thank you! After finishing this Town will be developed. At least then your selfsim can live here...

@catty
also a big thank you! I am absolutly happy, that this project seems to draw very much attention, much more than I hoped in the beginning. But I am pretty sure, that some Sims players also look in here, cause only here people can see my stuff without being logged in. 

@benedict,
thank you!


And now to the update´s first part:
Although I had to fight some problems, the quarter around the school and along the riverside is nearly finished but sadly with some small parts I need to fix. But I don´t want to wait any longer with snapshots of the parts I´ve worked on.

Today I will show mostly nature, or what can be left from, if we don´t canalize a river. Here is place for fish and other animals, and cause not only Sims like fishing I will start with a picture, a view familiar from the cloister update, but - two small stones added. Only a pity - but such things work to inspire the viewers imagination. On the left side comes a small creek, view to the old town center:



Stones! I thought, why not, could be remains from the ice age, and slowly wandering downstream. The view is opposite.



Another angle of the same spot:



Yeah, I was bathing...



Also upstream, to the left the old town, to the right the school quarter:



This view leads downstream from the "Bahnhofsstrasse" bridge:



Another angle:



And supermarket - place enough now to deliver goods:



The house, that you can see here, uses a partially fixed, not really working EA mansardes set, it appears buggy but I love this kind of architecture, and seen from close eerything is okay - so I decided to let it be. Also ist is the only mansard set, that I can use for small 45 degree angles like here on the streetfront:



The last picture for today - an overview about, what will come. Hope you like, what I´ve shown:



Seeya very soon! 

[catty]

I can just see myself walking along that river (and if I had a river like that anywhere near home it would be a daily walk) and throwing bread out to the ducks, its lovely   

And good to see the supermarket filling up

[vortext]

Oh yes, it definitely is to my liking! 

The river banks are gorgeous! 

[carlfatal]

New pictures...

I´ve tried to shoot them ingame, but the weather wasn´t with me, it´s raining cats and dogs. But everything here is really ingame, with an exported version of my world file. So more detailed picures will follow as soon as the sun shines again.   

Thank you catty and vortext! 

1 This sim I made for testing purposes:


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10 a monument for the very famous Twallan (the most important modder for Sims 3)


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Seeya! 

[catty]

I love the guy on the swing 

[romualdillo]

Great landscaping!!