the McCullough family and custom schools...

I needed some school-aged children to test out my schools with, and so...

The McCullough family moved to Riverview! :)

Here's Robbie and Fiona - doesn't she just look like she's up to no good already? lol! After I moved them in, she did nothing but fight with poor Robbie!

Here are their parents, Brooke and Phoenix. Brooke needs a little tweaking at her jawline still, but I really like how Phoenix turned out.

Connor. He pretty much looks like a generic TS3 child right now, but he'll grow up cute! ;)

(Here's their family picture in TS2, for comparison.)

And an odd note - it's almost heartbreaking to play Robbie without Liza, and Connor without Felicity, lol!

So all this was because I wanted to test out building a custom school in TS3. This is just a base test school lot, with with a rabbit hole room. I wanted to see if they'd use the rabbit hole room as they would the default school, and if I'd still be able to use the rest of the school as a functional lot.

(The rugs I'm using are here.)

So far so good!

Testing... but first... awww, for some reason I find this just the cutest thing ever, lol!

So the boys got in their school bus, and because my school was closer than the default one, they go there first...

He goes into the school, and then into the rabbit hole room, and begins class as normal. And Brooke was also able to enter the rabbit hole to get her job at the school.

You need at least 2 spaces all around the rug - no exceptions! I had to edit and re-enter a bunch of times thinking I could cheat with a smaller space. No, 2 spaces all around, which means a 6x6 room.

So overall, I'm very happy to see that lots can be customized to be both functional rabbit holes, as well as usable lots for visiting and story sets.

The point of this being that I'll want to be able to have a functional school for gameplay, as well as a storytelling set school for my story. So the rabbithole is hidden inside my storytelling school, where I'll be able to use my classrooms, cafeteria, library and playground for story purposes, and still use it in gameplay as well.

I'll eventually do this with all my rabbit holes - for career lots, the hospital, the court house, or whatever.

Or even, an office tower or complex with several rabbit hole rooms for Sims to retreat to? ;)

Picspam, the playground. It wasn't meant to be anything special when I first started, but then I lost myself for about half an hour making this little playground and a library and classroom inside. So I might have to toss this lot in the library to use in my real hood.

And well, you can never have too many extra filler lots hanging around anyway.

I zoned the building as a library, which made the most sense at the time, but it turns out that just means people will come and try to use it as a library all day.

Visitor controller would be useful in this case, though all the kiddies should be inside the rabbit hole, and thus wouldn't be seen in the building anyway. I suppose any school sessions for storytelling will have to happen on Saturdays or Sundays, so that all the kids will be available.

And next up! I have CAW working!!! *knocks on wood* So expect lots more babble to come! :D