Does anyone have any tips on designing restaurants that work well? I'm working on one right now for The Sims Community Project, and all the stupid customers keep walking through the kitchen and behind the counters, either before being seated at the counter or just to hang around someplace inconvenient. Is there a mod to make doors lockable on community lots? Or (since this lot will need to be submitted CC-free) is there some way of arranging things so that staff can still get in and out of these areas but customers will not go into them??

I also tried having a test sim buy the restaurant so they could lock all the "staff doors," but then that ended up being its own headache (chef wouldn't cook any orders??). So bleh, I've given up for the night. WHAT A PAIN sims are sometimes!

Edit: Perhaps Inge to the rescue again? Maybe I can put an apartment token into the kitchen and ban everyone but the employees? I'd just have to list it as a "recommended download" when I submit the lot, for people to get if they want to keep customers out of the staff areas..................... But if there are better solutions, I'd still love to hear them! 

So I was just play-testing an apartment lot today, which is something I've still never really done since buying AL, and I found it to be really, really, really laggy. Is this a thing that happens with apartment lots? It's a 1x3 lot, 3 floors, and 3 apartments, so it's not even that big. But it's like slower-than-my-old-broken-computer slow. Like it takes several seconds for a sim minute to pass on speed 3. (Except I just noticed from 5:30-6AM on this sim day, it went normal speed; then slowed down again after 6AM??????) Whaaaaaaaaaaat is happening??? Is it because the game has to process the other two apartments at the same time? Or could something funky have happened in the lot conversion (started as community>residential>apt)? Or something? But my computer should totally be able to handle this aaa I don't understand why is this happening to me!

Ugh, I am up way past my bedtime and am totally fed up with this game tonight! 
(Wait, could it be this: You know that pop-up window that shows up when the camera wants to show you, like, the mailman arriving or something to zoom you to some other part of the lot? Well, it was showing up constantly, reappearing every time I closed it, so I disabled it in the game's camera options. But maybe the game is still trying to do whatever it was trying to do with the non-stop pop-up cameras??? AAAUUUGGGGHHHH. I NEED TO GO TO BED. WHY GAME WHY.)

So I guess this is happening now. Any thoughts? It's nothing in my DL folder; Mootilda thinks it could possibly be related to something in Program Files related to a lighting mod, maybe, but so far no luck with figuring that out. I'm at a loss, tired and mad that I've spent another evening trying to suss out another game issue. Maybe this will just be a thing now: photo booth silhouettes? Very hip. Grrrrrr.

For those who recolor clothing: I always find myself having to redraw shadows/highlights whenever I add a pattern to an outfit, (thereby covering up whatever shading was there before) assuming I don't have the original psd to play around with and have just exported the texture from Body Shop. I kind of like doing it; but is there a better way of doing this, or is this just what people do? I am wondering!

Stop downloading CC. I mean it! At least for a few days. Just stop. DO OTHER THINGS.

Concerned about you,
Me

While playtesting my vacation lots, I noticed that thanks to my anti-regen hacks, I'm only going to get one local per BV hood unless I add more myself. So I thought I'd see if anyone was interested in donating and/or suggesting the adoption of some vacation locals for Twikki-Tikki Island! 

Native Islanders are originally of Polynesian descent, but years of intermarriage with tourists and the irresistible lure of island living for expat sims from across the globe mean that locals come in every shape and color. I'm interested in men, women, children, teens, elders—everything (but probably not supernaturals). And don't worry if they're Maxis Match; I'll adjust as needed to fit my game's genetics while sticking as closely as possible to the original sim's look.

So if you have the perfect sim hiding in your LJ, or in your imagination, please let me know!

I finally got around to looking at the PSD template from threadandsandpaper's amazing frames project, but I feel like I'm just.not.getting it. for some reason...

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Having a little game issue... Read about it here.

Honestly, I don't understand how it is even still possible for me to go on these massive download sprees—haven't I already exhausted all the available resources over the course of my many, many, many previous sprees? How am I still finding all this stuff that I need to have?! 

Erm, I mean, no, I could stop any time... 

Does anyone know offhand what SimPE plug-ins you need to create things (and any other plug-ins you should have)? Just installed on the new computer and am having trouble remembering everything I need...

-crashing freezing blinking flashing drivers chipsets update restart-
Will the Sweet round never end?
Kill meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
____________
Update: Continued crashing has moved me from angry to sad. :-(

I just had a sim roll a Want for Una (-dead-) to go to university. Should I panic?????????

So Squinge's Watch Kids Enabled for All Houses mod was working perfectly for me up until I tried it today, and now I can't get the "Ask to watch kids" or whatever option to show up. Then, twice a random playable would show up at the house with the option to "Dismiss as nanny" (or something along those lines). Wha? I can't think of anything I've done that should have affected my hacks recently, but I'm too tired to sort through things now. Has anyone had anything like this happen in their game?

Also, I was at a playable business when two copies of townie Millie showed up. :/ Um, game, why you gotta be like that? Should I be worried? I ran Mootilda's Hoodchecker and nothing seemed to be borked..... Bleh, I'm about to take some Theraflu and call it an 8PM bedtime. 

On the cusp of Round 6, so many things I want to do for Ste-Margo and not enough time to do them! I'll be traveling to a non-Sims land for the holidays starting the end of this week, so I'm trying to get my play time in now so I can post things while I'm gone. But there are too many Things! I want to do and I'm having trouble focusing on any one thing. I've started playing Round 6 for the Batavus house, and Frida got a chance card that bumped her to mayor, so I started building a town hall/community center (with wedding chapel, because Milo and Marian want to get married soon). Then [Poll #1800853]

This picture?Is bumming me out.
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UPDATE:
Hey!Look at that!
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TS2/possibly many other exe files are either nonresponsive or running UNGODLY slow on my computer today. System restore is taking FOREVER, if that's even the solution. Pray for Mojo.

Update: Success!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm going to blame Adobe Updater somehow, because fuck, I hate that thing.

Has anyone had an issue like this with a CC hair in Body Shop?



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