#Calcinidae Bay

[rockethorse]

I made a railway station that the neighbourhood deco trains can pass through and I'm so chuffed with myself TEEHEE

#The Sims 2 #Calcinidae Bay #both directions work and look good it feels like I understand why people like model trains so much

[rockethorse]

Alright, let's meet Calcinidae Bay!

Calcinidae Bay is a(n unpopulated) work-in-progress CC-free Sims 2 neighbourhood where all the buildings are made from shell challenges.

I'm planning on posting more about Calcinidae Bay and its lots, so I wanted to make an intro post to start the tag! Feel free to mute the tag "Calcinidae Bay" if you're not interested.

Shell challenges are quite popular in the Sims 4, but they're possible to do in any Sims game and the principles are largely the same; one player puts down a bunch of walls, then other Simmers have to turn those walls into something without altering that "shell". Rules may vary depending on the creator and between game versions, but here are the general rules I'm playing by:

Walls that are already placed cannot be deleted, moved, or swapped with fences/half-walls.

New exterior walls cannot be connected to the the shell; they must be separated by at least one tile. This includes vertically (e.g. additional storeys, basements, dormers). New interior walls may be placed freely, but any preexisting interior walls must be preserved.

Fences and half-walls are allowed to be added/connected anywhere.

Foundation can be added freely but any existing foundation must be preserved (though it can be replaced with any of the 3 basegame foundation types).

There are some lots in Calcinidae Bay that don't follow these exact rules (such as my Foundations For Families houses) but do follow other building-restriction challenges, but the majority of lots are based on Sims 4 shell challenges converted to the Sims 2.

Let's take a look under the hood!

Calcinidae Bay is split into five sections, and has two roads leading in/out of town. Its terrain is Compass River by Leekeaux on MTS.

The blue/cyan area is the civic centre, where the entertainment, business, and government buildings are. There are some residential lots here, but mostly community. The road out leads to/from the future Downtown subhood.

The yellow section is the suburban area where most Sims live. It has a lot of housing, some smaller shops, and community lots like a library and public primary/secondary schools. The road out leads to/from the future Shopping District subhood.

The red/pink area is the rougher side of town. Since there are no roads out, there's less incidental traffic, so the real estate is less valuable and thus tends to be cheaper. This is where the remote offices, factories/warehouses, and affordable housing is/are.

The purple area is where the rich snobs live and gather. Houses here will be larger, older, and more expensive, and the few community lots will be more exclusive. (Note that "expensive" does not always mean "tasteful".)

Lastly, the green area in the corner is military ground. Eventually, it will have barracks, offices, and research facilities.

And if you were wondering, "why Calcinidae?" Well, Calcinidae is a family of hermit crabs - creatures that take shells left by others and repurpose them for their own use. :) The hermit crab and its shell are the coat of arms for Calcinidae Bay (and would be on its flag were I using custom content).

Most of the shells I use for Calcinidae Bay are remade from Sims 4 challenges, but I would love for Sims 2 players to donate shells too! Feel free to send me a Sims2Pack of a packaged shell OR simply draw the floorplan out on a grid and I'll remake it myself. You can also include other rules/suggestions about what the lot should be, what objects must be used, etc.

Lastly, I can't promise how useful all the lots in Calcinidae Bay would be for other players, especially since shell challenges can result in some unintuitive floorplans, but if you would like any of them, simply ask and I will do my best to share them. :)

#The Sims 2 #Calcinidae Bay

[rockethorse]

Calcinidae Bay Lot Tour: the Public Schools

Let's take a closer look at a few of Calcinidae Bay's community lots - its public schooling! This screenshot is actually three lots, with two lots overlapped using the Lot Adjuster. On the left is the high school, on the right is the primary school, and between them is a shared gymnasium and a semi-public oval (sports field).

More pics & CC-free decorating ideas below!

As always, these lots are based on shell challenges. The high school and primary school are actually shells that were made for me by @hugelunatic as stocking stuffers back in 2022 (I didn't forget about them!) The shell from the gym/oval lot is actually the smaller canteen building, with the gymnasium being auxiliary (because it had to be such a specific size/shape), and that shell is a 4T2 adaptation of LilSimsie's "Yeehaw" Shell Challenge that I grabbed off the gallery.

Starting with the high school:

If you peeked at the original shell, you'll see there was a two-storey 1x1 "column "room" in the middle of the lot, which made me think of a bell/clock tower and inspired me to use these shells for schools. Normally when I adapt a TS4 shell challenge to TS2 I choose the placement & orientation on the lot, but because these lots were made natively in TS2 I decided to keep the lot size & distribution as they were. This gave me a lot of additional space around the main building that was perfect for adding extra amenities like a library.

The ground floor of the high school has an administration area, lockers, mixed bathroom, sick bay, staff room, and two general-use classrooms that can each fit six students.

The teacher's lounge/staff room, and a small display/awards case. I needed something to do with that little triangular pocket, and now it's one of my favourite features. :)

Upstairs is two specialised classrooms - a moderate science lab and an arts room. I would have liked at least a home ec classroom as well, but I guess that'll be reserved for the eventual private school.

The canteen (cafeteria) is a separate demountable building with outdoor seating, some of it under a shade cloth. The library is also a separate building with a small computer bay and a group study area.

Moving on to the primary school, a much older and smaller building with some minor remodeling so the two schools look cohesive:

The inspiration for my gameplay/lots is a mish-mash of different cultural influences, but I play my schools like the standard Australian system; kids start in reception (about age 5) and attend primary school all the way through to year 6 or 7, then go to high school from year 6/7 through to year 12. Separate middle schools are much less common, and this matches with how the game itself handles kid vs. teen education.

I design my lots kind of "representationally", to get the best balance between realism and playability. While I enjoy including some details that don't provide actual gameplay, I don't want to build enormous, cumbersome lots just to achieve a 1:1 scale when my Sims will never actually need that much space. Plus, most shell challenges tend to be smaller, which I like. Hence why this school has only two classrooms, one for junior primary and a more structured classroom for upper primary.

There is a small admin area downstairs. Upstairs is the sick bay and a modest teacher's lounge/staff room.

The primary school doesn't have its own library, but it does have a small separate building that we in Australia would call OSHC - Out of School Hours Care. It's a service parents can book to drop their children off before school starts, or arrange for them to attend after school finishes until they can pick them up. They provide snacks and some edu-tainment activities. Lots of kids also attend OSHC over school holidays.

The primary school canteen/cafeteria is also a separate building. Both school canteens use the University cafeteria stove, so with the right mod students will be able to grab food there. In addition to an outdoor eating area and a small playground, there is a little produce patch between the two buildings where students are taught about horticulture.

And finally, the lot that joins the two schools, the shared gymnasium and Calcinidae Oval.

The canteen/cafeteria itself would generally not be open during school hours. Instead, the school and/or local council would operate it for profit or hire it out to a third party when the oval was being used for local sports teams and other events on weekends, holidays, and after school hours. Right now it's set up for just such a soccer match.

The inside of the "tuckshop". There is a bathroom on the bottom floor accessible from the outside of the building, while the top floor has two changing rooms for students or local teams.

The gymnasium also serves as an assembly hall for students of both schools. I think the teachers would either have a collapsible stage at the far end of the court, or just stand up in the commentator's booth to give the announcements. Underneath the commentator's booth is the equipment storage shed where many a teen couple has probably sneaked off to make out.

The back view of the tuckshop and the carpark shows how this lot overlaps with the primary school. The existing primary school is blocked from Sims walking through it by a combination of real fences and this hidden CC-free invisible fence.

And that's it for this tour! I'm pretty happy with how these lots look, how I utilised the shells, and how they all fit together in the neighbourhood. I want to have more lots overlapping and slotting together like this to give Calcinidae Bay a more seamless, open feel, like the hood really is connected.

I'll finish this post with some floorplans - if you read all this you're a champ, I hope it gave you some ideas for your own game, and I'd love to know what you think!

#the sims 2 #maxis match #sims 2 maxis match #ts2 #Calcinidae Bay #very long post under the cut lol

[rockethorse]

Mid-Century Burst | CC-Free

A tricky little shell challenge that you can get some use out of too! Tried to dig into some 70s inspo for the exterior on this one. This is 2 bed, 1 bath, fully-furnished and CC-free. Because of the limited size of the main shell, I added a detached garage with an apartment on top, which adds +1 studio bedroom and +1 bathroom.

The TS4 shell challenge I used for this lot was called "BubbleShell3" on the gallery from the ID "bubblesisgaming". I'm also playing around with using random palette generators for room inspo, this time from ColorHunt. It's been fun and I recommend using it to get out of your comfort zone!

Download Mid-Century Burst @ SFS

#ts2 #sims 2 cc free #sims 2 lot #sims 2 maxis match #Calcinidae Bay #the shell turned out to be exactly 10x10 tiles which is so frustrating (but in a good way) #bc you FEEL like you should be able to fit it on a 1x1 lot with the lot adjuster. But you can't. It cannae happen #so you're forced to add a FULL 10 tiles on both sides of the lot. but it made me play around with that extra space more than I would've #and I like the garage & granny flat and shed and outdoor areas I added! #kicking my feet and writing 'shell challenges' in a big heart in my diary with glitter pen #also the randomly-generated colour palette thing is sooo interesting and challenging with a CC-free game #because at every stage there's a point where you're like 'there just isn't any way I'm gonna find swatches that match this' #and then you inevitably find ONE thing that pulls it all together and it's sooo satisfying and it ends up looking so different from my usua

[rockethorse]

Potter's Paradise | CC-Free

Hello hello, another little CC-free shell challenge house for download. This is 1 bedroom (with a studio that could easily be turned into a second bedroom), 1.5 bathroom, fully-furnished and oh-so cheery!

There's a small fishpond out the front Sims can technically fish out of (though I recommend just feeding them) and a little BBQ area & produce garden around the back. The TS4 shell adapted for this lot is the "Yeehaw" Shell Challenge by lilsimsie.

Download "Potter's Paradise" @ SFS

#ts2 #sims 2 cc free #sims 2 maxis match #sims 2 lot #Calcinidae Bay

[rockethorse]

Calcinidae Bay Lot Tour: Marine Discovery Centre

I finally got around to picking the terrains I wanted to use for Calcinidae Bay's subhoods, so the Bay now officially has a(n as-of-yet unnamed) Downtown! Yay! Let's take a look through the only currently-finished lot there, the Marine Discovery Centre and Aquarium.

First I wanna shout out @dirtfauna for suggesting I build an aquarium and getting me thinking about this in the first place! As I was putting on the finishing touches I was also inspired by seeing @lolabythebaysims's gorgeous lot influenced by the Belle Isle Aquarium.

Before I get into the lot, I need to show the original Sims 4 shell for reference. It's "what the.. shell?" uploaded to the Gallery by simbellaz, and as you'll see, it was both perfect for and wildly impractical as the basis for an aquarium.

I don't normally go for shell challenges that have so many internal walls, but all those little 1-tile-wide hallways were practically SCREAMING to be made into fish tanks! The external "walls" you see added to my TS2 shell are all either actually half-walls, fences, or just windows placed with moveobjects, all of which are allowed within a standard shell challenge. It may seem like a cop-out, but it's more limiting/challenging than you'd think.

But enough preamble. Let's take a look inside!

The entrance is also a small gift shop. It seems like every aquarium I've ever been to has also sold jewellery. Don't ask me about my tiny penguin earrings.

I really wanted a "fish tank tunnel" vibe, and the effect was... almost perfect, lol. Close enough for a shell challenge IMO. I so so badly wanted to break my CC-free rule to place some fish shaders, but I'm glad I stuck to my guns because I think the solution I came up with looks goofy but effective. (Plus you wouldn't see them in build/buy anyway.)

Ooohhhh jellyfish tank ooohhhhhh they're so lifelike and graceful

I have my fun.

That little "airlock" room is a fun pirate-y undersea exhibit that connects to the outside and is probably where school field trips would loop around rather than heading upstairs.

Through the pirate's cabin is a touch pool and tactile play room where kids can inspect rubber anatomical fish models. I like to imagine the TV plays a short looping movie featuring a B-grade celebrity talking to a cartoon bass about the water cycle, fish spawn, and pollution.

The outdoor area is where the field trip groups would probably eat their packed lunches, fill out activity sheets, and take a commemorative photo with the world's worst greenscreen that's supposed to make it look like you're underwater but just ends up eating half your hair and shirt.

If you're not a student and you're just here for the love of fish, you'd probably head upstairs to get a closer look at the fish tunnel, smaller specialty tanks, and the squid/octopus models. (This room is technically considered outdoors thanks to the shell so tbh I'm not sure how lighting/temperature would behave during gameplay.)

The third floor has more tanks, some hands-on displays about aquatic plants and marine ecology, and finally a room with the actual floor-to-ceiling aquarium objects.

I thought this would be an interesting lot to run as an owned business, so I included a small employee area tucked behind the guest toilet block on the ground floor. It also helped to naturalistically answer "how would Sims feed themselves if their outing wouldn't stop complaining they were hungry," a concern I keep in mind whenever I make a lot I think would be a nice place to take a date.

And here's the floorplan! This lot had a pretty severe ugly stage but I'm really really happy with what we ended up with and the vibe I achieved without any CC. Hope you enjoyed reading this far and that it could give you some decorating inspiration!

#the sims 2 #sims 2 maxis match #s2mm #Calcinidae Bay

[rockethorse]

So far, Calcinidae Bay has:

A public primary & secondary school

A sports field

One public library

A spa

A cinema

One hotel/restaurant (somewhat fancy)

A city hall

A water park

A mall (supermarket, tech store, chain restaurant, chain cafe, jewellery, newsagency, clothing)

A train station

A small organic store/cafe

A pawn shop with an apartment upstairs

One apartment lot with 4 individual flats

10~ residential lots

The Kitstop (important)

What do you think I should prioritise next? 🤔 I'd love to build a park/playground but I really want those to fit into the surrounding lots & suburbs, so I can't really build them until I've built said lots, LOL.

What would YOU build next?

#I wanna do an apartment building but that's really just for my own amusement #I'm trying to identify what this town actually NEEDS and feelin kinda stumped #I guess my heart says it should probably be a clinic/pharmacy but I'm wondering what else #Calcinidae Bay #no idea is too silly or too mundane I wanna hear what you would do in my position #when I get to this stage in BaCCs I also get kinda lost on where to go next lol #actually it really needs a more generic cafe bc the ones we have are kinda niche #and a restaurant #looking at this is so funny. like mayor! mayor! our citizens are dying and we don't have any sort of medical centre! #i hear you. build a water park

[rockethorse]

I want to post more about the hood I'm building, but I've been debating whether I start a side blog for it or I just put it here, and I've decided that since I'm not posting that frequently here anyway I may as well keep it on this blog - but I'll be tagging it all with the same tag so that if you're not interested, you can mute it.

The neighbourhood is called "Calcinidae Bay", and it's going to be filled entirely with shell challenges! Until now I've only been posting about these lots as I've finished & uploaded them, but I'd like to post more WIPs, and showcase some lots that probably aren't suitable to upload but which I'm still proud of. :) Hope you'll look forward to it!

#Calcinidae Bay

[rockethorse]

people you'd like to get to know better 🐎

Thank you for the tag @goatskickin! *hoofbump*

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last song: Let's go with St. Vincent - Los Ageless as the last song I consciously chose. It's on a character playlist I was feeling the other day while I was drawing 🕺

favorite color: As a kid it was lime green, and I still like it a lot, but after taking stock of what colours I'm actually drawn to the most, I gotta say orange and yellow! It even reflects in my Sims games LOL

currently watching: I just started Bang Brave Bang Bravern, and I'm rewatching House (which is giving me all kinds of early-2000s, photoskinned-House-and-Wilson-TS2-Sims flashbacks, and also the urge to build a hospital)

sweet/savory/spicy: I do love spicy foods, and I definitely don't hate sweets. But if I'm given a choice I'm always gravitating towards those savoury, carby, rich goodies ;) The ultimate though is something that mixes all three!

relationship: I am very happily taken and have been for a very long time ♥ We've been saying he's gonna teach me how to 3D model for Sims purposes for years lol. One of these days...

current obsession: How fast my new computer is! I'm still not used to how quickly my game runs or loads, so I'd say I've become obsessed with building in the Sims again in a big way. But while my computer was busted I got back into traditional art for a little while so now I'm rediscovering markers, pencils, watercolours, etc...

last thing you googled: Literally the apartment base lot restricted build tools cheat lol. I hardly ever use it and it's so long I never remember it, but I finally added a Downtown to Calcinidae Bay so I was tweaking my old Ann Gheld Building apartments to fit there. I did not orchestrate the last thing I googled to be Sims-related

TAGGING: @vegan-kaktus, @tvickiesims, @simmer-until-tender, and the million other Simblrs I wanna know better but am forgetting in this moment! Tag yourself!