I use Photoshop Elements too. Works perfectly well.

Seems I use the "light" version of everything.  Well, except for Sims.

Damn Goombas! They really muck up everything.

True, but there's a lot more than the Flirts that become available. Personally, I throw caution to the wind during moviemaking.

Hmmm, I'm not surprised it's considered to be dangerous. Still, it's a great tool if used with caution. For example, it's very frustrating when half of the "Flirt" options disappear when Sims get to know each other very well. I would never use it for gameplay, but in movie-making it's much easier to use Allmenus than to drag down the relationship bars to get to that precise point where "Hit On" is available.

Plus you can have your First Kiss over and over again

http://www.jd-movies.com/allmenus.php

Awesome, awesome cheat for moviemakers (and possibly storytellers).

In case you've already visited the link, and still can't get it to work, you do need to make the changes to the game files as described in the link. Simply typing boolprop testingcheatsenabled true won't work, nor will having it in your userstartup file.  And it has to be in the latest EP/stuff pack game file (e.g. if you're using Family Fun, then update the Globalprops.xml file in your FFP folder, not the one in your Sims 2 folder...)

Can someone who has tried both versions tell me the main difference between Gunmod 2.1 and 2.2? (Besides bumpmapping being disabled). I've been using 2.1 but am wary to go to 2.2 for that reason, plus I don't quite understand the differences.

It's handy to have the new CEP installer around because I like to go back and forth between Maxis lighting and Gunmod's, but it was kind of a pain to do so. The installer makes it easy.

I've got a 6600, and my video capture is painfully slow. I do use High/High though.

Make sure you turn off the sound if you won't need the in-game sound. Recording in-game sound slows it down a great deal.

I've got GunMod's lighting hack installed AND the new sky-changer.

The skychanging hack is cool, but it's really best, IMHO, for stories and movies. Basically, it's a huge dome with different sky patterns. The trouble is if your terrain isn't flat, you will see gaps of the Maxis sky peeking underneath. But for stories and movies, creative angles can most certainly overcome that. I think it's going to be an incredibly useful tool.

Gunmod's lighting... same sort of thing. For gameplay, it can be a bit dark... but for stories and movies, it adds such a layer of realism and gorgeousness that I can't go back to regular Maxis lighting.

Here's a tip - you know how, if you're using Gunmod's lighting, there's a that border line around the edge at night? To minimize this, go into your Neighborhood view, and change the view to nighttime. Now, when you back into the lot, the line around the edge of the lot is much less noticeable at night.

Thanks for the input - no, they weren't priced at $0.

I should add I'm using GunMod's lighting hack and basically the floors were not lighting up at all (even though other floors, both Maxis and custom, did light up correctly). I did figure out how to fix it, and as I suspected, it did involve mucking around with the material definitions in SimPE.

I just tried making some wooden floors in Homecrafter Plus.  I think it's the latest version, I downloaded it at the end of July. They were cloned from the Nightlife bowling floor; all I did was make a minor change. Anyway, in HC they look fine, but in my game on the bottom floor they turned very dark or black. The thumbnails looked murky too. If I put the floor on a different level, they looked better.

I'm not a SimPE expert but I think something got messed up in the material definitions.... so my question is: can I bypass Homecrafter by copying an existing custom wood floor and pasting in the new texture? Do I need to mess with the material definition? Ugh. I thought making floors was supposed to be easy.

Hey! It's a new Teletubbie!!!

Well, LCDs are so quiet. None of that hum.

But, CRTs with their glass screens can't be scratched by kids wielding sharp letter openers. As I'm looking through some scratches now.

I don't like the Maxis rugs because move_objects doesn't seem to work on them - they get all wonky when I try to reposition them off grid, to like, center them under a table. Why?

Really? I haven't seen mention of that anywhere, in any of Glamour pics. Is this something they decided to add at the last moment (or are keeping from us?)

Wow, welcome back! We don't know each other, but JMP had me half convinced you were truly... expired.

With any given style (or object) I usually try to group the meshes in the same folder with the recolors for this reason. I can't keep track of the meshes separate from the recolors otherwise. Is there any particular reason to keep meshes separated out?

If you have NightLife, have a vampire nearby just for the explicit purpose of vamping your Sims; then let the doomed Sims romp in the daylight.

That cracks me up too.  How stupid can one get?

liegenschonheit, I totally agree with your rant.

I have taken things from various sites, and completely bastardized it to my own liking, and even included it in a movie for public consumption. I've wondered if I should even include a credit if it's been so modified from the original modification that it isn't recognizable any more?

Let's face it, none of us likes to start from scratch if there's a template out there that will cut down on hours of work. And honestly, that's what I view a lot of custom content out there as - potential templates.

People who are into modding and custom content creation will probably be happiest if they do it because they enjoy it, not because they want to gain ego strokes from it.

Personally, I don't feel the need for a Sim music video to have a story, but if it doesn't, it has to be set to music I like and/or be very visually impactful and edited very, very well (e.g., see Ooh La La below). I myself like a good dance video but it seems more people propagate toward Sim movies that have stories. The one issue with music videos w/stories is that for me to understand the story (I'm slow and not always so awesome), it often takes multiple viewings. With a beautifully filmed and edited movie like Helena, that's cool, I enjoy watching it again, but other films I find myself going "Huh?" without wanting to watch again.

There are breathtakingly beautiful ones at www.britannicadreams.com. My favorite is "A Mermaid's Tale".  I also like anything done by Tracechops at www.simspremiere.com. Actually, all of those directors have made wonderful movies. Also check out "The Fixer" at www.burntcoffeeprod.com. And finally, there are some very moving films at Jovial Productions.

Of course there are tons of good movies at Sims99, although you have to sift through them. For an awesome, eye candy dance treat, check out Ooh La La.

Don't exactly mean to pimp my own stuff, but I've been getting into movie-making lately and recently made one called Disco Duck that's gotten decent reviews on Sims99.

I did the 20 loves LTW without any cheats or special beds and I swore afterwards I never wanted to see a Sim fall in love again. It's an exhausting LTW. Plus I satisfied the power want to woohoo 20 loves at the same time (might as well kill two birds with one stone...)

Did you do a DAC? That might cause dangling SWAFs which could lead to a BFBVFS.

Phew, I've exhausted my acronyms.

Wooo! I just noticed this one:


That alone makes the patch worth the price. Although now I have the rather nice task of removing all the hacks that fixed what is supposedly now fixed by the patch...

To be honest, I really haven't used practically any of the new stuff in FFP.

The best thing about it is the three new songs. But that alone is not worth $19.99.

Jade,

Auughhh!!! You're blinding me! You're blinding me!!!

 

It's a bug. Crammyboy has a fix for it, see http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=3812.

I spent some time figuring out when it occurs but it's much simpler to just install the fix.