Most striking new thing I noticed in today's video... was the icicle lights that go up on the houses in the footage of the "gift giving party". Kinda wonder if these are automatic :O They follow the rooflines exactly, and they're on every house (but different colors!), which makes it seem unlikely that they're all hand placed.



Kinda cool if they show up automatically, but then you wonder... is it just on festival day? or if there's a gift party? or all winter long? or what, exactly?

Edit: I see somebody already mentioned this in the mega-thread... discussion starting with post 2407: http://www.modthesims.info/showthre...217#post3987217

And the answer to my question: "Holiday lights are placed by clicking on your home’s front door. Homes around the neighborhood will decorate with them as well! "

They do look pretty.

So I guess we place them whenever we want...?

Sounds that way! We place em on our house (and can presumably choose our own color), and at the same time they automatically go up all over town. Colors of those must be random?

Wonder if they're even on pagoda roofs

My reaction to seeing this:


Although learning that they're automatically set by an option from selecting the door leaves me with some mixed feelings. It's great that they can be switched on and off that easily, of course. That leads me to hope that they will have a Town Hall setting where you can do the same universally (all homes). One question remains whether you can have them up outside of winter, though. I know that sounds weird, but imagine it's Christmas time IRL and you feel like having your Sims' homes decorated that way even though it may not be winter in the game at the point you are playing.

On to my concern, though. This obviously allows for less customization. I had a lot of fun with The Sims 2 once we got the ability to move objects up and down walls (is that in The Sims 3? I recall hearing it was, but I'm not sure) Like this:



What I mean by this is that if the lights are just 'objects' that only show up by the option on the door, that means they aren't available as a separate object to use like I did in TS2 above.

It's always something a modder could do... Just bring TS2 object into The Sims 3, but I'm yet to see that happen, and I would have thought somebody would have done it by now if it were going to happen.

I could be wrong and there are separate light objects available like in The Sims 2. There are some resembling that in the house for the gift giving celebration, however, they seem more like party lights than Christmas lights.

Also, the one question Graham could not answer for me - Will there be different styles for the houses' lights? I'm a bit concerned about this. It wouldn't break the game for me, of course, but I just don't understand why, if they had more light styles to show that they didn't have the surrounding houses using at least one of them.

Please understand, no matter how 'negative' I might come off here, I am still ecstatic.

Hmm...something to think about Bassoon_crazy. Well there will be more discussion about the winter features soon, they didn't want to talk about it when the trailer came out. :/

I was just in my game building some new homes for my worlds and I worried about my builds without a roof, just the friezes or platforms on top. Then there's the lots with the slanted roof going backwards, there is no roof line in the front. I think I might have to edit those lots from Edit Town. Sigh.

I think these look awesome, and it is one of the things that make Seasons look interesting for me. I too hope there are some indoor versions that can be placed where you want, all year round. I'd like my poor starving artist sims to have a grungy apartment lit only by Christmas lights.

My understanding of that quote above is that doing it on your home automatically does it on all homes. Don't know if there's an option for "my home only" too.



From what I understand, yes, you can turn it on any time. Nice for a fairy neighborhood for instance, maybe



Yup, added with LN. Doesn't apply to every object you think it might apply to, but it's just a matter of flag settings, an easy mod to do.



Just to clarify, bringing a TS2 object into TS3 (conversion) is possible but not trivial... involves a lot of manual adjustment, and you pretty much have to have the skillset to make TS3 object mods from scratch, which limits the pool of people who can do it. There have been plenty of TS2 -> TS3 conversions, but people only do what interests them, so I wouldn't read doo much into any particular object not having been converted.

I think someone did convert those lights to TS3 because I could swear I had them in my game at some point. No idea now where I got them, and I took them out a long time ago when patching or something - I'll have to see if I can find them again!

And LOVE the lights in these screenshots. I hope they are as awesome as they look!

that's cool as hell

Zooming in at a reasonable size, the screenshot seems to show the house on the left and the middle ones have icicle styled lights, but the house on the right, the ones that are magenta looks like bulbs. Is that wishful thinking, having different styles, or just my eyes playing tricks on me?

It's just your eyes playing tricks on you. We see the houses before they zoom out, and it's the same style of lights:



On another note, anybody notice that the bush behind the snowman looks like it's lit up? It might just be something strange with the graphics of the bush, but it really looks like its lit up somehow.

Aww man! I was really hoping, guess I can get that out my head. Thanks for the close up image.

Yep, I did notice the bush was lit up, that gives a bit of comfort for diversity from the rest of the neighborhood. Man, every time I look at the picture I am amazed at how the scenery and snow make EA crappy houses look great. I almost want to play them. LMAO

Going to look at the video again.

This was already done, but the files are no longer available. I'm not sure if the creator will make the files available again.
http://mysims3blog.blogspot.com/201...rlands-for.html

Thanks, but yeah... I really doubt that. I registered and the member had their account deleted, so there isn't even any way to contact them.

Oh I really prefer this way of adding Xmas lights, compared to what we had in TS2. I never bothered with Xmas decorations n TS2 because it was such a PITA to spend all that time adding decorations and lights for just a few days, and then having to remove them all again when it was over. So being able to add some lights with just a click of the mouse is much better.

They look so cute too!

maybe it's a flame fruit bush covered in snow?

Yes, I know. But there's no telling where she'll pop up again, if she does at all.

In the meantime...

Plants are supposed to go dormant in winter... I think there's a garden light shining on the snowman, but hard to tell.

BTW I really like the new fence, in that screens and a lot of other places in the vid

About the TS3 garlands by Joyfulgirl, you might want to keep an eye out here - you never know, she might upload them there soon. Or, maybe you could send her a message there about them.

She's uploaded the lights here
http://joyfulgirl-sims-stuff.dreamwidth.org/

I think that TS3 Seasons will be one of the best expansion packs in the Sims history!!!!!!

Thanks for the link! Those Moravian Star Lanterns are pretty cool, too (having worked at the Moravian Book Shop in Bethlehem PA, AKA The Town Where Christmas Is The Shizzle, I spent many hours putting the damn things together)

I find it hilariously ironic how these popped up right when I was concerned with them missing.

Might not be so ironic. She does have an account here (not under the same name) so might have read this thread.