#before giving up and opening photoshop
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mirmi · 2 months ago
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[Alex Horne Interviews Babatunde Aléshé]
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lifehacksthatwork · 2 years ago
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Just a bunch of Useful websites - Updated for 2023
Removed/checked all links to make sure everything is working (03/03/23). Hope they help!
Sejda - Free online PDF editor.
Supercook - Have ingredients but no idea what to make? Put them in here and it'll give you recipe ideas.
Still Tasty - Trying the above but unsure about whether that sauce in the fridge is still edible? Check here first.
Archive.ph - Paywall bypass. Like 12ft below but appears to work far better and across more sites in my testing. I'd recommend trying this one first as I had more success with it.
12ft – Hate paywalls? Try this site out.
Where Is This - Want to know where a picture was taken, this site can help.
TOS/DR - Terms of service, didn't read. Gives you a summary of terms of service plus gives each site a privacy rating.
OneLook - Reverse dictionary for when you know the description of the word but can't for the life of you remember the actual word.
My Abandonware - Brilliant site for free, legal games. Has games from 1978 up to present day across pc and console. You'll be surprised by some of the games on there, some absolute gems.
Project Gutenberg – Always ends up on these type of lists and for very good reason. All works that are copyright free in one place.
Ninite – New PC? Install all of your programs in one go with no bloat or unnecessary crap.
PatchMyPC - Alternative to ninite with over 300 app options to keep upto date. Free for home users.
Unchecky – Tired of software trying to install additional unwanted programs? This will stop it completely by unchecking the necessary boxes when you install.
Sci-Hub – Research papers galore! Check here before shelling out money. And if it’s not here, try the next link in our list.
LibGen – Lots of free PDFs relate primarily to the sciences.
Zotero – A free and easy to use program to collect, organize, cite and share research.
Car Complaints – Buying a used car? Check out what other owners of the same model have to say about it first.
CamelCamelCamel – Check the historical prices of items on Amazon and set alerts for when prices drop.
Have I Been Pawned – Still the king when it comes to checking if your online accounts have been released in a data breach. Also able to sign up for email alerts if you’ve ever a victim of a breach.
I Have No TV - A collection of documentaries for you to while away the time. Completely free.
Radio Garden – Think Google Earth but wherever you zoom, you get the radio station of that place.
Just The Recipe – Paste in the url and get just the recipe as a result. No life story or adverts.
Tineye – An Amazing reverse image search tool.
My 90s TV – Simulates 90’s TV using YouTube videos. Also has My80sTV, My70sTV, My60sTV and for the younger ones out there, My00sTV. Lose yourself in nostalgia.
Foto Forensics – Free image analysis tools.
Old Games Download – A repository of games from the 90’s and early 2000’s. Get your fix of nostalgia here.
Online OCR – Convert pictures of text into actual text and output it in the format you need.
Remove Background – An amazingly quick and accurate way to remove backgrounds from your pictures.
Twoseven – Allows you to sync videos from providers such as Netflix, Youtube, Disney+ etc and watch them with your friends. Ad free and also has the ability to do real time video and text chat.
Terms of Service, Didn’t Read – Get a quick summary of Terms of service plus a privacy rating.
Coolors – Struggling to get a good combination of colors? This site will generate color palettes for you.
This To That – Need to glue two things together? This’ll help.
Photopea – A free online alternative to Adobe Photoshop. Does everything in your browser.
BitWarden – Free open source password manager.
Just Beam It - Peer to peer file transfer. Drop the file in on one end, click create link and send to whoever. Leave your pc on that page while they download. Because of how it works there are no file limits. It's genuinely amazing. Best file transfer system I have ever used.
Atlas Obscura – Travelling to a new place? Find out the hidden treasures you should go to with Atlas Obscura.
ID Ransomware – Ever get ransomware on your computer? Use this to see if the virus infecting your pc has been cracked yet or not. Potentially saving you money. You can also sign up for email notifications if your particular problem hasn’t been cracked yet.
Way Back Machine – The Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites and loads more.
Rome2Rio – Directions from anywhere to anywhere by bus, train, plane, car and ferry.
Splitter – Seperate different audio tracks audio. Allowing you to split out music from the words for example.
myNoise – Gives you beautiful noises to match your mood. Increase your productivity, calm down and need help sleeping? All here for you.
DeepL – Best language translation tool on the web.
Forvo – Alternatively, if you need to hear a local speaking a word, this is the site for you.
For even more useful sites, there is an expanded list that can be found here.
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donnadsltwmart · 11 months ago
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The khaki is a part of me. Walking in your shoes. #khaki #khakis #grace #steveirwinforever #steve #crocodile #rip #walkinginyourshoes #australia #australiazoo @Robert Irwin @Australia
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auroraeternal · 6 months ago
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4t3 Conversion of Grouped posters by @cosmiccs4 + Recoloring PSD with tutorial
8 non-recolorable presets
1024 textures
Included PSD for retexturing (tutorial how to use under the cut)
113 poly, all LODs
Shiftable
Price - 5§
BGC
Compressed package
TOU, Ko-Fi
DOWNLOAD | ALT | SIMBLR.CC
Tutorial: How to use my PSD for retexturing
You need:
Photoshop with .dds plugin
My retexture PSD and package file of posters
19 pictures to your liking, preferably vertical
TSRW
Sims3Pack Multi Installer and Compressionizer
Step 1: Open my PSD file, open your images:
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Step 2: Select (Ctrl+A) copy and paste to posters file (Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V) first of your images :
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Step 3: Choose where you want to put it, for reference you can use one of the presets:
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Step 4: After you decided with placement of your image. Move its layer in the Layers tab between "Poster x" and "Put your image here" layers, it will create a clipping mask, which allows the picture to be fit within the poster without cropping. Hide or delete "Put your image here" layer.
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Step 5: Use Transform, Free Transform and Move tools to resize the image by your liking:
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Step 6: Repeat the Step 2-5 with other 18 images:
*vibes are totally random, all images from Pinterest*
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Step 7: After you've done, delete all the "Put your image here" layers, if you didn't it before. Right-click on the Layers tab and press Merge Visible (Shift + Ctrl + E). Now press Save As (Control + Shift + S) and save your image as .DDS with this parameters (2nd picture):
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Step 8: Go to TSRW. Press Create New Project > New Import, and select package with my posters. Give for your recolor unique Title and Project name, otherwise it will override original posters:
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Step 9: In Textures tab go through all the presets except the first one and delete them. Then go to Edit > Project Contents and remove all the textures of removed presets. Its pretty common when someone make retexture of TS3 mesh and leave that unused textures in file, which leads to increasing its size:
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Step 10: Press Edit button next to the Overlay tab. Then press Import button and select your retexture. Press Done and when this pop-up appears, press Yes:
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Step 11: If you want to add more presets press Duplicate and reapeat Step 10, but instead, when pop-up about replacing the texture appears, press No.
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Step 12: After you've done, press File > Export > To Sims3pack or Edit > Project Contents > Export > To .package. If you choose the first method, convert your Sims3pack to Package and in both cases run it through Compressionizer. Test your recolor In-game, make thumbnails (if you want to share it) and have fun!
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For those who read this tutorial to the end, click HERE to download this recolor.
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@pis3update @xto3conversionsfinds @wanderingsimsfinds @kpccfinds @simfluencer-network @sssvitlanz @simblrcc-site
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kinnbig · 9 months ago
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✨ Simple Gif Colouring for Beginners ✨
I wrote up my basic gif colouring process for a friend recently, but a couple of people here mentioned they'd also find it helpful! so, as requested, this is a beginner-friendly walkthrough of the way I colour my gifs :) it's aimed at brand new gif makers with no prior experience with photoshop or photo editing.
when I first started gif making I found colouring and photoshop in general suuuper daunting, so I've tried to simplify everything here as much as possible. hopefully this will be relatively easy to follow and not too intimidating!
a couple of things to begin with:
I'm only talking about colouring here - this is not a full gif making tutorial. I've linked to some of my favourites of those here!
I personally like to make bright, 'clean' looking gifs with vibrant but natural colours, so that is the style of colouring this tutorial is geared towards. most of gif colouring is subjective and about personal taste - the only thing that I'd say is possible to get wrong is skin tones, which I talk about a lot in this guide.
as I mostly gif Thai dramas, most of the advice is geared towards colouring for East Asian/South East Asian skin tones - but the techniques should be fairly universally applicable (and here are some tutorials that talk about gif colouring for other skin tones).
I'm not an expert! I'm not claiming this is the best or the only way to colour gifs - it's just how I do it.
this post is very image-heavy. if the images aren't loading (or the gifs are running slowly or cutting/looping weirdly), then try viewing the post in its own tab (rather than on the your dash or someone's blog) and refreshing the page.
okay, full walkthrough beneath the cut!
contents:
1. intro a. natural gif colouring goals b. very very basic colour theory 2. super simple colouring (the essentials) a. curves b. selective colour (and skin tone correction) c. hue/saturation d. saving and reusing colouring e. another simple colouring example 3. other adjustment layers a. brightness/contrast b. levels c. vibrance d. colour balance e. channel mixer 4. troubleshooting a. curves b. saturation 5. fin!
1. intro
the colouring part of gif making can be super overwhelming, especially if (like me when I first started!) you're completely new to photoshop and/or have no experience with colour theory or photo/video editing.
if you're opening photoshop and making gifs for the first time, I highly recommend getting used to making a few basic, uncoloured gifs to begin with. just to practice, rather than post anywhere (though you can always come back and colour them later if you want) - but it'll make the rest of the process much easier if you're already beginning to get used to working in timeline mode of photoshop. give yourself a bit of time to practice and get a feel for things like how many frames you tend to like in a gif, where you like to crop them for the best loop, what kind of aspect ratio you like etc* - so that you're not trying to navigate all of that for the first time on top of everything else!
* frames: for me between 60-90 frames is ideal, but 40-120 frames is the absolute min-max I'd personally use in a normal gifset loops: for the smoothest loops, try to avoid cutting someone off mid-movement or mid-word if possible. aspect ratio: for full-size (540px) gifs, I tend to go for either 8:5 (slightly 'skinnier' gifs), 7:5, or 5:4 (particularly big, thick gifs lmao)
✨ natural gif colouring goals
part of what can be so daunting about starting gif making is not knowing where to start or what you want to achieve. this is definitely something that gets easier with practice - the more gifs you make, the more you'll get a feel for what kind of look you like and the more instinctively you'll know how to get there. it also helps to see if any gif makers you like have made "before and after colouring" posts - these can help with getting a sense of the kinds of changes made through gif colouring. here's one I made!
in general, I like to make my gifs bright and 'clean' looking, with vibrant but natural colours. these are the things I'm usually hoping to achieve with colouring:
brighten dark scenes
remove muddy, yellowish lighting or filters
saturate colours
correct any skin lightening filters or overexposure
make lighting and colours as consistent as possible between gifs within a single gifset, especially gifsets featuring gifs from multiple scenes/episodes/videos
this guide is focusing on natural colouring, but of course there are many cool ways to make stylised/unnaturally coloured gifs. imo you'll need to master these basics first, but if you want to learn how to do things like change the background colour of gifs or use gradients or other cool effects, then @usergif's resource directory has loads of super helpful tutorials!
✨ very very basic colour theory
[disclaimer! I don't know shit about fuck. I do not study light or art. this is just an explanation that makes sense to me exclusively for the purposes of gif making.]
the primary colours for light/digital screens are red, blue, and green. having all three colours in equal measures neutralises them (represented by the white section in the middle of the diagram).
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so to neutralise a colour within a gif, you need to add more of the colour(s) that are lacking.
in practice this usually means: the scene you want to gif is very yellow! yellow is made of red and green light, so to neutralise it you need to add more blue into your gif.
it can also mean the reverse: if you desaturate the yellow tones in a gif, it will look much more blue.
looking at the colour balance sliders on photoshop can make it easier to visualise:
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so making a gif more red also means making it less cyan.
removing green from a gif means adding magenta.
taking yellow out of a gif will make it more blue.
tl;dr:
neutralise yellows by adding blue (and vice versa)
neutralise reds by adding cyan (and vice versa)
neutralise green by adding magenta (and vice versa)
2. super simple colouring (the essentials)
starting with a nice sharpened gif in photoshop in timeline mode. (these are the sharpening settings I use!)
some scenes are much harder to colour than others - it helps to start out practising with scenes that are bright/well-lit and that don't have harsh unnaturally coloured lights/filters on. scenes with a lot of brown/orange also tend to be harder.
I usually save a base copy of my gif before I start colouring just in case I end up hating it, or find out later that it doesn't quite fit right into a set and need to redo it etc.
so here is my base gif!
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it's an okay gif, but it has a bit of a yellow tint to it that I want to reduce.
colouring is easiest to do in adjustment layers, which can be found under layer -> new adjustment layer - or for me they are here:
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there are lots of different types of adjustment layers that do lots of different things - but for me the absolute essentials for colouring are curves, selective colour, and hue/saturation.
I also use brightness/contrast, levels, exposure, vibrance, colour balance, and channel mixer sometimes, depending on the gif - but I use curves, selective colour, and hue/saturation on every single gif.
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✨ curves layer
the first thing I always do is a curves layer. when you first open one it will look like this:
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first I usually click the ‘auto’ button, just to see what happens. sometimes it makes a big difference (it usually brightens the gif a lot) - but on this gif it didn’t do much.
if it had made the gif look nicer then I would have kept it and added a second curves layer on top to do the rest of these steps.
the next step is selecting the white and black points with the little eyedropper tools.
the bottom eyedropper lets you pick a white point for the gif. click somewhere super light on the gif to see what happens - for this gif, I clicked on the lampshade on the left. if it looks weird, I just undo it and try somewhere else - it usually takes a few goes to find something that looks good.
here's what that did to the gif:
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then I pick the top eyedropper and use it to pick a black point by clicking somewhere really dark, again playing around until I find a black point that looks good.
here's what the gif looks like after picking the white and black points:
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this can take some experimenting, but you can make super easy drastic changes to your gif just with this. in this case, the curves layer took out a lot of that yellowy tint.
and this is what the curves graph looks like now:
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you can click and drag those lines to make further changes if you want - I usually leave them alone though. the colours of the lines indicate which colours have been changed in the gif - for example, you can see from that steep blue line on the graph that blue has been added to neutralise those yellows.
next I usually do another curves layer and just press the ‘auto’ button again to see what happens. usually it brightens the gif a bit more, which I like.
‼️if nothing is working: usually with a bit of fucking about a curves layer works well - but sometimes you can’t find a good white and black point anywhere, and instead your gif turns wacky colours and nothing looks good. this happens more often with very heavily colour tinted scenes :( the troubleshooting section at the end goes over some options, including starting with a levels layer instead.
✨ selective colour (and skin tone correction)
skin tones are made up of a mixture of yellow and red.
removing yellow (or adding blue or red) to a gif will make the skin-tones too red - and removing red (or adding cyan or yellow) to a gif will make the skin-tones too yellow.
adding blue to this gif with the curves layer took out the yellowy tint, which I wanted - but it also took the yellows out of Kim's skin tone, which I don’t want. so I need to put yellow back into the skin tones specifically - without putting it back into the rest of the gif.
selective colour layers let you select an individual colour and adjust the levels of other colours within that colour. you can change how yellow the green shades are, or how much cyan is in the blues, for example.
I need to add yellow back into the red tones to correct the skin tones on this gif. this is the case for most gifs in my experience - the vast majority of the time, unless a scene is very heavily tinted in another colour, a curves layer will add blue/remove yellow.
in the 'colors' dropdown, select the 'reds' section and drag the 'yellow' slider higher - this will add more yellow into just the red shades within the gif.
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the amount of yellow you need to add back into the reds depends on how much yellow was taken out of the gif initially - I just play around with the slider until it looks right. if you're not sure, it helps to have some neutrally-coloured (not white-washed!) reference photos of the people in your gif to compare to.
here's the result. Kim's skin is a lot less pink toned and much more natural looking:
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✨ hue/saturation
this adjustment layer lets you adjust the hue and saturation of the gif as a whole, and also of each colour individually.
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I don't use the hue or lightness sliders unless I'm trying to do something more complicated with the colouring.
clicking the dropdown menu that says 'master' lets you edit the saturation of each colour individually. this is useful if your gif is still super tinted in one colour.
I thought the yellows on this gif were still slightly too bright, so I switched to the yellow channel and desaturated them slightly. (remember if you do this then you need to go back to selective colour and add more yellow into the red skin tones to balance out the desaturation!)
then I increased the 'master' saturation of all the colours to +5:
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I usually find the right amount of saturation is somewhere between +5 and +12, but it depends on the gif.
‼️if the gif feels undersaturated, but the saturation slider isn't helping/is making the colours worse, try a vibrance layer instead.
done!
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✨ saving and reusing colouring
you can copy and paste adjustment layers between gifs to make your colouring even across each of your gifs for one scene - so if you're making a set of multiple gifs of the same scene, or you think you might want to gif the same scene again in the future, you can save it as a psd so you can reuse the colouring again later.
each gif's colouring will then still need tweaking - different cameras/angles/shots of the same scene can still start out with slightly different colouring.
I recommend uploading the gifs as a draft post on tumblr so you can see what they all look like next to each other and catch any inconsistencies.
✨ another one! (speedrun!)
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HI KEN!
the white point for the curves layer was in the window behind them.
the curves layer removes the muddy yellow tint, but again it makes their skin tones (especially Ken's) very red toned, which is adjusted by the selective colour layer.
3. other adjustment layers
imo many many gifs can be coloured really nicely with just those three adjustment layers, but some need different adjustments.
✨ brightness/contrast
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pretty self explanatory!
I personally usually avoid using the 'brightness' slider because I rarely like the effect - I only tend to use the 'contrast' one. 
the 'auto' button is sometimes useful though, especially if you’re struggling with the curves layer.
✨ levels
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levels alters the white and black points of the gif, like curves - but unlike curves it doesn't also alter other colours.
use the sliders beneath the graph to alter how dark/light the gif is. you can slide the black slider further to the right to make the blacks darker, and the white slider to the left to make the whites lighter.
levels is a good place to start if your curves layer isn't working.
(I'm going to hit the image limit for this post lol so here are some screenshots of a table I made to demonstrate this rather than actual gifs. sorry!)
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on both sides, I dragged the sliders up to where the big jumps are on the graph - this is usually a good place to start!
✨ vibrance
vibrance... makes the colours more vibrant. it's more subtle than saturation.
it's really helpful for gifs that feel grey. sometimes adjusting saturation just makes the greys kind of weirdly tinted, but a vibrance layer can fix that.
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vibrance is much more subtle!
✨ colour balance
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colour balance affects the overall balance of colours within a gif.
it's good for scenes with heavy tints.
I tend to stick to the 'midtones' dropdown, but you can also alter the colour balance within the shadows and highlights if you want.
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✨ channel mixer
I avoided channel mixer for such a long time because it scared me. but it's great for scenes that are very heavily tinted in one colour.
basically, it works with the levels of red, green, and blue within a gif. you select an output colour and then play around with the levels of the colour you selected within each other colour.
kind of the reverse of selective colour?
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so in the 'blue' channel, the levels of blue are at 100%, and the levels of red and green are at 0% - but you can impact how much blue is in the reds and greens and blues.
this tutorial explains it well - but imo the best way to get to grips with channel mixer is just to play around with it a bit (sorry)
(when I made this guide for my friend, I also made a slightly more complicated gif colouring walk-through that included using channel mixer. there isn't space to include it within this post, but if anyone is interested I could always upload it as an 'intermediate' gif colouring tutorial - lmk!)
4. troubleshooting
‼️curves
usually with a bit of fucking about a curves layer works well - but sometimes you can’t find a good white and black point anywhere, and instead your gif turns wacky colours and nothing looks good. this happens more often with very heavily colour tinted scenes :(
for example, with this base gif:
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using many of the brightest points as a white point turn it wacky colours, like this:
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yikes :(
some options for these cases:
try brightening the gif first with the 'auto' button on the curves layer or with a levels layer. having a brighter gif to start with can give you better options for picking a white point.
try finding an alternate, whiter/brighter white point. look for places the light reflects - on this gif, using the light on Porsche's cheekbone works well as the white point. it also helps to find places that would be white if the scene wasn't tinted - the lightest part of a white shirt is often a good place to start, for example.
skip the curves layer, and instead use a levels layer to alter your white/black points, and colour balance or channel mixer to balance the colours.
‼️over/undersaturation
if your gif (especially the skintones) is looking a little washed out or lifeless, it might be undersaturated. boost that saturation - or if that's not working, try a vibrance layer.
oversaturation is often easiest to spot in the mouths and ears of any people in a gif. if the mouths are looking unnaturally, vibrantly red, then you've gone too far with the saturation.
5. fin!
and done! I hope this was coherent helpful to somebody.
if there's anything that I've missed or that doesn't make sense pls feel free to shoot me an ask or a message and I'll do my best to help! I've also collated a bunch of additional reading/resources below.
happy gifmaking 🥰
✨ some links!
photoshop basics by @selenapastel
gifmaking for beginners by @hayaosmiyazaki
gifmaking guide for beginners by @saw-x
dreamy's gif tutorial by @scoupsy-remade (includes instructions on how to blur out burned-on subtitles or annoying video graphics)
beginner's guide to channel mixer by @aubrey-plaza
how to fix orange-washed characters by aubrey-plaza
colour correcting and fixing dark scenes by @kylos
does resampling matter? by usergif
how to put multiple gifs on one canvas by @fictionalheroine
watermarking using actions by @wonwooridul
resource directory by @usergif
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hottiesforhockey · 22 days ago
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Can you write some nsfw with Trevor Zegras using the quote "Who the fuck is that?" 🙏 I was thinking he was looking through his best friends phone to get the photos she took for him the other day so he can make an Instagram post and stumbles upon her spicy pics she posts on her onlyfans (which he didn’t know existed) and he gets turned on which leads to them having sex
"Trevor, stop snooping." You hiss as you try to snatch your phone from his grip, his eyes gleaming mischievously as he continues to swipe through your photos.
"I just want the photo you took at the beach and then I'll give it back." He coos, his swiping continuing while he avoids your reach, leaning as far back on the couch as he can, his back curved over the arm of the chair as you scramble across the couch.
"You're gonna find something you don't want to see if you don't give me the phone back right now." You pause, sitting back on your heels as you watch his fingers pause their movements, his mouth dropping open slightly as his eyes bug out of his head. “I told you, you’d find something you didn’t want to see.” You pout, Trevors body flinging itself into an upright position as he glances between you and the phone. 
“Who the fuck is that?” 
“What?” 
“Who the fuck am I looking at right now, cause I know it sure as hell can’t be you.” He curses, turning the phone towards you quickly showing you a glimpse of the photo of you in your halloween lingerie that you had posted earlier that day. The incredibly revealing ghost face costume had been highly requested by your subscribers, and was too easy to put together. 
“What are you talking about, Trevor?” You sneer, finally able to snatch the phone from his hands as he looks at your dumbfounded. “I’ve told you that I post on onlyfans for extra cash, it can’t be that surprising.” 
“Yeah but if I knew that’s what was hiding under those three XL shirts this whole time I would’ve signed up a lot sooner.” He jokes, his cheeks a blushing red as he coughs a little when he notices you not laughing with him. You watch as he fidgets in his seat, his hand trying to subtly - and failing miserably - to grab the pillow to place over his lap. 
“I cannot believe you right now.” You yell, yanking at the pillow he’s holding onto for dear life. “You are seriously getting turned on right now?” You say, glaring as his arousal is obvious in his pants. 
“I can’t help it - look at your fucking tits in that picture.” He groans slapping his hand on his forehead before dragging it down his face. 
“They really do look good don’t they.” You agree as you glance down at the photo - the underwire of the bra had given your girls a much appreciated hoist, the cleavage in the picture looking almost photoshopped with how perfect it was. 
“I’m never going to be able to look at you again.” Trevor sighs, both his hand in his lap, holding the pillow in place as he shifts his hips slightly, “this is the worst day of my life.” Your smile falters a little as Trevor lets out another low groan, his hips shifting again as he hisses at his movements. 
“Now please if you’ll excuse me, I have to go jerk myself off and maybe sign up for an onlyfans subscription.” Trevor says stretching his arms above his head, bracing to push himself off the couch. 
“Or…” You begin, your teeth catching your bottom lip as your eyes make contact. 
“Don’t you fucking dare.” 
“I can help you out if you want?” You say, adding “the only thing better than jerking yourself off, is me jerking you off.” You watch as Trevors whole body freezes, you shuffle forwards on the couch a little, your hand grabbing the edge of the pillow on Trevor’s lap, his own hand trying to keep it in place. 
“Trust me, Trev.” You whisper, taking advantage of his hand relaxing a little, pulling the pillow away from him and throwing it across the room, the cushion smacking against the wall. “Are you going to let me help?” Trevor nods quickly, his breathing speeding up as you continue to shuffle until your knees press against his, his legs still crossed underneath him. 
“Use your words, please.” You say.
Trevor letting out a soft sigh of “please.” You raise your brow expecting more from the man. “Please touch me.” He whines, your hands already moving towards the waist band of his sweats, slipping inside as you lean forwards, your hair falling over your shoulder as you invade Trevors space. 
“I think I’m gonna cum as soon as you touch me.” Trevor whispers as your hand slips beneath the waistband of his boxers, gently grabbing hold of his throbbing cock, Trevor letting out an almost pained moan. 
“Good to know I have this effect on you, baby.” You whisper, leaning your head down to press a gentle kiss against the underside of his jaw, his head falling back as your hand slowly begins to pump. “You have to relax.” You say as your mouth continues down his neck, your hand moving to collect his droplets of pre cum before continuing its slow and steady pumping, a slick sound filling the almost silent room. 
“This is so fucked up.” Trevor says, his words coming out with a chuckle of disbelief. “My best friend is jerking me off.” He continues. 
“If you’re a good boy we could do so much more.” You tease, eyes widening in surprise at the buck of Trevors hips, a sly grin growing on your face as you pull away from his neck to look down at him. “Trevor, do you have a praise kink?” You bite down on your lip to stop the small laugh bubbling in your chest. 
This was definitely not expected. 
“Shut up.” 
“You like being my good boy.” You try again, the laugh escaping you as he bucks again, letting out a hiss as your hand squeezes him. 
“We need more lube.” He notes, his eyes squeezed shut, his jaw clenched as hard as it can. 
“Do you want me to spit on it?” You joke, letting out a surprised yelp when Trevors hand grips your wrist, holding your hand in place as he thrusts his hips haphazardly, the warm liquid spilling onto your hand trapped in his pants. 
“Did you just…” You watch as he pants, his hips finally stopping their movements, his hold on your wrist relaxing as he lets out an annoyed whimper. 
“Yep.” He admits, his eyes slowly opening as he hesitantly glances up at you, “It’s your fucking fault, when the fuck did you learn to talk like that?” 
“Oh, trust me… There’s a lot more where that comes from.” You smile, leaning towards him, your lips ghosting over his ear as you add, “would you like show me how a good boy says thank you.” Trevors whole body shivering as you pull away, a moment of hesitation before he pounces tackling you to the couch. 
“I’ll show you exactly how I say thank you.” 
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vivwritesfics · 9 months ago
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Fire Is The Devil's Only Friend
Chapter Two
There was no such thing as making it on your own with a high profile boyfriend. That was why she kept her relationship a secret. But then after a PR fuck up, her boyfriend is forced into PR relationship and she's left on the side lines, missing him
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"Have you saved your work yet?"
Carlos knew better than anyone how hard she was working. Between writing her next book, using social media to market, and answering emails from her editor, she as flat out. He was incredibly worried about her.
She looked up at him for just a second before saving her work. The moment she did, Carlos pushed the lid of her laptop closed. "Carlos!" She cried. She went to open the laptop again, but Carlos pulled it from the table.
"One hour, mi amor. Give me on hour, and then I've give you your laptop back."
She thought on it. "You promise just an hour?"
"I promise," he said as he stepped towards her, the laptop against his chest. "We can go and get coffee together." He leaned down and pecked her lips.
She pouted as he pulled away. "You're too good to me."
"Because I just love you so much," he said and kissed her again.
***
The story of Carlos Sainz's relationship with Rebecca Donaldson broke in the early hours of the next morning. Neither of them were aware.
Carlos didn't check his phone when he woke up. He went on a run in the early hours of the morning and spent a few hours working out, like he did every day, all while she slept.
When he got back, she was still sleeping. Carlos made two coffees and brought them to the bedroom. Placing them down onto their bedside tables, Carlos leaned over and kissed his head. "Wake up, mi corazón," he said softly.
She stirred awake and glared at her husband. "It's so early," she groaned, pressing her face further into the pillow.
His laugh echoed around their bedroom. "It's not that early, my love. I got you coffee, drink up."
They had just a few hours together before she was having an online meeting with her publishers in her office and Carlos was meeting with the team at Ferrari.
He opened his laptop and logged into the call. He was rarely in a bad mood these days, the team at Ferrari noted. It was a surprise to all of them, especially after the story they had sold to the media that morning. "Carlos, I'm sure you've heard the news."
The smile dropped from Carlos's face, replaced by a frown. "What news?" He asked. He hadn't yet been on any social media, had seen none of the news articles flash up on his phone.
"We made a decision here at Maranello, one we felt would benefit the entire team," somebody else said. "After some recent events, all of which were out of our control, we thought it best to give the media something more digestible. To do so, it was leaked to the press that you were potentially romantically linked to Rebecca Donaldson, the Scottish Model."
All expression dropped from Carlos's face. He turned on his phone and, for the first time, saw the news. The news about him.
The photo of himself with Rebecca Donaldson wasn't obviously photoshopped, but there was no other explanation. There he was, in a picture with a woman he had never met.
"See, the things is, Carlos, what else are we supposed to do? Do you want Ferrari to crumble?"
No, obviously he didn't want that. "But what about the relationships of mine this does affect?" He asked quickly, pulling open his desk drawer and pulling out the ring box. He didn't display it on camera, fiddled with it in his lap. "What if I was in a relationship and I hadn't yet told anyone?"
"You don't want to lose your seat, do you?" It was a dirty ploy, but the Ferrari team was desperate. "You're almost thirty, you have a limited number of wins under your belt and no championships. Will any other team want you?"
Carlos's heart pounded in his chest. "So, I have to go on with this fake relationship and I'll get to keep my seat?"
"Exactly."
He sucked in a deep breath. Just a wall separated him from the love of his life, but here he was, ready to betray her. All for his seat. "What will I have to do?"
The rest of the meeting was spent with the Ferrari team telling Carlos exactly what they wanted from him. Be seen with her at races, have her in the Ferrari garage, take her to dinner sometimes. It was easy enough.
But it wasn't. Because the woman he loved was going to be at the races too, just not with him, not in the way they wanted Rebecca to be with him.
It was too late for him to back out. The press had released several stories about Carlos and Rebecca already.
The call ended, but he just stayed there, sitting in his chair. He flipped open the ring box several times, playing with it in his hands. The ring was gorgeous, simple, elegant. But now, Carlos doubted he'd ever get to put it on her finger.
At the knock on his office door, Carlos shoved the ring back into his desk drawer. "Carlos?" She called as she entered his office. He looked to the door as she walked in. Her shoes clicked softly against the tiled floor as she walked to his desk and sat herself on his lap. "I've got news about the release. It's launching next week."
"I'll be the first to buy it," he said, his hands on her hips.
Just hours ago, this would have been welcome news. The release of her book meant they were one step closer with telling the world about their relationship. But all of that had been thrown out of the window now, and she had no idea.
"I can't wait to kiss you after a race," she said, her head against his shoulder. "I can't wait to be seen with you."
Carlos said nothing. He kissed her head and held her close, relishing in these moments they had together. There was no telling how many more there would be once she found out.
Maybe he could propose to her now. Drop down onto one knee, put the ring onto her finger and kiss her until she forgot how to breathe. But then it would hurt so much more when she found out.
And he couldn't do that to her.
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soup-bag · 2 months ago
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SAW POSTCARD INTEREST CHECK
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IMPORTANT UPDATE!!!! This is the link for the Google Form to fill out with what you would like to purchase, so I have an idea of how much of what print I need to be getting before opening up shop! PLEASE fill this out if you’re interested!!!
Hello everyone!! I will be making these drawings into postcards and prints!! These were all made by me using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop!
There will be two size variations, 4x6in and 8x12in, and they will be priced as follows:
-For one print, 4x6 will be $5, 8x12 will be $10
-For three prints, 4x6 will be $10, 8x12 will be $20
-For the whole set, 4x6 will be $25, 8x12 will be $50
If there is enough interest in these, I will make them! I’ll make a follow-up post as soon as the poll voting ends, so if you are interested, stay posted!! Thank you everyone!!
(And please answer honestly, my feelings will not be hurt, ANSBSHDH and you’re not tying yourself to anything by answering, it just gives me a rough idea: you’re welcome to change your mind!)
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eddiediaaz · 11 months ago
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Hi, me again!
Ty for the reply, I would love an in depth tutorial if you don't mind as i really wanna get this effect to work and I kinda work best when it's spelt out for me when learning new techniques lol :)
hey anon, no worries! here's how i used this amazing template by @danesdehaan and added a rolling effect like this (from this gifset):
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this effect uses photoshop's timeline. i use cs5, for reference.
detailed tutorial under the cut :)
I. PREPARING THE TEXT
when you open the template, you should have a group called "songs" with 3 groups for each song. what you wanna do is duplicate these numbered groups until you have the amount of songs you want. for each group, use the move tool or your keyboard's arrows to move the duplicated song text layers/groups on your canvas so they're under the first three that are already there. make sure these new duplicated layers are in the "songs" group.
then type the numbers, song titles, artists, song durations, etc. it should look like that:
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i wanted mine to have a smaller gap in between each song, so i used the arrows to move each song group closer together, and it looks like that before the animation:
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II. ANIMATED EFFECT
once you have typed everything, make sure there are no mistakes and that you won't need to edit anything about the songs or durations or anything like that, because you won't be able to go back. when that's done, select all of the numbered song groups and right click > Merge Layers.
that will give you one layer with all of the songs together. i've renamed mine "SIX SONGS". make sure this new merged layer is still in the "songs" group.
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once that's done, you're ready for the animation. and it's pretty easy, because you only need two keyframes: one at the start of the gif, and one at the end.
go to the start of your gif on the timeline, and toggle the position keyframe animation by clicking on the little stopwatch icon. a little yellow keyframe should appear where the cursor is, at the start of the gif:
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then go to the end of the gif with the cursor. with the "SIX SONGS" layer selected, use the move tool or keyboard arrows (my preference) to move up the text until all the songs are inside the darker rectangle. once you move this layer's position, a keyframe will appear on the timeline and the animation will be created.
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the animation now looks like this:
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if you want, you can now edit the speed of the animation by moving the keyframes. the closer the two keyframes are, the faster the animation will be; the further apart the keyframes are, the slower the animation will be.
III. LAYER MASK
since we want the songs to be contained in the dark rectangle and below the line, we need to add a layer mask. i started by creating a shape of where i want the songs to be contained with the rectangular marquee tool:
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then, on the layers panel, select the "songs" group and click on the layer mask icon to create a mask with that rectangular selection.
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if you play the animation after making that layer mask, it should now look like this:
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if you like it that way then you are done, yay!
but if you'd like softer edges, like i have done for mine, click on the layer mask's black and white thumbnail. use the brush tool with a 0% hardness and the black color to make the edges of the mask softer. make sure you are making your brush strokes with the layer mask's thumbnail selected.
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once you have brushed a bit of black with a soft rounded brush on the top and bottom of the mask, the animation should look like this:
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and that's it! i hope this was clear enough :)
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cal-kestis · 1 year ago
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HOW TO: Make an iPhone Layout + Downloadable Template
Hi! I've gotten a few messages asking for a tutorial on my iPhone gifsets — but instead of only doing a tutorial (that would probably be triple the length this one already is), I decided to turn my layout into a template with all the bits and bobs! In the "tutorial" under the cut, I'll share everything you'll need, a free template download, and quickly go over how to use this template. :)
Disclaimer: This template uses Video Timeline and this tutorial assumes you have a basic to intermediate understanding of Photoshop.
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PHASE 1: THE ASSETS
1.1 – Download fonts. These are the fonts used for all assets I've included in my template: – SF Pro or SF Pro Display (Regular, Medium, Bold): Either version works, they look nearly identical. You can download directly from https://developer.apple.com/fonts/ or easily find it via Google – Bebas Neue: Free on Google Fonts, Adobe Fonts, and dafont – Times New Roman (Bold): Should be a default font in Photoshop
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Make sure to download and install any of the fonts you don't already have before opening my template. That way, once you open the template file, all the settings (font size, weight, spacing, color, opacity, etc.) are as intended.
1.2 – Download my template. Before you use my template, all I ask is that you don't claim or redistribute it as your own and that you give me proper credit in the caption of your post. Making these iPhone gifsets takes me a longgg time and turning this layout into a template took several hours too.
DOWNLOAD TEMPLATE VIA KO-FI ← This template is completely free to download (just enter $0), but if you feel inclined to tip me, I appreciate you! 💖
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BTW this template also includes some of my frequently used icons!
NOTE: If, for some reason, you open the template and see the pop-up shown below, click "NO" — otherwise, the fonts will be all messed up:
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And if you see this triangle with an exclamation point by a text layer, don't double-click it — it'll mess up the font as well:
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PHASE 2: THE GIFS
I'm just going to briefly go over gif sizes and my recommendations. Also, keep in mind when grabbing your scenes, you'll want all of these gifs to be the same amount of frames.
2.1 – Background Gif: 540 x 540 px. I recommend this size so you have a good amount of visibility for the gif behind the iPhone wallpaper. I also recommend making this black and white (or in my case, black and white with a slight blue tint — idk I just like the way it looks) so the wallpaper coloring can stand out.
2.2 – Wallpaper Gif: 230 (w) x 500 (h) px. Keep in mind the very narrow dimensions of the wallpaper! And also keep in mind that you'll have a bunch of apps and widgets covering the image. I try to use wide shots (or layer my clips into looking like wide shots). Also, keep in mind your color scheme for your set and your character's aesthetic! I tend to focus on one or two colors for the wallpaper.
I usually position the wallpaper to the side with 20px bumpers, so there's lots of space to see the background:
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2.3 – Large Photo Widget Gif: 201 (w) x 96 (h) px.
2.4 – Small Photo Widget Gif: 94 x 94 px.
PHASE 3: THE TEMPLATE – "IPHONE" FOLDER
In this section, I'll try to quickly walk you through how to use this template and some bits that may require extra instructions. I'll be going through each folder from top to bottom.
3.1 – Status Bar. Time, Service, and WiFi are pretty self-explanatory. In the Battery folder, you can use the shape tool to adjust the shape layers labeled "Fill (Adjustable Shape!)" to customize the battery level.
3.2 – Message Notification. Again, these are pretty self-explanatory. I've already masked the circle for the contact photo, so you can simply import any photo and use the transform tool to shrink it down. The circle is 24x24 px. If you don't want to use a photo, there's another folder called Default Initials.
If your message text can't fit the text box, the message should end with ellipses which is how iOS caps off long texts.
3.3 – Blurred Banner (IMPORTANT) This folder is easy to miss because there's only one placeholder layer in there. On iPhones, the area behind a banner notification and the dock get blurred (including the wallpaper and any apps).
What to do: Make a duplicate of the apps in Row 1 and/or widgets that intersect the message banner, convert them all into one smart object, apply a Gaussian Blur filter (Radius: 3.0 pixels) on the smart object, and move the smart object into this masked folder!
(There's another masked folder in the Wallpaper folder for the dock which I'll go over in that section.)
3.4 – Apps Turn off the yellow guide if you don't need it to keep things aligned and turn off layers you don't need by clicking the eye icon. Replace the "App" placeholder text with your app name, change the color or gradient of the square to compliment your color scheme, and add your custom app icon overlay!
If you can't find an app icon you need from the ones I provided, flaticon.com is a great resource. Also, if you can only find the filled version of an icon, check out this tutorial for how to make any text or shape into an outline.
Also, each app folder has 4 notification bubble options (1-4 digits). Again, you can toggle these on and off as you need!
3.5 – Big Widgets I like using these when my wallpaper has A LOT of negative space to fill. I included the Photos and Books widgets in my template, but there are lots of widgets available on iPhones. You can check some of the other ones I've done here, or if you have an iPhone, simply try adding some widgets to your phone!
There are also widgets bigger than these, but they would take up half of the phone screen which is why I don't use them for these edits.
3.6 – Small Widgets The only thing I'll say about these — because they're pretty straight forward — is there are a lot more weather themes than I included in my template. Also, if you set your character's phone to evening, the weather widget will show a dark background (sometimes with stars), so keep that in mind.
Speaking of, I've included Light Modes and Dark Modes for, I think, every applicable widget.
3.7 – Page Dots These barely perceptible dots indicate that your character has more pages of apps than shown in your gifset (so if an anon tries to come at you, you can just say "it's on the next page of apps" /j /lh)
3.8 – Dock Again, the dock has notification bubble options and I've included the default app designs, custom filled designs, and custom outlined designs for iMessage, Phone, Email, and Safari (there's also a FaceTime alternative if that's how your character rolls). These are usually the apps people keep in their Dock, but this is fully customizable too. So, if your character is, like, super obsessed with Candy Crush or something and needs it in thumb's reach — you can put it in the dock.
3.9 – Wallpaper This whole folder is masked already to a 230x500 px rounded rectangle.
Inside, you'll find another "Blurred Portion" folder for the area behind the message banner notification and the dock.
What to do: Duplicate your gif layer and place it in this folder, remove any sharpening filters, and apply a Gaussian Blur filter (Radius: 3.0 px). Be sure to add any coloring/adjustment layers ABOVE this folder and your original sharpened gif layer.
PHASE 4: EXPORT
We made it!
I hope this template makes it super easy for you to recreate this layout! If you decide to try it out, feel free to tag me with #usernik.
If you notice anything wonky about the template, kindly let me know so I can fix it! And if you have any questions about how to use this template, please don't hesitate to send me a message! I just ask that you try to be specific in your question so I'm able to answer you the best I can!
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kremlin · 1 year ago
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"This event ends the moment you write us a check, and it better not bounce, or you're a dead motherfucker" -- Big Bill Hell
There was a time when you'd see little old ladies paying for the groceries with a hand-written personal check, holding up the line, causing an immediately-forgiven slight sense of annoyance with those behind her. Buddy. Those days are over. They've been over. What, did you think you were going to just pop a couple extra zeroes on the end of your paycheck there? Maybe scan your paycheck, open it in photoshop, make a template, print em out all nice? You think you're the first to think of that, dipshit?
It takes the law a long time to catch up with the state of the art. You're reading this on the internet, which means you never use checks. The law has caught up. Your ass will be going to prison immediately and you will see zero return.
You can't even kite checks anymore, and hell, nobody under 40 will even know what that means, due to the blazing fast, two day settlement on all ACH transactions. Let me paint you a picture.
You get paid on Friday, but it is Monday, and bills are due on Tuesday. And you're broke: $0 in the bank. Goose egg. Pop open your checkbook, go to a store, "buy" some things, write a check for the amount. The cashier takes it!
Now take those things you "bought", across town, to another store location, and return them for cold hard cash. Sweet. Bills paid. Friday rolls around, and you just make it to the bank to deposit your paycheck before it closes. After the weekend, the checks you wrote finally post, and they don't bounce! You've kited a check. You've surreptitiously taken a zero-interest loan. And we know your broke ass. The interest rate on that short-term payday loan should have been straight up usurious. We're talking 29%. That makes predatory fuckers like us horny for sex. We're so mad. Now you are going to Federal Prison. For a good minute. Fuckface.
COST: $0.10 (With banks offering free checking accounts + Bic pen)
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"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor sleet, if you fuck with the mail, we'll rip your nuts off" -- Ronald Mail (Inventor of Mail)
Many people have this misnomer that the most powerful people in politics are democratically elected. The president, of the United States, of America, is a stupid cartoon hotdog. All of them, I don't care. Way less clout than you'd think. Brilliantly, it is the people that the hotdog president appoints who are actually doing anything significant. The director of the CIA. The fucking chairman of the Federal Reserve. Probably the, like, most senior, uh, general of the military, and shit too. I don't know, we don't "do" army here at Bloomberg. You probably don't even know their names! I don't! These are the ones you should be seeing in your sleep.
There's another position like that. Appointed directly by the hotdog. The Postmaster General. That's a real title. He's the CEO of the mail, and buddy, what he may lack in political power relative to the director of the CEO, he makes up in raw sexual energy. Total Tom Selleck energy. Like an airline pilot. We're talking Donald Sutherland in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I'm tentpoling in my black business slacks just writing this, and all my Bloomberg newsroom bros are peering over my shoulder and also tent-poling. We're not gay though, and especially me, I'm probably the least gay, but sometimes I just lay awake for hours at night what that mustache would feel like pressed against my lips, the unbelievable and utter, total sense of security I'd feel burying my head into his hard chest.
You get it. He's your dad. And if you fuck with the mail, you've fucked with the tools in your dad's garage. And dad's been drinking. You're in for it, bucko, you are in trouble. Do you think the United States Postal Service actually makes any money? Hell no. It costs like five bucks to mail a box basically anywhere I can think of and they give you the boxes for free. You can just walk in the post office and take them. I do that, and then just throw them away, I don't know why, some kind of compulsion. Being able to move shit around like this, quickly, cheaply -- Jesus H, I've got a huge amount of money in my bank account, probably tens of trillions of dollars (due to financial knowledge gained from reading Bloomberg articles) and I could probably mail every single person ever something and still come out in the black.
No way pal. They've thought of that already. The Postmaster General is going to know every time, and he's going to grab you by the shirt collar, wearing his cool as fuck hat, and you're going to get your pants pulled down, and your bare ass spanke...I need to go use the restroom real quick.
We rely on the mail system to get important shit done. It's not something to be taken lightly, and it isn't. Trust me. This is why, like almost every other person who receives mail in this year 2023, I just fucking put a wastebasket under my mail slot. I don't even shred that shit anymore. I just burn it. Takes less time.
COST: $0.63 (Postal stamp)
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"Can call all you want, but there's no one home // And you're not gonna reach my telephone // Out in the club, and I'm sipping that bubb // And you're not gonna reach my telephone" -- Lady Gaga
I read something wild that the children of today do not know what a dial tone is, because of how fucked up and stupid they are. Isn't that super fucked up?
While it's not really our style, allow me to fill you in on some ancient, arcane knowledge about the telephone. You can turn it on, and then you can punch in numbers. Any numbers. Random ones, or maybe not random ones. If the ten numbers you punch in are the same as the numbers in someone else's telephone number, their phone will ring, and then you are talking to them. This is called "Phreaking".
Here's the kicker: You can tell that jackass anything you want. "Oh, Hi, Yes, I am Reginald Sumpter calling from Avalon Consulting LLC, we are just following up on the invoice we sent you. Please remit to ###### routing ###### account."
BOOM! Your name isn't Reginald whatever and that company doesn't exist, but you just received a deposit. It's fucking beautiful. What have you done wrong? It isn't your responsibility to handle who your business' clients/etc are, it's their's. If they want to just pay you money for no real reason, well, that's kind of on them, isn't it? I haven't stuck a pistol in your face and demanded everything in the register.
Well, it's too clever. It's too slick. This is the United States of America. It's one thing to commit a felony like armed robbery, it's another thing to piss off someone in charge of the accounting division who uses a special bathroom you need a key to get into.
You can do it on the computer too, I use a PC Computer at work and send email, so you can see how it'd work there. You can make a document that is indifferentiable from a real invoice and, straight up, 1/3 of the time they will pay that shit. Lmfao.
It's called wire fraud because, uhh, duhhhh, there's wires. What do you think that thing is strung between the telephone receiver and the dialer? And computers? Give me a break. There's so many wires with those.
COST: $0.25 (Coin for payphone)
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"People calculate too much and think too little." -- Charlie Munger
It is insane how dumb the common man can be when it comes to our world of expertise. I hear this same sentiment, like, ALL THE TIME:
"Durr hurr I will buy an insurance policy for my car or house or whatever so that in case something happens to it I will get money". And then that same person proceeds to drive safely or not burn their house down. Dumbest crap imaginable.
Let me break it down for you. Insurance is a two player competitive game. There is a winner and there is a loser. Go take out an expensive insurance policy on your American sports car. Buy a neck brace, a football helmet, and pack that bitch with throw pillows. Then get in the left lane of a major highway at like noonish, let it rip and then SLAM on your brakes. Hit from behind! Your fault! Congratulations. You have won insurance. How this gets past people is beyond me.
You can only do this once or twice before the insurance companies catch on. Then they don't want to fuck with you. It is also..I don't know man...something feels off about taking a car or a house, which like, some guy had to build and just destroying it, but that is only a weird emotional thing, since you're making money, more than whatever the destroyed thing is worth, so in reality you've built that house plus some extra. You've contributed.
COST: $106.00 (Average monthly car insurance payment)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
SUBSCRIBE TO MY WHATEVER FOR PART TWO, COMING SOON. i'll post it later today probably. whatever time frame will juice the numbers. have a sneaky peaky
disclaimer | private policy | unsubscribe
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overtake · 2 months ago
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9 or 77 for the prompts?
9: a broken cocktail glass
I really have no words to explain what it is that I did here. Just .... prepare for an onslaught of terrible photoshop.
JUNE 1, 2023
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Transcript of the important pieces of That Video™️:
[Cutting out all the basic introduction of how an escape room works, but please note that Max is staring the escape room guy down as if he'll disappear if he looks away for a single second.]
DANIEL: You’re allowed as many hints as you’d like, but when you take a photo at the end, we will publicly shame you by writing how many you used on the whiteboard. MAX: Do you come in if we need hints? DANIEL: Normally we tell you over a loudspeaker, but ours is actually broken, so yeah. Just press that button and I’ll come in. MAX: I think we’ll need a lot of hints. LIAM: I think we’re a decently smart group. We can do it without hints.
[Max turned around and kind of glared at Liam??]
MAX: No, I think we’ll need a lot of hints.
[He stared at Daniel VERY intensely. Better men have crumbled beneath that stare. Daniel just laughed and bent over a little and clapped his hands together all giddy? Max met his match fr.]
____
[Literally TWO MINUTES into the escape room, Checo found a key that obviously unlocked a chest. Max took the key from him, claimed the key didn’t fit - the camera zoom shows he didn’t even try btw - and put the key in his pocket.]
MAX: I think we need to call Daniel in for help.
[He hit the button before anyone could disagree.]
DANIEL: What’s the problem? MAX: We can’t open the chest.
[Daniel looked REALLY amused. He pointed at Max’s skinny jeans.]
DANIEL: Did you try the key? MAX: What key?
[He covered the pocket of his pants, but not before the camera clearly showed the outline of a key in those skin-tight jeans he always wears. His beloved skinny jeans …. they betrayed him …]
DANIEL: The key in your pocket. MAX: It didn’t work. DANIEL: It usually works better when you actually put the key in the hole. MAX: Put it in the hole. I’ll try that, thank you.
[Daniel rolled his eyes when he left the room, but NOT in a ‘harangued underpaid employee being sexually harassed at work’ way. He was very clearly trying not to smile.]
____
[It’s five minutes into this escape room. May I remind you that they have a full hour to complete this thing? Max looked at a broken cocktail glass, which is clearly intentionally broken. It’s only in two pieces. It’s glued down. The edges are completely dull. He still hit the button].
YUKI: Oh my god, Max. MAX: That could be dangerous!
[Daniel entered the room and walked straight over to Max.]
DANIEL: Yes, Max? MAX: There’s broken glass. DANIEL: It’s decor and entirely made of plastic. MAX: I had to be sure. Safety first.
[Daniel started to walk back out of the room.]
DANIEL: I’m counting this in your hint count, by the way. YUKI: Fuck you, Max.
[The swear words are obviously all censored, but we can all tell what the word is when they’re swearing at Max, which happens quite a lot in this video. Max just shrugged at him. Unbothered king.]
____
[I cannot make this up - he calls Daniel in one minute later.]
CHECO: There’s numbers circled on this poster. LIAM: There’s five numbers and this lock over here needs five. We just have to figure out the order. YUKI: Max, don’t hit the fucking button.
[Max has already hit the fucking button.]
MAX: What order do these go in?
[Daniel rubbed a hand over his beard while he searched for a way to explain to Max that he can’t just give him the answers.]
DANIEL: Do those numbers maybe relate to something else in the room? For example, those books over there? MAX: I don’t know. We could go look together. LIAM: Sorry, do you two just want the room to yourselves? MAX: Yes.
[Daniel just laughed again. He is absolutely immune to Max’s intense flirtatious weirdness. It’s incredible to watch.]
DANIEL: How about you all take a look and see how you go?
[If you’re wondering, the others do figure it out after eight minutes. You put the books in alphabetical order, and the colour of their cover relates to the colour of the number. This was something actually worthy of a hint, but Yuki physically guarded the button so Max couldn’t hit it].
____
[Twenty minutes in. Max is trying and failing to figure out a riddle.]
MAX: I think this must only make sense if you speak English. This game isn’t designed for us. LIAM: Do you want me to look?
[Liam didn’t even finish his sentence before Max hit the button, by the way.]
DANIEL: Having some riddle trouble? MAX: Your game is biased.
[Max started wagging his finger, and Yuki looked like he was contemplating snapping it off. Checo was staring blankly at the corner and seemed to be wishing he were anywhere else.]
DANIEL: Mate, I’m pretty sure you speak better English than me. YUKI: We don’t want the hint. MAX: We want the hint. DANIEL: How about I whisper a hint to Max, and he only gives it to you guys if the rest of you can’t figure it out?
[Max looks absolutely delighted with this turn of events. Daniel cups his hands around his mouth and whispers it into Max’s ear.]
MAX: Sorry, say that again?
[He got away with that two more times, by the way. I actually can’t believe Red Bull left this footage in. Max looked smug as hell.]
____
[After four minutes of the group trying and failing to figure out the riddle, they finally give up and ask Max for the hint. I don’t know why they wasted their time. Max hit that fucking button.]
MAX: I forgot the hint. Sorry. DANIEL: I mean, you only heard it three times. How could you remember?
____
[When Max hits the button again, 27 minutes in, there are audible sighs from even the cameramen in the room.]
DANIEL: Max, would you just like to sit in the observation room with me give out hints? YUKI: Please! LIAM: Yes, he would.
[There are no words in any language to succinctly or accurately describe the pleased expression on Max’s face. The best comparison I have is a cat rolling in a field of catnip.]
NOTE: There’s no footage of what went down in the room. Red Bull included a little pop-up explaining that the cameraman couldn’t fit in the room with them. I think that room could have been the size of the entire paddock and Max would’ve found an excuse to have just himself and Daniel in there.
[The others ask for a hint at the 48 minute mark. Suddenly, magically, the loudspeaker works. No one has to enter. It’s just Max’s bossy voice telling them what to do, in detail, to solve the room, and Daniel giggling and protesting in the background, saying he can’t tell them that. It sounds like there’s a scuffle for the mic after Max drops approximately six instructions, and then it cuts off.]
____
[During the photo of everyone holding the sign at the end, Daniel tries to write a 9 in the “clues used” section. Max keeps erasing it and writing 0 with his own marker, produced from seemingly nowhere. Eventually, everyone takes a photo without the sign and they let Max and Daniel continue their little play fight in the corner.]
____
[Post-escape interviews. They all seem to be in a van on the way back from this adventure. Max is giddy and giggling.]
MAX: That was a lot of fun. I think it went well. I was very good at giving clues. I think I found my job for after retirement. YUKI: It was good when Max left. LIAM: To be fair, mate, we would have lost if Max didn’t give us all the answers at the end. YUKI: I was figuring it out!
[The camera captures Checo for only a second. He’s staring longingly out the window... probably contemplating jumping out of the moving vehicle.]
TLDR: Max is definitely fucking this escape room guy and if Red Bull never does a repeat of this video, I’m joining Max’s agenda against marketing activities.
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AUG 5, 2024
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steftastan · 1 year ago
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Carian Stroll
“Tell Blaidd, and Iji…I love them.”
Before this piece, I had been wanting for a long time to create my own piece of Elden Ring fanart featuring Ranni. I had tried several sketches unsuccessfully, just wasn’t particularly feeling the ideas I had sketched up until that point.
One day of usual internet scrolling, I stumbled upon this gorgeous piece of art by Shimomura Kanzan.
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I knew immediately I wanted to do something like this for my Elden Ring fanart. In fact, if you look at this piece, there is tons of inspiration that I drew from the original artwork, such as the style of the yellow leaves and the main subject matter being a prominent silhouette of the brightest value, placed at approximately the bottom third of the image.
The main character is cleverly shrouded amidst various layers of trees and foliage, giving us the impression that we're peeking into candid moment of their life. In the case of the fox, we caught it during a mid-day snack. In the case of Ranni and her party, we caught them in a leisurely stroll, while Iji outfits the dreaded Fingercreepers with their iconic rings.
I wasn't sure if I wanted to capture a happy moment, but Ranni goes as far as to ask us to deliver to Iji and Blaidd the message that she loves them dearly as her quest draws near its end. I would imagine they all must have had fun moments together as a family. Hey, maybe even the hands liked to be around them?
The process
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I started this on my iPad using the procreate app. Sadly the full process is not captured on video, as I switched to Photoshop for the rendering phase of the illustration. This video is a fun window into my chaotic process and how I iterate on the fly on the same canvas. I probably wouldn't do that in a professional setting where you often need to have color keys and iterations to be reviewed and analyzed. I like to I cut myself some slack when doing personal art to keep things fun.
Trying and failing some more
This illustration was not a straightforward path. I haven’t been very diligent about personal art, and at some point I started deviating too much from my reference by adding too many levels of depth to the background and suffocating the piece. I got into a weird loop where I would randomly open the PSD, play around with the values, pushing Iji to the back, then bringing him back, cranking all the levers on Ranni, etc., decide it would look horrible, then begrudgingly determine I’d never complete this image and go on with my life.
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As artists we likely have unfinished work sitting everywhere, be it in our sketchbooks, canvases, or hard drives. But it’s a different kind of sting when you feel like you can’t even nail the fundamentals.
Anyway, so a couple weeks ago, I decided to give it another go, but this time I would get rid of all the unnecessary stuff, even stuff that I had been trying to render for ages. I would not hold on to anything, I would try and recapture what drew me to Kanzan's beautiful painting to begin with.
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After it became a matter of pushing and pulling pixels until the image was finished!
That’s about it. I didn’t go crazy in depth but lately I’ve been enjoying reading into artists’ processes and I’d be remiss to not share my own thought process also.
Thank you for viewing!
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nadianova · 3 months ago
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how i do my visual novel filtered photo backgrouds
ive had some questions about this so i figured i'd put together a quick post on my process and what goes into it.
this isnt really a tutorial and instead is just a ramble of how i do stuff with a ton of examples and pictures lol
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read more below. this is a long post and you probably want to be looking at these images on your computer instead of your phone
step one is that i find CC0 photos or otherwise easy licenses to use because I'm lazy and don't want to have a list of credits of random photographers caue i used one of their images but also i don't want to use stuff without crediting
because they have a general lincese that just wants you to mention the site i prefer unsplash or pixabay but there's other public domain type photo sites too obviously
so like okay heres a random picture
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i have a photoshop CS5 from 10 years ago. but these can be done with gimp or krita and whatever. theres even photopea that has photoshop in the browser
basic stuff is that i start by cropping my bg into my renpy resolution (i use 1920x1080) this is also the part where sometimes i might rotate a bg. it is a good way to add some chaos vibes to a scene
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i tend to add some mild blur effect since i find that having too sharp photos as backgrounds clashes with the artstyle of my sprites. like just a couple pixels worth of blur tends to do it
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the next part is called fuck around and find out
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i like to play with the values to just get random results. hue/saturation for tinting the picture, messing with the curves to get some really sharp effects, or channel mixer to add more of a color
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this part is just purely vibes based but i personally think reducing the colors of the background is the simplest way to create something that feels coherent. especially if you make backgrounds based on moods. like having a blue tinted bedroom vs a red tinted one really changes the atmosphere
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you can get some pretty intense effects but its always important to remember that its meant to be a background and there's a risk it distracts from the sprites
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in this case im not including the effect for the curves. after the colours look fine the final step i tend to have is apply some sort of effect.
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i really like changing the colour mode to indexed colour since i like crunchy pixels. (had to zoom in to 100% to show the actual effect) downside of indexed is that it doesn't look ideal unless its displayed in the exact resolution it was made in but i like it
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here is the images before indexed mode:
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after indexed mode(i think you have to click the image and open it in full to see the actual effect):
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another thing ive been playing with recently has been grain+chromatic aberration combo. it makes things feel surprisingly lively with just this simple thing so you'll probably see me overusing this effect in the future
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you have to mess with the numbers to get the effect you want but for me these were the parameters I've been using
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ignore the preview missing idk why it does that.
heres the image (the non indexed version) after these krita effects
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one random special mention i have is that playing with layer blend modes is great
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in this example i just copied the same background, mirrored it horizontally and set the layer blend mode to color and it lowered the layer opacity slightly. it just adds some.... idk what to call it visual noise? itj just fucks it up a bit. i used overlapping images and screen modes in some of the hopeless junction images i did for some pretty nice effects
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i dont really know waht the blend modes do i just scroll until something looks good lmao
theres a ton you can do with these. like for example just adding a single air brush dot of a bright color on a separate layer and setting it to some blend mode to add a tint to a background
i used these both in malmaid and in the second one i just brushed on some color on a separate layer to give it a moodier vibe
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i think having variations of the same background is an extremely easy way to add some life to the bgs without having to do new stuff. like here was the hotel lobby when entering, and here is the hotel lobby when they ran away from the place. i added a radial blur with photoshop
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i think theres some beaty in artifacts that come from low resolution images too. sometimes i intentionally use images that have clear compression artifacts cause i think it looks neat. i don't really worry about the details too much as the vibe is the most important thing
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its honestly just a matter of knowing these tools exist and just fidgeting around with combinations to find what you want. it also helps to look at other backgrounds or images in general that you come across and just be curious. how was this done? how could i recreate it? that's the type of experimenting that has led me to these.
idk thats all i have to say. ty for reading and play malmaid on steam like and subscribe for more gay puppies
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from-the-clouds · 2 years ago
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texas sun - joel miller x f!reader - vol. 1
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series masterlist | series playlist | writing masterlist |
summary: When you let your new neighbor’s daughter inside to call her father from your landline, you never expect to be dealing with the fallout twenty years later. Series will take place before and after the outbreak, and is partially inspired by this request. Slow-burn(ish), eventual smut. pairing: pre-outbreak!joel miller x f!reader words: 6.4k chapter warnings: mentions of/encounters with a drunk person, references to absent parents, i imply that both reader (and joel) like pineapple on pizza. a/n: i need to get my shit together and make a proper masterlist/post for this series but i'm absolute garbage with photoshop/making collages so that is a project for another day!! for now, i wanted to get this first part out to ya'll. i watched a playthrough of the game too so ill be including some references to that throughout the series. this will be some hallmark-movie ass romance so strap in!! this chapter was super fun to write and i loved writing for reader and sarah, give it a read and let me know what you think!
-March 7, 2003- 
“Excuse me? Ma’am? Excuse me?”
The voice behind you is so timid you don’t hear it right away, especially not when your phone is pressed to your ear with your shoulder as you sort through the mail, your coworker droning on and on…
“Ma’am?” 
It’s a little more forceful this time, a little closer too, and that’s when it finally gets your attention. Turning around on your heel, you find a young girl standing behind you, one hand hooked in the strap of her backpack that hangs off of one thin shoulder, the other worrying about the butterfly pendant of the necklace she’s wearing. 
You recognize her immediately as one of your neighbors, the girl from across the street whose name you didn’t know yet, because you only moved in about two months ago. You’d met the man who you assumed was her father – Joe? Or was it Joel?, you couldn’t remember – the first day you’d moved in, but there had been so much going on that you were too flustered to be engaged.
It’s a Friday, but apparently that doesn’t keep you safe from work calls after you leave the office, because you’re getting an earful of a whole lot of hot air, so much so that you’re probably unintentionally frowning at the girl in front of you while you try to follow the conversation.
“....I think you’re right, but they’re not going to budge unless we sweeten the deal somehow-”
“Can I call you back?” you blurt, ultimately thankful for the interruption. You don’t even wait for his response before you click off your blackberry, sighing, looking up. “Hi, yeah, sorry. Can I help you?”
“Uhm, I’m Sarah…..Miller….I live across the street?” her voice goes up slightly at the end of the sentence, like she’s unsure, even as she points to the home behind her, a two-story place that’s considerably bigger than your own, but maybe a little older. “I uhm…I locked myself out and I was wondering if I could use your phone…to call my dad at work? Please?” 
“Oh, yeah,” you say. “That’s fine. Just uh..follow me I guess.”
Tucking the stack of mail in your hand under your arm, you wave her after you, your kitten heels clicking on the hard pavement of your driveway. 
“Be careful here,” you warn her as you step over the middle step to your front porch that has rotted, and gives easily under any amount of weight. You’d learned about it the hard way, last week, and still had the bruise on your leg to show for it. 
Your front door is open, and Sarah pauses to take off her shoes when you do, a pair of beat-up white Converse that have been doodled on in Sharpie.
“Here, phone’s right there,” you lead her into the kitchen and point to the landline. “Can I get you anything to drink?” 
“Uhm, could I just get some water…please?” She stands rigidly in your kitchen, rocking back and forth on her heels.
“Of course,” you reach into the cabinet. Once the glass is filled and placed in front of her, you retreat to your front living area to give her some privacy while she makes the call, sitting on the couch and scrolling through unanswered emails on your blackberry. Sarah mumbles indiscreetly, until you hear her call out again. 
“Uhm…ma’am…I’m sorry, Miss…uh-what’s your last name?”
“Oh,” you sit up, giving her your first instead. 
“Okay….Uh, my dad wants to talk to you…could you-”
“Sure,” you stand, stepping back into the kitchen, and accepting the receiver from the girl. 
“Hello?”
“Hey, this is Joel Miller,” you’re greeted with a low, gruff drawl. “You’re the new neighbor, I believe introduced myself a while back”
“Joel,” you repeat. It’s Joel. Joel, Joel, Joel, you force yourself to remember. Joel and Sarah Miller. “Yes, we met very briefly.”
“And it sounds like you met Sarah.”
“Yeah.”
On the other end of the line, you hear him hesitate, let out a long sigh. “Look, I hate to put you out, but she lost her key to the house, and she tells me the Adlers aren’t home. Do you think she could stay at your place until I’m able to get off work in a couple hours? I know it’s a big ask, but-”
“Of course she can,” you cut him off, peering over your shoulder at Sarah, who’s staring up at you expectantly with wide, terrified eyes. 
“Really?”
“Yeah, it’s no big deal.”
“She’s probably got homework so I’ll make sure she stays quiet and out of your way. I’m so sorry, she should know better than this. It’s the second time this month this has happened, I keep tellin’ her-”
“Like I said, it’s not a big deal,” you cut him off, unintentionally, before wondering if it was rude you didn’t let him finish. It’s the native New Yorker in you, always in a rush and uninterested in drawn-out excuses. It’s an unfortunate instinct you’ve been trying to train yourself out of, particularly now that you’re living in the southwest. You soften your tone. “She can stay as long as she needs to, seriously. I don’t have anything planned.”
“Okay,” the voice on the other end sounds relieved. “Thank you. Thank you so much. I should be home by nine, I’ll call if anything changes. Thanks so much.”
“Of course, we’ll be fine. See you soon.” You hang up. 
Sarah is still behind you when you turn around, clutching the glass of water she’s got in both hands like a vice. “You can stay here until your dad gets home,” you tell her. 
“Did….did he sound mad?”
“Maybe a little stressed,” you’re honest. “But….not mad. I also don’t know him, so…”
“I bet he’ll be mad. This is the second time I’ve locked myself out this month because I forgot my key, and I already got lectured once that last time because he had to leave work early.”
“You made a mistake, people forget things…” you shrug. “I’m sure he’ll get over it.”
Her shoulders relax slightly, and she looks around like it’s the first time she’s actually registered where she’s at. “You have a nice house. It’s cozy.” 
“Thanks,” you put your hands on your hips and look around too. “I’m still settling in, so not everything’s unpacked, but I could give you a tour if you’d like?”
“Yes ma’am.”
Ma’am. That tickles you. The address is still not something you’re used to hearing, even though you’ve only been in Austin a few years. “You can just call me by my first name, you know? Ma’am makes me feel old.”
“Really?” she grins, following you down the hall. “I can’t wait to be old.”
“You’ll feel differently someday,” you answer. “But…I guess it’s not so bad.”
Compared to the house you grew up in, your new house is nothing special, but it’s yours, and you couldn’t be prouder that you’d bought it all on your own. It’s a three-bedroom ranch, and you’d converted one of the rooms into an office for yourself. There’s a kitchen, living room, and den. But your favorite part is your large, screened in back porch that overlooks your yard. Now that it’s getting closer to summer, you sit outside in the mornings with a cup of tea and read the newspaper, listen to the birds. 
“Can I do my homework at your kitchen table?” Sarah asks once you’re finished showing her around.
“Make yourself comfortable wherever,” you answer. “I could probably stand to get a little work done myself.”
Sarah sits at your dining room table, spreads out her books, and works quietly while you answer some emails and look over some contracts. You’ve got a big meeting Monday with a potential client, and a giant stack of term sheets to go through, but if you could manage to get some of it done tonight it might actually help you down the line. As much as possible, you try to avoid doing too much work outside of your office’s standard hours, but sometimes, it’s inevitable.
The subject Sarah has homework in is algebra, which renders you useless. Even when you have to do any accounting at work, you’re used to having a calculator nearby. It’d been awhile since you spent time with anyone as young as she was – in sixth grade, she told you – and it was starting to serve as a confirmation of your own dysfunctional childhood, because her carefree, sweet nature was so drastically different from anything you remembered feeling. 
After about an hour, Sarah slowly starts to close her notebooks, zipping her pencils back up in plastic pouches. You look up from making revisions on a contract, the smell of blue ink heavy in the air around you. “I’m done,” she announces. “Could I sit on your couch and read?”
“Of course,” you answer. “Give me five and I’ll join you.”
It doesn’t take long for you to find a good stopping point, and you pack up your messenger bag, and join Sarah in the living room. “So…I’m starting to get hungry,” you tell her. “Are you?”
Sarah nods sheepishly.
“I could order us something,” you said. “What do you like?”
You aren’t much of a chef, though you can generally figure your way out around any recipe. However, cooking for one is notoriously tedious. If you had multiple mouths to feed, maybe you’d be tempted to hone your skills in the kitchen a little more. Most nights you usually treated yourself to a depressing, hastily thrown together salad, scrambled eggs, or a PB&J. Tonight, you had actually been planning to take yourself out to dinner – there’s a cute little French bistro down the street and you were hoping to treat yourself to a cocktail and a nice meal while you read.
Sarah closes her book, contemplating. “Could we….get a pizza?”
You think about it. “Sure, yeah. Pepperoni…cheese?”
“Can we get….one of both?” she tests. 
“Yeah, we can do both,” You smile. “I bet your dad will be hungry, too, he can have some if he wants.”
“Maybe…he likes pineapple on his,” Sarah wrinkles her nose.
“He has good taste. I do too.”
“Gross.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll keep them separate,” you call over your shoulder as you retreat to the kitchen. 
Once the pizza is ordered, you return to your living room and curl up on the opposite side of the couch from Sarah, who is engrossed back in her book. “They told me about 30 minutes. What are you reading?”
“To Kill A Mockingbird,” she says, showing you the cover. 
“That was one of my favorites growing up.”
“I have to read it for school…but it’s pretty good so far.”
Your phone pings with another email, and you glance at it quickly. 
“Is that work?” she asks. 
You nod. “Yeah. It still finds you, even when you leave.”
“What do you do?” 
“I’m a lawyer.”
“No way!” Sarah perks up. “Like on the tv shows? That’s so cool.��� 
You snort, shaking your head. “No, not exactly. I’m a corporate lawyer so it’s not as fun, actually, it’s just a lot of paperwork and meetings…”
“So…you don’t like it, then?”
“It’s….” you think about it. “....Fine.” Did you like your job? It wasn’t really something you thought about in that way, you’d always seen it as a means to an end. “I went to law school because my dad wanted me to…he wanted me to work for him someday. And…that didn’t pan out so…yeah. But you know…it pays well, and….”
“You get to wear cool outfits,” she gestures to you.
“Yeah, I guess I do. Although the heels do get a little uncomfortable.”
Sarah’s eyes shift behind you for a second to the hallway leading to your bedroom, then widen excitedly. “You have a cat?” 
You turn around to see what she’s looking at, the white and gray ball of fluff that you’d found underneath a dumpster one late night in college. 
“Yeah, that’s Martini.”
“Martini,” she giggles, and the cat approaches her cautiously. He’s notoriously shy and quiet, and not even particularly cuddly, but he likes to sleep at the foot of your bed and will sit next to you on the couch if you stay still for long enough.
The cat sniffs Sarah’s outstretched hand, then presses his face into Sarah’s palm so she can scratch him under his chin, his favorite spot. “He’s not usually a fan of strangers, he must like you.”
“I love animals,” she says. “My dad won’t let me get a pet because he says he’ll end up taking care of it.”
You chuckle. “Cats are pretty easy…at least, he is.”
Martini allows himself about twenty seconds worth of affection before he darts out of the room and heads to his food bowl. 
“I’m gonna go change out of my work clothes, I’ll be right back,” you push yourself off the couch and walk down the hallway. Any other night and you probably would’ve been in pajamas awhile ago but that’s probably not acceptable, so you settle for jeans and a sweater, which is much more comfortable than the dress and tights you had been in before. 
The pizza arrives and after you tip the driver, set it on your kitchen island and pull some plates out of your cupboard. You and Sarah are both long settled with full plates when you speak again. 
“Wow….I forgot how good pizza is…” you say, staring at the half eaten piece in your hand. 
“You don’t eat pizza?”
“Usually only when I’m drunk,” you say, then immediately realize you’re talking to an eleven year old. “Oops, I…probably shouldn’t be telling you that.”
She giggles. “It’s okay.”
“So, it’s just you and your dad across the street?” you ask. “Does your mom live with you?” 
The second the question registers, you immediately regret asking. Sarah shrinks before you, her face dropping, shaking her head. “No I…I don’t really have a mom.”
“I’m sorry,” you say, softly. You just assumed she existed although you’d never seen her, and you feel guilty, racking your brain for something that might help make her feel better. “I understand, my mom wasn’t really around growing up.”
“She wasn’t?” Sarah asked, looking up. 
You shake your head.  “My parents got divorced when I was young, my dad took us, and she moved across the country, so….I didn’t see much of her.”
“My mom… she left when I was a baby.”
“I’m sorry.” You say again, staring at the girl in front of you. 
For a moment, looking at her, you see yourself, and you wonder how a parent can wake up one day and choose to ignore someone that’s one half of themselves. Someone they made. If they really understood what that might do to a person’s psyche, growing up thinking that they weren’t wanted. You had always told yourself that your mother, your parents must have not understood, because if they did, and they still chose to do it…
“Are you married?” Sarah asks, and you’re snapped out of your train of thought.
Taking a bite of pizza, you shake your head no.
“So you live here alone?” 
You nod, chewing.
“Do you like it?”
You nod, swallow. “It’s better than having a roommate, or living in the city.” 
Standing up, you walk towards the fridge for a can of sparkling water. It hisses while you open it, and you lean over the counter while Sarah continues to drill you. “Do you ever get….scared? Like at night?” 
“No….not really. I have locks. And this is a safe neighborhood. And uh, I may or may not have a nightlight still.”
Sarah giggles. “Me too.”
There’s a sturdy knock on your screen door, which you’d left open to let in the cool spring breeze, and you notice Sarah’s eyes widen. “I bet that’s my dad.”
As if he heard her, and maybe he did, the guest calls out. “It’s Joel!” It’s the same voice from over the phone, but much clearer. 
“Come in,” you answer.
The screen door creaks open, the sound of boots shuffling inside. “Sarah?” It’s the same voice from the phone. Joel steps into the warm light of the kitchen.
When you first met it had been from a distance, you were carrying boxes and he was loading something into the back of his truck. It’s clear you hadn’t gotten a good enough look at him, wouldn’t have forgotten his name, because fuck, he’s kind of gorgeous…tan skin, dark wavy hair, and a sharp jawline covered in stubble. In the archway to your kitchen he looks huge, taller than you remembered.
“Hi Dad,” Sarah says. “Miss-“
You cut her off simply by saying your first name. “Nice to meet you…again.”
“It’s nice to meet you, too, and thank you so much for keeping an eye on her. We’ll get out of your ha-”
“We got you pizza,” Sarah pipes up, looking at him. You can tell that she’s trying to stall. Or at least, trying to offer him something that might soften the inevitable lecture she’s going to get. It’s a smart play, and definitely not something you would’ve been above trying at her age.
Joel looks at the three pizza boxes spread across your countertop. “You didn’t have to feed her, really, like I said, she should’ve known better,” he turns to look at her pointedly.
“I had to eat anyway. Please, help yourself. There’s a ton of leftovers,” You really did not want cold pizza in your fridge, because it’d be too tempting to eat as a late night snack or even breakfast on your way out the door in the mornings.
Reluctantly, he looks at you before taking a plate. “Thank you,” he turns to his daughter while he opens one of the boxes. “Did you get your homework done?” 
Sarah nods. “And I got ahead on my reading for English.”
“That’s good.” 
Joel turns back to you, settles in a chair with the plate of food in front of him at the island. You do the same. “I’m sorry I haven’t had the time to come over and properly introduce myself. Sarah too.”
You shrug. “I’m the new neighbor, that’s probably my responsibility anyways. It’s been kind of hectic settling in.”
“Where’d you move from?”
“Well, I’ve been in Austin for the past few years, but originally I’m from Manhattan.”
Joel nods. “Why Texas?” 
It’s far away from my insane family, you think, and then settle on something else. “Work.”
Sarah is staring at her plate and tearing a piece of crust into tiny pieces. Joel eyes the slice of pizza he’s just taken a bite of.
“Pineapple?” he looks over at Sarah. “Are you tryin’ to bribe me so you don’t get in trouble?”
“It’s my favorite, too,” you offer, then wink at Sarah when Joel isn’t looking. She tilts her head down, her hair hiding the grin on her face from her father.
A buzzing sound cuts through the room before Joel can answer, and he digs in his pocket to fish out his cell phone. “Hold on, I gotta take this.”
When he steps out of the room, you begin to clear the empty boxes and plates off your kitchen island and bring them over to the sink. Sarah brings her plate over as well, stands next to you at the sink while you rinse them off and load them in the dishwasher. 
“Thank you for dinner,” she says. 
“Of course,” you answer.
“I just really hope he’s not disappointed with me.”
Placing your hand between her shoulder blades, you give her an encouraging pat. “I don’t think he is….” you hear Joel on the phone in the other room, his voice rising in volume. “....and honestly….it sounds like he might have bigger fish to fry…”
“Tommy…are you fucking kidding me? Again? How many times is this gonna happen? Okay…fine. fine. I’ll be there soon, but you can’t keep doing this shit.”
Sarah grimaces, and you both turn back to the sink sheepishly when you hear Joel’s footsteps returning. She bumps you with her elbow while you clear your throat. 
You’re sure there’s still a residual smile on your face when you turn around to face Joel, who has his hands on his hips. “Alright, Sarah, we gotta get going.”
“Is everything okay with Uncle Tommy?” 
“No, I’ve gotta pick him up at the police station.” 
“Did he drink too much again?”
“Sarah!” Joel exclaims. “Please, it’s gettin’ late and you’ve got a soccer game tomorrow, you need to get to bed.”
You’re biting your lower lip so hard to keep from laughing you almost taste blood. It’s not funny, definitely not funny to Joel, who you can tell is having a rough night, but it’s objectively funny as an outsider, watching all their familial drama being put on blast by his daughter who doesn’t quite have a filter yet, and is first and foremost trying to protect herself from getting into trouble.
“She’s a lawyer, I bet she could help Tommy,” Sarah looks over at you. “Couldn’t you?”
Joel frowns. “That’s not how that works-”
“What’d they bring him in for?” you ask. 
Joel runs a hand through his hair. “Public intoxication. Are you really a lawyer?”
“Well…I’m a corporate lawyer so that wouldn’t really be my specialty. But uh…I’ve definitely been able to talk my friends out of that kind of thing before.”
“But this is not the first time,” Joel says. “It’s probably useless.” 
“Didn’t you say you can’t afford to keep-”
“Sarah, enough.” Joel’s voice is as stern as you’ve heard it, and he digs into his pocket, producing a keychain. “Go home and get ready for bed. I’ll be home in a minute.”
Sarah sighs, defeated. “Okay.” 
Joel stands dead still while she shuffles to the door, cramming her feet in her shoes with her backpack slung over her shoulder. 
By this point in the evening, you’d usually be curled up on your couch by the fireplace with your latest knitting project, moderately stoned, watching bad reality television and sipping sleepytime herbal tea. But your night has already gone drastically different from your expectation. Why stop now? “If you wanted…I could try to help.”
Joel shakes his head, looks at the floor. “I can’t ask that of you.”
“You didn’t ask,” you shrug. “I offered.”
He looks up, a soft smile breaks across his face, revealing a row of straight, sparkling teeth, the corners of his eyes crinkling. It’s the first sincere smile you’ve ever seen from him, and your knees feel a little weak at the sight of it. You think you might offer him anything just to see it again. “It’d be a huge favor. But….I’d appreciate it.”
“Alright well…” you look around, push yourself off the countertop. “I probably should change before we go. I don’t think I’ll be taken seriously in this.”
He chuckles. “Yeah, I need to make sure Sarah gets to bed alright, how ‘bout you meet me on my porch in ten?”
“I’ll be there.”
“Thanks again,” he raps his knuckles on the counter twice before retreating, and you stay in place until you hear the screen door close behind him.
─── ・ 。゚☆: *.☽ .* :☆゚. ───
“I feel like you’re meeting us all at a very chaotic time….I promise, things aren’t usually like this.” 
Joel’s not sure why he feels the need to clarify this to you on the drive to the police station. In fact, he might be saying it more to convince himself, because he thinks ever since Sarah’s mom ran off, things have never not been chaotic. 
In some ways, he’s glad it happened. It was a doomed relationship from the start, they’d both been far too young to understand the consequences of their actions, so it was probably for the better that she was no longer around. But he was caught in a constant state of feeling like he could never quite get a handle on things. 
Joel glances over at you in the passenger's seat of his truck. He decides that you look a little out of place there, dressed in a black pantsuit, a messenger bag tucked between your heel-clad feet. He can’t remember the last time there was an adult woman in his car. Three months, maybe? It had been a date, a third date, and subsequently, a last date. But right now the context is different.
Your head is tilted towards the open window, the breeze casting stray pieces of your hair around as the radio cuts in and out of an old Eagles song and then to static, and then back into music again. He needs to get his damned stereo fixed but unfortunately it hasn’t exactly been high on his priority list. His gaze travels down the slope of your neck, where your skin dips into the collar of your silky blue blouse, then back to your profile, your lips moving as you mouth the words to the song, but don’t sing. 
I get this feelin' I may know you
As a lover and a friend
You stop when his words register, turning to look at him, and he averts his eyes back to the road. “No offense or anything….” you say. “But compared to the family I grew up in….this is all pretty tame.”
Joel ponders that for a moment, notices the way your eyes are narrowed, the corners of your lips quirking. “What, you got a problematic little brother, too? A precocious eleven-year-old?”
“No kids,” you answer. He didn’t think so. “But I do have a problematic older brother. And the stress he’s caused has definitely taken years off my life.”
At least you seem like you understand. 
He’s shocked you’re in this car with him, that after entertaining his daughter all night, you’d offered to help him out with this Tommy mess. Though, he assumes you’re doing it out of guilt because Sarah made it sound like he was broke.
“You know for the record, I actually have the money to bail him out.”
“I figured.”
“Then why’d you come?”
You shrug. “I don’t know. My life has been pretty boring lately. I can’t remember the last time I did something exciting on a Friday night.” 
“This is exciting to you?”
“It’s objectively exciting,” you sound assured. “Maybe more exciting than being the person who got arrested for public intoxication.” 
Despite the stress of the evening, he can’t help but laugh. 
“And whether you’re broke or not, bailing someone out of jail is no joke. If you can at least try to talk your way out of it, you might as well.”
Joel can’t argue with your logic.
“What is it you do again?” you ask, eyeing the protective glasses he has in the cup holder of his front seat. There are nails stuck between the rubber grooves of the mat beneath the seats, a pair of thick gloves resting on the dashboard.
“I’m a carpenter.”
“Makes sense,” you answer. “So you’re handy?”
“You could say that,” Joel lifts the can of flat, warm seltzer from his lunch break to his mouth, just to take a sip. 
“That’s hot,” you say, and he nearly chokes when he hears it.  Are you….flirting? Though, you can’t be, because when he looks over at you, you’re staring at the road, face neutral. 
“What makes you say that?” 
“I don’t know, I don’t make the rules of what’s hot and what isn’t….it’s just a fact. Everyone knows that.” 
“Do they?” 
“Uh-huh,” you respond. “I mean, I wish I was handy. I’m pretty much a lost cause in that department.” 
“If it paid the bills, you’d figure it out.” 
“If it paid the bills, I can tell you, I would not be living in our neighborhood.”
Joel puts his blinker on, preparing to pull into the police station. “You probably still could, it’s not that nice of a neighborhood.” 
“Shut up,” you snort, rolling your eyes. “But in all seriousness, it is peaceful. It’s quiet.”
“See, but you still didn’t say nice.”
“It is nice. I like it.” 
When he parks the car, you straighten up, unbuckling the seatbelt and exiting without a word. On the opposite side of the truck, he observes how you rebutton the front of your blazer, smooth down its lapels and shift your shoulders back before turning to him. 
“You ready?” you ask. 
He nods. 
“After you.”
─── ・ 。゚☆: *.☽ .* :☆゚. ───
When Joel spots you again, Tommy is walking a few paces behind you. You turn your head over one shoulder, smirking at whatever he’s saying. From where Joel is sitting in the lobby, he can just make out the soft curve of your hips, the tops of your thighs over the barrier that separates him from all the desks of the officers and staff at the station. You’ve got an easy, relaxed gait and you give Joel a wink when he catches you staring.
He can tell it’s just meant to be celebratory thing, since both you and Tommy seem to be in good spirits, but he likes the sight of it anyways, the idea that you’re both in on some secret that no one else is. 
Joel stands to greet you and his brother to get the download, but as he approaches, your group is intercepted by one of the cops that had been hanging around reception. 
“Miller,” he says lowly to Tommy. “This better be the last time I see you in here.” 
When Tommy doesn’t answer right away, you pipe up. 
“I assure you my client will be on his best behavior.”
The cop turns to you for a minute, turns back to Tommy, contemplating. “You’re lucky you have a good lawyer…” he says. “Although I’m still not convinced you’re really paying someone to get you out of a public intoxication charge.” 
“I-” Tommy opens his mouth but you cut him off.
“Alleged…intoxication,” you interject, stone-faced.
“He can hardly walk straight.”
You purse your lips. “But….you never did a sobriety test, so, would it hold up in court?” you grimace. “If I had to guess….probably not.”
The cop narrows his eyes at you. “Don’t push it, princess.” 
Despite the infantilizing nickname, You respond with a polite smile. “Thanks again, officer. Have a nice evening.”
“Mhm,” he murmurs before backing away. 
You turn to Joel, your smile fading, and Tommy cuts in. “We should get the fuck out of here before he changes his mind.”
“That’s it? You’re free?” Joel asks.
Tommy nods. 
“Tommy’s right, we should definitely leave.”
It’s a mad scramble, the three of you settling back into Joel’s truck, and if he was feeling a little less angsty about the way the whole evening had gone, he might’ve even peeled out of the parking lot for dramatic effect. But at this point, his patience is wearing thin.
He’s back on the main drag, en route to Tommy’s place, with you on the passenger’s side, and his brother in the back, leaning forward with his elbows resting on your seats when his brother speaks up.
“Holy….shit!” Tommy turns to you. “That was fucking awesome, are you kidding me? Joel, where the fuck did you find her?”
He’s still drunk, words slurring together, and he shakes both of your shoulders ferociously. You actually giggle — the sound of it is fucking adorable and Joel wishes that these are not the circumstances for hearing such a noise. He rather it be because of something he said, but he knows Tommy has always been more charming, even when drunk 
“She’s my neighbor, Tommy.”
“No way! How come I’ve never seen you around before?” Tommy asks, and Joel can’t stop himself from rolling his eyes. 
“I’m kind of new to the area,” you answer. 
“Dammit, oh my god, Joel, I wish you coulda seen it.”
Joel looks over at you, and is thankful that he catches your eye. “What’d you say?” 
“Never underestimate your negotiating power when the cop you’re talking to’s shift ended over an hour ago, and he doesn’t want to fill out any more paperwork.” You cross your arms, look over your shoulder at Tommy, who is leaning back against the seat with his head in his hands, laughing, before looking back at Joel. “I told you, I have experience.”
“Oh my god,” Tommy pokes his head back between you. “How’d he even get you to come down here? What’d he have to do, offer to paint your house or somethin’?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Sarah got locked out again,” Joel explained. “And I was over at her place when you called. She’s a corporate lawyer.”
“Ah, that makes sense. You know, Joel’s always liked the smart ones,” Tommy starts, and Joel has to contain the urge to slam on the brakes and send his brother face first into the back of his headrest. Unfortunately, he can’t do that with you in the car. “Too bad he’s dumb as a box of rocks.”
“Okay, watch yourself!” Joel snaps, and he’s only halfway kidding. “You got off easy, but you’re on fuckin’ thin ice, and I’m still pissed that I’m spending my night bailing you out again.”
Tommy doesn’t even catch on to Joel’s irritation – or maybe he does, and has just decided that he’s going to be the Annoying Younger Sibling and see how far he can push it. “Don’t let him fool you, okay?” Tommy continues, and you’ve angled yourself towards him, amused. “It’s not always him lookin’ after me. Before he had Sarah, he was crazy.”
“Alright, alright that’s enough, Tommy.” Joel shoots daggers towards his brother in the rearview mirror, and he watches Tommy’s smile falter, finally deciding to back down. 
“Is that true, Joel, were you really crazy?” you ask after Tommy grows quiet, tilting your head. “I can’t see it.”
“Well we’ve all have our moments, right?” he says sheepishly. 
“We do,” you agree, and then it’s finally silent.
Joel is thankful to see Tommy’s driveway straight in front of him, and his car lurches up the curb. “Alright, alright, this is your last stop,” he says to his brother. “You’ll get in okay?” 
Tommy takes a deep breath, settling himself after all his bravado and sinking back against his seat. “I’ll be fine. I’ll see you tomorrow morning at Sarah’s game.” He slinks out of the truck and slams the door behind him. 
Normally, Joel would’ve chewed him out after something like this, but he knows being hungover tomorrow at a middle school soccer game, sandwiched between screaming parents and the ear-splitting whistles of the referees will be punishment enough.
“I’ll see you then.” He watches his brother stumble up the steps to his home, unlock the door, and give a wave before disappearing inside. 
Joel’s left alone with you. “Should we get you home, now?”
“Yeah, we should.”
Joel puts the car in reverse, puts one of his arms over the back of the bench seat to look for cars behind him, and catches you staring. You don’t even seem embarrassed that he notices, either, you just shift your gaze away to outside the window.
He feels a little self-conscious about the first impression he’s probably made, which is a feeling he’s not used to…caring about what people think. 
“Sorry about him, he’s….a good guy but a real piece of work.”
You giggle. “Like I said, I have a brother, too.”
It’s been awhile since he’s interacted with anyone outside of Sarah, Tommy, and his coworkers, and his day was exhausting. He wants to ask more questions, see if he can hold some kind of conversation, but words fail him, so you spend the short drive on the way back home mostly in silence. You’re so quiet that by the time he pulls into your driveway, he thinks you might be asleep. If you were, he doesn’t even get the chance to wake you, because you immediately sit up straight once the truck has come to a halt.
“Thanks for everything tonight,” he says. 
“You’re welcome, it was no problem,” you get out of the car, sling your bag over your shoulders, and close the door. “Have a good night.” 
Joel’s listening to the retreating click of your heels up the driveway when he rolls down his window all the way to speak again. It’s clear you’re tired, your shoulders are slouched, and he feels incredibly guilty. You worked all day and then had to put up with his entire crazy family. 
“Hey,” he says. “How much do I owe you for the pizza?”
You turn around, still stepping backwards. “Nothing.”
“Look, you’ve done too much for me tonight to say that,” he says. “I’m startin’ to feel bad.”
You stop in your tracks then, the smirk on your face fading a little bit as you slowly step forward to where he leans out the truck window. It’s only a few feet, but you’re much closer now than you’ve been to him all night, and there must be jasmine in your perfume. It smells expensive, he thinks, as your hands lift to rest on the door next to his elbow. “You shouldn’t feel bad,” you say softly, voice low. 
God, you’re fucking beautiful, he realizes, basked in the glow of the moon, a smile creeping along the edges of your lips. Of course, he knew you were attractive, had definitely registered it at some point before –  maybe when he’d walked in on you and Sarah giggling in the kitchen. He was just too busy being worried to even notice until now. 
This isn’t a date, but you’re so close he could kiss you, kind of wants to just to see what would happen, but he doesn’t. You’re his new neighbor, and if he’s reading this wrong, he doesn’t want to be reminded of the mistake everyday, first thing in the morning when you’re picking up your newspaper at the end of your driveway and he’s leaving for work. 
“But uh…if it would make you feel better…one of the steps on my front porch is rotted. Maybe you could come over sometime and fix it? That a fair trade?” 
Joel nods, and you stick out your hand. “It’s a deal,” he says, ignoring the jolt of energy he feels when your palms press together, like you’re a kid wearing a hand buzzer, trying to shock him.
“Great,” you step away. He’s about to put the car in reverse when you speak again. 
“Oh, and Joel?” you ask, he looks back at you. Before you speak again, your eyes shift to the ground, like you’re mustering up the courage to ask him something, and when they return to his again, your expression is somber. “Go easy on Sarah….she’s a good kid.”
Joel nods, understanding.
“I know.”
-
volume ii
taglist: @yaskna @venomous-ko @lomljigg
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thebleedingwoodland · 5 months ago
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THE SIMS 3 TUTORIAL
HOW TO CREATE DEFAULT REPLACEMENT MOD USING CUSTOM MESH & TEXTURE FOR SIMPLE OBJECT
⚠️ Tumblr has 30 pictures limit, so I cannot include too many pictures. If you want to zoom in the pictures, click the pictures to enlarge, or save the pictures into your PC, zoom the pictures on picture viewer or zoom in the pictures on your mobile phone. ⚠️
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I create this tutorial to make easier to follow because there are older tutorials available before but scattered on internet and usually only say "Export to replace s3asc" without explaining how to export the edited object properly.
My method is using TSR Workshop instead of exporting the object using Sims 3 Object Export/Import plug in because exporting to replace the s3asc using that plug in always giving error notification "ERR: Model has 1 groups; original had 0" and cannot be exported.
For beginners who are very new using s3pe and haven't created default replacement mod before, better start from simple object first.
Simple objects I mean in-game object that has single MODL and single texture with no morphs, no GeoStates, no presets, no CAS colour channels, and easily cloned from OBJD on catalogue. Usually as utensils that Sims holding in their hand, not buy/build objects. For example: Pencil, pan, fork, spoon.
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Tools to prepare:
s3oc
s3pe
Milkshape 3D for bone assignment (Version I use 1.8.5 beta, discontinued by its developer, therefore feel free to download the full version with its license key provided).
Sims 3 Object Export/Import 1.01 by Wesley Howe (Milkshape plug-in. Download msS3ObjPluginsV101.rar ) 
TSR Workshop (Older version for TS3 only version 2.0.88)
TSR Workshop plug-ins for export.import TSRW Object.
3D Program (Blender/Maya/3dsMax)
Editing images software (Photoshop, make sure you have to install .dds plugin by Nvidia. For free software alternative, you can use GIMP with its .dds plugin)
This tutorial will not teach you how to:
Meshing object ❌
Create alpha texture ❌
Change thumbnails in-game ❌
Install programs and plug-ins ❌
This is how I created Chinese chopsticks replacement mod using custom mesh and texture.
In summary, this tutorial has 10 steps:
Step 1. Clone the Object using s3oc
Step 2. Open S3PE to Copy the Original Resource Code and Export the Files
Step 3. Export the Original Mesh as Base Mesh to .obj format
Step 4. Create Your Custom Mesh
Step 5. Bone Assignment & Create Group
Step 6. Create custom Texture
Step 7. Import the .wso of Edited Mesh on TSR Workshop & Export the package
Step 8. Export MODL file from Package saved from TSR Workshop
Step 9. Finalizing in s3pe & Replacing the Original file with Edited File & Correcting the Code As Same As Default Code
Step 10. Test the CC in your game.
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✳️ Step 1. Clone the Object using s3oc
Before cloning the object, check the Game Folder for in-game object file location. Settings > Game Folders...
Take a look if the Base Game or Expansion Pack for object file you want to clone is in the right folder. For example, my The Sims 3 game are all bought from Steam, so the location is D:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\The Sims 3
If you want to clone object from Expansion Pack, make sure input the folder location. For example, the location for World Adventures EP is D:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\The Sims 3\EP1
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If you are done, close the pop-up box. You can continue click Cloning then choose Normal Object...
Wait until you get the whole catalogue. Click Search...
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For example, I clone object from World Adventures Expansion Pack. You can clone object from Base Game or other Expansion Packs as long it is considered as "utensil" that Sim holding on hand. For example: "Pencil" or "Pan"
Search for text: chopsticks
or if you want to clone object from Base Game, search: utensil
Tick check marks for Resource Name, Object Name, Object Desc then click "Search button"
Search result gives you results with name "chopsticks". Here is the object we are looking for: UtensilChopsticks
We need the OBJD file to clone. OBJD = Object Data.
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Click "Clone or Fix" at the right bottom. Then you see the next page to determine if you want to clone with renumber or not. If you want to make default replacement, then do not check the Renumber box. Keep it blank.
Tick check box means the s3oc will generate new resource code for new item. Not tick the check means the s3oc will overwrite the same resource code, it is to replace object you cloned in-game.
I am personally a detailed person, so I usually tick as many as I want: tick "Deep clone" "Missing String Tables" and "Include Thumbnail" to include more details. Then click "Start" to proceed.
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It will give you file name [CreatorName]_ObjectName_Number
Then save your package file in "DBPF Package" format in your project folder. Always make folder for any file to make everything organized.
✳️ Step 2. Open S3PE to Copy the Original Resource Code and Export the Files
Open S3pe, locate your package file you cloned from s3oc. Find the MODL of Utensil Chopsticks, Right-Click, "Details..."
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On Resource Details, click "Copy TGI" to copy the Resource Code. Type, Group, and Instance will automatically be copied on clipboard. Then open Notepad, Right-Click to "Paste".
Click GRID on bottom of the s3pe (I mark it red on picture), it will give you pop-up box with Data Grid. Click "Resources", it will be highlight blue and there's 3 dots button appeared on the right side. Click the 3 dots button. It will give you TGI Block List Editor.
Inside MODL's TGI Block List Editor only has IMG. You may wondering why, but that's how the game coded. Type, Group, Instance of _IMG inside TGI Block List Editor should be the same as _IMG on the package.
Copy the TGI, Group, Instance to your Notepad.
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After you copied code of MODL, do the same for the texture image (_IMG), but only copy the code from Resource Details. You cannot edit TGI Block List Editor for _IMG as the Grid button for _IMG is greyed out.
The main task is the code of your edited mesh and texture should be the same as the code you copied now from original package you cloned with s3oc.
Keep the code on notepad. You will need this code later.
Export the MODL file. Right-Click, "Export to s3asc". The file appears in long string such with name for example: S3_01661233_08000001_B619DB2238C3430B%%+MODL_filebase
Do not rename the file. Save.
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Export the texture file. Right-Click "Export > To File..." The file will be saved in .dds format. Do not rename the file. Save.
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✳️ Step 3. Export the Original Mesh as Base Mesh to .obj format
Open Milkshape. Import the s3asc file you saved before.
More steps click spoiler tag "Read More / Keep Reading" below
File > Import > Sims 3 Object Import v 1.01 by Wesley Howe
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Locate the s3asc file, then the original chopsticks mesh appears.
Click the "Joints" tab. It has 4 codes. Check box "Draw vertices with bone colors" It will show Bone Assignment colors on the original mesh. Yellow on top chopstick and light blue on bottom chopstick. The colours are to make the object has rig and movement following the Sim's interaction.
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Take a look at the 4 codes on Joints Tab. You can play around to see which colour of the code will appear, after that copy paste the code to Notepad to make it easier to comprehend.
Click Select from Tools menu, Select Options: Face. On "Right/Left/Top/Bottom 2D View", Left-click make selection of one part of chopsticks. While the part of object being selected (Red), click Joints then Choose "Assign".
0x96239247 --> Yellow 0xFEAE6981 --> Purple 0xCD68F001 --> Light Blue 0xD0DECA8E --> Red
Your edited mesh must have the exact same Bone Assignment colour later. Check again if the code and colour are correct.
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You can save object mesh as .obj to other 3D software such as Blender or any other 3D software.
✳️ Step 4. Create Your Custom Mesh
Use the original .obj as base model. While you can create longer mesh or any edited version as you wish.
Make sure the scale and position of the edited mesh is same as base original mesh, because the edited mesh will be used on Sim's hand.
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If you are done editing the mesh, export the UVmap.
You can export the uvmap in higher resolution, as long as it is Power of 2. 64x64, 128x128, 256x256, 512x512, 1024x1024, 2048x2048, 4096x4096. I export in 1024x1024 pixels to make the size of texture larger and have more details.
Then export the mesh object in .obj format.
✳️ Step 5. Bone Assignment & Create Group
Open Milkshape. Import the original mesh.
Check the Groups Tab. Original mesh has 1 group, "group 00". Group 00 means it is the main mesh. There is no shadow beneath the object.
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Import the edited mesh as .obj file.
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My edited mesh has one single name "default" name on the Group Tab. While edited mesh may have a lot of file name scattered on Group Tab. Regroup the file name to simplify your edited mesh into one single name. Select > Regroup.
The main task is replacing the EA's original mesh with your edited mesh.
Before you delete anything, you must do Bone Assignment first to the edited mesh you created.
Your edited mesh does not have Bone Assignment, so it appears white.
Remember the 4 codes you copied earlier in Notepad.
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Copy Bone Assignment from original mesh to your edited mesh.
This case, your want to Bone Assign Yellow colour.
Select > Face to select one part of chopsticks of your edited mesh. On Joints Tab, double click the appropriate code 0x96239247 in blue highlight then the code box on the right side of "Rename" will appear 0x96239247. Make sure the code is correct. Then you can click "Assign".
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Your edited mesh will appear in Yellow colour. Then do the same for another part of chopsticks.
Select another part of chopsticks of your edited mesh. On Joints Tab, double click the appropriate code 0xCD68F001 in blue highlight then the code box on the right side of "Rename" will appear 0xCD68F001. Click "Assign".
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Your edited mesh will appear in Light Blue colour.
Then what's the other code for? With colour purple and red?
Leave them. Let the codes have the same exact codes as appear in original mesh and let the colours only assigned Yellow and Light Blue. The colours are to determine rig for interaction in-game, which only use Yellow as upper part of chopstick and Light Blue as bottom part of chopstick.
You can safely delete the original mesh with name group00 until it remains your only your edited mesh.
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Rename your edited mesh to group00. Type group00 on the box then click "Rename" on the left side.
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Export to TSRW Object in .wso format. .wso is format with bone assignment on object attached.
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Save your .wso in your project folder.
✳️ Step 6. Create custom Texture
Import original texture you exported from s3pe to your editing image software.
Look at the original texture made by EA. 32x64 pixels. It is very low resolution, blurry and stretched, because the texture should be compressed as low as possible by game designer. As player you want it has higher detail to look realistic as possible and your PC of course can handle high resolution content, sure you can make the resolution much higher than EA's.
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Import the UVMap you saved from 3D software. For example, UVmap I imported has 1024x1024 resolution. Add your custom texture. Then save it to .dds format in the same name as original texture. Save in separate folder, name it "Edited Texture" to keep it separated from original texture.
✳️ Step 7. Import the .wso of Edited Mesh on TSR Workshop & Export the package
Open your TSR Workshop.
Create New Project > New Import >Next...
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Then Browse original mesh by EA in package format in your project folder.
On Open file box, you cannot see .package file because the filter is .wrk (TSR Workshop Project). Choose the .package dropdown.
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Then you can see .package file.
Open the .package. After the file is located, then Next. On Project Details I usually skip without giving name of Project Name and Title. Next.
You must have seen green land with white blank sky.
Where's the mesh? It is actually there... just being zoomed in too close. You need to zoom out by scrolling down mouse.
You can see the original chopsticks mesh by EA. You can save the project file in .wrk format. After you save the file, import the .wso of your edited mesh. Mesh tab > High Level detail. Click green arrow folder icon to import. Then your edited mesh will appear replacing the original EA mesh.
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As you see, the texture is messed up because the texture is still using original EA's texture. But then you check Textures tab and it has blank dropdown...
I cannot change the texture on this TSR Workshop!
Don't worry, we can replace the texture on s3pe later.
No need to change anything other than importing mesh. Click Edit > Project Contents to save as package.
You will see pop up box with number or files DDS, FTPT, LITE, MODL, OBJD, OBJK, etc. Export > To. package. Give name such as "EditedChopsticks_TSRW"
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✳️ Step 8. Export MODL file from Package saved from TSR Workshop
Open S3PE, File > Open package "EditedChopticks_TSRW" that you saved from TSR Workshop.
Export MODL. Right-Click, export. It gives you file name with [StringOfNumber] .model .
Save it on project folder. Keep it organized and separated from original MODL. Name the folder "Edited MODL". Do not rename the file.
✳️ Step 9. Finalizing in s3pe & Replacing the Original file with Edited File & Correcting the Code As Same As Default Code
Open s3pe, File > Open original package that you cloned from s3oc. [CreatorName]_ObjectName_Number
Find the MODL. Right-Click > Replace...
Locate to your edited MODL with filename .model .
Then click Open.
The original MODL of the package should be replaced with your edited mesh.
Do the same for the texture.
Locate to your edited texture with filename .dds
Then click Open.
The original texture of the package should be replaced with your edited texture.
Take a look at MODL's Type, Group, Instance. It has the same code as original MODL in the original package cloned with s3oc (because it has been replaced)
Don't forget to see the code inside TGI Block List Editor.
Repeat step 2 how to check the code. Right-Click on MODL/IMG > Details... and click GRID > Resources > TGI Block List Editor.
The Type, Group, Instance of the _IMG are different compared from IMG from original package clone, which means that is the evidence of edited mesh replaced the original.
Rename the Instance with default/original Instance you copied on notepad from Step 2. Type, Group, Instance should be the same as default/original Type, Group, Instance.
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Open notepad with resource code you copied from Step 2. Make sure the Type, Group, and Instance are all the same.
If the codes are the same, then your edited mesh and texture will overwrite the default mesh and texture with the same code in the game. Save, Commit, Save the package.
Check again if the texture is replaced properly. Right-Click on _IMG > ViewDDS.
ALTERNATIVES!
Yes, you can delete unwanted files in your edited package, to keep the package clean. Simply Right-Click>Deleted.
The only files needed in package are: MODL, _IMG, _KEY
They are the only files with your edited mesh/texture including codes to overwrite the default codes.
You can Start new fresh blank s3pe. Right-Click>Import from file...
Locate your edited MODL and _IMG (texture) file.
On Resource Details box, tick mark "Use resource name" > OK.
Make sure all the Type, Group, and Instance of MODL and _IMG including in the TGI Block List Editor are all the same as the code in original package.
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Save the package.
✳️ Step 10. Test the CC in your game.
Put the package to your CC folder in your The Sims 3 document folder to see if the CC is working or not.
If the CC is working as your intended, with your custom mesh and texture, then test the animation. Are the chopsticks animation working as the same as original EA's? If the animation are working well too, then congratulations!
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Your default replacement are working. Give applause to yourself. 👏
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QUESTIONS!
Q:
Can I use this tutorial for making default replacement for buy/build object?
A: This tutorial covers basic method of using TSR Workshop and replacing the default codes (Type, Group, Instance), so you will understand the basic principle of doing default replacement mod.
Keep in mind that different object has different case. Buy / build object has MLOD (not just MODL) more than one, texture images more than one, has presets, and CAStable colour channels.
The TGI Block List Editor for buy/build object has a lot of codes, so have to spend a lot of time to do trial-and-error to make the default replacement working properly, because a lot of times the texture doesn't work (still using default EA's texture), or when the object appears right with your edited mesh and texture, after you choose the presets, the object reverts back to your edited mesh with default EA's texture.
Q:
Help! The texture is black! / still using same EA's texture when tested in the game!
A: The texture codes must be not the same. Check the Type, Group, Instance of _IMG. Do the codes are the same like codes in original package? Check the TGI Block List Editor for MODL, is the _IMG inside has the same Type, Group, Instance as in original package.
Q:
Help! The object disappears when tested in the game!
A: You must be replacing OBJD in your package. Do not replace OBJD. Just MODL and texture only.
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