Hollyhocks

 

Building a Lot in The Sims 4 takes a lot of time and effort and creating a stop motion video for it requires a lot of patience, concentration and skill.

I watch other creators' stop motion videos and everything seems seamless, perfect in fact.  I really admire their creativity and the use of the in-game video to switch between rooms, floors and different parts of the build.

"Hollyhocks" is my seventh stop motion video.  I took a lot of care and concentration in making it and thought that this is the one that has no mistakes.  How wrong I was!

Piecing together the pictures in the video was a doddle and placing the video transitions went really well until I got to the living room.  I really don't know what happened but the video transition that I took in that particular part of the build just didn't go for some reason.  I reversed the video as normal but one minute I was filming the wall and the next minute the other wall and then the scene changed to the floor where the rug appeared.  I thought perhaps that I had got the photos mixed up but nope, they were in order and so were the videos.  There's something not quite right here and I cannot for the life of me figure it out.

So anyway, I rectified the video a little with a fade through so it doesn't look too bad.  I'm just annoyed that I don't seem to get it right.  I took my time and made sure (or so I thought) that I had done everything correctly.  I cannot see how I went wrong.

But never mind.  If I keep at it then maybe one day I will be able to create the perfect stop motion video!

Hollyhocks is a 2 bedroom, one bathroom property with a living room/dining room, kitchen, hallway and landing.  A swimming pool adorns the back garden for family fun in the summertime together with a swing.  This property is perfect for a small growing family.

As I made this build before bunk beds came out, the childs room has a small single bed but of course this can be changed to a loft bed or bunk bed if two beds are needed.

You can download this lot from The Sims 4 Gallery - my ID is TotallySimlish.

I would love to know what you think of the build - and the video!

Happy Simming!

- Minicart

The Witch's House

 

When I first created Willow Mendip of The Glimmerbrook Witch, I placed her in the empty lot in Glimmerbrook so as to build her a nice cheap "starter" home.  I knew that as time went on, she would need something a lot better and bigger.  Being able to afford to purchase something a little more expensive was obviously down to Simoleons.  Even though Willow doesn't go to work, the money trees in her garden will surely bring her enough to afford a more lavish home in time.

With this in mind, I went ahead to create "The Witch's House".  I decided to build this on a larger lot in Glimmerbrook so that Willow would have more room for gardening and of course her famous indoor and outdoor parties.

This build took me longer than usual, some 4 weeks in fact. I also had a little trouble with it at times, due to the platform rooms in the house.  At one point, the landing at the top of the stairs seemed to sink down a little so I had to fix that.

When I play tested it, everything worked fine except that my "test Sim" couldn't enter the conservatory/greenhouse outside.  I found out after a fashion that the little patio outside the door needed to be lengthened for her to get up the steps.  After pulling that out with the tools available in build mode, all of the windows in the greenhouse vanished so I had to put those back in and then re-do all of the vines that I had creeping up and around the windows.

Having finished the build, I took a few photos and then went ahead to create a stop motion video.

This consisted of 849 photographs and around 145 videos and took around 3 hours to do.  It then took me a further 2 or so hours to piece everything together.  Yes, it does take a lot of work to do a stop motion video but I do believe it's worth it in the end.

However, when I came to piece everything together, I found that on a few videos (there were 160 altogether), I had inadvertently recorded myself taking items away for the camera shots and then turning off the video for the transition from one room to another.  So there were about 15 videos that I had to discard and this also meant that I had no video on some parts when turning in a room or going to another room.  I therefore had to fade these through from one image to another instead.

Unfortunately, even though the build turned out really nice, parts of the stop motion video have no video transitions.

Maybe this build is cursed but then I did build it for an evil witch...

If you would prefer to watch a two minute montage of the build, here it is:

You can download this lot from The Sims 4 Gallery - my ID is TotallySimlish.

- Minicart

Homely Bungalow

I really enjoyed creating my first stop motion video from my residential build "Country Cottage" so I went on to do "Woodland Lodge".  My latest creation is "Homely Bungalow" where I feel  the video has turned out a lot better.  However, I did make a few mistakes (again) but edited them out as best as I could.

Watching a few more tutorials on YouTube helped me to gain a better understanding of camera angles and video speeds and I tweaked a few settings, as was suggested.

With this build, I wanted to use more of the DEBUG items to make it a little more unique and built it without a Sim on the Lot.  This enabled me to have access to items only available when the Sims reach certain points in their careers.  I also used some "fabrication" items from the Eco Lifestyle expansion pack such as tables and chairs.

There is no custom content in this build so as long as you have the expansion/stuff/game packs that I have used, you're good to go!

Before uploading to The Sims 4 Gallery, I play tested the build.  After making a few tweaks, I was ready to share it.

I hope you and your Sims enjoy this little bungalow in your game just as much as I enjoyed creating it!

Here's a small snippet of my stop motion video:

Click here to watch the full video on my YouTube channel!

- Minicart

Country Cottage

I have been watching a few "stop motion" Sims 4 builds on YouTube and was really impressed with what I saw.  The stop motion style of building is a lot easier to watch than a speed build and extremely artistic.  I didn't realise however the amount of work that is put into them.

I started watching some tutorials, again on YouTube and after "umming" and "erring" for a few weeks, decided to give it a go myself.

With speed builds, you have to video the build as you build it.  However, with stop motion builds, you create the building first then you take it apart piece by piece and as you do so, you take a photo.  As you move from one part of the build to another, you record a video.  Then you piece everything together in your chosen video editor, pictures first (putting in the last picture you took first and ending up with the first last) and then add the videos to where they are supposed to go, remembering to reverse them.  Basically, you are working back to front.  So the last item you take from your build will become the first photo/item in your video, building as you go.

All of this sounds very confusing but once you get started and get your head around it all, it's quite easy but very time consuming.

It took me two weeks to build this little cottage, take the photos and videos and piece it all together to make a stop motion video.  You may or may not be pleased to know that I didn't use any custom content in this build, so that it is more "user friendly", so to speak.

I am very pleased with how the cottage turned out and I think my first go at making this type of video came out pretty good - for a beginner!  I did make a few mistakes on the way but I think I've learned from those.

I really enjoyed building this cottage, even though it took me a long time but I am pleased with the end result.  I will be doing more but of course, this may take a little while.

Here's a small snippet of my stop motion video:

Click here to watch the full video on my YouTube channel!

- Minicart