Phew and some skintone test pics

 It turns out that the problem uploading lots may have been that they were too "big," with too much history (and I'm beginning to suspect having vampires doesn't help, but I'm not sure.)  Anyway, I uploaded a test lot (hurray for Gilbert Jacquet, guinea pig extraordinaire!) and Orikes was able to access it just fine.  So I won't be able to get Penelope et. al extracted until she graduates, and then we're going to put her on an empty lot with some other sims and upload that way, and with any luck at all, that'll work.  Which is a HUGE relief, right there.  Thank you so much, Orikes and Pen!

So that means I can move right along, and I am.  All the households are Juniors now; Penelope is well into Junior Year.  I figured I'd give us both a treat, so I sent her on a date--her first, actually. Went very well, which wasn't a surprise, and everybody rolled the want to get engaged, which is very gratifying.  I hate it when Sims don't do that, especially Family Sims.  I know there's a reason for it, but it's still annoying.  Simselves in particular are terrible offenders in this way.  Since Penelope rolled the want to ask her date home, I let her do that, not that it made any difference, but it did help make the toga party Victoria wanted to throw a roofraiser.  

A lot of Carmilla's redheaded juicing candidates are BV tourists and locals!  Can you believe that?  We don't need victims hanging around for three days, for crying out loud.  Though it might be interesting if Lucy vamped them all.  I wonder if they would all "bleh! The sun!  I must flee!"  That would be one way of getting rid of a houseguest.

Anyway, I'm already thinking ahead and shopping for more CC, and while I was at it, I thought I'd think about any future aliens that might come along.  Do I want a multi PolliTech?  The likelihood that it will be a problem with Free Time is very, very small, since there's very little chance of Free Time being released for Mac anytime soon.  So I began shopping for alien stuff, and found some I liked,  including a sort of fancy one from Eclipse.  I also liked the skin tone and the opalescent eyes, but they're alien defaults.  I figured "no problem; Judy and Ratna are off to Betelgeuse, so no continuity problems there," and then I realized, CASS.  Any alien default I picked would affect Cass.  Then I found some alien contacts by TreyNutz, which I could use to keep Cass' eyes the same, because while I like the opal eyes, their effect on an alien you already know is. . . well.

So what follows are some test pictures I did on Cassidy.

( alien test pics. . .  )

I guess I want a really different-looking alien, maybe a different Pollitech, maybe with a different skin tone.  Lavender would be cool.  Opal eyes or something like that would be cool.  A multiple Pollitech might be good, too, though I don't think it's likely that I'll have more than one alien birth next generation.  I'm not even sure of having one.  

I wouldn't mind switching alien defaults, either, *if* it wouldn't be too weird on Cassidy.  I'd love to hear some recommendations for alien defaults and replacement Pollitechs.  The only thing is it would have to work with the Lyran skins, so I don't think those fascinating Ren Sim ones will work.  There's also an alien skin tone that I know many people love, but to me it just kinda looks like creamed spinach.  

On to get something accomplished before I start to feel guilty about fooling around too much on my non-teaching day.

PB

Sims 3 and a bit more on aliens

I was reading that Sims 3 had been delayed and that they were intending to release it for PC and Mac simultaneously. There's a good deal of unhappiness on Boolprop from PC Simmers who had pre-ordered and were expecting it to come in a couple of weeks.

I can understand that. I probably wouldn't get it right away even if it were available for Mac; Seasons sat around uninstalled for months because I was too paranoid that it would break something. Parsimonious has an interesting report from the CC Creator's camp for Sims 3. It sounds as though they are promising that there will be some way to add new neighborhoods that will be released *after* the game itself is released, and they say it will be a month later. They also say there is some way to turn aging off, but they didn't say whether that would make it possible to manually age playable Sims a la Sims 2, or just that nobody would ever get old.

I'm not saying I'll *never* get it. I'll almost certainly let people who are more gung-ho try it out and find out what they like and don't, wait to see what kind of mods and CC are available.

To me, the *most* important thing is the creative community that's been built up, and frankly, the group of people in specific I've enjoyed collaborating with (aka "the evil Clique.") As long as I can keep reading and working with and enjoying the creative output and online friendship of those people, that's really all I care about. I really don't care whether Sims 3 incorporates Pes' Babby Roaster or not.

The search for multi PT hacks and alien skins goes on. I was really drawn to simgaroop 's Multiple Multi PT hack on MTS2, here.  There certainly is a lot to choose from!   The colorful ones are very tempting, but I have the feeling I'll probably wind up with the simple-looking ones that use plain defaults. Less chance of accidentally deleted an essential skintone, and besides, they're almost all from the Broke family.  And the Goodytwoshoes are a very conservative family, in a lot of ways.  They probably would buy local. 

I'm thinking about fooling with my vamp and alien defaults.  I love my Vampire Paste, though Laverwinkle Sims has been down for days and I don't know why.  I was thinking about putting in RenSims Confutatis eyes for aliens, and I was thinking about either the Confutatis eyes for vamps or the Dumas defaults, but what I can't figure out is whether the Dumas can be used with the Confutatis vamp eyes or not.  I like having pale, not terribly blue-looking aliens now, but having the regular eyes show through and needing to use contacts is sort of a pain.  Or I could keep what I have. 

But overall, I think it makes sense to put in a multi PT hack if I want different-looking aliens with different-colored skin, rather than suddenly having a Pleasantview full of blue aliens.

PB