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.
Big Smoke - London-inspired* British world for TS3 (WIP)
Gonna pin this post and update the map and content as I go along :)
If you wanna keep updated on the progress of the world this is the post <3 Warning I will yap a whole bunch below the line.
Concept
If you've been following me you've probably seen that I've started a few different iterations of a London or UK themed CAW project.
You can't recreate a city in full using CAW. Worlds have a limit of only around 2km in size, and then they need a lot of padding around the edges of the playable area for various reasons, so 2km quickly becomes something more in the region of 1-1.5km. You also wanna keep under 100 or so lots for the thing to run well.
In real life, the Thames alone is 300m wide in Central London, and there are a lot more than 100 buildings along its banks.
So, I've set out with the goal to make a world in which each street feels like a street that could be in London, but isn't a faithful recreation of the real thing or any of its landmarks.
The Map
Condensing London into 2km, making it look pretty and making journey times work, you have to break a few eggs. The layout is inspired by London but not really at all faithful to actual geography. There are also features added solely for ts3 gameplay that don't exist irl (a massive sandy beach under Westminster Bridge??). I've split the plan into various themed areas:
Central
Densest part of the world; a main thoroughfare inspired by Oxford St cuts through the centre of it, which will be lined principally with regency style commercial buildings housing the commercial rabbitholes and other community venues, as well as some Georgian townhouses.
West
Wealthiest part of the world, with apartment buildings, townhouses and mansions in various pre-war styles.
City
Based on the City of London and Canary Wharf, with a few skyscrapers for the business, criminal and other rabbitholes.
Wharf
Modern apartment buildings taking cues from stuff you'd see around Isle of Dogs and along the canals of East London.
East
Shoreditch, Dalston, Hackney Wick - arts-y community venues, nightlife, warehouse apartments, etc
North
Leafy streets lined with Victorian & Edwardian terraced housing, a bit of streamline moderne and a couple nice pubs.
Palace & Grounds
Palace and a couple other homes for minor royals, on a large landscaped estate.
South Bank
This will be home to a couple of large show venues and other nightlife along the river.
South East
Greenwhich inspired; maritime themed with cobbled streets, pubs, small parks
South
A second, smaller commercial hub mirroring Central & City on the other side - bit of nightlife, the Shard, more community lots and homes.
Suburban
1930s & Postwar homes - bay windows, mock tudor, bigger gardens
Counties
A kind of barrier between the city and the big green fields around it, these will be small rural-ish areas inspired by towns in the Home Counties
Park
Landscaped park area with a few lots housing a lido, playpark, and a graveyard.
Woods
A much more natural park with wooded areas, on hills overlooking the city. Nice walks and great views.
Content
This is the main thing I'm working on right now - meshing and texturing all the CC needed to make the world feel right at street level. A bit of a checklist to go:
Street & world deco - mostly done
Rabbitholes - in progress
Build sets (georgian, victorian, regency, 1930s semi) - all meshed, still need texturing and packaging
Buy sets (pub decor; home decor; vehicles) - not yet started
Times have been a bit difficult for our family the past couple months. My Grandma a… Ricky Irwin needs your support for Support Grandma’s Fi
Hey all, this past summer a complete stranger showed me a great kindness and got me and my family out of a jam. I would like to return the favor in any way I can. His grandmother was recently diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and his family just needs some help, if you have any to spare.
They're almost at their goal and I really would love to see them reach it.
Please don't feel obligated to donate, if you can't! Thank you for reading!
a boroughsburg local that brooke befriended at a classmates art show. angie was already good friends with said classmate, and the three of them ended up spending a lot of time together as a group. they began meeting up for coffee or to study, or to simply gossip about some of the nightmareish groupmates they had to deal with for assignments. after one last minute cancellation from their friend, brooke and angie decided to go ahead and meet up anyway. what followed was a two-day-long date(ish) that pretty clearly established a budding -something- between the two. now, hangouts with their friend often end with angie over at brooke's apartment or vice-versa. they are yet to tell their friend, but they're sure he wouldn't mind. they just worry it might make things awkward for him, and so, as a partial distraction, they have began to orchestrate a plan to hook him up with one of the employees of a cafe they frequent— one that seems undeniably interested in him.
Two Robot dermal tattoos by Objuct converted from sims 4, There's two versions, the male sim is wearing V2 and the female sim is wearing V1 (Both are unisex and are enabled for all categories) you can find them in accesories in the socks section next to all your CC accesory tattoos.
The robot ears are made by Luluke wich you can find on thesimsersource but i went ahead and updated their categories since this piece of cc is old (From 2011) they are both unisex and recolorable. (Pictured below)
Face robot markings and cyberware not included in this download, you can find them on @murfeelee account in their cyberpunk cc dumps. But if you combine those with my set you can make some good looking androids :P
I made this week the coolest grandma ever, btw shout out and long live the color wheel and pattern selector fr. I was also inspired by the Green lady from New york when making this sim too.
Ok, you guys know damn well I'm anti-gatekeeping resources and anti-cc-creator-competitions-to-see-who's-better-at-playing-digital-play-Doh. AND ABOUT THAT, I found out about MESH REPAIR TOOLS by SINEWAVE. It's a FREE add-on for blender. It does A LOT of things, but do you know what it also can do? DECIMATE MESHES BETTER THAN BLENDER.
Before (taken on sims4studio):
After (taken on blender):
All of this with two clicks on the "Reduce" button. Yes I'm in an awe but can you really blame me?? The mesh looks exactly THE SAME. I don't need to fix wonky UVs or replace textures. It does everything PERFECTLY.
