Substitute

[curiousb]

The recent discussion about default replacements on GoS has got me thinking a bit more about the defaults that I'm currently using, and whether I might like to customize them still further.

I'm considering either making some of my own, or tweaking my existing ones, and while these would be mainly to suit my own tastes and for my own use, I was wondering whether there might be any general interest in whatever I come up with.

So, I thought I'd create this post, listing my ideas and asking for any feedback or other suggestions. :)

Terrain replacements: I love Ja's 'Ghost Town' road and terrains, and at the moment I use them almost exclusively, but I was thinking that I would also like some slightly less grungy terrain replacements for my less run-down 'hoods! I've stolen an idea from Evanesco at GoS, and used the road terrain from L4D to make a road-only replacement, in combination with a pavement using another texture from L4D (I'll be making recolours of Ja's road overlay mesh to go with this), and I've also made a separate grass replacement that is a compromise between the scraggy Maxis default and the rather zingy 'greener grass' replacement that is available on MTS. I thought I might add to this with textures for the dirt and concrete terrains that aren't as bleh as the Maxis defaults, but also a bit less derelict than Ja's.

Alien: I'm happy with my choice of alien eye default (I regularly cycle through several favourites), but I thought I might permanently combine Pyxis's 'Fairy' in blue with the separate face mask she provided, and use that as my default alien skintone. (Be warned, there's a whole lot of Pyxis love going on in this post, and Pooklet gets her fair share too.)

Vampire: I've just made my own default using Pyxis's 'Snow' (at 50% opacity) with my own 'Nothing Like the Sun' eyes in 'Scarlet' (see here), but since I also love Pooklet's original edit of Yumedust's 'Eye Love' set I'm thinking of also making one using 'Poison' from that set - just so that I can be all indecisive and change my mind about which to use on a regular basis. So that my alien vampires can still have a dark sclera, I thought I might make some contacts from my own 'Space Oddity' in 'Hao' (dark red) or Rensim's 'Confutatis' extras in red (handy swatch, made by WynNyx, here).

Zombie: I love Pyxis's 'Butcher', but I think I might love it all the more with Rensim's 'Zombie' or 'Blind' eyes from the 'Mayday' set (handy swatch here).

Plantsim: again, Pyxis wins the day with her 'Monk' skintone, but I think I'd like a change of eye on this one too, and the current favourites are either my own ('NLTS') or Yumedust+Pooklet's 'Meadow' (see here and here).

Werewolf: I'm currently using Fantasyrogue's 'Tabula Rasa' werewolf, which doesn't replace the eyes, but I'm thinking I'd like to add Rensim's 'Mayday - Demon' to it (handy swatch here).

Bad witch: Pooklet's existing bad witch default, but with either/both 'NLTS' or Yumedust+Pooklet eyes in 'Ivy', 'Endsong' or 'Keep' (see here and here).

Bigfoot: I'm happy with his Maxis skintone (surprisingly!), but I'd like him to have either 'NLTS' or Yumedust+Pooklet eyes in 'Coals', which I'm considering putting on a dark sclera instead (see here and here).

Potential multi-PT set: yep, in addition to all this, I'm thinking of putting together my own multi-PT set, with a traditional combination of two male and two female Sims.

I've got two candidate Sims already, littlerunningbee's adorable Jillian and my own Aion, who has featured in a number of my previews...

The chap on the middle right here, by the name of Jao, is a possibility too...

(Aion sneaks in again on the bottom left by the way - I'm sorry, I can't help it, I just love him as he's such a character in my game!)

After that, I'm not sure, although I'd rather like to include a Sim with Fantasyrogue's fabulous pointy ears. To be honest though, I'm open to suggestions, and if anyone would like to volunteer one of their own Sims, then that would be marvellous!

Now then, let's talk alien skintones; there are so many great ones to choose from, that to be honest I'm a bit bewildered. It's probably clear by now that I have quite a thing about Pyxis's 'Venice' alien add-ons, so those are probably top of the list, but I also very much like several othes, including: Pyxis's 'Turn on Me' (spotted); Pooklet's 'Down Boy' add-ons, 'My Poor Lover' aliens here and here, and 'LPCMB' alien; Genvieve's remix of Enayla's 'Pixie Cold'; Nymphy's 'Alien Species' set; Astromeso's edit of Rensim's aqua alien and Ephemera's FMW alien, both sported by Aion in the pictures above; Neuroticrobotic's violet recolour of Pooklet's 'My Poor Lover' and Joedy's scrumptious new spotty recolours of the same; Ronya's equally funky SS gift to satinn; and while we're on the subject Sneebs has also made some beautiful muted alien skintones for his(?) lucky santees (like this and this). Help!

I'm just as befuddled when it comes to eyes. Possibilities include: my own 'Space Oddity' set; Tea Leaf's 'Rococo' (edits of ZombieJill's 'Night Ride'); Nilou's 'Onomatopea' alien; several Rensim eyes, including the ever-popular 'Mayday' alien, plus 'Morcalivan Dream', 'Peel Session Pearl' and whatever eyes Jao has there from the 'Confutatis' set (handy swatch here); my own 'NLTS' in 'Spirit' (purple).

If you've made it this far, then have a cookie. No, have two. Go on, you deserve it, after reading all my blather.

Anyway, I'd really like to get some public opinion on all this, so please do post any comments or suggestions for different Sims, skintones or eyes. And, if you happen to have similar tastes to my own, you could look at this as an opportunity to effectively commission your own defaults. Since it would probably be a major investment of my time, I have to like the end result too, but if I can make something that might be of use to more people than just me, then that has to be worthwhile. :)

Right, it's time I went to bed - it's 2 AM and I have to be up again for work at 7. Don't you just hate real life sometimes?

Comments

[neuroticrobotic]

I don't think you're blathering! It's really nice to hear someone else putting this amount of thought into their defaults. I neurotically ponder littlest details of my own game and I am often tweaking things. I just made my own default replacement of the neighborhood-view appearance of the community phone booth, as I was tired of that fracking blue and yellow monster leering at me in the background.

I am most interested in your suggested tweaks for Ja's terrain replacements. A road-only replacement sounds especially nice and your proposed grass blend sounds really good, too. I don't suppose you have considered making any kind of desert terrain? I wish there was some middle-ground replacement between maxis and the apocalypse, but maybe that's just me.

Also, I really like the idea of bigfoot having a dark sclera, I think he would look quite nice that way!

[curiousb]

Hehe, thanks! I think the reason that nothing much happens in my game is that I spend way too long thinking about all the details of the world I'm trying to create, and never actually doing any of it! ;D

I'm going to get some pictures up of my WIP terrain replacements, hopefully tomorrow, but yes, I could certainly do a desert one too. I hadn't really considered it so far as I don't have any desert 'hoods myself, but it would be a good idea to complete the set - I'll see if I can find a texture I like.

And yes, something between Maxis blandness and the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it (much as I love that look, it doesn't suit every 'hood) is exactly what I am aiming for! :)

The inspiration for using a dark sclera for Bigfoot came from watching a TV programme on North American black bears. I thought that their completely dark brown eyes, which can look just a little crazed sometimes, might suit Bigfoot too!

[lalabubus]

You are not blathering at all, my English is quite lousy, and verbal (in general) is my weak point, so I love to read/listen when someone explains
nicely :).
I am not very much into replacements because I love to have maxis stuff visible and usable so I can browse through, especially clothes and objects. I could easily mix meshes or get the ideas so, there are only three defaults in my game - eyes, skin and brows. That's the reason I cannot say much about your ideas except the terrain and road replacement. That sounds interesting because those are too bright, green etc. in original version as I must admit the whole 'nature' maxis parts.

[curiousb]

Thanks for reading my long essay, and for commenting!

I think my eye and skintone replacements are my most important defaults (if I really had to - say if I was held at gunpoint - I think I could survive with just those and ACR, and no other CC!), but I do like to customize my game as much as I possibly can, as I'm aiming for a very particular look for my 'hoods.

I'm going to try to post some pictures of my WIP terrain replacements, hopefully tomorrow, so you should be able to see whether they might be to your liking or not. :)

[(Anonymous)]

I'm behind you a hundred percent any time you want to make supernatural defaults (Bigfoot!) with NLTS eyes, as they're the only ones I use in my game and I'd love everything to be matchy-matchy. ^_^

As for the PT replacement, it sounds very exciting- the sims you have in mind are cute and I love the idea of having the possibility of alienspawn with FR's cute ears.

Alien skin-wise, it's like you pointed out most of my favorites so I'm sure to be pretty happy either way, but I'd be careful not to use too many blues. There seems to be an abundance of blue and teal alien skins about, and while they're nice, I personally like optimum diversity in a PT set (that's a lot of the draw, isn't it?). Those are just general suggestions, but it might help you weed through the skins you're considering if you go across the board by color and pick your favorite blue, your favorite green, etc. Of course, I think patterned aliens are lovely too- I tend to abuse FantasyRogue's Tabula Rasa and Canvas aliens in my Maxis Match game.

As far as alien eyes go, I really like your Space Oddity eyes and would like to see them used in a PT set sometime. I use the Rensim mayday alien eye as my default already, and even though I love colored alien eyes I'm also a sucker for pretty all black ones like those and Nilou's.


I'm very excited about the prospect, especially of the PT set and the Bigfoot eyes - how does he look with the black sclera? I'm trying to picture it.

Er... and I'm throwing around a lot of opinions for someone who's never even commented before. Sorry. Longtime fan, first time commenter. I go by eyexofxnewt on LJ (no dreamwidth account). I'm trying to break out of my habit of lurking and not commenting, because Sims 2 creators deserve a lot more love for the awesome things I take for granted in my game.

This sounds like a really promising prospect! Man, after writing all that I think I'm going to have to offer you cookies in return! XD

[curiousb]

Oh, don't apologize, it's lovely to read your comments!

I must confess that I haven't made much progress on all this yet...

I'm wondering how to get FR's ears in the PT mix - I've identified another potential existing Sim to use, but I'm not sure how to get the ears on any of them without making a new Sim from scratch!

I can definitely see where you're coming from on being careful to have a mix of skintone colours. My favourites are the blues and teals, I have to be honest, but I would like to have a bit of variety. Thanks for the vote for my own alien eyes too! Again, I'd like to have a bit of a mix, so will probably use just one of those (probably a dark shade), in combination with a selection of other people's. I'm also thinking of copying an idea from neuroticrobotic, and having one of the PT's use default genetics, so that everyone potentially gets something unique to their own game.

And my idea for dark-sclera'd Bigfoot eyes is languishing a little - maybe I'll give that a go today... My main problem with it is that I don't actually have a Bigfoot in game to test it out, and I've no idea how to find one! :D

[aweeshie]

I really like your idea for the terrain replacements. It's something that I was looking for but haven't been able to find. I would love to see pictures of these cause I am imagining they look like perfection.

[curiousb]

I'm hoping to get some WIP screenshots soon, so that I can show people what I'm talking about, and hopefully get some feedback!

[digitaldollies]

I'm intrigued after reading about this. I'm wanting to change defaults especially now that I know almost everything can be changed. I've spent the last 4 years ignoring just about about everything default because I rarely used anything from Maxis. Then a while back I kept have a BSOD problem and the only way I could play my game was with very little CC outside of Bodyshop. That's when I discovered MM buy/build stuff and I love it. The weird thing was that I had over 7 gigs of Bodyshop stuff in my SavedSims folder and never had a problem with that. It was a mess to keep track of anything because I couldn't have folders in there. I finally got the new laptop and can play like I want to, but now I'm fed up with keeping up with all this different bodyshapes and spending days and weeks trying to convert everything over to about 10 different shapes. Not to mention not having meshes for what I wanted. Very frustrating. Either way back to your topic. I'm here and willing to test and offer input or whatever you need.

[curiousb]

Thanks, jacci! Willing testers might be very useful. ;)

I was pretty slow to get into default-replacements too, but now I feel that I can't live without - it means that I can have a 'light' version of the game on my laptop (which hasn't got the oomph to deal with a lot of CC), but it will still look pretty.

[(Anonymous)]

"I've also made a separate grass replacement that is a compromise between the scraggy Maxis default and the rather zingy 'greener grass' replacement that is available on MTS. I thought I might add to this with textures for the dirt and concrete terrains that aren't as bleh as the Maxis defaults, but also a bit less derelict than Ja's."

If you ever care to share the compromise between the Maxis and greener grass, I would download it in a heartbeat! I've been wanting a more lush terrain, but when I installed that greener grass terrain default, it was just TOO MUCH BRIGHTNESS. :/

Just out of curiosity, what do you mean by adding the other textures? Would that affect the maxis/greener grass mix?

-eliane1239.livejournal.com

[curiousb]

Oh, no, the grass will stay as it is! :)

I meant that I'm also making replacements for the other terrains (dirt, concrete and desert), such as the ones that I show in my post here: http://curiousb.dreamwidth.org/19731.html

And I am fully intending to share as soon as I can, it's just a question of finding time to finish everything off - life is way too busy at the moment!