Hi there! You are currently browsing as a guest. Why not create an account? Then you get less ads, can thank creators, post feedback, keep a list of your favourites, and more!
Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 27th Oct 2012 at 12:39 AM
Default [CC question] Ant Farm - how should I start making?
Hello I really want an ant farm. I want to make one for The Sims 3... I want to make it so the ants move around randomly (but look cool) in the farm.

I want to make this as my first upload here but I just need help starting out...

Picture of what I want it to look like...



Moderators/Admins.: could you please move this here?
Advertisement
Top Secret Researcher
#2 Old 27th Oct 2012 at 12:52 AM
You could clone the one from Pets as a base for the ants animations and such, see how EA's one is done.
Eminence Grise
#3 Old 27th Oct 2012 at 2:47 AM
Moved.

This seems like a really hard first project to do from scratch... and there IS already an ant farm in Pets... you sure? It's much easier to start with something similar to something that has already been done in the mod community, because then you have an example and you know where to go for help

To start with, you'll need to learn to mesh; tutorials are here http://www.modthesims.info/wiki.php...reation#Meshing . I'd start with Orangemittens's tutorial.

Then there's the issue of animating your ants, which is where it gets hard. I haven't looked at EA's closely enough to see whether those are actual meshed objects or just a particle effect. Assuming it's the former and they are really animated objects, I would say that cmomoney is the person most likely to have enough expertise to help you with this. If it's the latter, done by programming vertex shaders or something like that, I have no clue... can't think of anybody who's created new particle effects for TS3 (as opposed to displaying existing ones). But maybe the expertise is really out there and somebody here can help

If you really want the ants to be RANDOM, you probably need a script, which gets you into programming... tutorials here: http://www.modthesims.info/wiki.php...ing#Script_Mods .

Edit: there's another possibility: that it works basically like a TV, with an animated image playing. There are threads about how to mod TV channels and video games, so that's what you'd need to search for if that's the approach you want to take.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#4 Old 27th Oct 2012 at 3:05 AM
Thanks for the help - I did not think it would take so much work to do a tiny ant farm lol next time I wont underestimate it.
Eminence Grise
#5 Old 27th Oct 2012 at 3:20 AM
Quote: Originally posted by 30SecondsToMars
Thanks for the help - I did not think it would take so much work to do a tiny ant farm lol next time I wont underestimate it.


There are whole games devoted to simulating ant farms http://www.myabandonware.com/game/s...-ant-colony-197

Looking at EA's object, btw, it looks like it's a shader program, that is, similar to the beetles and butterflies.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#6 Old 27th Oct 2012 at 3:21 AM
I've played that before and it was surprisingly fun.
Back to top