Modding Diary - Sharing Pregnancy News With Kids

Hi guy! hope you all are doing well! I got some exciting stuff to show you this week! ☺️

Some Exciting News:

First of all I got some exciting news! I am working with an animator for this next update😃! He is a professional 3D animator and who has worked on shows like LEO, T.O.T.S, Supernatural academy and Young Jedi Adventure. And today you will be seeing the animation he worked on for the childbirth mod this week!

As you know, I’ve been handling everything myself since day one, animation, modeling, scripting, and tuning, and honestly, I love every part of modding. But as my mods grow larger and more complex, it’s becoming harder to manage everything on my own. I’m constantly racing deadlines, which means I rarely get to polish things the way I’d like because I have to rush to the next task.

Animation in particular, is incredibly time consuming, it’s not unusual for me to spend one to two weeks on a single animation. The biggest reason I decided to bring an animator on board is so I can free up time to experiment with new features and ideas. For example, this past week I spent days figuring out how to make toddlers sleep on big beds. It was challenging and time consuming, but also rewarding when I got it working. That kind of deep experimentation is something I can’t always afford when I’m buried in everything else.

I’m not stepping away from animation entirely, I still plan to create some myself. But having an animator’s help means I can focus more on scripting, tuning, and experimenting with new features, while also finishing updates faster and at a higher quality.😉

Now on to the usual stuff:

In the next update pregnant sims will now be able to share pregnancy news with kids! 😃here is what the animation looks like, I have not added the in game IK yet so you will see some clipping for now:

The pregnant sim will talk to the child with holding their belly

The child will look intrigued and slightly confused

the pregnant sim will put their hand behind their back to grab the ultrasound photo

and shows it to the child

now there will be two different reactions: either the child will be excited and happy or they will be mad.

if the child is happy they will jump in joy and celebrate to express their excitement

if the child is unhappy they will stump their feet and be grumpy😂, which I will be able to show you next week

This week I continued to look into the co sleeping interaction, and Im happy to report I got it working 😎Granted it took me a whole week and I was running into all kinds of bugs but its like 90% working now as a proof of concept:

earlier this week I got the toddler to sit on the bed successfully, I audibly gasped when I saw this lol

then today I finally got them to go to sleep on the bed!!!

and their parent can sleep on the other side.

I still need to make the animation but omg Im so happy to be able to figure this out. The bed can only fit two sims right now, I tried looking to see if it can fit three but I think I was getting ahead of myself XD Maybe one day I will find a way. Theoretically I should also be able to make infants do the same thing but I will have to look into it next week to be sure. 👶

BTW, if anyone is having issues with the pregnancy loss update where their still birth baby is growing up and showing up on their lot please send me a dm or leave a comment! im trying to investigate this issue before the update goes public.

I hope you all have a fantastic week!