Wrongway: 5.3 - Behind the Scenes!
May. 27th, 2014 09:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beanstalk_simsI've got some stuff from the last chapter that I want to babble about, so I figured I could do another behind-the-scenes!
This is spoilery if you haven't read the chapter!
So before I could do this update, I had to rebuild my staging 'hood and all my sets. But rather than shooting on random lots in a fairly empty 'hood, I built myself a new Belladonna Cove. A lot of the buildings aren't the same/didn't make it across, but seeing as this is the 'hood that will be seen in updates, I don't think there will be any continuity issues.
The staging 'hood was mostly used to make Belladonna look like the thriving city I've made it out to be in my shots. So I went on a downloading rampage of city-themed lots and neighbourhood deco.
I also build the promenades.
This is the "downtown" area. People living in Belladonna would live on the outskirts in suburbia. This is the bustling city centre, where the tourists run around. Some of the lots were taken from downtown, others are the rougher looking apartment buildings, two lots were taken from original Belladonna, and I built one set - the one with the plumbbob floating above it.
The tall building is stolen from Downtown, and is actually Hans Trap Door Corp or whatever. In my mind, it's the hotel, though I've not actually shot any hotel scenes it in.
The bottom floor was revamped slightly for the scene in the coffee shop with Lee and Maddie:
Essentially, I just took out the clothing racks and mirrored the seating area on one side to the other. It's a maxis set up, but I liked it, and it's got that coffee-shop kind of vibe to it.
Initially I wanted to shoot the family dinner scenes here, but ended up converting a residential lot around for that.
The building behind Maddie in this scene was actually where the family dinner was shot. It made it super easy to shoot the aftermath of Leda's exit, because half of it was on the same lot. I cut corners where I can :P
Speaking of Leda, it's been very interesting to write her.
She's the shyest of her siblings, but not by much, but I put the fact she didn't really make friends as a kid down to that - she seemed to follow Lance around too much, whereas Lance has always had a soft spot for Gold.
It's been a lot of fun exploring insecurities and loneliness with Leda. Everyone's had those feelings, so it's nice to be able to use them, even within the heirs/spares setting. Plus, I used some of my own experiences for Leda's problems with purpose and existence - one of the issues I had during my depression was the reason for my existence. It's been fun to put something I've grown from into this, though Leda's is possibly more extreme than anything I experienced.
As for trains...
I devised a map on how my little sim nation works. There are things I would prefer to move around, but the fact I placed Mirage "an hour's drive from Sim City" got in the way of it. Plus, I completely abandoned the map when I was working on Maddie's tour of the Megahood. I don't think the order I did the 'hoods in made much sense in regards to this set up. I should probably also mention that in this case, Sim City refers to Downtown.
The white lines represent roads, the black lines represent trains, though I no longer consider there to be a train line between Mirage and Sim City. I should also mention this map has no real scale to it - the distances change around to suit the story.
Anyway, in order for Lance & Leda to get to Belladonna, they would have had to drive to Sim City, and catch the train to Belladonna. Possibly with a change in Pleasantview, I don't know. Overall, it would probably take a couple of hours. I picture the drive from Strangetown to Belladonna to be a lot shorter, but still 40mins/an hour.
...just in case you wanted to know how the imaginary train system works :P
The umbrella scene <3
By far my favourite thing to shoot and write in this chapter, as it establishes just how similar Maddie and Tank are, and how they can both find comfort in that. It was a nice and pleasant little moment among all of the angst at the minute.
Also, I know full well that if that was a real promenade, that umbrella would be no good. I live on the east coast of England, and have had many umbrellas destroyed by wind.
I also worried that the promenade scenes were too plain, but I didn't really have a way of making the sea - or the sky - more interesting to look at. What I did like, however, was the fact I'd accidentally dressed them both in green. Maddie's favourite colour was established as green when she was a child (I like to colour-code my sims), and I put Tank in green as it's a military colour.
I'm very happy with how this scene turned out, overall, and it was the first time I'd messed around with props and romantic interactions.
And I chose a yellow umbrella because of the tv show "How I Met Your Mother".
The only outtake I have of Ralph and Ariel is of Ralph looking at Ariel's boobs. Which annoying, because the rather serious expression on his face was what I wanted, if only he'd been looking the right way!
Also, with Ariel, I attempted to give her a reason for being a family villain that wasn't blindly following Ralph. Re-reading my old stuff, I feel like Ariel just goes along with Ralph, and I don't want that anymore. Plus, Hex and the others did interfere with Ariel and Ralph's family, and what demands revenge more than that?
I imagine Ralph, however, to have matured and realised what he's doing during his time in banishment. So it's going to be interesting to see how these two unfold over the next chapter or two.
Hex and Lavender's argument.
My main reason for having this is because Lavender and Hex seemed to have a rather flat relationship to some degree - there's love and affection, sure, but what couple hasn't disagreed on something? And particularly as Lavender is a mother and Hex isn't really a father, they'd both have different ideals on how to raise and care for the kids - Maddie, Lance and Leda.
I can't go to the depth I'd like with these relationships, but I wanted to make Hex and Lavender out to be something that's far from perfect. It was all too happily-ever-after for me, I guess.
Funnily enough, I loved shooting the scene because I got to mess around with background characters:
The extras are heavily madeover sim bin sims, because canonically speaking, these guys shouldn't be out and clubbing. Trent Traveller, the guy in this pic, actually has an adult daughter who went to school with Maddie in the story.
The girls are Priya Ramaswami and Jessica Picaso. Again, Jess is one I have to be sort of careful with, because her husband, Matthew Picaso, is the father of generation four second cousin Ribbon McCarthy, who by this point in the story is approaching elderhood.
I really need to get some more extras.
The woman walking down the street was Trisha Traveller, Trent's wife and therefore Tina's mother. Tina Traveller is actually romantically involved with Maddie's second cousin Toby Thompson, so these two Travellers are technically his in-laws. More reasons why they shouldn't be out clubbing!
And the smoker was Nathan Gavigan. I haven't used the Gavigans yet, and I have vague plans to use them during generation seven's plot, so I don't really want them standing out at this point.
That's all I've got for this time! Hopefully you found it interesting or something :)
This is spoilery if you haven't read the chapter!
So before I could do this update, I had to rebuild my staging 'hood and all my sets. But rather than shooting on random lots in a fairly empty 'hood, I built myself a new Belladonna Cove. A lot of the buildings aren't the same/didn't make it across, but seeing as this is the 'hood that will be seen in updates, I don't think there will be any continuity issues.
The staging 'hood was mostly used to make Belladonna look like the thriving city I've made it out to be in my shots. So I went on a downloading rampage of city-themed lots and neighbourhood deco.
I also build the promenades.
This is the "downtown" area. People living in Belladonna would live on the outskirts in suburbia. This is the bustling city centre, where the tourists run around. Some of the lots were taken from downtown, others are the rougher looking apartment buildings, two lots were taken from original Belladonna, and I built one set - the one with the plumbbob floating above it.
The tall building is stolen from Downtown, and is actually Hans Trap Door Corp or whatever. In my mind, it's the hotel, though I've not actually shot any hotel scenes it in.
The bottom floor was revamped slightly for the scene in the coffee shop with Lee and Maddie:
Essentially, I just took out the clothing racks and mirrored the seating area on one side to the other. It's a maxis set up, but I liked it, and it's got that coffee-shop kind of vibe to it.
Initially I wanted to shoot the family dinner scenes here, but ended up converting a residential lot around for that.
The building behind Maddie in this scene was actually where the family dinner was shot. It made it super easy to shoot the aftermath of Leda's exit, because half of it was on the same lot. I cut corners where I can :P
Speaking of Leda, it's been very interesting to write her.
She's the shyest of her siblings, but not by much, but I put the fact she didn't really make friends as a kid down to that - she seemed to follow Lance around too much, whereas Lance has always had a soft spot for Gold.
It's been a lot of fun exploring insecurities and loneliness with Leda. Everyone's had those feelings, so it's nice to be able to use them, even within the heirs/spares setting. Plus, I used some of my own experiences for Leda's problems with purpose and existence - one of the issues I had during my depression was the reason for my existence. It's been fun to put something I've grown from into this, though Leda's is possibly more extreme than anything I experienced.
As for trains...
I devised a map on how my little sim nation works. There are things I would prefer to move around, but the fact I placed Mirage "an hour's drive from Sim City" got in the way of it. Plus, I completely abandoned the map when I was working on Maddie's tour of the Megahood. I don't think the order I did the 'hoods in made much sense in regards to this set up. I should probably also mention that in this case, Sim City refers to Downtown.
The white lines represent roads, the black lines represent trains, though I no longer consider there to be a train line between Mirage and Sim City. I should also mention this map has no real scale to it - the distances change around to suit the story.
Anyway, in order for Lance & Leda to get to Belladonna, they would have had to drive to Sim City, and catch the train to Belladonna. Possibly with a change in Pleasantview, I don't know. Overall, it would probably take a couple of hours. I picture the drive from Strangetown to Belladonna to be a lot shorter, but still 40mins/an hour.
...just in case you wanted to know how the imaginary train system works :P
The umbrella scene <3
By far my favourite thing to shoot and write in this chapter, as it establishes just how similar Maddie and Tank are, and how they can both find comfort in that. It was a nice and pleasant little moment among all of the angst at the minute.
Also, I know full well that if that was a real promenade, that umbrella would be no good. I live on the east coast of England, and have had many umbrellas destroyed by wind.
I also worried that the promenade scenes were too plain, but I didn't really have a way of making the sea - or the sky - more interesting to look at. What I did like, however, was the fact I'd accidentally dressed them both in green. Maddie's favourite colour was established as green when she was a child (I like to colour-code my sims), and I put Tank in green as it's a military colour.
I'm very happy with how this scene turned out, overall, and it was the first time I'd messed around with props and romantic interactions.
And I chose a yellow umbrella because of the tv show "How I Met Your Mother".
The only outtake I have of Ralph and Ariel is of Ralph looking at Ariel's boobs. Which annoying, because the rather serious expression on his face was what I wanted, if only he'd been looking the right way!
Also, with Ariel, I attempted to give her a reason for being a family villain that wasn't blindly following Ralph. Re-reading my old stuff, I feel like Ariel just goes along with Ralph, and I don't want that anymore. Plus, Hex and the others did interfere with Ariel and Ralph's family, and what demands revenge more than that?
I imagine Ralph, however, to have matured and realised what he's doing during his time in banishment. So it's going to be interesting to see how these two unfold over the next chapter or two.
Hex and Lavender's argument.
My main reason for having this is because Lavender and Hex seemed to have a rather flat relationship to some degree - there's love and affection, sure, but what couple hasn't disagreed on something? And particularly as Lavender is a mother and Hex isn't really a father, they'd both have different ideals on how to raise and care for the kids - Maddie, Lance and Leda.
I can't go to the depth I'd like with these relationships, but I wanted to make Hex and Lavender out to be something that's far from perfect. It was all too happily-ever-after for me, I guess.
Funnily enough, I loved shooting the scene because I got to mess around with background characters:
The extras are heavily madeover sim bin sims, because canonically speaking, these guys shouldn't be out and clubbing. Trent Traveller, the guy in this pic, actually has an adult daughter who went to school with Maddie in the story.
The girls are Priya Ramaswami and Jessica Picaso. Again, Jess is one I have to be sort of careful with, because her husband, Matthew Picaso, is the father of generation four second cousin Ribbon McCarthy, who by this point in the story is approaching elderhood.
I really need to get some more extras.
The woman walking down the street was Trisha Traveller, Trent's wife and therefore Tina's mother. Tina Traveller is actually romantically involved with Maddie's second cousin Toby Thompson, so these two Travellers are technically his in-laws. More reasons why they shouldn't be out clubbing!
And the smoker was Nathan Gavigan. I haven't used the Gavigans yet, and I have vague plans to use them during generation seven's plot, so I don't really want them standing out at this point.
That's all I've got for this time! Hopefully you found it interesting or something :)
