What Robin Williams meant to me.

When asked who my favorite actor is, Robin's name would never popped up first. It would be the hunk of the moment, or Gabriel Byrne and Simon Baker.

It would never occur to me to mention him, because he was always there. I liked everything he did. He could make me laugh and cry, often at the same time. Movies like Bicentennial man.

He could also creep me out, but still a part of you felt sorry for the man, like One Hour Photo. It was such an out of character role for him, but he played it so well!

I love Hook, Jumanji and Flubber, but my two favorite movies must be What Dreams may come and Toys.

I watched Toys as a kid. It's a story about a family that makes Toys, but honest toys. They are so wonderfully naive and basically are big children themselves. When the father dies, it's up to Leslie Zevo (Robin's role) to take over the business.

That doesn't work out quite as well as expected of course and things certainly take a turn for the worse once their military uncle Leland arrives to run the company.

I'm not going to spoil the entire plot for you, but I love this movie, I love all the actors in it, the music and most of all the decor. This whole movie bathes in a surreal atmosphere.

 

And here's some music by Tori Amos.

Clickie for music!

What dreams may come was a very strange and tragic movie. It's about a family that dies and you follow them in the afterlife. His wife committed suicide and she's stuck in some kind of hell dimension. He tries his best to get her out of there.

This was the first thing that sprang to mind when I heard about his passing and the way in which he chose to leave. I know it's just a movie, but the thought made me very sad.

His passing has hit me harder than I thought it would. Just because I just expected him to always be there, making movies and making us laugh.

You will be missed Mister Williams, this doesn't feel a celebrity death, this feels like a distant relative died. Everybody's funny uncle who could make everyone laugh, safe for himself.

You were also a gamer, like me. Your own daughter is even named Zelda. There will be an NPC named after you in World of Warcraft and I will definitely visit it with my character. 

I hope everything goes well for you, if there is such a thing, in the afterlife. Rest in peace sir.

My Sims 4 screenies from Creators Camp.

So I got them, so without further ado.

Here are some of the houses I built. I tried some different styles to see what would work.

My first one was a modern try, but I don't seem to have the screen of it anymore.

Moving on to my bigger house. Country/craftsman style. To see what styles I could make with the basegame :D Click the image for a bigger size.

 A screen from the inside. As you can see, I struggled with the room dimensions. I made them way too big. We're all newbies in this game!

My second one was a Mid Century Modern. I forgot to bump up to the top floor when I took the screen, so the top layer of tile isn't showing. This is where the eave adjustment came in handy. I could extend it right through the stone pillar. Creating that Mid Century feel :D

Here's one of my hyper modern bunch of blocks build. It's silly, but it does show off the fountain tool, which can be used to create 'faux' pools for the moment. Also a look at the mirror selection. It's a good mix of styles.

My last house is a froufrou little Painted Lady house. This was a fun little build. I couldn't make the roofing dance for me yet, but I guess I have a lot of practice before me :D Also, the rock selections. These guys come in three colors. Grey, reddish and darkish (I don't remember the precise ones ;) )

Here are some random views from the family I played once I tore myself away from building.
The first one is in their bedroom. It shows of the better routing. The Sims can enter their bed. Both of them, even in that narrow space! :D

This here has to be my favorite item in the game. He's so cute. Chompy the Monsta, but he wants to be friendly. <3 p="">

My Sims are such slobs! Great place to put that plate guys! Another Chompy cameo!

And another. Obsessed much yes? Edit: Also, tv stands! :D

And lookie here! Babies! And you can pick em right up, hug and cuddle them. And guess what? They don't leave them on the floor!

Oh, and I believe a friend of mine was able to adopt just fine.

Oh and here's a shot from the career selection screen :D The list isn't full, but the last one is the Secret Agent, which I had highlighted.

There go you guys! :D Hopefully they were of some use!

I got asked about my bad screenie. Guess one can see some of the toys in the catalog!

Sims 4 Creator's Camp!

So I just came back from Creator's Camp. I will attempt to write up all my memories, ready to post when the embargo lifts :D
Note that this will be my travel journal, laced with Sims 4 tidbits that I found out.
For a technical spreadsheet-like summation of the facts, I gladly point you to one of the many fansites that were at Creator's Camp.

I believe SimsVip will have a main page linking to all the information.

So without further ado! Here we go!

So I arrive there, Monday afternoon, the 28th. I've been to the States before, but never California. So it was my first time to ever be in California. That was a good feeling!

There is just enough time to freshen up and go downstairs again for the poolside introduction mixer. I got greeted by a nice lady and I said I was Sara.

"You are Sara?" and then she hugged me! Turned out she was SimGuruHydra! She was just the sweetest thing and a very good host.

So I met some folks that I met at Sims Camp last year. It was a happy reunion and I even shed a little tear when I met Ruthy again. There were also some new people, like Brian, aka Pinstar, the Legacy man.

That same night, all tiredness aside, a bunch of us decided to go and see the Golden Gate bridge too. The rest of the week our schedule was so jam-packed that we probably wouldn't have the time.

Safe to say, we had a great time! :D Looking back I still can't believe I actually saw the real deal!

Where Simmers go, a good time follows.

We walked the bridge completely and I turned in quite early after that. It has been Monday for 36 hours in my case then, so the sleep was very welcome! And can I just say? Best night of sleep away from home that I ever had. The beds were so incredibly soft!

The next morning it was time for the real deal to start!
Our hotel was only a short walk away from the EA campus.

Never in my whole time as a Simmer I ever imagined myself in Redwood City, at the heart of where the Sims are born. A dream come true.

This was our get-up for the next couple of days. Most of the pictures are courtesy of Bill Sim, a great photographer (though he denies this) and an even greater person!

The best welcome ever we got from SimGuruRiley. She was so shy and happy to see us, it was adorable. She's an animator on the Sims 4 team. We got to see a lot of her during the week and that was a good, good thing!

 

On the second day she noticed my Battlestar Galactica shirt. The next day she gave me a Kara Thrace token. It was so sweet, I got a little chocked up. She also has a badass Viper jacket!

On that same note. I got some Kona coffee (It's an inside joke thingy) and a lovely Star Wars pin from the lovely SimGuruHydra. Neither of them had to do that, what made it even more special. Thank you girls!

I also got some lovely gifts from Simmers. Thanks Ruthy and Youcef!

 My own little haul, that I haven't given away yet to family :D

And EA is a generous host, these are the things I got from them! :D

Our days had a very specific pattern. Breakfast, lunch and often dinner were on campus.

Morning walk to EA.

Breakfast.

Playtime

Mini- /Masterclass.

Playtime

Lunch.

Playtime

Class

Playtime

Dinner.

I don't have a blow by blow transcript of all the classes, but here are the things that stuck out for me most. Also they are mainly focused on Build Mode, as that is my thing :D

Build/buy:

- Disassembled chimneys and fireplaces. So now you can place a fireplace wherever you want without having to worry about an unsightly chimney sticking out of your house. You can just choose separate chimneys in the deco folder, if memory serves. 

- The neighborhood was divided into four parts of 5-ish houses per part and a part with all community lots. You could not place lots in the world yourself. There were a few empty lots and you could easily demolish the existing houses to build your own.

-It's possible to have different roof colors per lot. Yaaaay for that!

-Smart columns. They snap to a wall, so you don't have the other half sticking out into the inside of the room. They also snap to corners. You can also just drop them into fences.

-You can filter the items by Style and Color. Also an actual search option. This will become even more useful when the expansions hit and the catalog expands.

-You can move the whole house and add the foundation at any time!

- Floor trims are a thing!

-The roofs are very pliable. You can even adjust the eaves. I also have to say they handle a lot better.

No conical or octagonal ones yet tho.

-There is terrain paint, but no terrain tools, as in raise terrain.

-You can turn an item's emotional aura off by shift clicking it.

I managed to ask Aaron Houts and John Berges two questions.

-When the expansion hits, will the older furniture also get new color updates to match with the new furniture and items?

No answer was possible as they weren't allowed to talk about the expansions yet.

-Is it possible to place friezes inside a room, as in to make a split level?

The answer was no. No word of cheats like ConstrainFloorElevation either.

I built about five houses, but haven't gotten my own screenshots yet, so I'll save those for next post! Safe to say I didn't quite get to actual gameplay. I maybe actually played for a good hour or so.

Animation:

This part was by the lovely Marion Gothier, whom I had the pleasure of meeting last year at Sims Camp.

As she said herself, this was mostly a re-hash of last year's presentation, of which I made a detailed report last year. Seems my stick figures made quite an impression in the Studio last year, according to Riley.

http://sarademoorgames.blogspot.be/2013/09/animation-masterclass-with-marion.html

- I saw with my own eyes how the routing and maneuverability in tight spaces has improved. I placed a double bed with half a tile on either side and my Sims still went in and slept!

- All the animations are by hand. One and a half second of movement costs one and half days of work. It's crazy! The game has over 10.000 all new animations.

-Before making any moves in the Sims, there is a real person doing the move on video before the work starts. 

-The multitasking also makes the skill building double fast, as they will gain the skill for all things they are doing, like watching the cooking channel whilst working out!

Modding:

I followed this presentation enough to understand there will be a special modding forum and that the crew love modding, but cannot officially acknowledge or endorse it. 

They offered the framework. I gladly reference you to TSR's article as it got way too technical fast for me :D

My own thoughts about the game.

Again, I stress, these are mostly about build mode, as this is closest to my heart.

I've had quite some time to explore the game and I still feel as if I just scratched the surface. 

The build interface looked a lot like the one in Sims 3. Walls, wall coverings, plants, stairs, fences, columns and so on. So that isn't too big of an adjustment. 

New are the styled rooms which you can plop down where ever. While this is a nice addition, I will not use it much as I have a very specific style of building. I like to draw all the walls by hand, but it's definitely good inspiration and a nice way of having all objects in one room at the ready.

Also, I had to adjust my way of building a little and really think in rooms with the push and pull function. I wanted to put some tiles on a walkway over a fountain and it wouldn't let me. So I had to put a room over it and delete the walls after. After a few hours it became second nature to me. 

The only thing that will get more getting used to is the colors. While there are many things that match up in the good colors, it's just weird not being able to drag colors from one piece of furniture, wall or tiles to another. So my choices of certain curtains or furniture were not based on their form, like they used to in Sims 3, but based on the color in which they came.

So that will take a lot of getting used to.

One of my main concerns was also linking to your stuff in the Gallery. As a builder, I used to make forum threads about my creations and link to them. As SimGuruRachel pointed out, the hashtags will become the main source of searching.

I'm in a request team named D.N.A. and our way of delivery was giving people their URL. 

Now it will have to be like #sarademoor #DNArequest

That way the Simmers can find it in their Gallery, which so far has no offline component.

One of the things I loved most was the cheat to make all items, safe for the rugs, bigger. So that means bigger toys, furniture, you name it :D I used it to blow up a toycar so it seemed as if I had a car in my driveway.
Small table plants become bigger floor plants and all that. The only thing is tho. It seemingly doesn't transfer along with your build. So use in your private builds and mention the object people need to enlarge should you upload with it.

The short gameplay that I did was very good. I managed to let my play family have a baby, which is amazing. It has feet and they are just the cutest thing. My motherheart went in overdrive at the sight of them.

MoveObjects on. It was the first cheat I wanted to activate during my landscaping, only to find out it wasn't in game yet. This threw me, as my landscaping is largely dependent of this. I mentioned it to all the build people I managed to speak with and they all said they were very aware of it and that we could expect it at some point. I wasn't too clear if it meant later on, or in the release.

You can still take pictures with the TAB key, so your UI is invisible. Loving this!

Blooper of the week.

So I couldn't color a certain wall in my Craftsman/Country build and SimGuruHydra went to get someone who could answer that.
She arrives again with no one less than SimGuruRyan. After listening he suggest I just Page up and go up a floor. That worked. Needless to say I felt like a total ditz after that :D

This is pretty much all I can remember from the top of my head.
I leave you with some pictures of the things we got from EA and some random atmosphere pictures.

Group pic, though a lot of people already left for their flights at this time.

Here's one on the first day.

Aaron Houts and John Berges.

Part of our group!

Pinstar!

With the excellent Riley!

And with the excellent Sara, she was such a sweetheart!

I haven't gotten my own screenshots yet, so I can't show my houses and stuff that I liked yet, but that will have to be for another blogpost then :D