Apartment windows
#1 20-05-2011 
Hello Leefish, and thank you again for allowing me this platform to voice a proposal for a new request(s). "Apartment windows" is sort of what I am calling this request thread title, but really they can be windows for any home, or any building that is.


I have been looking for a sidelight window for the Apartment Life apartment door. (Well technically I am not sure if it is actually classified as a "sidelight" window, but for right now I'll call it that.) I searched and downloaded many sidelight windows from various sites hoping to find one that would go well with that door, yet I have yet to find a suitable match. They are all either too tall for the door and extend above the relatively short apartment door, or they are too long and extend all the way to the bottom of the door. I do have a picture of what I had in mind as the perfect sidelight window for that door. I''ll link to the photos at the end of this post.

The picture of the window in the link below is what I had in mind for being a good apartment side window, as it is shorter than most other, if not all sidelight windows I have downloaded. It allows one to look out and see if someone is there, yet it allows a little more privacy since it does not go down the length of the door. Really I just haven't been able to find a little window like that, that suits the length of the apartment door.

The second window I had in mind is something that I haven't been able to find much of. It's a sliding window. Sliding windows along with your standard double hung windows are very common where I live. Yet I haven't had any luck in finding sliding windows for my game. Specifically I am looking for a sliding window that sits directly above a counter and that is one tile in length. So it would end up being the perfect kitchen sink window. I have a picture of this as reference to what I'm talking about as well. (It's also in the linked site at the end of this post.)

Sliding windows, or at least a window that looks like it had two panes of glass and that theoretically, in a real world could slide from left to right, are very few indeed found on the places I have looked for. I haven't actually found a single sliding window. Most searches for that only turn up the sliding door found in the game. To me I see this window as being a set that goes together with the above sidelight window, and the Maxis "Breeze Easy Double Hung window". Mostly because they all work well together, and specifically the sliding windows and double hung windows are commonly found together as windows in the homes and apartments that I've been to. I really use the Breeze Easy double hung window a lot in my game, not only because I model homes and apartments as to what I see around me, but also ever since I found the wonderful Animated Window Hack by the retired Atavera on MTS2. http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=215766 It's wonderful to actually have windows that can open! So a window like the sliding windows which give the *impression* of sliding open is something that I would really appreciate having in my game.

Okay and while I'm writing this long post, the last thing I wanted to ask, which I am 99% sure would be impossible to do, is this: Would it be possible to have the Apartment door mirrored? I know you have mirrored desks before (which are wonderful to have, thank you!Heart) but would it be possible to have that door mirrored so when you build an apartment lot and you have an apartment that is across the hall from you, you can have the same layout as the other apartment just everything is reversed. Which I have built an apartment and done this and the one thing that always keeps me from having a flawless execution of this is that door which opens on the wrong side for all the apartments on the other half of the building. I'm thinking that this is really impossible to do because of how that door can't be cloned. I know you created the Milk Bottle Apartment Door Model Changer to get around this very rule, so that you can have variety when it comes to apartment doors. Though I guess it wouldn't help when it came to being able to have the actual apartment door being reversed though? Please do correct me if I'm wrong.

Okay well those are my three propositions for ideas of requests. If any of them interest you, and you have any free time and are interested in trying them out, I'd be delighted! If not, please know that I completely understand! I'm just glad I get to ask your opinion on this anyway! Also, I wanted to apologize for having thrown out three ideas all at once, I just thought I would since I view these three things as related to each other, and thought if any of them are doable, or interest you, you can pick which one you like the most. I would be grateful if any one of these became a sim reality! Heart

Thank you again for taking the time to read this!

Photos for Reference

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#2 20-05-2011 
Hi PumpkinSpice,

Lets have a look, one at once:

Sidelight window:
Totally doable, very easy too. Will do that.

Sliding Windows:
I will have a look at the code again - in theory possible. It's a maybe.

Apartment Door:
The door is not really doable as changing the axis on the apartment door would mean changing the door itself. So then the problem would be reversed. Its something I REALLY hate about that door. It's as near to hardcoded as you can get - it would need somebody like BO to look at the Apartment Controller and mod that so that instead of looking for the door's current GUID it looked for the ORIGINAL GUID. The apartment controller is a rather big chunk of code though. Of course, if it was looking at original guid then suddenly many doors would be possible, though those doors could only be apartment doors. It would also smash my bottle.
The site don't jive? PRESS F5 Flower

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#3 20-05-2011 
Thank you so much Leefish for such a quick response! I am so excited that you have taken an interest in my requests and provided me with what is doable and with what is not. As well as have wanted to maybe even try out in making them! Really you are awesome in just responding back and in providing a website like this where you are willing to share your talent, time and energy with others!! Thank you! No problem at all with the apartment door, I figured that was unlikely to be able to get changed, so no worries on that one! I just thought if there was anyone to ask it would be you, so I'm glad I did and at least I have an answer to that! Oh and I am thrilled that you will look into the sliding window! I understand that may be very difficult to do or maybe impossible to do. I know that it would obviously not be able to slide open, but if it looked like a regular sliding window then that is all I ever wanted in my game when it came to windows! Really there are literally no windows that even "look" like sliding windows, anywhere! They are all either double hung windows, or casement windows, fixed windows, etc. None that even give the impression of looking like a sliding window!

So really I am very grateful and happy for your interest in this, thank you so much again. You have such a lovely site here where you can help people IMPROVE their game SO much! I forgot to tell you I love your doors centered on two tiles, I use those extensively in my game now, since they help in preventing clipping of the sides of doors.

One thing I'd like to ask if it's not too much trouble, would it be possible if the sidelight window and if you do attempt later to try to make the sliding window, could they be slaved to the Maxis Breeze Easy Double Hung window? I know nothing of how slaving is done, so if that takes too much time, then is their anyway they could be colored to match the white color from that window? Please don't worry about it at all if this is too much trouble!

Thank you again! Oh and I forgot to add earlier thanks for liking my name! Immediately after registering I thought, Oh no I should have created a name that had to do with sea life, since you are a fish and the website's "mascot" is a fish and "PumpkinSpice" has nothing to do with being fish or sea related! BlushSmile
PumpkinSpice, proud to be a member of Leefish since May 2011.

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#4 20-05-2011 
PHEW! For a moment there, I was afraid someone might try and request that I mod the Apartment Controller. I would have hated to disappoint people, but I'd be forced to do so anyway...

But fortunately, that storm blew over and is no longer a threat to our collective sanity Smile

PumpkinSpice, I like your name too... And maybe you didn't notice yet, but my name has nothing to do with Fish either, so you're in good company (if you allow me to say so myself) Smile

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#5 20-05-2011 
(20-05-2011 11:30 PM)BoilingOil Wrote:  PHEW! For a moment there, I was afraid someone might try and request that I mod the Apartment Controller. I would have hated to disappoint people, but I'd be forced to do so anyway...

But fortunately, that storm blew over and is no longer a threat to our collective sanity Smile

Yea, that is one horribly messy pile of code - you can see it was a bit of a bodge job (IMO) - I mean, release a game called Apartment Life and you have to use a cheat code to build the Apartments?

Of course, its always been possible to make a replacement door with limited functionality - no neighbours, no walkbys, no landlord parties. If you wanted to just have a 4 family lot then yes you could do that. Its dodgy though.
The site don't jive? PRESS F5 Flower

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#6 21-05-2011 
Indeed, where messy code was concerned, one could truly depend on the Maxoids to provide it. I've just been looking at a single BHAV that deals with browsing/shopping (in response to another request): 200 lines of horror, jumping back and forth... Absolutely horrifying!

I'm thinking, though, that there might still be a way (albeit not an easy one) to handle a mirrored Apartment Door: If you made a complete clone with its own unique GUID and a mirrrored mesh, it might be possible to expand the Apartment Controller to check for both GUIDs in turn. However, any other BHAVs out there (including mods) that need to deal with Apartment Doors, would suddenly no longer be compatible... And then there's still the problem that some checks are made using LUA scripts, which I know nothing about!

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#7 21-05-2011 
Yes, the idea came from the way that Inge hacked into the sectional sofas - she made the code look for the original GUID instead of the actual GUID. This made custom sectionals possible. But that was just a sofa. This is the guts of the Apartment Life code.
The site don't jive? PRESS F5 Flower

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#8 21-05-2011 
Indeed! And if we start ripping at the guts, all the crap spills out, and we have a filthy corpse and lots of gore on our hands!

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#9 21-05-2011 
Hahaha! I love reading your back and forth banter on this! No worries BoilingOil, or Leefish on this one though! I just thought perhaps I'd ask since I myself had built an apartment and realized that the other half of the apartment building who has the same exact layout only reversed, could never get their entrance to open in the right direction as the other half of the apartment building! Yet really I'm a perfectionist when it comes to little things like this that bug the heck out of me! lol! Though I do not want any corpses nor guts to be slain to get it! Nor people losing their sanity over it! Thanks for your input again BoilingOil and Leefish, and your descriptive discussion over it!
PumpkinSpice, proud to be a member of Leefish since May 2011.

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#10 21-05-2011 
Will you believe, PumpkinSpice, that I have exactly the same feelings about special doors (such as Dorm doors, Apartment doors, etc) and several other objects not being available in a mirrored version? Because I, too, have made apartment buildings where one half of the apartments had their doors open the wrong way, because there's no way to turn them around and still have them work properly. It often just ticks me off, how the Maxoids never thought of those things. Very disturbing!

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