dicreasy2 | Chapter 15.3 out-takes and thoughts (Reply)

Yep, it's that time again. Now I've shared with you how the storyline came about it's time to talk specifics about filming this chapter and post pictures!

This was the chapter that I thought I would need to use my dummy 'hood for the first time to shoot in. Once Alexandra was pregnant I was filming against the clock to get what I needed when I needed it. In the end only one scene was shot in the dummy 'hood: Alexandra and Anthony talking at the bottom of the stairs just before she gave birth. Everything else was filmed in the main game, and on the main lot and Anthony's house, without using any sort of cheat to change the time, or arrest motive decay. The only reason this was possible is because Alexandra is awesome, and wonderful, unlike her sister-in-law. Yes I've been playing through the rest of the honeymoon, and I just have to say Marielle is the WORST PREGNANT SIM EVER! Her energy bar is full at 6.00 am, but 11.00am it is well over half empty, and her hunger bar drops as fast. In some ways it is good, because I can use it in the plot, but other ways, ARGH!

Anyway, enough on her for the time being I haz pictures.

Yeah, my simself was at Frederick's birthday, but as you can see her face glitched like this for ages. I'm not this much of a grump at parties, I swear.

Oh and it's not just SimNerd who has stalker tendencies.

"Not a bad party."

"No, now I'm no longer scowling it's pretty good."

"...my Theo-dar is bleeping"

*Di looks over shoulder*

"Yeah, he's standing behind you."

"Sweet."

Ok the first time I was back in the main house for this chapter was the first time I played it after installing AL. I found this on the corner of the lot.

So that's two vases of flowers, and the post just floating there.

In order to get around the strict family values handicap and get Alexandra pregnant she moved straight into the Grundstrom house after uni. The scene in the dress shop was filmed by having Alexandra invite Beth on an outing. I then made Beth selectable to get her to sit on the settee (the looking at the dummy was autonomous) and controlled Alexandra only for the rest of the scene.

To get the shots of Alexandra at the main house both leaving for the shop and at the evening meal I just invited her over and used the call over and call to meal options. I only moved her into the main house once she had been left at the altar. It did mean that she was still there when Allyn was out haunting.

I did think about using this picture, but felt that it might labour the point about where she had been and what she had been doing at bit too much.

Sooo, Alexandra and Joe's wedding. This was the only lot I used cheats on: InSim and sethour. As you've probably guessed I used InSim to reduce his feelings towards Alexandra and then had her propose marriage under the arch. I had to do this twice in order to get all the reaction shots I needed.

I hated doing it to her, but some of Joe's expressions the first time weren't exactly what I wanted. I mean, why does he look annoyed here? He's the one that's gonna run.

Of course Alexandra didn't always co-operate either.

You can't see it very well, but she is smiling here.

Given how much of a whim I made Anthony on, I've almost been surprised at how awesome he is. The two pictures I have of him comforting Alexandra just make me love him more.

When I did this I had no idea that the witnesses to the wedding would get sad too.

Poor Stanley.

There were three simselves at the wedding that wasn't. Doc, who you saw and was accompanying Theo, Angela who was there with Charles and mine. I don't know what happened, but I found this when I went looking for her.:

I did end up fixing it with InSim, because I don't want them at odds with each other

I had to film a lot of this. I didn't like seeing her like this but...

...she often did this straight after the animation finished.

Now it goes without saying that I love Eddie, but oh my god he is so difficult to film serious scenes with because he is always smiling.

The vast majority of the times you see him serious it is me taking the picture just as an animation finishes or starts.

This is a typical picture of Alexandra:

She really does look this wistful and sad so often.

I was really happy that I managed to time Alexandra's first pop so that she popped in the scullery. What I wasn't pleased at was the fact that her night gown doesn't have a pregnancy morph.

I had to have her change quickly and then stage the scene with Beth coming into the room. I just got it done before the sunset.

Filming William shouting at Alexandra was difficult for me, but I got some really good pictures out of it, so many of which I had to cut.

"Why? Alexandra, why?"

Fitting in with the fact that my timing through out this was far better than I hoped it would be, (and thank you ACR pregnancy scanner) Alexandra had her second pop just after Anthony walked into the room to ask her to marry him.

Obviously I made Anthony selectable so that I would get him to propose, I also had him initiate their first flirt to get them in love.

Awww.

Alexandra did look happy on her wedding day though, which in turn made me smile.

Finger gunners FTW. I love them.

Anthony and Alexandra are 3 bolters, so I see a lot of this:

Oh the reason you didn't see much of Eddie at the wedding? Well not only did he spend most of it playing the piano, but his face glitched like this:

Right now to speak about a scene I know you all enjoyed. I certainly did. Once Anthony was part of the story I knew that I wanted a scene with him laying Joe out. I'd never planned to show Eddie and Theo going round there, but Anthony I needed to show. That thought was easier to think than to work out how to do. I didn't really want to use the slapping or attacking animation from the game. The slap doesn't have the omph I wanted and the attack is too much and too messy. I had started to see Anthony as being very contained, but having a strength and, for want of a better word, power to him. What I wanted was a proper thump.

I ended up moving Joe into the house and using InSim to make Maria angry with him. I then had her slap him. I then used move_objects on and snapobjectstogrid false to move him back into position. In the meantime I queued up the hard punch u punch me punch from decorgal's action hack for Anthony. It took a couple of goes, but I did manage to get the animation to line up.

Just because it makes me smile:

I did have a huge laugh when I was filming this though. You have to love outgoing sims.

'Hmm I know I have just had twins, and I will have children with my hubby, but perhaps we could adopt too.'

'Our engagement was certainly nicer than my first.'

"Hey, don't mind if I come in and play your piano do you? Good."

She's still friends with Marcus so she went and played the piano surrounded by all the hackboxes.

I almost used this picture for Anthony talking to Joe, but decided that I actually liked him walking away more.

Plus you can see the chest of drawers I used to get everyone in formal for the wedding in the background. Joe's pose here is the dance sphere fall from the action hack. I just repositioned him on the floor slightly once the animation started.

Onto the boys now. The chess board at the LS is near the window which makes cheating make much more sense.

Doc and Theo spam ahead. I've now taken out ACR and let me tell you they still don't leave each alone. It's really sweet because they keep each other in the platinum.

Glitchy headwear is fun!

Have I said lately how much I love Eddie?

I also love Stanley.

He's the only one of the boys to do this.

Right onto Eddie's engagement. This wasn't easy, and, well I wanted to be there.

'Oh my Eddie, I'm sorry.'

Marielle really didn't want to get engaged. :P

Yes it's a huge pic, but as you can see I locked the want to marry him when it appeared on the first date, but on this one, she got two fears of marrying him.

And she is actually the first romance sim for a while to get the red engagement ring.

Now this is why I am not a fan of heavily shaded realistic eyes:

Empty eye sockets, not a good look.

Alexandra is taking a long time to get over her furiousness at Joe, and I love it.

As you can see Vicky is always the lady:

So that's it for the out-takes and pic spam from chapter 15.3. It was in the works for months and I'm really pleased with the results. I hope you all enjoyed it.

I'm now working my way through the rotation at the main house, and hope to have some pictures of gen 5 to share with you soon.