Information for anyone who wants to make a donation in support of Ukraine:
Hospitallers - Ukrainian volunteer medical battalion, which provides first aid and evacuates wounded Ukrainian soldiers
Ukrainian charity fund "Come Back Alive"
Ukrainian charity foundation of Serhiy Pritula
United24 - the official platform for collecting charitable donations in support of Ukraine
These are the main platforms that most Ukrainians (myself included) regularly use to donate to support our armed forces. Ukraine needs military aid, because only through victory we can achieve peace. Russia's only goal is to destroy us. If Russia is not defeated, there will be no future for Ukraine.
These funds buy vehicles for the evacuation of the wounded, thermal imagers, body armor and everything else our defenders need to survive.
Why you should NOT donate to the Red Cross
Any help, no matter how small, is greatly appreciated.
Thank you ❤️
The situation at the Donbas front is very unfavorable and is getting worse by the day. Please, if you can, donate to help our soldiers survive and repel the invaders.
There are so many of them, and so few of our defenders. The russians just flatten everything with glide bomb, and slowly but surely gain more ground.
Ukraine needs your help to survive.
If you've been wondering, I could finally start working on the eyelash mesh for children and toddlers the other day. And it's going well. I just need to redo bottom lash slider and make 2 more designs. After that, the whole family will get their lashes, i guess.
The only problem is that the lashes get blurry when used with accessories. I thought we had a fix for that but I guess not. You can see the the slight blurriness on the side with the accessory earring. And this is only one accessory.
Below pic is after 3 accessories. Distortion is more visible.
The second house I've been building in Garish Glow. Both exterior and interior are ultimately stolen from this and this. You can see the clear difference between a dark day and a bright one comparing the 2 screenshots above and below taken at different times.
The layout of the first floor:
I generally do not build really large houses because I don't know how to fill them and decorating is really tiresome. So I keep coming back to this house and decorate it slowly. First floor is almost done and I'm kind of pleased with it. 🤭
Baby blue is not my first choice when I decorate so I was out of my comfort zone. But it was fun, nonetheless.
I imagine putting some rich folk here. I considered The Tricous from Sims 2 at first. But the overall aesthetic didn't seem to fit them at all. Right now I'm considering The Cooks from Bridgeport.
Do you use the NRaas mods? Has the information on the NRaas website and forum ever been useful to you? If so, a moment of your time please!
I’d like to share the current situation with Simblr – which you can also read about directly from the site owner here:
https://www.nraas.net/community/topic15428
While it seemed like we were entering an era of old-internet revival and indie websites in the fight against the dead-internet, a significant road block has emerged. Prices have inflated drastically for server parts, memory, storage, and server-hosting itself. This puts all non-profit online communities in peril.
As a result, the site owner has opened a Patreon so that the community can help cover the costs of keeping us online.
Important clarification:
The NRaas mods are NEVER going to be paywalled.
The project will remain open-source and free for everyone. Donations are optional.
These mods are still in active development!
The site and mods have been maintained by Chain_Reaction since Twallan's retirement, providing countless updates and support. Lots of cool stuff over there if you haven't updated in a hot minute.
There is no pressure to donate if your situation does not allow for it. Thank you for the consideration!
Long post ahead with information on the situation and some incentives for reaching membership goals.
If you've had some trouble accessing the site over the past week or so:
The situation is directly caused by the greed and encroachment of something we’re all uncomfortably familiar with: AI companies and the companies investing in them (of simmer relevance, that includes EA and Krafton (InZoi)).
NRaas is not the first nor will it be the last to be affected. Website servers already suffer from bots trawling and scraping their content – including your content that you write and share just about anywhere. Now they’re being bought off entirely.
Archives and file-hosting are at high risk. Myrient is a recent example of an archive that went offline for this very reason.
It can feel a bit grim, but I want to assure you that the burden isn't yours to bear as an individual. As a community, it's actually quite easy to become hostile - and more important, unprofitable - to these invasive species as it were.
The past 26 years of modding and storytelling was OVERWHELMINGLY built upon free software, non-profit websites, and shared resources. A few unscrupulous paywallers and corporate greed isn't going to rewrite that history. Greed is the minority - but it does try to eat everything in its path.
That's all I ask - if you enjoy the fruits of The Sims community or enjoy being a part of it, make it just a little more inconvenient to swallow us.
Do not tolerate GenAI in our community spaces.
Do not support EA or Krafton. Let obscurity and irrelevancy devour them.
Do participate in the community wherever you think you'd find a little piece of purpose - make a blog for your stories, come chat with us in the Chatterbox forum at NRaas, make your first mod.
Lastly:
In a separate post, I'll be posting some CC incentives that will be released as milestones are reached. This content will not be paywalled - it will be posted for free as thanks to the community.
This is being offered on my own accord and is not the official reward for any particular tier. None of the proceeds are going to me!
Please look out for that over the weekend, I still need to take all of the preview screenshots which is perhaps the least exciting part of making CC.
And thank you, on behalf of the volunteers at NRaas.
Nobody asked but I somehow ended up doing a whole new eyelash mesh with 4 designs - for now - for ladies. I kind of liked the results thus proceeded to adjust the mesh for the boys and 2 very subtle designs came out.
I also made 6 sliders to go with the mesh for minor adjustments. I don't know what you guys would think of it. Should I continue with the children and tots? Because if there is no demand for it I would be satisfied with what I've achieved so far.
This is one of the reasons why I don't play my game since December. 😿
It's a rebuild of @vimpse's student house for their university world in sims 2. I like their building/aesthetic style and I like rebuilding from other sims games.
I got a burnout around the time I moved on to the basement and it's left unfurnished.
Decorating is not my forte and I usually end up getting overwhelmed by the task - hence the minimalist rooms I tend to have.
I always tell myself, during a build, "This time I will decorate the kitchen! 😎" and then I end up not doing it. 😅
This is Garish Glow. Another cinksims world. Imagine you're like 11 and you're popping out Sims 3 worlds like it's nothing.
Being an island, it's not as mountainous as the previous two, but it has the biggest potential when it comes to lot layout and I liked how woodsy it is.
Filled with dark forests, this island feels mystical and ominous, I love it. After testing it I decided to get it into CAW and edit it to my heart's content. First I removed every building. Redid the lot addresses, changed some lots, then added some more. Cleaned the global layer and fixed the routing. Also gotten rid of excessive spawners. Lastly, added a lighthouse with FX.
The other thing is, this world is so dark -just like Midnight Hollow- you can't see what's on the ground. So I tried my hand at the colour ramps to make it a little bit brighter but not as bright as a regular EA world. It's still dark, though. Here I had to use NGLamps on the sims' faces to make them stand out.
I'd like to show more screenshots as I keep building in it, mainly for my own pleasure. It's been fun up to now.
Apart from being Bodhi's extended uni fling, Lola was an avid tourist and I would occasionally catch her in the towns I play. Here I caught her thoughtfully wasting away her student loans at the poker table in Satori's now demolished resort.
This is Alpine Meadows. A very beautiful world if you ask me. There is a Cjplays world overview video if you want to see it in action. And under that video, I found the creator's comment: 💙
However, harsh blue lighting may not be to everyone's taste. You can see how the walls of the house and the hair of my very blond sim look so blue in the morning light.
I was, once again, world hunting, for another challenge - that I will not be able to start any time soon. The only reason I didn't settle on this one is because it didn't have a secluded lot for these two to move in. So I moved on to another one.
I originally built their house in Mountain Lake on a secluded lot with a private beach. It's another beautiful mountainous world with lots of trees with very similar vibes.
I was ready to settle on this one but somehow it felt like it would cause me problems as I kept playing in it. I even opened it up in CAW and the routing seemed pretty good. So, I'm still undecided. Another thing is I really like building my own town and I like smaller lots with RH rugs. Woes of a Sims 3 player...
I was tagged by @suratan-zir, thanks for the tag! As usual, I'll put it under the cut.
Reading 📖: Continuing from last post, I'm at the last volume of Caleb Williams, a political novel written in late 1700s. It has enough gothic elements in it so it fits the gothic horror literature I follow. Also reading the light novel Solo Leveling. Well, it's 'light' at best.
Last Series Watched 📺: Which brings us to anime version of Solo Leveling. I only started watching it because I needed something loud - as a noise cancelling measure and ended up enjoying it more than I would expect. It's a loyal adaptation but in the end it's a simple 'male power fantasy' - as reddit would put it.
Last Film Watched 🎞️: Uuhhh, it's been at least a couple of years so I don't even remember.? But being a film school graduate and a relapsed nihilist, - combine it with ADHD and watching anything becomes a task. But I'm planning on watching Nope whenever it becomes available and the latest Knives Out movie.
Last Song 🎧: If searching 'cozy jazz with rain & thunder' on youtube is considered a valid answer, that's what I've been doing.
Salty or Sweet 🥨: Salty always. And for the sweet department, only ice cream.🍦
Coffee or Tea ☕: Both! The taste of the morning tea and the smell of freshly ground coffee. 👍🏼
Working on 😓: I temporarily halted my CAS projects and start building in a world that I will hopefully play in some day. After finishing my random legacy, that is.
I don't want to bother anyone, so if you read this consider yourself tagged.
Alice checks out the new cemetery after the big move. In her ghost form, she seems to have lost her zest. Maybe, she's still bummed about dying young? Sorry, Alice.
Later, Satori is excited to have found her long lost love, Alice.
Alas, Alice is far away. Maybe it's been so long she doesn't even remember? Well, at least you match in your unnatural deaths. Which is rare in this town.
So, the town gossip ghost edition ends on a lonely and disconnected note. ♩
Trying out Niceguy Lamps with these two, because I can't afford ReLight. It takes some time to get used to it but you can get nice results with it. 💡
Where they sit is generally dark with no light source. And it's also useful for off-lot shots where you can't place physical lights. Temporarily disabling some of the heavy shaders while you adjust the lamps might be a good idea, though.
There are times that I feel bad for graf sisters: the supposed mascot of my simblr, Ginny and her sister, Bobi. I created this blog to play with them where they would never get old and do every mundane and vile thing in this game.
Now they are stuck in testing hell in the CAS.world waiting for their chance to come. Funny how things work out. Or don't ...
Random screenshots of two sisters: Shonda & Helen Roark restoring their brain powers on different occasions.
First one is Shonda at a party. I remember finding her facial expression quite cute at the time. But also that it made her vulnerable sitting there facing the ceiling like an idiot. Even though aliens are really powerful...
Second is Helen not having a need for sleep, but still lying next to her fiance, Danzig, at night to restore her brain power so they can be together.
I hate leaving this space unattended for prolonged times just because I don't have anything to post about my main save. I log in everyday anyway. So, even if nobody cares, I decided to post about this and that, and some random screenshots, just to keep it rolling. More blah under the cut.
So I was happily building in a world I've been casually editing/fixing, when I decided it was time to get a full system upgrade. I'm using a linux distro that doesn't assume I'm a 5-year-old who needs hand-holding and nagging all the time. But then linux in general assumes you're a responsible adult since freedom of choice means responsibility more than anything else.
After the upgrade I was locked out of my desktop, - not a big deal. The main culprit was my Window Manager which is not being developed any more but not completely dropped either. Long story short, I had to switch to another WM that I was already configuring to my liking but it didn't feel the same so I stopped the process and stayed with my old one roughly weeks ago.
I knew this day was coming but I thought I would have more time. 😅 I mean I can still make it work with the old one - I know a lot of people do. But, I figured instead of putting all that effort into a dead one, why not putting it into a living one! Right? This is me omitting all the boring technical details for everyone's sake. Although, I've been having the longer version of this internal monologue for the past 5 days or so.
Anyway, I feel like I'm at a place where I can peacefully return to my building spree - and I was on a roll too! 😭
I was recently tagged by @unsimspirational and unapologetically would like to hijack this tag game by turning it into a scream-into-the-void session. So avoid this, if you want to protect yourself from the boring details of my pedantic lifestyle.
(🎧) Last Song I Listened To: Uh, my brain is restless so I just can't listen to a song or two. It has to be the whole discography since music, for me, has a secondary function of noise-cancelling. These days Lebrock does this really well. BUT. To set a theme for this scream-into-the-void session: Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush. It's an old song and it's as haunting as the book itself. Skip this especially if you haven't read the book, for it's somewhat difficult to get into at first listen. But if you insist, choose one of the 'live' versions on youtube. You're welcome.
(🎨) Favourite Colour (now): Let's just say I like colours.
(📺) Currently Watching: Simmer-wise, CJPlays' NSB and dey's Rockwell Legacy -> This one is much better than 'TV' - but then I don't like TV that much. Since last summer, I exercise the idea of 'Why would anybody watch 12 seasons of rotting zombies?' via TWD. At season 5 right now and it's really rare that I finish a TV show.
(🍽️) Sweet/Savoury/Sour: Savoury. Then Sour.
(📚) Currently Reading: I can't be normal at anything. So I have this long list of Gothic Literature which started with Castle of Otranto. I'm currently at late 1700s. So not at Brontës' timeline, not even Shelleys' timeline, but somehow early February, youtube suggested Wuthering Heights while searching for audiobooks. My eyes are bad and I like listening while I'm doing things in Blender/GIMP. It was on my list, although much later, still a well-spent 10 hours. I didn't even know about the movie adaptation and apparently it sucks - not surprised.
(💖) Current Obsession: Apparently, Wuthering Heights and all the Brontës and as an extension The Gothic Horror Literature which I'm reading in a chronological order. I'm slowly returning to my gameplay, though. Since sims is a constant in my life...
(🔍) Last Google Search: Nope.
(📝) Currently Working On: Some personal mesh and texture edits of certain CAS items. Some working some not working so mostly feels like I'm wasting my time. This is why I'm not playing my game since December and it's really stupid.
Not tagging anyone, but if you've read it all and feel like playing, consider yourself tagged. And thanks for giving me the chance to talk about things that nobody cares - and this is the short version.
As someone who shares CC in 7z archives, this is concerning for me as well. I would't want anyone to fall for a malware scam just because they wanted a piece of CC for a game. As a rule, do not trust any link given in a Youtube tutorial or in a text tutorial; even if you trust the tutor, they might be mistaken, if not ill-intended. Always make your own research to confirm the right channels to get needed software.
It's also a good practice to check file integrity. Disappointingly, 7-zip site doesn't provide hash values of their files, as stated in a reddit post from 6 years ago. Apparently, you can get them from the Sourceforge page of 7-zip. Click on 'Files' then '7-zip' folder, then the latest version folder. From the list of files you will, say, download this one: 7zVersionNumber-x64.exe. But before downloading click the 'i' at the end of that line to get either md5 hash or sha1 hash. The downloaded file's hash value(s) should match these.
Here's a good blog post about how to do it using certUtil.
