BUILD-N-SHARE--Valentine's Arts & Crafts!

Sim Připojen: 01/06/09 20:45 Zprávy: 3059 Off-line

Welcome to the Build-n-Share Weekly Challenge!

The Build-n-Share challenges will be posted Wednesday of each week and run through the following Wednesday. Results will be posted approximately one week after all entries have been submitted in the Winner's Circle thread.

The benefits:

Each entry into the competition will receive an automatic rec (recommendation) and download on their entry lot.

First place will be awarded at all levels. If there are at least eight entries in a category, up to four places will also be announced. In each category, first place will receive 3 recs, second place will receive 2 recs, third place will receive 2 recs, and fourth place will receive one rec. Winners may request recs on a particular build/s by providing links to the related lots once results are posted.

Weekly challenges also create an opportunity for community on the forum site. We get to know one another’s names, share news, builds, and positive words. This is a chance to get your name out there, and hopefully make a few friends along the way.

What makes this challenge different from all the other ones I've seen?
We have been hosting this weekly challenge since the first week the game was released. We have many levels of builders in our community and welcome them all. This group is truly a product of all its great members!

Within the first few challenges, our group was recognized by the gurus that be, who have helped the weekly challenges gain even more popularity be stickying both Build-n-Share threads. Since then, we have had at least one featured creation almost every week, and our list of featured members continues to grow.

With 3 successful collaborative neighborhoods (Gnomelandia, Summer of Love, and NYC) just about completed, Build-n-Share hopes to bring more creative challenges and new neighborhood ideas to the community with the help of our dedicated participants who willingly contribute and help each week to make sure each challenge runs smoothly.

The rules
:
All entries must be original work. Any competitor who submits another builder’s work will be disqualified and banned from any future Build-n-Share challenge. These competitors will also be removed from the Builders' Boulevard related websites if they have chosen to join (membership to the site and the Yahoo! group are not required to enter a Build-n-Share challenge).

Please announce your official lot posting using the entry form below. Make sure to leave the "Official Entry" label big. If you need to reformat it, you can do this by highlighting the desired text and then selecting "Big" in the font box above. This will help us see the entries in a sea of posts with no pics to guide us.

Entries must be submitted by the deadline, 7 p.m. Wednesday evening (eastern time, USA).

A description of the three major level categories:

Beginner--I have a little experience, but I'm still figuring a lot of things out. I would not call myself an official "builder" at this point.

Intermediate--I have been building for awhile. I know the basics and maybe a little more. I enjoy building, but it is not my primary focus with the game.

Advanced--I know the Sims, and the Sims knows me. My name is familiar to a lot of veteran players, and I've competed in and won some building challenges and maybe even been recognized in a community showcase or two. I know most of the cheats AND I know how to use them.

Official Build-n-Share Animated Siggy
Want to represent Build-n-Share in your signature? Here is our official signature. Just copy and paste [*img]http://i854.photobucket.com/albums/ab105/anjubee/bns_fad

e.gif?t=1251688153[/img] into the signature section under "preferences" and delete the *.

Sim Připojen: 01/06/09 20:45 Zprávy: 3059 Off-line

This Week’s Challenge Specifics:
Valentine's Arts & Crafts

Challenge deadline: February 10, 2010

Let's take a journey back in time. A journey back to when things were simple, when our daily schedule included lunch time, recess, nap time, and snack time.

Let's go way back...to elementary school.

I miss the days when back to school meant shopping for scissors, crayons, and glue. I miss the days when I spent hours covering shoe boxes with colored tissue paper an construction paper hearts.

Therefore, I declare this week

Arts & Crafts Week

at Build-n-Share!

For this week's assignment, your job is to create the prettiest darn Valentine's day "mailbox" you can create.

For those unfamiliar with this tradition, here's an example of a classic mailbox using the popular kids' show Dora the Explorer.

http://www.nickjr.com/crafts/shoe-box-valentine-mailbox.jhtml

Some tips to consider:

1. Use a combination of regular walls and half walls to create a variety of levels, bands, and other decorative effects.
2. Consider alternative building materials like fences, windows, flowers, and more.

Side challenge:

Create valentines for your fellow Build-n-Share members using screenshots of your favorite sim couple, rose garden, etc. Share these on the photo thread, at Builders' Boulevard, or through a story on the site here.

Sim Připojen: 01/06/09 20:45 Zprávy: 3059 Off-line

Please include the following info in your post:

Official Entry

Name:

Link to the posted asset:

Link to media (required):

Optional Challenges entered?:

Experience level:

Lot Name:

Lot address, size, and final cost:

Details and Rational:

Credit to any simmers for custom content you used:

To make it more searchable, we would highly appreciate it if you include Build-n-Share in the description of the lot.

Sim Připojen: 01/06/09 20:45 Zprávy: 3059 Off-line

Screenshots: Tips and Tricks

Since judging will now be based on screenshots, we figured this would be a good time to go over some tips and tricks in taking good screenshots to help showcase your lovely builds.

1) Camera Man Mode - This is a must in taking good shots! You will have to be in live mode to do this, but just hit "TAB" to enter this mode. Once you are in this mode, you can use the mouse to freely control the angles and use "W, A, S, D" buttons to move forward, backwards, and side to side. "Z" zooms in, "X" zooms out. "Q" moves up and "E" moves down. "C" to capture the shot.

2) Find the perfect angle - With photography, it is all about finding the right angle. Spend some time in camera man mode to find the perfect angle. Get down to a sim's point of view to take the best shots of rooms.

3) Walls up - Most people play with walls cut away, but when you are taking pictures of your lot, try to keep your walls up to make your shots look more realistic.

4) No grids - Unless you need to show the grid for a specific purpose, make sure no build/buy grid is visible when you take your pictures. You can avoid this by taking pictures in live mode or by hitting the terrain paint button in build mode.

Ok, those are the basics! If you want to further your simatography skills, we highly recommend you visit http://simatography.webs.com for more tips and tricks and to see some excellent shots taken by professional simatographers!

Please try to keep this thread as photo free as possible and either create a story, a slide show, a separate thread, or use the stickied photo thread to post shots of your lots!

Sim Připojen: 01/06/09 20:45 Zprávy: 3059 Off-line

Judges and Keepers of the Thread

Your official judges are Robodl95, LKadas, and KitKat7145.

Freynas is the official organizational guru collecting entrants' names, levels, links, and results!

Judges will post their results in the winner's circle thread: http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/47204.page

Look for results typically a week after the deadline.

Big thanks to our judges and helpers!

Sim Připojen: 10/06/09 02:56 Zprávy: 190 Off-line

I've never heard of shoebox mailboxes for Valentine's before but... sounds interesting!

Sim Připojen: 01/06/09 20:45 Zprávy: 3059 Off-line

Thanks, Tamlyn. Let me know if you're not sure what to do. I thought I could find more (and better...) pics.

Sim Připojen: 07/06/09 02:46 Zprávy: 556 Off-line

Sim Připojen: 07/06/09 02:46 Zprávy: 556 Off-line

Results

Beginner

1st: arasd3313
2nd: Tristarin
3rd: Khonsu

Intermediate

Advanced

Sim Připojen: 01/06/09 20:45 Zprávy: 3059 Off-line

Ever-so-slight nudge...

Sim Připojen: 02/09/09 18:30 Zprávy: 1049 Off-line

Um,... I'm scared?

I always had the ugliest valentine's mailbox in the class. I think it was because all the other kids took all the good stuff to decorate. And I'm not really sure how to make a mailbox-like house. I will think about it. Really don't know if I'll have time for this week's challenge. Last one took me forever, and I didn't even have to build it! lol.

Sim Připojen: 03/06/09 02:42 Zprávy: 119 Off-line

Wow, that's different, I think I like it. So aggravated with myself for doing the entire last challenge and forgetting to submit it, got busy, lol. Thinking about this week's now

Sim Připojen: 10/06/09 16:31 Zprávy: 49 Off-line

Launcher is being buggy, can't figure out how to get all the gridlines out of my pictures. Do you think it would make a diffrence to have a sim "visit" and then try taking pictures of the lot? I didn't furnish my lot much, I wasn't sure if this was actually suppose to be a "liveable" house or not. If we need to I can go back and do it. I made it so that it could be used as a community lot or residence.

Sim Připojen: 03/06/09 06:31 Zprávy: 15 Off-line

have to ask, half walls?

just been thru the updates, bleh, slow, booted up, also slow, and can't find them in the build menus. Have base + WA.

Is it just a box shape, decorated, no rooms/furniture etc?

does it have to be rectangular?

that's it for now

tia,
M.

Sim Připojen: 10/06/09 16:31 Zprávy: 49 Off-line

So I have made two stories today.. both seem to be lost in the void of cyberspace after hitting save. I am suppose to be finishing a paper for composition. I don't know if I should just post the pics to the stick thread or wait until tomorrow and try making a story one last time.