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Well, I want to make Sims objects. I've been desultorily, off and on, poking at two sets: a California spring flowering native shrubs arboretum set (made with the "joinable" sculptures as a base -- things that were hacked by Lost Sims to make art galleries for her Sims) and a Whistler Peacock Room set.
All the Sims graphics have certain characteristics. One is a wseird isometric perspective at a strange angle -- I keep forgetting, angles of skew are just weird. And another is that they are not true 3d (I'm talking about SIms 1 here, not Sims 2). So basically, each object consists of four drawings (per tile), each with its own alpha channel and z buffer -- the alpha channel is a white silhouette on a black background which determines the opacity of the pictured object, and the z buffer is a greyscale on white picture which tells the game how to stack images, the darkest grey going on top and the lightest going on the bottom, if you have a lot of images overlapping. And then there's a chunk of programming associated with the object that tells the game how the object will function and interact with other things in the game. Traditionally, newcomers to making these little picture things have problems getting the angles right, getting the a buffer right so there's no yellow glow around the object, getting the z buffer right so that objects don't bleed through each other, and getting the placement of the object right in the tile so things don't seem to float in air, or things that are supposed to touch don't miss each other, and so forth.
With my arboretum set I've been having issues with placement and with a buffers. I keep getting yellow lines around my objects, and they keep ending up over to the side of the tile I want them in. I know theoretically what the problem is but it's frustrating trying to get it fixed.
With the peacock room set I haven't gotten that far, because I'm working on reproducing the images correctly first. I have tried, in the past, drawing an object, scanning it in, and messing with it. I have also tried freehand drawing with the mouse. The thing that works best for me is to use the photograph as a pallette to paint from. I use the clone brush to lift color, shapes, and line, and place them into the picture I'm making. I truly hate cruddy looking Sims objects: blurry, clunky, wrongly skewed things. Photographs lifted whole and plopped into the game. So I'm taking my time to get these right.
One thing I have discovered is that even if you can find the angles for skewing, you can't just skew a whole fireplace. I'm not talkiong about the fact that the object has to be sawn in half, front and back, because it's a two-tile object. I mean I can't take the picture of the fireplace, even if it's qujite good and lifelike, and skew it to get the right pictures for the game. If you do that you end up with a flat crooked photograph instead of a convincing object. I thought I might be able to do it by skewing the andirons separately, but what I found was that I had to skew each part of the andiron separately (it's in the shape of a sunflower with two ranks of leaves). What I actually did was use a round wall light as reference for what hbappens to convex disks when they're viewed that way, and I drew the sunflower head from scratch. I got my template for making the legs from a floor-standing candelabra. Using that as the lowest layer, I traced the parts of it I wanted on a new layer. For the leaves I first skewed a picture and then, playing with them at great length, used them again as a the template for my own drawing, Then I stuck the things cautiously together, saving many of the little images I made along the way just in case. I finally ended up with a decent andiron and placed it over the basic image of the fireplace, which I made aboiut a year ago. Playing with the placement, I think I got them where they were supposed to be.
And now I am so sleepy I don't even know if I'm making sense.
And today I bought a small small heart-shaped pan and two small small bundt or maybe baba pans. Guess what? I'm going to bake. Little cakes, so we don't either lose the leftovers like we did my squash pie or eat too much. I'm not sure what kind. I have all this almond meal, and walnut meal, and coarse ground hazelnuts, and of course it's Meyer lemon season.
All the Sims graphics have certain characteristics. One is a wseird isometric perspective at a strange angle -- I keep forgetting, angles of skew are just weird. And another is that they are not true 3d (I'm talking about SIms 1 here, not Sims 2). So basically, each object consists of four drawings (per tile), each with its own alpha channel and z buffer -- the alpha channel is a white silhouette on a black background which determines the opacity of the pictured object, and the z buffer is a greyscale on white picture which tells the game how to stack images, the darkest grey going on top and the lightest going on the bottom, if you have a lot of images overlapping. And then there's a chunk of programming associated with the object that tells the game how the object will function and interact with other things in the game. Traditionally, newcomers to making these little picture things have problems getting the angles right, getting the a buffer right so there's no yellow glow around the object, getting the z buffer right so that objects don't bleed through each other, and getting the placement of the object right in the tile so things don't seem to float in air, or things that are supposed to touch don't miss each other, and so forth.
With my arboretum set I've been having issues with placement and with a buffers. I keep getting yellow lines around my objects, and they keep ending up over to the side of the tile I want them in. I know theoretically what the problem is but it's frustrating trying to get it fixed.
With the peacock room set I haven't gotten that far, because I'm working on reproducing the images correctly first. I have tried, in the past, drawing an object, scanning it in, and messing with it. I have also tried freehand drawing with the mouse. The thing that works best for me is to use the photograph as a pallette to paint from. I use the clone brush to lift color, shapes, and line, and place them into the picture I'm making. I truly hate cruddy looking Sims objects: blurry, clunky, wrongly skewed things. Photographs lifted whole and plopped into the game. So I'm taking my time to get these right.
One thing I have discovered is that even if you can find the angles for skewing, you can't just skew a whole fireplace. I'm not talkiong about the fact that the object has to be sawn in half, front and back, because it's a two-tile object. I mean I can't take the picture of the fireplace, even if it's qujite good and lifelike, and skew it to get the right pictures for the game. If you do that you end up with a flat crooked photograph instead of a convincing object. I thought I might be able to do it by skewing the andirons separately, but what I found was that I had to skew each part of the andiron separately (it's in the shape of a sunflower with two ranks of leaves). What I actually did was use a round wall light as reference for what hbappens to convex disks when they're viewed that way, and I drew the sunflower head from scratch. I got my template for making the legs from a floor-standing candelabra. Using that as the lowest layer, I traced the parts of it I wanted on a new layer. For the leaves I first skewed a picture and then, playing with them at great length, used them again as a the template for my own drawing, Then I stuck the things cautiously together, saving many of the little images I made along the way just in case. I finally ended up with a decent andiron and placed it over the basic image of the fireplace, which I made aboiut a year ago. Playing with the placement, I think I got them where they were supposed to be.
And now I am so sleepy I don't even know if I'm making sense.
And today I bought a small small heart-shaped pan and two small small bundt or maybe baba pans. Guess what? I'm going to bake. Little cakes, so we don't either lose the leftovers like we did my squash pie or eat too much. I'm not sure what kind. I have all this almond meal, and walnut meal, and coarse ground hazelnuts, and of course it's Meyer lemon season.
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(The version I made was also sugarless -- I got it off a low-carb site -- but that's optional.)
no subject
I have made cakes. The first one I made twoo much batter and had to cook it in the old five-pointed star pan and there was too much and the last fifth went stale. Then today I made a little almond cake in the miniature bundt pan and guessed wrong in the other direction so I made a tiny amount of chocolate batter to put in at the bottom. It has been iced with cream cheese and it is cute.
Flourless Hungarian hazelnut cake
Hungarian Flourless Hazelnut Cake
12 ounces roasted hazelnut
2 teaspoons baking powder
6 each egg yolk
5/8 cup sugar or Splenda
6 each egg white
1 pint heavy cream
1/8 cup hazelnut, chopped
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour a 9-inch springform pan. Grind hazelnuts until very fine. Add baking powder and set aside.
2. In a large bowl, whip the egg yolks with the Splenda until pale yellow in collor. Beat in the ground hazelnut mixture.
3. In a separate clean bowl, with a clean whisk, whip the egg whites until stiff. Quickly fold 1/3 of the egg whites into the yolk mixture, then add the remaining whites and fold in until no streaks remain.
4. Pour into a 9-inch springform pan. Bake in preheated oven for 60 to 75 minutes, or until top of cake springs back when lightly tapped. Cool on wire rack.
5. When cake is cool, slice horizontally into 3 layers. Whip the cream until stiff, and spread generously between layers, on top and on the sides of the cake. Sprinkle chopped hazelnuts on top for decoration.
Re: Flourless Hungarian hazelnut cake