PSA: About Animations and NPCs

Posted on 26 Oct 2018 by NixNivis

Since this is a question I’ve been asked a few times, and also something I’ve seen come up on other sites:

None of my animated objects are controlled by NPCs!

Contrary to what seems to be popular belief, animated objects don’t always require an NPC to run; whether they do depends on the type and complexity of the object and not just on whether or not it’s animated. Objects that move around the lot, like Rebecah’s farm animals, usually need an NPC to work, but simple animated objects like mine, that rotate/swing/rock in place, do not.

But if any object of mine did spawn an NPC (which I say again, they do NOT), I promise you it would say so very, very clearly in the upload post. I know there are creators out there who like to foist undisclosed features upon their downloaders, but I’m not that kind of creator.

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.

TSM Book Stacks as Bookcases

Posted on 12 Dec 2014 by NixNivis

TSM Book Stacks as Bookcases

Category: Hobbies -> Knowledge
Poly Count: Low poly ( < 700)
EPs Required: Base-game compatible (provided that you get the base-game variation)

Not all of my medieval Sims are into bookcases. Some might like to keep a pile of books on their desks, to have them readily at hand when they write letters. Others might be wizards or philosophers, who have so many books, they just don’t have shelf-space for them all. Others again might have spent their very last Simoleon on that precious, precious book, and can’t afford a bookcase as well. And still others might be the kind of Sims who think the floor is a perfectly acceptable place to put their books, clothes, food…

So, to meet their varying needs, I took the decorative book stacks from TSM (except for one that didn’t want to play) and turned them into functional bookcases: three larger ones that go on the floor only, and two smaller ones that can be placed either on the floor or on tables (or other surfaces).

Two TSM Teddy Bears

Posted on 17 Jul 2014 by NixNivis

Two TSM Teddy Bears

Category: Misc. -> Children
Poly Count: Medium poly ( <1200)
EPs Required: None – base-game compatible

I know at least one of these has been done before, but it’s Toddler Month and my medieval tots wanted some teddy bears to hug, and I just couldn’t say no to them. So I’ve converted the peasant teddy from the TSM base game and the pirate teddy from Pirates & Nobles. 🙂 (Yes, in the base game there’s a knight teddy as well, but that teddy was evil. Evil, I tell you!) Their poly count comes in at just under 1200 polys, but that’s actually some 400 polys fewer than the TS2 base-game teddy, so it’s not high in any way.

Many thanks to BloomsBase for his tutorial on how to transfer TS2 bone assignments to a TS3/TSM mesh, which saved my sanity, not to mention the bone assignments’.

TSM Rocking Horse

Posted on 9 Jul 2014 by NixNivis

TSM Rocking Horse

Category: Misc. -> Children
Cost: $75
Poly Count: Low poly
EPs Required: Apartment Life

In TSM, you have this charming little rocking horse – but even though it’s in the children’s category it’s purely decorative, so all your little Sims can do with it is to look at it. Now, this might be fun for scholarly Sims, but not so much for everybody else. So, in appreciation of Toddler Month, I converted it – and made it functional. 😀 Now your littlest Sims can use this rocking horse as it’s supposed to be used – and they won’t just have fun while doing it, they’ll build body skill as well!

This rocking horse requires AL. I tried to see if I could dumb it down, so to speak, and make it so that it would only require [some EP] or above, but it really didn’t like that. So AL it is.

Six Animated TSM Clothes Chests

Posted on 1 Jul 2014 by NixNivis

Six Animated Clothes Chests

Category: Misc. -> Dressers
EPs Required: None – base game compatible
Poly Count: Low poly (>950)

Yes, I know the TSM clothes chests have been converted and made into functional dressers before, and I wasn’t going to do them at first… only the chests I’ve seen have all been static, and as you might have figured out by now, I have a thing for animated objects. So, I started to think about any chest-like objects in game whose animations I could ~~steal~~ use to make these into functional animated clothes chests – and realised there was one. So I did. 🙂

TSM Stereo in LACK Colours

Posted on 12 Jun 2014 by NixNivis

TSM Stereo in LACK Colours

Category: Electronics -> Audio
Cost: $750
EPs Required: University or above
Poly Count: Low poly

So, there I was, scrolling through the TSM game files looking for… something I can’t quite remember, but anyway. There I was, happily scrolling through the files – and then I did a double-take, going “was that file called stereo?” Scrolled back up, and sure enough, there was a mesh called “stereoModern”, complete with textures. 😮 Now, I’m reasonably sure they didn’t have stereos in medieval times, so my guess was that this was an object from another game (TS3, perhaps?) that EA had used as a template and then as per EA usual didn’t bother to take out. But I liked the way it looked, and like I said it had textures and everything… so I went ahead and converted it anyway. 😛

It requires at least one EP, but it doesn’t matter which one – anything between UNI and AL goes.

Secret Scuba Gifts, Part II: Blacksmith’s Anvil + DR Bots

Posted on 31 May 2014 by NixNivis

It's Hammer Time!

Category: Hobbies -> Misc.
EPs Required: Open for Business + Free Time
Cost: $1100
Poly Count: Low poly

Important! If you package this item with lots, you will need to include the tong and mallet manually since they won’t package properly, but are needed for the anvil to function.

At leefish.nl, there was recently a Secret Scuba event – you know, like Secret Santa, except you were scuba and scubee instead of santa and santee. We’re all fish of the same pond after all. 🙂 This is the second – and final – part of my gifts; the first one can be found here.

One of the things my scubee Jo wished for was a blacksmith’s crafting station for her medieval game, which made me squee with delight ~~because I am ever so slightly insane~~. So I promptly extracted the blacksmith’s anvil from TSM (and tweaked the textures a bit to make them look more TS2-y), cloned the OFB robot making station, and combined the two into a crafting station anvil where your medieval smiths can make… robots? Yeah, that didn’t make much sense to me, either – so I threw in some period-appropriate default replacements for the bots as well.

I’ve seen this being referred to as a “default replacement station” a few times, so I want to stress that the anvil is NOT a default replacement for the robot crafting station, but a stand-alone object. Only the bots are default replacements – and they’re completely optional, you do not need them for the anvil to work.

I repeat: The anvil is NOT a default replacement for the robot crafting station! It is a stand-alone object!

Now, if we’re all clear on that. 😉 Since my scubee had all EPs installed and this was made for her, the anvil requires OFB and FT. I might make an OFB-only version later, but for now, you need both.

Update, 14 June, 2017: Downloader beradan has reported that the DR bots conflict with a mod for buyable craftables (that may or may not be this one); nothing will crash, but the bots won’t display properly if you have this mod installed. It might be possible to solve this by load order (i.e. having my bots load last), but I haven’t yet been able to check this myself. Just a heads up, in case the bots aren’t behaving as advertised in your game.

Thank you, beradan, for the report! ⭐

Animated TSM Orrery

Posted on 23 May 2014 by NixNivis

Animated TSM Orrery

Category: Decorative -> Sculpture
EPs Required: None – base-game compatible
Cost: $2000
Poly Count: Low poly (>2300 polys, but on 5x5x2 tiles)

So. The TSM orrery. You know, that huge thingamajig that sits high, high in the ceiling of the wizard’s tower and rotates in fifteen different directions at the same time. That orrery. I’ve been looking at it askance for some time now, wondering if I were brave enough to attempt animating it. Yes, it would require a bazillion joints, but it’s just going ’round and ’round, right? And if there’s one thing I’m good at animating, it’s things that go ’round and ’round… so I did. Like so:

Five TSM Music Boxes as Animated Stereos

Posted on 3 Apr 2014 by NixNivis

Walls and floors by Lama at The Medieval Smithy

Category: Electronics -> Audio
EPs Required: None – base-game compatible
Poly Count: Low poly (848 – 912)

Update, 6 Feb, 2019: Meduza has updated these to have NL/BV/Pets/FT functions. Thank you for doing what I should have done ages ago! ❤

I love the TSM music boxes, I think they’re adorable, and so I really wanted to convert them and make them functional (read that: turn them into stereos. ‘Cause I cheat like that in my medievalish ‘hoods). Problem was, I knew for a fact this was something that had been done before, and I don’t like to repeat what somebody else has already done if I can help it. So, like Ol’ Blue Eyes I did it my way, and turned them into stereos… with custom animations. 😀

When the music box is turned on (do you turn on a music box?), the lid opens, and the figurine appears and starts rotating. It will obligingly keep on doing so until you turn the music box off; then the figurine disappears again and the lid closes. But you don’t have to take my word for it – see for yourself:

Three Modern TSM Dressers

Posted on 27 Mar 2014 by NixNivis

I Just Work Here

Category: Misc. -> Dressers
EPs Required: Open for Business or above
Poly Count: Low poly

UPDATE 01 June 2021: The wonderful Michelle @ MTS has recoloured these in Mission colours, here. Thank you, Michelle! ❤

“Modern TSM dressers?” I hear you say. “Nix u drunk?” I’m as sober as a judge, I assure you – but I’m not so sure about the good folks at EA.

You see, when I was converting the dressers before, I found something strange. Mixed in with the medieval ones were four decidedly modern dressers, with decidedly modern clothes in their drawers. One of them looked exactly like the Werkbunnst Medium Stonewood Dresser dresser from AL; the other three, I didn’t recognise, not from TS2, anyway. I did recognise that they definitely didn’t belong in a medieval game, though – and apparently EA did, too, because they’re nowhere to be found in the TSM catalogue. Yeah. Don’t ask me, I just work here. 😛

There was nothing wrong with them, though, the meshes and textures were good and had even been rigged for animation… so I thought “why not?” and converted them along with the others. (Three of them, anyway; I skipped the one that looked exactly like the AL Werkbunnst Medium dresser, since it looked exactly like the AL Werkbunnst Medium dresser.)

Just like their medieval friends, these dressers have five slots each – and they are of course animated as well. They are also low poly, with a maximum of 415 polys/tile.

Seven Animated TSM Dressers

Posted on 24 Mar 2014 by NixNivis

Seven Animated TSM Dressers

Category: Misc. -> Dressers
EPs Required: Open for Business or above
Poly Count: Low poly

You can never guess what I have for you today. TSM conversions! Yeah, bet you didn’t see that one coming! 😛

Anyway. Here is part two of my dresser-conversion series: the dressers/chests of drawers. As usual, I’m sure some or all of these have been done before, but mine are all animated. 😀 Also, all of them have five slots that hold the same things as end tables. They do require OFB or above (so anything between OFB and M&G goes), but to make up for it they’re all quite low-poly – max 640 polys/tile.

Eight Animated TSM Wardrobes

Posted on 26 Feb 2014 by NixNivis

Eight Animated TSM Wardrobes

Category: Misc. -> Dressers
EPs Required: None – base game compatible
Cost: Varies
Poly Count: Low poly to Medium poly

I have some more TSM conversions for ya. Today I come bringing wardrobes – eight of them, to be specific. As always with conversions, I’m sure at least some of these have been done before, but I’m not quite so sure they have been done like this ~~because it’s a real pain to do~~. All of them are animated, you see. 😀

Six TSM Floor Mirrors

Posted on 5 Feb 2014 by NixNivis

Six TSM Floor Mirrors

Category: Decorative -> Mirrors
EPs Required: None – base game compatible
Cost: Varies
Poly Count: Low poly to High poly!

Remember back when I converted the TSM wall mirrors, and said I’d eventually do the floor mirrors as well? Probably not, but I do. 😉 And I have. So without further ado I bring you six TSM floor mirrors, converted for your TS2 convenience.