Chapter 24.2 out takes!
Apr. 25th, 2011 07:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dicreasy2Ok, I'm finally getting round to doing this. I did plan to make a start earlier, but I got distracted making a preg morph for a nightgown I have and then making a set of copper pots for my sims' kitchens. ANYWAY, here we are, out takes and musings on my last chapter.
First things first, I approached this chapter completely differently to any others I've done before. Partly this was because I'm fed up with panicking that I don't have enough pictures, or that they don't convey what I want, and partly it was because of SimStoCreMo meaning I had to get going with the chapter before I'd finished playing the rotation it was based on. Actually, I'm still playing that rotation, since i keep getting distracted by things.
What all that above means is that I wrote this chapter first, and then filming it all in my dummy hood. I don't intend to film everything there in the future, I'd like to be able to include some pictures of gameplay too, but since the rotation wasn't finished and I knew exactly what I wanted for this chapter, it was entirely staged.
This was also the chapter where I got fed up with my computer and switched pcs part way through filming. The first scene at Derri's house was filmed on my new pc, the rest on the old one.
But onto pictures!
I adore Celly, she is such a great sim, so much fun and pulls the best faces. I had to add extra light to her here. I love this lighting mod, but it does make the shadows very deep, and you couldn't really see her without a few extra candles littered about.
As I was fiddling about with angles for this picture (and this is one of those where I couldn't decide which angle to use, because I love the look on Derri's face here, but also loved Dean talking to Celly), I realised that you could see all the postboxes down the road. I hate these postboxes. They are so American, but I'm a bit leery of moving them too much, since I have heard of lots becoming corrupted when that's done. But since this is the dummy hood and not the proper one, move them I did, and made them so that they weren't visible. I have now found and invisible recolour of them, but they still show as white and tin in the neighbourhood view, which is crap. I need to work out how to hide them, because they are driving me mad.
Awww. If only she'd sot out her feelings for him. Oh, and go back, reread and spot the deliberate mistake in this scene. We'll wait, and I'll tell you the answer at the end.
This was a picture which took me a while to set up, but I'm pretty pleased with it, even if I'm not 100% happy with Andrew's pose. It was meant to get across their characters, and I think it has. Christopher is standing there being a bit useless, and not helping, Bertie is being diligent with his luggage, Ezra is being helpful and kind, whereas Andrew is kicking his trunk into place, thinking he's hard done by again because Peter hasn't helped him, when Peter is actually out of sight, hefting his own luggage up the stairs.
For a small lot, only seen in two pictures, I spent quite some time on this one, but I'm really pleased with how it looked. You've got the ruins of the house which once stood there, and the remnants of the formal gardens and orchard. Cait has very kindly lent me Dargent House, and that's where Ezra and Bethany will finally live, but I liked the idea of it being built on top of the ruins of a previous house.
So, this is the look on Bertie's face as he's watching the training. He did this autonomously while I was setting up everyone else and mulling over what he was going to be doing. I had to freeze him and use it.
There have been a lot of victims of Project Hair wandering around. Although I've fixed everyone in my real hood, and the blank hood I'm still setting up, I've left the dummy hood. Rosie has now been fixed though.
Alexandra in her new dress. I thought it was time I gave her a more 1870s looking dress, and she got a pretty necklace too. I will say though, filming in restaurants = pain in the arse. I'm sure I'll say this again too.
Ezra and Bethany spam! Who doesn't like some Ezra and Bethany spam? I love these two, and I think they were both very pleased with the direction the script took this chapter. Now I need to get them engaged in the real hood.
This shot took me ages to set up. I knew exactly what I wanted from it, but most of the animations I tried, had Bethany holding out her right hand, not her left. In the end I used one of the reactions from Decorgirl's talk painting (something flap wrist), froze her, and then had Aleaxandra kiss Anthony's hand, but froze her right at the beginning of the animation. Somehow, I managed to get them lined up first time, and it looked great.
Ah, Joe's family. This has been in the pipework forever, but it was fun to finally have Nancy make and appearance. I do feel sorry for the nanny bearing the brunt of Maria's wrath, but she doesn't have to put up with her for too much longer. :D
This scene spurred me on to rescale my tea things, something I've been meaning to do for ages, but been putting off. I think they look much better in game now.
I love these two. <3333
Ah, now onto another set of twins. I've been planning Bertie's wife's character for a little while. She has to interact with him in a certain way, in order to help him with his development. What I didn't know was who he was going to choose. I had a short list, and two of the sims on it were Sophia (then called Noelle, but that got changed due to Elle Fitzhugh. It'd be far to icky for Bertie to marry someone with a very similar name to the woman his brother is destined to fall in love with), and Lauren. I knew that if he chose either one of them, that I would set them up as twins in the story. Well, he got on very well with Lauren, but has three bolts with Sophia, so she got a new name and I knew which role each of the girls would be fulfilling.
I want to get a bit more of their background into the next chapter, but Sophia is the eldest and she certainly acts like it. She views everyone with suspicion and is rarely challenged. Lauren is much more open. She seems a bit ditzy to those who don't know her well, and bit too concerned with finery, but her mind is razor sharp, and she knows her twin better than she even knows herself. Or at least, she's more willing to accept that which should be obvious than Sophia is.
I had real trouble, more trouble than I've ever had, getting the right body language and expressions for Sophia in, well all her scenes. I need there to be a defensiveness about her, and this huge know it all streak, but at the same time, we also need to be able to see why Bertie would find her attractive, physically and also emotionally.
I love the look on her face in this picture (btw Lauren is actually having her hand kissed by a random dormie, and Bertie was kissing Sophia. Much love for the freezer clock), but her body language was wrong. I wanted her to be tightly grasping her hands, since she would rather walk over hot coals than give her hand to Bertie, especially when Lauren was simpering over him. In the end, I stuck her in a static pose where she was holding her hands, and used this same animation to give movement to her features. It doesn't look quite as good, because she couldn't move her head properly, but it looked ok.
This cracked me up. As I've said, this was shot in my dummy hood, and I used clones for Sophia and Lauren to make it easier for me. Just as I was finishing up shooting, this hood's versions of the dormies that are Lauren and Sophia walked into the room. On the right sides as well. Lauren on the left, Sophia on the right.
"You know, they look vaguely familiar, just in silly clothing."
"I know right?"
Onto the concert now!
I've been planning this for almost as long as I've been planning Bertie's wife's character, and I knew it had to look spectacular as well as serve it's purpose in their relationship. I did start filling the audience and band with normal townies, but part way through I had the idea that actually, it'd be fun to use the audience as a way to shout out to some of the stories I enjoy reading. And why not use sims from stories I'm not featuring this generation? So my audience ended up looking like this, while the band was made up of normal and famous townies.
I ended up being so pleased with the pictures I got of the concert: they had just the right feel, and I tried to include clear shots of as many of the sims as I could. Unfortunately I think the screenshot I took is still on the old computer (yes I'm using the new one now, it seems to be all fixed so yay), but I had over 50 sims selected for this. It sounds a nightmare, having to change their poses slightly for each shot, but was actually a lot of fun, and as I say, I'm pleased with the pictures and don't think I could have gotten better.
My generation five couple make a damn handsome pair, even if I do say so myself.
I was a bit disappointed with this how this shot looked in the update. I'd forgotten how slideshare seems to make pictures look slightly darker than they are, and so you can't see very clearly that Ben is carrying a violin and bow. It's just one of those details I put in, which didn't really translate well on screen.
More struggling to get the right expressions, but what I ended up with worked.
So, I actually had the main family purchase the Opera House in order to film this: I wanted to be able to save the lot and exit rather than having to reset it up each time I wanted to film on it. Once filming was done, I closed it up and deselected everyone so they could head home. There were a few who decided they didn't want to:
"Hi, it is so awesomesauce to meet you!"
"Er, that is very kind of you to say, although the meaning of awesomesauce is lost on me. However, we are trying to go home. You need to leave now."
"Well, how boringalicious."
"Why do people want to play this? Why? It just makes a screeching nose!"
"You haven't seen my sister have you? Red hair, cream dress, this tall. Mom and Dad are waiting in the carriage for her..."
"And to think, this will one day be the venue for that dance contest Jenny keeps going on about."
Even my clones of these two have three bolts. It makes me grin, and Stuart finger gun apparently.
Again I will say, shooting in restaurants is a pain in the arse. I had to wait about ten minutes of real time before there was a table free, and then the first time there were seated, they were seated at two separate tables. it took an age to get it right.
The little picture in the carriage was shot in the same lot as Vicky's office, so I decided to put Vicky and Patrick into the neighbourhood there and then. I missed exactly what happened, since it was right as they moved in, but Patrick did something which caused Vicky to have a melt down and them both to fall out of love.
Yet more finding the right expressions. I really like Sophia looking down, but she had to be angry in this scene, so I couldn't use it. I also ended up putting Lauren on an OMSP and raising her up a bit too, otherwise she looked too short thanks to the animation I chose for her.
Yeah, so this is what Doc and Theo were doing when I went into the lot to film the bits with Celly and Dean. I do love it when my sims act true to form.
Time now to talk about my favourite protagonist. I knew there was no way that I could never involve Marielle ever again. To my mind it's not realistic. But at the same time, I wanted some time for Eddie to sort himself out, and then for him and Carmen to develop their relationship and their family without her there. The asylum allowed me to do that, and I just had to figure out when she would reappear, since she was always going to come back. This scene was all about tying up her role in the story up until now. However, I also knew that I didn't want to make obvious everything, that I still want how my readers feel about her to be up to them. For that reason I planned to make this entire scene very ambiguous and I think I've succeeded. I know exactly how she's changed while being away as well as what her relationship with Henry was, and if he was telling the truth in his letter, but I'm keeping it to myself for the time being. I want you all to reach your own conclusions about her.
Anyway, something which you couldn't see in the pictures in the end, but she has her own garden and she's not happy about it. Real!Marielle also has her own garden. She's having to grow everything that she eats now.
This was maybe not the best choice of conversation for two Victorian women who have been married to the same man.
This next picture is one I'm very pleased with, but I had to make as composite of two different shots:
(Ah yes, I might have forgotten to max motives here and Marielle was letting me know about it).
Say what you will about her, she does pull some fantastic faces. :D And also, i completely love what I did with her kitchen, so much that I recreated it in the real neighbourhood.
I always love being in the Smith house, even if it's the dummy hood version for shooting. There is always something going on there. Take this for example. I have no idea what Anthony is suggesting, but doesn't Sarah Jane looked pissed off about it? This is why I write her as I do.
Mickey however is a sweetheart.
Like with the concert as the introduction to Bertie and Sophia's relationship, I've been planning Stuart and Ellie's meeting in the park for a while. More like eighteen months. I was so pleased to finally get to it.
This is the reverse of the picture I used in the update of Mickey shouting to Billy. I went back and forth on these two for ages, because I really like both, but chose the other one only because in the end I loved how you could see Mickey's enthusiasm in his face.
Ivy started pushing the kids on the roundabout, but was in my way for the picture, so she got moved. It amused me how she kept on pushing the roundabout. XD
I have so much love for these two and can't tell you how happy I am to finally have them together in my story. :D
The scene when Elle arrived home was written ages ago and shared with Marina. I knew then I wanted to film it, but as I was editing, I started to wonder if I really needed it and almost cut it out. I'm glad I didn't, because it lets you all know that the Fitzhughs have a lot of the same things going on here as they do in Sierra Plains, and that to me is important. My characters are very often shaped by what goes on in their lives, and I believe others' characters are too. To give them a memory wipe to me, would fundamentally change parts of their personality and I don't want to do that. This is why Zane was neglected by his mother before her unfortunate cloud watching accident while he was at school one day, and why Harry will always still put Mya and her wishes before his children's. I want my versions of these characters to be true to the originals.
Oh and I still love the OFB box. It has some great expressions in the animations.
The next is another picture I was really pleased with the posing in, but I don't like the light coming through the window. Unfortunately there wasn't anything I could do about it, i just had to adjust the angle of the camera until it was minimised.
Oh and who was Zuzu actually hugging to get that?
Hi Elijah!
Onto a not at all happy house. I've still got some (ok a lot) of things to work out with Vicky, but I wanted to get the plot moving with her. I feel to leave it any longer would make things seem unreal, and so we have Patrick's promotion and him leaving Simdon. This was one of those scenes where I went from everything working well, to it all being rubbish and back again.
It started when I realised that I'd forgotten that their house contains spiral stairs instead of a normal staircase. Since it's an apartment lot, I couldn't change it and had to just go with it. The end picture isn't bad, but it's not what I had in mind when I was writing the scene.
Next was good, because I got some really good expressions from both sims, which really conveyed exactly what I wanted.
I hope with this scene, everyone can see how they're both to blame in many ways.
Then it went bad again. When I'd written Vicky slumping to the floor, I'd pictured her face down, in a bundle, forehead touching the floor, or as near as I could get. I even knew which animation I was going to use. Then came to setting it up.
I just couldn't get it to look right. That bottom picture is the nearest I came, but even then it's not what I pictured and I didn't like it very much. I ended up swapping the pose and trying some different and more creative angles. Of course the fact that she was so near to a wall didn't help, but the picture I used in the end worked, so I'm happy with it.
This is another I liked, but decided not to use in the end.
I have to say, I hate having to edit things into or out my pictures.
This picture became the one of the package. I hate it. I don't think I did a good job with it, but it worked for what I needed.
More on the twins!
I really like this picture, and I have to say that they are so much fun to write and shoot. I'm really looking forward to doing more with them.
"What? You think I was too hard on Mr Legacy?" <3333
So, you all know by now that I love to pack my pictures with lots of details like so:
What you might not realise is how long it takes. It took me about half an hour to set up for this shot, and then I went and added another sim in the background because I thought it needed more players from the red team. I pay a lot of attention to what emotions and actions I want from my sims, and then just as long on the composition, locking off the camera and moving sims a fraction at a time, until I'm happy.
This means a lot of what I shoot looks good only from the angle I'm shooting from. Take this as an example:
Everyone looks really close together and bunched up. In reality, they were stood like this:
Now I admit, part of this is because I have the OMSPs which show in the collection only and so I can't use them in dorms or unowned comm lots, but part is because of the camera angle.
Now for something that didn't go at all to plan. When I entered Beatrice House to take the final picture of Lauren and Sophia, it was night and there was a thunder storm raging. Well, lightning struck one of the lights I'd used for extra light when Sophia got out of the carriage.
Unfortunately it stopped raining before it went out, so I had Sophia try to extinguish it.
She ... failed. So I had Lauren try.
What I didn't realise is that Lauren had a fear of fire. Oops.
Sophia is such a supportive sister.
Oh well, I'll leave you with this picture of the two of them walking in the grounds. This is such a lovely pose for having them hold the parasols, but you can't have them walk while doing it and their other hands look too stiff too. It's such a shame, because I'd be constantly using it otherwise.
Well, that's it for the out takes and behind the scenes for 24.2. I'm going to try to get these out more rapidly in the future, and I'll be back with more picspam from my rotation soon too. but before I end this post. did you see the deliberate mistake in the first scene? That's right, I wrote David into it, and then forgot to teleport him onto the lot for shooting. Oops.
First things first, I approached this chapter completely differently to any others I've done before. Partly this was because I'm fed up with panicking that I don't have enough pictures, or that they don't convey what I want, and partly it was because of SimStoCreMo meaning I had to get going with the chapter before I'd finished playing the rotation it was based on. Actually, I'm still playing that rotation, since i keep getting distracted by things.
What all that above means is that I wrote this chapter first, and then filming it all in my dummy hood. I don't intend to film everything there in the future, I'd like to be able to include some pictures of gameplay too, but since the rotation wasn't finished and I knew exactly what I wanted for this chapter, it was entirely staged.
This was also the chapter where I got fed up with my computer and switched pcs part way through filming. The first scene at Derri's house was filmed on my new pc, the rest on the old one.
But onto pictures!
I adore Celly, she is such a great sim, so much fun and pulls the best faces. I had to add extra light to her here. I love this lighting mod, but it does make the shadows very deep, and you couldn't really see her without a few extra candles littered about.
As I was fiddling about with angles for this picture (and this is one of those where I couldn't decide which angle to use, because I love the look on Derri's face here, but also loved Dean talking to Celly), I realised that you could see all the postboxes down the road. I hate these postboxes. They are so American, but I'm a bit leery of moving them too much, since I have heard of lots becoming corrupted when that's done. But since this is the dummy hood and not the proper one, move them I did, and made them so that they weren't visible. I have now found and invisible recolour of them, but they still show as white and tin in the neighbourhood view, which is crap. I need to work out how to hide them, because they are driving me mad.
Awww. If only she'd sot out her feelings for him. Oh, and go back, reread and spot the deliberate mistake in this scene. We'll wait, and I'll tell you the answer at the end.
This was a picture which took me a while to set up, but I'm pretty pleased with it, even if I'm not 100% happy with Andrew's pose. It was meant to get across their characters, and I think it has. Christopher is standing there being a bit useless, and not helping, Bertie is being diligent with his luggage, Ezra is being helpful and kind, whereas Andrew is kicking his trunk into place, thinking he's hard done by again because Peter hasn't helped him, when Peter is actually out of sight, hefting his own luggage up the stairs.
For a small lot, only seen in two pictures, I spent quite some time on this one, but I'm really pleased with how it looked. You've got the ruins of the house which once stood there, and the remnants of the formal gardens and orchard. Cait has very kindly lent me Dargent House, and that's where Ezra and Bethany will finally live, but I liked the idea of it being built on top of the ruins of a previous house.
So, this is the look on Bertie's face as he's watching the training. He did this autonomously while I was setting up everyone else and mulling over what he was going to be doing. I had to freeze him and use it.
There have been a lot of victims of Project Hair wandering around. Although I've fixed everyone in my real hood, and the blank hood I'm still setting up, I've left the dummy hood. Rosie has now been fixed though.
Alexandra in her new dress. I thought it was time I gave her a more 1870s looking dress, and she got a pretty necklace too. I will say though, filming in restaurants = pain in the arse. I'm sure I'll say this again too.
Ezra and Bethany spam! Who doesn't like some Ezra and Bethany spam? I love these two, and I think they were both very pleased with the direction the script took this chapter. Now I need to get them engaged in the real hood.
This shot took me ages to set up. I knew exactly what I wanted from it, but most of the animations I tried, had Bethany holding out her right hand, not her left. In the end I used one of the reactions from Decorgirl's talk painting (something flap wrist), froze her, and then had Aleaxandra kiss Anthony's hand, but froze her right at the beginning of the animation. Somehow, I managed to get them lined up first time, and it looked great.
Ah, Joe's family. This has been in the pipework forever, but it was fun to finally have Nancy make and appearance. I do feel sorry for the nanny bearing the brunt of Maria's wrath, but she doesn't have to put up with her for too much longer. :D
This scene spurred me on to rescale my tea things, something I've been meaning to do for ages, but been putting off. I think they look much better in game now.
I love these two. <3333
Ah, now onto another set of twins. I've been planning Bertie's wife's character for a little while. She has to interact with him in a certain way, in order to help him with his development. What I didn't know was who he was going to choose. I had a short list, and two of the sims on it were Sophia (then called Noelle, but that got changed due to Elle Fitzhugh. It'd be far to icky for Bertie to marry someone with a very similar name to the woman his brother is destined to fall in love with), and Lauren. I knew that if he chose either one of them, that I would set them up as twins in the story. Well, he got on very well with Lauren, but has three bolts with Sophia, so she got a new name and I knew which role each of the girls would be fulfilling.
I want to get a bit more of their background into the next chapter, but Sophia is the eldest and she certainly acts like it. She views everyone with suspicion and is rarely challenged. Lauren is much more open. She seems a bit ditzy to those who don't know her well, and bit too concerned with finery, but her mind is razor sharp, and she knows her twin better than she even knows herself. Or at least, she's more willing to accept that which should be obvious than Sophia is.
I had real trouble, more trouble than I've ever had, getting the right body language and expressions for Sophia in, well all her scenes. I need there to be a defensiveness about her, and this huge know it all streak, but at the same time, we also need to be able to see why Bertie would find her attractive, physically and also emotionally.
I love the look on her face in this picture (btw Lauren is actually having her hand kissed by a random dormie, and Bertie was kissing Sophia. Much love for the freezer clock), but her body language was wrong. I wanted her to be tightly grasping her hands, since she would rather walk over hot coals than give her hand to Bertie, especially when Lauren was simpering over him. In the end, I stuck her in a static pose where she was holding her hands, and used this same animation to give movement to her features. It doesn't look quite as good, because she couldn't move her head properly, but it looked ok.
This cracked me up. As I've said, this was shot in my dummy hood, and I used clones for Sophia and Lauren to make it easier for me. Just as I was finishing up shooting, this hood's versions of the dormies that are Lauren and Sophia walked into the room. On the right sides as well. Lauren on the left, Sophia on the right.
"You know, they look vaguely familiar, just in silly clothing."
"I know right?"
Onto the concert now!
I've been planning this for almost as long as I've been planning Bertie's wife's character, and I knew it had to look spectacular as well as serve it's purpose in their relationship. I did start filling the audience and band with normal townies, but part way through I had the idea that actually, it'd be fun to use the audience as a way to shout out to some of the stories I enjoy reading. And why not use sims from stories I'm not featuring this generation? So my audience ended up looking like this, while the band was made up of normal and famous townies.
I ended up being so pleased with the pictures I got of the concert: they had just the right feel, and I tried to include clear shots of as many of the sims as I could. Unfortunately I think the screenshot I took is still on the old computer (yes I'm using the new one now, it seems to be all fixed so yay), but I had over 50 sims selected for this. It sounds a nightmare, having to change their poses slightly for each shot, but was actually a lot of fun, and as I say, I'm pleased with the pictures and don't think I could have gotten better.
My generation five couple make a damn handsome pair, even if I do say so myself.
I was a bit disappointed with this how this shot looked in the update. I'd forgotten how slideshare seems to make pictures look slightly darker than they are, and so you can't see very clearly that Ben is carrying a violin and bow. It's just one of those details I put in, which didn't really translate well on screen.
More struggling to get the right expressions, but what I ended up with worked.
So, I actually had the main family purchase the Opera House in order to film this: I wanted to be able to save the lot and exit rather than having to reset it up each time I wanted to film on it. Once filming was done, I closed it up and deselected everyone so they could head home. There were a few who decided they didn't want to:
"Hi, it is so awesomesauce to meet you!"
"Er, that is very kind of you to say, although the meaning of awesomesauce is lost on me. However, we are trying to go home. You need to leave now."
"Well, how boringalicious."
"Why do people want to play this? Why? It just makes a screeching nose!"
"You haven't seen my sister have you? Red hair, cream dress, this tall. Mom and Dad are waiting in the carriage for her..."
"And to think, this will one day be the venue for that dance contest Jenny keeps going on about."
Even my clones of these two have three bolts. It makes me grin, and Stuart finger gun apparently.
Again I will say, shooting in restaurants is a pain in the arse. I had to wait about ten minutes of real time before there was a table free, and then the first time there were seated, they were seated at two separate tables. it took an age to get it right.
The little picture in the carriage was shot in the same lot as Vicky's office, so I decided to put Vicky and Patrick into the neighbourhood there and then. I missed exactly what happened, since it was right as they moved in, but Patrick did something which caused Vicky to have a melt down and them both to fall out of love.
Yet more finding the right expressions. I really like Sophia looking down, but she had to be angry in this scene, so I couldn't use it. I also ended up putting Lauren on an OMSP and raising her up a bit too, otherwise she looked too short thanks to the animation I chose for her.
Yeah, so this is what Doc and Theo were doing when I went into the lot to film the bits with Celly and Dean. I do love it when my sims act true to form.
Time now to talk about my favourite protagonist. I knew there was no way that I could never involve Marielle ever again. To my mind it's not realistic. But at the same time, I wanted some time for Eddie to sort himself out, and then for him and Carmen to develop their relationship and their family without her there. The asylum allowed me to do that, and I just had to figure out when she would reappear, since she was always going to come back. This scene was all about tying up her role in the story up until now. However, I also knew that I didn't want to make obvious everything, that I still want how my readers feel about her to be up to them. For that reason I planned to make this entire scene very ambiguous and I think I've succeeded. I know exactly how she's changed while being away as well as what her relationship with Henry was, and if he was telling the truth in his letter, but I'm keeping it to myself for the time being. I want you all to reach your own conclusions about her.
Anyway, something which you couldn't see in the pictures in the end, but she has her own garden and she's not happy about it. Real!Marielle also has her own garden. She's having to grow everything that she eats now.
This was maybe not the best choice of conversation for two Victorian women who have been married to the same man.
This next picture is one I'm very pleased with, but I had to make as composite of two different shots:
(Ah yes, I might have forgotten to max motives here and Marielle was letting me know about it).
Say what you will about her, she does pull some fantastic faces. :D And also, i completely love what I did with her kitchen, so much that I recreated it in the real neighbourhood.
I always love being in the Smith house, even if it's the dummy hood version for shooting. There is always something going on there. Take this for example. I have no idea what Anthony is suggesting, but doesn't Sarah Jane looked pissed off about it? This is why I write her as I do.
Mickey however is a sweetheart.
Like with the concert as the introduction to Bertie and Sophia's relationship, I've been planning Stuart and Ellie's meeting in the park for a while. More like eighteen months. I was so pleased to finally get to it.
This is the reverse of the picture I used in the update of Mickey shouting to Billy. I went back and forth on these two for ages, because I really like both, but chose the other one only because in the end I loved how you could see Mickey's enthusiasm in his face.
Ivy started pushing the kids on the roundabout, but was in my way for the picture, so she got moved. It amused me how she kept on pushing the roundabout. XD
I have so much love for these two and can't tell you how happy I am to finally have them together in my story. :D
The scene when Elle arrived home was written ages ago and shared with Marina. I knew then I wanted to film it, but as I was editing, I started to wonder if I really needed it and almost cut it out. I'm glad I didn't, because it lets you all know that the Fitzhughs have a lot of the same things going on here as they do in Sierra Plains, and that to me is important. My characters are very often shaped by what goes on in their lives, and I believe others' characters are too. To give them a memory wipe to me, would fundamentally change parts of their personality and I don't want to do that. This is why Zane was neglected by his mother before her unfortunate cloud watching accident while he was at school one day, and why Harry will always still put Mya and her wishes before his children's. I want my versions of these characters to be true to the originals.
Oh and I still love the OFB box. It has some great expressions in the animations.
The next is another picture I was really pleased with the posing in, but I don't like the light coming through the window. Unfortunately there wasn't anything I could do about it, i just had to adjust the angle of the camera until it was minimised.
Oh and who was Zuzu actually hugging to get that?
Hi Elijah!
Onto a not at all happy house. I've still got some (ok a lot) of things to work out with Vicky, but I wanted to get the plot moving with her. I feel to leave it any longer would make things seem unreal, and so we have Patrick's promotion and him leaving Simdon. This was one of those scenes where I went from everything working well, to it all being rubbish and back again.
It started when I realised that I'd forgotten that their house contains spiral stairs instead of a normal staircase. Since it's an apartment lot, I couldn't change it and had to just go with it. The end picture isn't bad, but it's not what I had in mind when I was writing the scene.
Next was good, because I got some really good expressions from both sims, which really conveyed exactly what I wanted.
I hope with this scene, everyone can see how they're both to blame in many ways.
Then it went bad again. When I'd written Vicky slumping to the floor, I'd pictured her face down, in a bundle, forehead touching the floor, or as near as I could get. I even knew which animation I was going to use. Then came to setting it up.
I just couldn't get it to look right. That bottom picture is the nearest I came, but even then it's not what I pictured and I didn't like it very much. I ended up swapping the pose and trying some different and more creative angles. Of course the fact that she was so near to a wall didn't help, but the picture I used in the end worked, so I'm happy with it.
This is another I liked, but decided not to use in the end.
I have to say, I hate having to edit things into or out my pictures.
This picture became the one of the package. I hate it. I don't think I did a good job with it, but it worked for what I needed.
More on the twins!
I really like this picture, and I have to say that they are so much fun to write and shoot. I'm really looking forward to doing more with them.
"What? You think I was too hard on Mr Legacy?" <3333
So, you all know by now that I love to pack my pictures with lots of details like so:
What you might not realise is how long it takes. It took me about half an hour to set up for this shot, and then I went and added another sim in the background because I thought it needed more players from the red team. I pay a lot of attention to what emotions and actions I want from my sims, and then just as long on the composition, locking off the camera and moving sims a fraction at a time, until I'm happy.
This means a lot of what I shoot looks good only from the angle I'm shooting from. Take this as an example:
Everyone looks really close together and bunched up. In reality, they were stood like this:
Now I admit, part of this is because I have the OMSPs which show in the collection only and so I can't use them in dorms or unowned comm lots, but part is because of the camera angle.
Now for something that didn't go at all to plan. When I entered Beatrice House to take the final picture of Lauren and Sophia, it was night and there was a thunder storm raging. Well, lightning struck one of the lights I'd used for extra light when Sophia got out of the carriage.
Unfortunately it stopped raining before it went out, so I had Sophia try to extinguish it.
She ... failed. So I had Lauren try.
What I didn't realise is that Lauren had a fear of fire. Oops.
Sophia is such a supportive sister.
Oh well, I'll leave you with this picture of the two of them walking in the grounds. This is such a lovely pose for having them hold the parasols, but you can't have them walk while doing it and their other hands look too stiff too. It's such a shame, because I'd be constantly using it otherwise.
Well, that's it for the out takes and behind the scenes for 24.2. I'm going to try to get these out more rapidly in the future, and I'll be back with more picspam from my rotation soon too. but before I end this post. did you see the deliberate mistake in the first scene? That's right, I wrote David into it, and then forgot to teleport him onto the lot for shooting. Oops.
