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Post by laura on Dec 24, 2009 13:33:53 GMT -5
Even when I know where I'm headed, it still takes me forever to Sim-out my scenes. Maybe because my computer is so old and slow. Game time simply runs very slowly for me. Load times between lots is another problem. Graphics card crashing, having to reload because the graphics are too icky to work with. And moving the camera in my game is like watching molasses drip! Getting caught up in actually playing the Sims is another problem, but you all don't need to tell me how to solve that one I guess I'm just wondering how long all of you spend on each update/story segment? I'm probably spending about an hour per scene, on average, with about three or four scenes per update/story segment. And this is besides the writing and polishing. Writing is sporadic and inspired usually, so that's hard to measure, but the polishing phase usually takes another hour or two. So that's something like five or six hours per update, I guess, for me. I am a perfectionist though, for sure. Even though this is just for fun, I can't stomach the idea of putting this piece of myself out there that isn't absolutely as perfect as it can be (in my mind, of course). I know I also often run into the problem of trying to recreate with the Sims a very precise image of what's in my head, and I don't give up trying very quickly - that could probably be eased up on a little. I'm definitely better with words than I am images, I think. I could probably do more suggestive pictures, and then fill in the gaps with writing, rather than spend an hour trying to get my Sims into some pose that could never work out. So then the second part of the question is, for the amount of time you spend on a story/chapter/update, how frequently do you pace their release? I've tried out all sorts of pacing for my own story. In the beginning, I didn't take it nearly as seriously, and I was posting something about every other day. But since I've started getting deeper into these stories, treating them almost as seriously as I would my "serious" fiction, just short of having them beta read and revised again, probably, I certainly can't keep up with every other day anymore. Even every third day started to feel overwhelming, and I think I've finally settled on every four days for the story posts. I guess I'm just wondering how other people do this faster? I see other bloggers posting 4/5 times a week, or Lord, even one or two entries every day! I'd love to know the secret if anyone is willing to share
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Post by thelunarfox on Dec 24, 2009 18:24:22 GMT -5
Uhm, wow! I always look at Lakeside Heights and think, "How in the world does she do it?" Absolutely stunning the amount of time you put into it. And it shows, but without showing.
Uh, personally, I don't have the patience. With Ruin, I basically play around, trying to get good shots that might suggest what's in my head, because I don't write with game capabilities in mind usually, I just write. The images are just an extra touch, so I don't have to match them to what I can see.
For a normal story segment, I probably spend about an hour, two at the very most on the pictures for the update. The pics for some segments require more time or finesse, and so I spent a few hours over the course of a few days getting the shots when I'm inspired. Like the Stand alone piece, Killer. That one took the longest amount of time I think.
Now I'm not counting the amount of time I spend decorating, or taking test shots, or dressing up the sims, but that's all part of play, and usually I'm watching TV while doing that stuff so it seems to take longer than it really does. I think that while I'm doing that, I end up thinking about how I'm going to do a scene, so when it comes time, I pretty much just hop in and shoot because I've thought about it in advance.
And I don't really do any photo editing because I am just not that talented. Has to be accomplished in game or I'm just out of luck.
I still take one week per entry for Ruin. Mostly, I'm fiddling with the text a lot. I end up re-reading the story a few times before posting the separate pieces, and I re-read the chapter throughout the week before I go to post.
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Post by laura on Dec 24, 2009 19:48:56 GMT -5
Ha, I obviously don't have the patience either, since it's driving me a little bit crazy! I do also break up my sessions over the course of a couple days. I really do need to spend less time on the pictures though. If you think about it, how long do you really look at each picture in comparison to how long you're reading the text? Maybe a second or two? Like for the next story post I have, I spent maybe twenty minutes photoshopping out that annoying line of light around the edge of the lot that happens at night when you have lighting mods installed. (I know, anal much? lol!) And after the fact, I'm like, dammit, nobody is even going to notice that I did that! And THEN, I spent maybe fifteen more minutes photoshopping Fiona from one picture to another, because I liked the way she was standing better in one, while I liked the way Robbie and Liza were standing in another - all because the way they were standing didn't match the very precise tone of what they were saying in the story. Seriously, would anyone even notice? (It did turn out pretty good though, for a mash-up, I have to say, lol! And it would have taken me much much longer to start up the game again to get a new picture...) Somebody, please tell me, how do I pull this stick out of my ass? LOL!
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Post by thelunarfox on Dec 24, 2009 22:27:45 GMT -5
Somebody, please tell me, how do I pull this stick out of my ass? LOL! Very carefully! I think you'll probably have to just draw a line of what you will and won't do. Like say photoshopping a character from one pic to another is fine, but photoshopping something like that stupid lighted line from the picture is just not worth it. (And if you think about it, most everyone deals with that little thing, so I don't think anyone would give a second thought if they saw it in one of your pictures.) Photoshop is doom, I think. That's why I won't go near it. I need to set up the picture in a way that I won't need photoshop, in game. Unless I'm needing to go for some effect (like the dream effect) or add text or something.
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Post by Stacy on Dec 25, 2009 0:00:19 GMT -5
Valley chapters used to take about five or six hours when I was doing two a week and not really editing the text after writing it. Let's see - for Light, the most recent update....the text was basically Dark from Lilith's POV so it didn't take too terribly long. Dark, though - getting that form and rhythm and the right words the first time around took hours and hours and hours. The pics took about nine hours - five Saturday and four Sunday. Of course I was also surfing around the net and talking on AIM while doing them so it wasn't like staring at GIMP that whole time, but still. I'm going to say that on average, since I started taking it more seriously and only doing one update a week, each update takes somewhere around 24 hours total work? Maybe? I don't know, I'm really bad at estimating time and distance and stuff like that. Sometimes I take a pic, alt tab out, edit it and upload it and put it in the draft and write the caption and then go back into the game and take the next pic. Sometimes I get the text first and then go into the game and take the pics to go with it. I've heard teenagers at sites like Scribblers Abode and the Hangout say that you shouldn't need to look at the pics in a Sims story. I think that sort of begs the question of why they're using the game as a medium in the first place, but anyway...for me the pics are as much of the story as the text and I need them to show exactly what is going on. I will put in as much effort and time as is needed to get that. And I blur the line between the edges of the house lot and the waterfall in all of my pics.
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Post by mdpthatsme on Dec 25, 2009 20:31:34 GMT -5
I would like to say it takes only a few hours to write, gather pictures, and compose it all together. That's just not probable. As many know...it took me...ohhhh, two months to update The Gang. I am so sorry! Most of the time I already have the idea or concept I want for my chapters when I'm taking pictures...so I just have to write and compose them later. After the game has been played (I also have a very sloooooow computer) and pictures taken, it usually takes about 30 minutes to an hour for me to write out a draft. Of course, this depends if I'm matching pictures to the text or matching text to the pictures. I do all my work on Word in this format: Chapter and title Picture number Text Until the end, then I copy and paste it into my site...match the picture numbers under browse then save and publish. This may be a two hour event, depending on how many pictures I have. Candy canes and holiday ham
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Post by laura on Dec 26, 2009 13:53:08 GMT -5
Lunar, I am hopelessly in love with Photoshop, lol! I don't really do much in the line of special effects, but I love it for retouching and manipulation stuff Stacy, I agree with you about if you don't need the pictures, then what's the point of using them? I think (in my story, at least), they compliment each other. Each holds value on its own, but then when you bring the two together, they create something special. I obviously could write these stories without the pictures (and I do sometimes, for traditional mediums), but the writing needs to be different. The methods are slightly different. The humor is certainly different. I've said this before somewhere, and I'll repeat it again here - I find a lot of similarities between Sim-storytelling and screen writing. (In fact, while I'm drafting out an update, I'll sometimes even notate it like a screenplay for the kind of picture I want to capture.) Using the images is certainly meaningful, and reading the story without the pictures would be something like reading an unmade screenplay. It would still be good, but missing half of the equation. mdp, lol, I would like to say that too
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Post by girlyesterday on Dec 27, 2009 0:24:18 GMT -5
I'm not writing anything at the moment (nothing that's been released anyway) but when I was writing IHS, it would take 2 hours for the simming parts. The writing bits I would normally do whenever I got chance and it was always done first anyway so that wasn't too much of an issue. When I got to the actual simming parts, it was just a matter of following the script so to speak.
I found that having everything done way ahead of time and scheduled for release made things a lot easier. Generally, I would do the once a week releases but be at least three chapters ahead of what was being released that week (less pressure). As a reader, I also like stories that update once a week, makes it easier to keep up with.
When I was doing TS2 stories, I was releasing them three times a week and after a while, I arrived at burn out city so I've learned to pace them longer with TS3 and be ahead of the story (writing and simming).
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Post by laura on Dec 27, 2009 9:48:01 GMT -5
Carnaxa, lol, burnout city! That's about the kiss of doom for a Sim-story, isn't it?
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Post by Stacy on Dec 27, 2009 23:27:58 GMT -5
I have spent at least 20 minutes picking up a glass bowl and putting it down on the counter while working on this update. And jumping up and down and saying "It has to sound like fire and death and the sound of the bowl hitting the counter top and it has to start with s, gaaaahhhhhh!" At the end of that, I think I just might go with my original adjective. Although I did find out that Seth would most probably put it down cautiously enough for there to be two hits on the counter and not just one.
And now I am sitting at my computer 15 minutes later and still thinking about it and if the current word is really the right word or not.
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Post by blackcat on Jan 5, 2010 19:51:18 GMT -5
This is kind of timely for me, because I've got limited time to even play the game and now I've added blogging to that... so I've been trying to figure out the best way to minimise the time it takes, and still make a blog I'm... well... at least not ashamed of One conclusion I've come to, is that I can't afford to be a perfectionist with pictures. My major (non-sim ) hobby is photography so I take notice of things like composition, but last night I spent a half-hour or more on one photo, and I decided this will never work in everyday terms for keeping a reasonable posting schedule on this blog-to-be of mine (and having a life away from it). I also realised that I can't spend a lot of time on posing things that don't occur in gameplay, although I imagine I will do a bit of that (I already have in the past, for my own enjoyment, just to see if I could make it look like whatever happened - with my pictures, I've been kind of 'pre-blogging' for some time ). I also don't want to play with the graphics up high much because the game speed is unbearable and I'm scared of burning out my poor laptop (my last laptop died of overheat and I seriously think my sims habit was at least partially responsible!). So the majority of my shots will be of what occurs 'naturally' in-game - I pause the game, turn off the plumbob, turn up the graphics settings, crop out most of the other stuff (except relevant speech bubbles) and use a screen capture program rather than the in-game camera, but I rarely touch up the pictures after that. And sometimes I forget to turn off the plumbob or leave in a bit of the other stuff or use low graphics settings, and I've decided that these pictures will make it to the blog occasionally too, if I like them and they capture what I want, rather than spending time trying to repeat the shot. And I'll try to keep the quality as best I can overall, while balancing it with a reasonable posting pace. Actually I forgot to turn the plumbob off on one of my favorite recent shots - it was of the city at night, and the platinum plumbob was sitting nicely on the front of a lit-up building - I decided that to anyone who doesn't know the sims, its a neon sign
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Post by mdpthatsme on Jan 5, 2010 23:37:40 GMT -5
blackcat: (lovely screen name by-the-way) I take more than 100...some times 500 pictures in one shooting for a chapter or a couple of chapters, depending on flashback situations. Maybe 3 pictures out of those are perfect to the requirements of professional photography. I'm not ashamed at all as long as these pictures satisfy readers. So far, it seems so. corn, peas, and mac-n-cheese
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Post by laura on Jan 6, 2010 20:26:54 GMT -5
Blackcat, most of my shots are natural gameplay shots too, or slight variations of gameplay interactions (using the move objects cheat or whatever). But yes, recreating shots is the worst! It takes forever, and you can never quite get it the way you had it the first time. I've spent many an hour in that rut before, lol! I always play with my graphics up, just because it takes so long to switch them back and forth, but I do play on lot size small generally, only opening it up to large when I'm ready to take a picture... or leaving it on small and making sure there are no windows in the shot I'm kind of a photography hobbyist in RL too mdp, wow, 500 is a lot! I thought I was the only one taking crazy amounts of pictures for a single update Do you use most of those that you take? I can take 100-200 pictures for a full-sized update, but I only end up using like 20-30 of those. I figure it's better to have too many that I'll end up deleting than to not have the right one and have to open up the game again!
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somuchsong
Full Member
...certainement disaster
Posts: 197
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Post by somuchsong on Jan 6, 2010 23:05:37 GMT -5
I figure it's better to have too many that I'll end up deleting than to not have the right one and have to open up the game again! So true! This is why I never close the game until I have all my pictures in order and know for sure that I won't need any more. That usually means the game is open for the entire time that I'm writing the entry, because I rarely know for sure until I'm close to done!
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Post by sb on Jan 7, 2010 5:54:41 GMT -5
It can take us a week or even longer to sim an update. Frequently the pose we thought would work does NOT work, and working in community lots is slow and painful. The shots are usually edited in Photoshop, too, even if it's just to remove an offending detail (a tree coming out of someone's head; clipping, etc.).
Laura's comment about screen writing pretty much describes our process, too. We include notes on posing, animation, etc., for each paragraph in our draft.
And I love the visual part of the medium as much as the text.
I'm in awe of people who can post on a schedule. We just can't. We post about once a month, sometimes more frequently, but it's never on a schedule.
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Post by mdpthatsme on Jan 7, 2010 20:48:05 GMT -5
laura: I do not use most of them...maybe 10%. I usually take shots from just about every angle possible each time I pause...then continue through with the same process. Why? I don't like to show two pictures back-to-back from the same angle...however I have once done that and didn't catch it. Oh well, I'll survive. Photoshop is great, but I like for people to some times point out funny things like her hand is through his torso. Makes great fun and shows that nothing's perfect. football and carrot cake
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Post by luke2009 on Jan 8, 2010 19:08:32 GMT -5
The weird thing is that i very rarely have specific scene/chapter plans in my head when i go to shoot them in game. I have a general idea of where i want the story to go but only sometimes do i have very rigid lines that i want to hit with the Sims.
The only chapter of Adam/Eve that took me ages was the final chapter - but that's because i knew exactly where i wanted it to go and how i wanted it to look and it took me a while to get the images perfect. I also had to build an entirely seperate alternate reality version of a flooded Sunset Valley for that chapter in World Creator and that took a good couple of days.
The Blue Period, however, is completely different because it's sort of like a legacy so i just let the Sims go and capture what happens.
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starrsim Apple Valley
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Post by starrsim Apple Valley on Jan 8, 2010 22:32:42 GMT -5
My updates typically take a few days to complete. I play my game for leisure and try to hold true to that-even shutting down my sims 2 story site, Pahala Shore, a while back (to avoid a trip to burnout city). With Apple Valley, I play each family a few days and see what happens or continue their previous story arch. I then take those photos and make an entry...almost. Some photos in an entry happen during another families play session, but shed light on that particular family. The amount of photos in the blog entry doesn't always correlate to the amount of time I spent playing. For some entries, I spend an entire 3 simdays playing a family and only use maybe 5 photos from that time, another entry may have 30 photos from only about 2 simhours of play time. Since gameplay mostly guides my writing, I don't worry too much about scenes. When I was writing Pahala Shore, the scenes did take longer. I would film an entire story arch that spanned over several episodes in one sitting using the same characters, so I could get the photos done. I don't photoshop at all, I used to photoshop my TS1 stories/TV shows a bit, but I do no photoshopping now. My posting schedule is every 5 days for Apple Valley. If I can get a mini-update in-great, if not-oh, well. For Apple Valley's 2005, the spring season has a ton of updates. It fit to tell pieces of stories instead of leaving a huge gap bewteen the story-especially when it comes to Julio and Rebecca's premature baby. I post date my blogs if I foresee RL stepping in the way. For instance, January is done and in the hopper because I have grad school apps due soon. Does that stop me from playing? Uh, no I have to admit, I have more flexibility since my blog is a sim-to-sim hood, so I can publish little items like council reports in bewteen larger updates and not have to put a photo to go with the report. I like to write, but I didn't want my sims storytelling to become my "serious" writing. The blog helps me know more about their characters and desires and makes the game richer for me. I was the same way playing with Barbies, I had files for each doll :\ Because the blog is a fun thing, I don't have beta readers-unless I'm testing out a new concept or gameplay idea-and I don't stress too much about the photos.
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