Training Dummies V. 3.0 – Now Also for Lefties!

Posted on 31 Jul 2018 by NixNivis

Category: Hobbies -> Exercise
Poly Count: Canvas Low poly (980); Armoured Medium poly (1210); Invisible (12); Swords ( < 500)
EPs Required: Nightlife or above

UPDATE, 1 NOV 2019: By request, I’ve added a “no sword” option to the “Select Sword” pie menu, that lets your Sims fence with – you guessed it – no sword (or rather, with a tiny, invisible one). This in case you instead of my TSM swords want to equip your Sims with a handheld accessory, be it a different sword or something else entirely (wands, lightsabers, cucumbers…).

I’ve also cleaned up the interactions a bit (you no longer get the “watch” option if you click on the dummy while the active Sim is fencing, for one thing) + have fixed some mega bork with the child sword selection. Also fixed the swords so they actually work with v. 2.5, for those of you who have both versions. (Yeah, I was seriously sleeping on the job when I tested these. 😳 )

Please redownload if you want the updated versions!

I blame the fellow in the title pic for this. This wouldn’t have been necessary if it weren’t for him. He’s one of the main characters in my upcoming story – the first one you’ll meet, in fact (I know, I know, I’ve been talking about that danged story forever, but it’s getting close now!) – and he is, amongst other things, a pretty good swordsman. He’s also left-handed. Granted, he can use the sword just as well with his right hand, but when he can choose, he prefers his left. Which causes a bit of a problem when the sword-fighting happens on camera, since even though I can use my training dummies to stage it, all Sims fight right-handed with those.

Now, I’d never force a fellow lefty, pixellated or not, to use the right (or rather wrong 😉 ) hand if he didn’t want to, so of course I had to update my training dummies for him. (Polished the swords some while I was at it, too.) So now your Sims can choose not just which sword to fight with, but which hand as well. Left-handed high-five!

BTW, all this has put me in a sword-fighting mood, so you know that sword mod I’ve been talking about? That’s what I’ll be doing… not next, I’ve got a request I need to see to first (that’s well under way, even though it’s kind of… I was going to say “snowballed”, but “avalanched” is probably a better description), but after that, there will be swords, yes, there will. 😀 (Just as a heads-up, I’ll probably need testers for it, but we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.)

Training Dummies v. 2.0 (and 2.5) – Now with Sword Options!

Posted on 15 Aug 2015 by NixNivis

Training Dummies with Sword Options

Category: Hobbies -> Exercise
Poly Count: Canvas Low poly (980); Armoured Medium poly (1210); Invisible (12); Swords ( < 500)
EPs Required: Nightlife or above

This download post was actually inspired by you, my downloaders – or at least by some of your screenshots. 😉

Back story: a while back, I made a couple of training dummies (cloned from the brilliant Rebecah’s duel dummy), one armoured and one invisible. One change I made from Rebecah’s duel dummy was to make Sims use swords instead of the original cutlass; the armoured dummy had one kind of sword, and the invisible one another.

Now, in the screenshots I’ve seen with my dummies, people almost always seem to prefer the armoured dummy over the invisible one – obvious to me from the sword – even when it means moveobjects’ing it out of the way (which they wouldn’t have had to do with the invisible dummy). Maybe I’m over-analysing things, but to me this seems to indicate that people aren’t too keen on the sword for invisible dummy, and/or preferred the armoured sword even if meant more work when they set up the shot.

And this got me thinking. Wouldn’t it be great if people could choose which sword they wanted their Sims to use, instead of being stuck with whatever sword I’d picked for that particular dummy (which they might not like)? And not just choose between these two swords, either, but from several different ones? I had a fairly good idea how to go about setting this up… so I did.

So, my offering today is three training dummies, that each have no less than eight different swords for your Sims to choose from. En garde! 😀

Update, 19 October 2015: At the request of Charity322, there is now a v. 2.5 of the training dummies available, where adults can choose different swords for their children as well. Scroll down to the menu screenshots for more info.

Exercise Mat for (Almost) All Ages

Posted on 25 Jan 2015 by NixNivis

Exercise mat for Sims of (almost) all ages

Category: Hobbies -> Exercise
Cost: $75
Poly Count: Low poly
EPs Required: Base-game compatible unless you have the Kitchen & Bath SP; then Free Time is required

UPDATE, 28 APRIL 2022: A helpful anon let me know that pregnant Sims would throw an error when they stopped exercising if the player didn’t have a mod installed that lets pregnant Sims wear everyday clothes (which I had in my testing game, oops. 😳 Bad Nix for not testing in a vanilla game!). This has now been fixed and the download has been updated.

Thank you very much for reporting, anon! ⭐

Over at LeeFish, we usually have a themed challenge each month; it can be something specific, like decorating a certain house, or something more general, like winter. For January, it was suggested that the theme should be Fitness, since January is the month of New Year’s resolutions, and exercising more/getting fitter/losing weight are popular ones. So, in line with this, I’ve made an exercise mat that Sims aged child to elder can use to gain body skill and get fitter – and if you have Free Time, they’ll gain Fitness enthusiasm as well. And it’s not just for present-day Sims, either; medieval (and other) Sims can use it, too, it has recols for that. 😉 (And yes, I know there are other exercise mats out there already, but I wanted one with my own little quirks, so.)

Update, 11 March 2019: PenelopeT @ MTS has made ten wonderful recols for this here. Go get ’em! 😀

Update, 1 Jan 2020: PenelopeT has made ten more great-looking recols , yay!

Update, 2 Feb 2023: The one and only Almighty Hat has recoloured this in Pooklet’s Project Mayhem Naturals, Aelia’s Autumn and CuriousB’s ACYL. That’s 82 recols for ya. 😮

Skill-building Haystack

Posted on 22 Nov 2014 by NixNivis

Skill-Building Haystack for Medieval and Rustic Sims

Category: Hobbies -> Exercise
Cost: $25
Poly Count: Low poly
EPs Required: Base-game compatible unless you have the Kitchen & Bath SP; then Free Time is required

Of all the objects I’ve made, my body-skilling trampoline is my absolute favourite. All my Sim families own at least one – or two or three, if they’re a big family.

Well. My modern families do, anyway. No matter how much I love it, the trampoline is much too contemporary-looking for my medieval game, so my poor medieval Simmies have to do without. I still think it’s a pretty nifty item, though (not that I’m in any way impartial), and I’ve missed it in my medieval game – so I started thinking. What’s a medieval Sim peasant – or a contemporary, rustic Sim who doesn’t like neons and chrome, for that matter – gonna do if he wants to have some fun (and do some body-skilling) after working hard in the fields all day, bringing in the hay?

Why, jump in the hay, of course! So – I made a haystack. 😀

Update, 4 March 2019: Mortia has made four seasonal recolours for this here.

TSM Armoured Training Dummy

Posted on 1 Dec 2013 by NixNivis

Armoured Training Dummy

Category: Hobbies -> Exercise
Cost: $350
Poly Count: Medium poly
EPs Required: Nightlife or above

So after I made my invisible duel dummy, I thought that it would be nice to have a visible training dummy as well, to give my medievalish Sims some body skill building options – and as usual TSM had just what I was looking for. Now, I know that the TSM training dummies have already been converted over at the Plumb Bob Keep, but just as with the invisible dummy I wanted my Sims to use swords and not cutlasses, and there were some other things I wanted to tweak to my liking as well. So once again I cloned the amazing Rebecah’s duel dummy to make my own. 🙂

Invisible Duel Dummy with Custom Swords

Posted on 31 Oct 2013 by NixNivis

Invisible Duel Dummy

Category: Hobbies -> Exercise
Cost: $5
Poly Count: Low poly
EPs Required: Nightlife or above

While we’re on the subject of knights. 😉

Over at Affinity Sims, the brilliant Rebecah has extracted the BV duel dummy so Sims can use it to gain body skill and sports enthusiasm. 😀 This is absolutely great, of course, but for my own storytelling purposes, there were two things about it I wanted done a little differently: I wanted it to be invisible so I wouldn’t have to keep moveObjects’ing it out of the way for screenshots (I know, I’m lazy), and I wanted the Sims to use swords instead of cutlasses. More knightly that way. Thanks to Rebecah’s generous policy, I could clone her dummy and tweak it.

The Sim Bouncer

Posted on 17 Apr 2013 by NixNivis

The Sim Bouncer

Category: Hobbies -> Exercise
Cost: $95
Poly Count: Medium poly
EPs Required: Base game compatible unless you have the Kitchen and Bath SP. Then, and only then, Free Time is required

I don’t know about your Sims, but most of mine like to stay fit. Problem is, not all of them like to push weights on a benchpress, and others think that going jogging or running on a treadmill is mind-numbingly boring. Of course, for Sim kids the options are even more limited. So what’s a Sim to do if he wants to increase his body skill without being bored out of his pixel skull?

Why, get a trampoline, of course! 🙂