[4t2] Updated Sixam Fauna & Flora Set (Now as Seasonal Plants with Animated Lights!)
If you've enjoyed the previous and amazing 4t2 Sixam plant conversions by @simsinsania with their respective nhood versions by @grilledcheese-aspiration, you're in for an upgrade! After diving deeper into TS4 Sixam, I noticed the plants have animated lights.. and I wanted to bring that magic to TS2.
After months of experimenting around, I managed to give these Sixam plants a bit more life and added more features to bring them closer to their TS4 counterparts, including animated lights. I also made them into real plants in Build Mode (previously they were only deco plants in Buy Mode), making them thus visible in neighborhood view. And with the help of the brilliant @tvickiesims, the plants were made seasonal as well, like in TS4! (More info on that later). ^^
On top of that, I noticed there were alien plants from TS4 that hadn’t been converted before, like the UFO fruit plant and the dancing red maple tree from Sixam. So, I converted them as well and made them animated and seasonal.
Note: The animations are all seamless but I could not create a gif longer than 5s without sacrificing the quality (+ only 1 video per post is allowed on Tumblr).
I also updated @grilledcheese-aspiration's Sixam Ground Crack to make it glow like in TS4 as well.
Last but not least, I also decided to share my animated ocean floor and skybox as a separate upload from my 4t2 Sixam neighborhood to go with this set.
Additional Credits:
@simsinsania for the original 4t2 conversion - lot version
@grilledcheese-aspiration for the nhood version of these plants
@tvickiesims and @lordcrumps for helping me with fixing the UFO fruit shrub and shedding some light on how seasonal plants work in TS2.
@lordcrumps again for helping me with animating the ocean floor ^^
@criquette-was-here for the Better Nightlife mod (required for these updated nhood deco to work!)
Download link (+ more info under the cut)
1. New 4t2 Sixam Dancing Red Maple Tree
Variants: Large tree, small tree, roots (as a shrub), maple leaves (as a flower). They all also come as neighborhood tree deco.
Features: The tree’s bark is animated, and the tree will drop leaves in Fall, until it loses its leaves completely in Winter (check the screenshots below). The shrub grows over time, and the flower requires watering. Overwatering or dehydration will cause them to turn brown (like default TS2 flowers)
Performance: The original TS4 mesh was high poly (9k), so I've included a reduced poly version (approx. -50%) for smoother gameplay. Choose that one version instead if you don’t want high poly objects in your game.
Download link! (New 4t2 Sixam Trees)
2. Updated 4t2 Sixam Plants – Lot Version (SimsInsania)
Seasonal Alien Plants: These plants (now shrubs!) were initially decorative items but are now fully functional (still using same GUID)! They can be trimmed and will transition through multiple states depending on the season and their care. There are 2 versions you can choose from:
--- Wilted Winter / Fruits as Overgrown: The shrubs will only show their corresponding fruits in their overgrown state and in winter, they transition into a wilted texture/mesh. If any shrub ever goes into the “overgrown” state during winter, it will still show its fruits… but while still in the wilted texture/mesh.
--- Seasonal Fruits / Wilted as Overgrown: This version mimics TS4 behavior, where the fruits appear only during their corresponding seasons. The plants will show fruits in both the "trimmed" and "overgrown" states. However, in the overgrown state, they wilt instead.
Other Alien Plants: The alien mushrooms are now animated with lights, replicating their TS4 animation and are now found in the Tree section. The alien fern has been converted into a functional tree now. Both won’t leave any leaves behind in Fall but might be struck by lightning.
Sixam Grass and Flowerbeds: These flowers glow at night in their “healthy” state and need watering. Overwatering or dehydration will cause them to change them into the “unhealthy” state though, which in this case will make the flowers lose their glow at night and will need to be "disposed of" (just like the other flowers in TS2). Unlike the original deco plants version, the sims can walk on these flowers just fine.
Download link! (Updated 4t2 Lot Plants - SimsInsania)
3. Updated 4t2 Sixam Plants – Neighborhood Deco Version (GrilledCheese-Aspiration)
Seasonal Alien Plants: Since neighborhood deco objects aren’t generally multi-state objects by default. I came up with something different. Similarly, the neighborhood versions of the 4t2 Sixam plants also come with 2 different versions to choose from:
--- Wilted Winter / Fruits Only at Night: The plants will only show fruit at night and will wilt in winter. This is also the only version where the wilted texture/mesh can appear in neighborhood view. This version uses criquette's NeighborhoodGlowMaterial shader to make the fruits glow and will hence require the Better Nightlife mod.
--- Seasonal Fruits / No Wilted Stage: This version mimics the TS4 seasonal system, where fruits appear in their respective seasons only. Unlike the version above, the fruits remain visible both during day and night. However, this version doesn’t show the wilted texture/mesh of the plants in the neighborhood view.
Other Alien Plants: The alien mushrooms now come with animated lights, much like in lot version. The neighborhood version of the Sixam Fern was missing in GCA’s original set, so I converted it myself and resized it to make it a bit bigger (both in lot and neighborhood version).
Sixam Ground Crack: Now includes glowing effects at night. I’ve also recategorized it into the “Stones” category since I thought it was better suited there.
Download link! (Updated 4t2 Nhood Deco - GCA)
4. Updated 4t2 Sixam Skybox & Ocean Floor
I thought I’d also share these as separate downloads since there might be people who’d wish to use these on other space themed neighborhoods as well. To place, just put it into a corner of your neighborhood and it should cover up the sky. ^^
4t2 Sixam Skybox (recolor of Lowedeus's nhood skybox)
The skybox will make the water look dark though, so I recommend using the ocean floor to give it some color again.
Animated Sixam Ocean Floor (recolor of Gwenke's nhood deco)
Finally, an updated skybox and ocean floor where the transparency issues of the original version have been fixed. As an additional bonus, I’ve also animated the ocean floor to make it slightly rotate. I
As requested, I tried to create a skybox version of the alien sky of Aileen Landing (since most of you didn’t like how the previous sky mod replaced the skies of all neighborhoods. So, here are some screenshots which are straight from the game! <3
With the sky box version, I tried to do something different... since it’s all spherical, it’s MUCH easier to create more interesting features in the sky than in the previous version. So.. I’ve got a little creative there.
What do you think of the new alien sunset? I tried to create a somewhat mixed sunset of two suns while one of which is an exotic blue sun and the other sun... well, a sun similar to ours. ;)
Credit goes to @greatcheesecakepersona for the skyline which I’ve used in the screenshots, as well as to Lowedeus’s for his sky boxes one of which I used to create this skybox for Aileen Landing.
BTW: Did you know that Aileen Landing will be completely CC-free and BG compatible? This sky box is fully optional and is not required for the neighborhood to work. :)
