The ultimate tutorial…

This whole process began with a visit to the Isle of Thyme, which is an amazing creation by Jade. I was at first awestruck, then overwhelmed, then totally inspired to create a custom neighborhood of my own. Since the Harringtons, and the concept of Harrington Heights, has been with me since I first got the Sims 2, I knew this had to be it.   So, on with my journey! 

 Where does one begin with an undertaking like this?

The Isle of Thyme tutorial, of course.

It is the ultimate tutorial for creating your own Sims 2 neighborhood. I’ve been plodding my way through the process, bit by fabulous bit, and I’m having a great time. So far I have a new custom-made neighborhood (linkage later), a list of must-have hacks and mods (most of which are installed in my freshly cleaned out download folder), and the beginnings of a list of commercial lots.

Creating a Custom Neighborhood…more tutorials!

Jordi’s MATY tutorial: Clean Custom Neighborhoods

The Journey continues…with tutorials!

I’m discovering there are not so many tutorials for creating my own custom neighborhoods as I might like.  Here’s what I’ve got so far:

EA Sims site article:  The most basic info.

Articles at TSR:
Cerulean Talon:  Make your own Neighborhood (for now) and Updating Neighborhood Screenshot (for later).  These tutrials have lots of pictures and are very easy to follow.

Wolfsim:

Articles at MTS2 (thank you for the links Jade!):
Creating Custom Neighborhoods by travellersside:  Very helpful tutorial, and a great place to start.

Patul’s Quick Guide to Creating Neighborhoods: Way more technical than travellers, but still useful.

More Neighborhood Tricks by Patul:  Again, Patul is quite technical, but if you can follow along this is a good tutorial on how to use a real life map to create a sims 2 neighborhood.

It had to happen sooner or later.

No, my computer did not crash, although I’m sure that’s coming soon.  I went and bought Sim City 4 for the sole purpose of making custom neighborhoods for the Sims (The game actually looks pretty good, though — I may even attempt playing it!).  The Enchanted Neighborhood is lovely, but still altogether too big for Harrington Heights.  So, I’m off on another Sim-related hobby — figuring out how to create my own terrains.

Ahhhh, A New Sim Blog

I’m so excited for this.  I’ve always wanted to created an entire sim town from scratch with a blank template, but nothing seemed right…til now!  I hate the Maxis neighborhood layouts…so spacy, so boring.  Recently, I was inspired by this lovely lady’s sim world to have another go at it. I’ve also discovered Gunman’s Camera Mod, which allows one to *gasp* see the entire neighborhood.  The town is, of course, Harrington Heights, a concept I came up with AGES ago, as you can see from my EA Games sim page.