WIP

Here is what we have in preperation for part 4, & the final portion of the bug museum. This area contains little bug exhibits and a lab. The mesh files are absolutely enormous, as you can see. Lots and lots of items to make as individual decors, and make new image textures for (like usual when we are doing sets that are locations & part of an entire structure). I am going to need to mess with some of the pieces, to try to make it work in TS4 while still having things look like they do in ACNH. It is so fun, after all, to recreate these places and have our sims go and visit!

We will see what all I can actually get done today, as we have had ongoing renovations/construction in our apartments and apartment area. I don't think I've posted about it at all, but we've had to do a lot of work on our own to make way for the workers, it's been a giant pain in the butt and it's been exhausting. As of today my entire body hurts. But, sitting down to my CC-making time is always a highlight to my day! I'll likely get going on making the actual objects tomorrow, as these all need separating. I hope that everyone is having a nice week, I know things are crazy right now and I just wish to everyone agency and peace ✨🌺🌦

Update (Thursday evening):
Working on separating all of the little items one by one so that they are easier to import, when I want to use something I need to delete all of the other items in the huge mesh one by one, so this is part of my process. Here we have the cart that goes next to the line of items near the dung beetle cage. As you can see, all of the items together are extremely high poly. I will be liberating the cart and adding slots, and separating the clutter objects.

Update (Friday 1 PM):
Today we are celebrating a family member's birthday in our apartment. They've requested Christmas dinner for their birthday dinner, so I've got birthday things to attend to today. But, when we're all done I am planning on making some items for our set. Remember I am on CET timezone, so for my American patrons, when it's 10 PM for me, it's only 4 PM for you in the midwest and east coast, so hopefully I will have a fun update for everyone later!
Update (Friday night):
Added lots and lots of slots and an extra, lighter swatch. Added the bottom bottles, middle bin with cleaning items, and the top clipboard, and the jars all as separate items. I also liberated just the bucket stack and the spray bottle, with extra swatches. All items have new bump and specular maps, as well as new image textures.

Update (Saturday night):
I had a ton of cleaning up to do today, and finally I am able to sit down to my favorite hobby and make some CC for our set (the renovations are driving me nuts, and I cannot wait until things are back to normal). Here we have the little "plant corner" on the lower right side of the ACNH layout. There is a table, which I edited the mesh to be a bit taller, it was ridiculously small. I added yet another cactus to our overall ACNH plants collection, a venus flytrap, and another Monstera. This monstera is unique, however, as I've added a lot of fun swatches for the pot. I hope that you all are having a lovely, relaxing weekend! And for people who work on the weekends, I hope that your days go smoothly and your evenings are also relaxing.
Update (Saturday night/Sunday morning 2:45 AM):
Added the wooden plant floor. Added the tank that contains the wharf roach and the hermit crab. It still needs a tiny bit of tweaking to the mesh, but I love how this corner is turning out! What do you think, is the little table just a little too tall? Let me know, I can fix anything you wish! The tank has slots inside, to place the creatures. I will be adding the wharf roach to this set, & there are both hermit crabs and just their shells in the Tidepool Set. This tank took me absolutely for-ev-er, due to all the little pieces that needed to be combined, and brand new image textures (and bump/specular maps) for each item. I'm going to have to take a break for tonight, it's very late and the workers start making noise at like 6 in the morning. Goodnight everyone!

Update (Sunday early evening):
Added the Wharf Roach, and fixed the tank (mostly) as you can see above, there is a bit of a mapping issue that I'm having trouble figuring out, but I will fix it.
Update (Sunday night/Monday morning 2:15 am):
Got the mapping right on the first cage. Made a separate platform for the other 2 cages since there are two of them, the poly number would be ridiculous to include it all in one item. It has slots, as you can see the need a bit of tweaking, the two cages are butting up against each other. The scorpion and dung beetles are here, and the tarantula is here.

Update (Monday noon-ish):
I fixed the slotting on the platform for the 2 cages, so now they aren't butting up against each other. I neeeeeded to fix this as soon as I could today, but once again, I have a list of chores I need to get done before I can get back down to making more items for our set. (I also have multiple family birthdays to acknowledge and/or celebrate this month, so bear with me!) Don't worry though, I've noticed a pattern that whenever I have things interrupting or taking up more of my time, I get at least one day where I get to sit and make CC pretty much the entire day, so it will still be done in the usual timely fashion. Stay tuned a bit later today for more updates!
Update (Monday early evening):
So I've been working in Blender, removing pieces from the structure that we don't need, and are in the way of seeing what we've got here. There is a lot still to make. I've done so much today IRL, I'm exhausted and need to lie on the couch for a bit. If I attempt to make more objects right now I will just make stupid mistakes over and over, so it's best I wait until a bit later tonight. I hope everyone is having a nice day!

Update (Tuesday morning):
So I got right to work on these structure items. I have to say that this is the most difficult set I've worked on to date, due to the many pieces that go together for one item. I decided to separate the items for the ant exhibit, but there are sooo many pieces to this group of items. So, I've separated just the foliage, concrete blocks, stones, and tree trunks. I'm going to see if I can make this work as one item with edited image textures so allow for these 4 mesh groups to be one item. I want this set of items to be able to fit next to a wall that has been build with space left for the item, because it won't be able to go into the wall and have the items behind the glass showing, the wall will be in the way. It's a complicated process, so pardon my pace! I'm working in it, it's just requiring a bit of brainstorming. I might also have to figure out a different way to configure things, but I have ideas, so it's all good! I actually dreamt about this set last night 😆 I've included an additional image of the ACNH version of what we're working on right now so it's easier to see, since the Blender views have no image textures on them yet.
Update (Tuesday night/Wednesday morning 1:26 AM):
I finally got this item working. It is 2 separate items: The inside plants & decor, and the wall/windows. I made it to line up with the walls in game, and added a wall paint in build mode of the same wall color. I've added some slots for some insects inside, but I need to add some more. I cannot believe how much this one tied my brain into knots, I'm so glad that it's working now! I hope everyone likes how things are turning out. Much love 💗 😘😘

Update (Wednesday early afternoon):
Updated the image texture so that the tunnels are a bit darker. Also added an ant insect, with an extra brown swatch. I sized them up once with the keyboard cheat in the above previews.
Update (late Wednesday night):
My partner and I have spent a lot of time today cleaning, and packing things down into boxes. For these renovations that our apartment place is doing, they are having people come to take pictures before certain things are done. So that was most of my day today. Oh, how I wish that we were allowed to opt out of this. But it is a historical building that there are rules about maintaining, so I guess that is part of the reason. The worst was taking heavy, heavy things to the trash. But! I finally got to do some CC-related things before I need to lie down, since they are coming sometime between the buttcrack of dawn and lunchtime (isn't that always how it goes? 😂😂😂) I hope you've all had a much calmer, easier day than I have. I am excited to work on our 3-cage exhibit, which I've posted some Blender pics above, of the edited mesh containing only those pieces. I think will be easier after having done the ant one and sort of have a process for all of the pieces they contain. Included above is another in-game ACNH image of the piece that I am currently working on.

Update (Thursday 1 PM-ish):
Our IRL responsibilities are done for the day, so that's out of the way. I've been working again on our next item, it's another complicated one but I feel like I know what I'm doing a little better with it after doing the ant one. I've added an image above from Blender, with all of the mesh pieces highlighted. These are all of the different pieces that need to be joined together. I will probably do the same way I did with the ant one and make the foliage separate and at the height that it needs to be so it can just be moved into place. The second item will be the tank, which, again will be able to be lined up with the in-game walls. In addition to this process, I make a new image texture for each mesh group, that includes only the pieces that are needed, which can also be from different images since there are so many. I then make a new bump and specular map for them as well. I just wanted to get a little more into explaining the process here, because I realize these tank items are taking me awhile, and I don't want anyone to think I've been putting it off. I've had things to get done IRL but it hasn't been taking very much time away from my CC stuff. & I'm still very excited to get the rest of the CC sets done after this one! Hope you're all having a good day 💗🌼
Update (2 PM):
It's coming along! Here is the foliage. It will look nicer in game, as I have the backface culling switched off, which doesn't show in Sims4Studio.
Update (4:15 PM):
Mostly finished this item now. It needs a small bit of tweaking to fit with the game for building, but here's basically what we have. I think I am going to have to add a part 5 to the bug museum, as I did not realize just how many items are within the lab area. I will still be making the glowing exhibit signs, some more plants, random decor items, and some more bugs, and if the sets get too humongous I've learned that it's much more complicated for me to get previews for everything for the posts. They're also more of a pain for people to go through. So I try not to make them much larger than 40 items, & we're now at 22 files. Anyway, after sitting here messing with this for hours, my brain feels like mush and my back hurts, so I'm going to lie down a bit and be back to this a little later!
Update (still Thursday, 10:40 PM):
Okay, so I fixed the mesh that that it will match up with the tall walls, and the general build. I added slots to the foliage item, but I need to tweak them a little bit. Stand-in preying mantis to show one of the slots.
Update (12:30 AM):
I've been working on the signs, I'll have some preview pics of them tomorrow. It's late so I must try to lie down.

Update (Friday 11 AM):
I've been working on the little information signs, here is a preview of the first one (before I fixed the slotting better on the wooden platform, there are a lot of small slots now for the place for the sign to go) They've been made to glow at night/in the dark on the face plate.
Update (Friday a bit after 1 PM):
Added all 3 of the information signs that go next to the big displays. I changed the specular map on the long sign, because it just looked way too shiny to the point that at certain angles looked like it was a different color than the other one, and it especially stood out in the dark room view. This issue was only happening with this particular sign, I imagine due to the larger size making the shine more noticeable, because it looks pretty nice on the small ones. The slanted one that goes with the 3-cage item, and the long one are both made so that you can just raise them with the 0-9 keys to what height you want, and position it in front of the structure (or a wall) be careful not to place it too far back or it will disappear behind the structure. The pic including the yucca and snake plants, those two are from the Airport Set and are just stand-ins for the sake of our preview pics. I'm making the ones from this structure for our set, as they are in a different kind of pot. There are a few more items I want to make, and will be going over the video that I linked before to make sure I've not forgotten anything. The lab area will be part 5 of this set, which will be on our poll for next month. While going through the huge meshes file I had failed to realize just how many items are within the lab, so it really needs to be its own set. (I wrote about it above but just mentioning it again).
Update (Friday 3:30ish PM):
Added the trio of small lights that go above the 3-cage exhibit. This item gives off some light, and glows on the bulb. It is made the same way as the rest of the cage items where it is at the exact height it needs to be to line up where it needs to go.
Update (Friday night 10 PM-ish):
Added 2 versions of drains for the floor (footprint has been removed so they will not be in your sims' ways when they are walking around). Added the wall electrical outlet. Upon my last look-over, I noticed that I missed a mat that hasn't been made in any previous sets, so I need to make that, which I'm right in the middle of making that package file. I will try to get pics taken tonight, so I can edit/crop/add info and graphics tomorrow morning and get the set posted (Then I have another birthday of a loved one, and will be spending time with them for the rest of the day. I will be starting on the next poll winner (the cuisine trays) on Sunday.