yes :) As a movie, though, not a series like I originally planned. Since Isla’s a part of The Rivers, it would be the perfect prequel movie showing Isla’s story and her high school years before she got to college in The Rivers universe
When I’ll do it depends on 1) when I have time and 2) when is the best to upload it vis a vis The Rivers’ timeline
Hi Lati! I have a question concerning the usage of music for your scenes. Now I'm really confused on how filmers approach adding music. I know you simply have to put in via a filming software but how do you get it? Do you "legally" 👀 download it and use it or find a license to it somewhere to use? Or is there something else?❤️
Hiii
I usually “legally” 👀 (lol) download my music via YouTube to MP3 converters. My personal favorite is Y2mate (keep in mind I have an adblocker, I haven’t really experienced it without it). Of course, you can always license the music you want to use (But I wouldn’t know how to go about doing that LOL) or opt for non-copyright music. I personally find that there aren’t many options for non-copyrighted music that fit my series, but you can check them out here.
I do you copyrighted music, and get copyright claims on every episode without exception. LOL. It’s not as scary as it sounds, though. It almost never is a strike on your youtube channel itself (you only get three of those), and usually the artists allow the song to be used in the video, but run ads on the video so that they get the $$. I never plan on making money out of my Youtube channel (it’s not even monetized), so I don’t really care about that
Sometimes, though, copyrights can get annoying (the worst ones i’ve received so far are when the artists block your video worldwide. Most times it’s just in certain areas). I’ve had the worldwide one happen to me twice: Once in S2E1 and once in S2E2. For S2E2, the scene was trivial enough for me to just cut it out of the video after I uploaded the episode. It made for awkward pacing, but it beats reuploading the episode/scene LOL. The scene with the blocked music in S2E1, however, was really important, so I had to switch it out in post editing and re-upload the scene without any music (as unlisted).
You can always run music copyright checks before uploading the episode (Basically: upload an unlisted video with the music you want to use, so that you can check the claimed music before rendering the final draft of the episode), but sometimes artists copyright a video long after you upload it and even after it goes through Youtube’s “checking” system. For example, Ben Platt blocked my episode worldwide eighteenmonth after I uploaded the episode. So, you never know and you need to be prepared for everything (and by prepared I mean, make sure you have the episode without any music to reupload scenes if necessary).
Hope this helps and gives you some insight about the process of adding music to your series!! Let me know if you have any other questions <3
Just a simple reminder that everything you create is an absolute gift and a blessing to my eyes. You are an absolute gem to this community. Please continue to create masterpieces. 💖💕
Hello the gorgeous Lati! :D Would you be willing to make a tutorial or explain how you take such great sim photos with nice background and crisp lighting?
Hi Anon! <3
I’m going to assume you’re referring to the portraits I have of my sims here on my tumblr, and not pictures of my gameplay over at my gameplay twitter (there I usually just take random pics as I play, and crop them. None of the technical stuff like with portrait photos)
How I take my sims portraits is pretty simple also, so i’m sorry if you’re expecting more. Either way, I hope this is helpful.
Basically, I start off in an empty lot, and then include the following items:
Hi girl!💖 I just wanted to say you're a huge inspiration to me and wanting to make a series of my own. I have a few questions that hopefully won't be too "personal". When you send your VAs their lines, do you share them around with the other VAs so they know how to respond/act out their voices or do you solely leave it up to them and use whatever material you get? And my last question is do your VAs know each other? Like have they been introduced to one another before working for you?💕
Hellooo! Thank you so much 💕 I’m happy to help out a new director, so please always ask away :)
Hello, Lati! So, since I'm "new" to the Sims 2 Filming Community, I mean, I've always played the Sims 2 since 2005, but I've always had stories in my head that I wanted to film, and now I'm ready to make it happen, but my actual question is, since I'm thinking of making a VO Series, should I start with subtitles since I don't have any subscribers yet? I love your series, The Rivers and Foundings, and I love your filming style a lot. I hope that I can film like you one day too! But I also wanted to ask you, did you start with subtitles too? And since I literally have no subscribers, I don't know if anyone would be interested in being a part of a new series, so yeah, what would you advise me? 🤔
Plus My series has a lot of characters since my series is inspired by many series, mainly Game of Thrones, so that's another "problem" I guess 😪
Hiii <3
First of all, welcome!! It’s always so nice to meet up-and-coming sims 2 directors, especially in 2022!!
DISCLIAMER: This is just my experience with everything! I don’t think that’s how everyone feels (many people still do subtitle series, and they do a FANTASTIC job at it, this is just my advise to you as someone who wants to do VO series from the get go).
I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary to start with a subtitle series! I did start off making subtitle series, and it did not exactly ease me into making a voice over series for the first time. I’ll explain why:
Hello, Lati! I'm a huge fan of your series and I really love the new one, The Foundlings, also very much. You are so talented, and I hope we will see more of the Foundlings in the future since it's so unique and your characters are all so stunning! If you don't mind, I wanted to ask you some questions about the Foundlings from the first episode. I can definitely say Lesedi is definitely a badass Queen. She's so amazing, but I love all of your characters, even the bad ones. Like Carswell, I love a well written "antagonist." I mean, if he is an antagonist, he seems like one for Dalila. I wanted to ask you who your favorite character is from your new series, and if you could tell us more about the characters in the future, with some posts on Tumblr or YouTube maybe? I would love to know more details about the characters 😍
Hiii!
Thank you so much for the sweet message! It really made me smile. Starting a new series is always so terrifying, because in my experiencing building a world from scratch and introducing so many characters is terrifying, but i’m so glad to hear that you liked it <3
One of my favorite characters is Alexey. She’s just such a strong character. Even when she doesn’t have much control over her life, she still always tries to stand her ground for whatever that’s worth, and I find that inspiring. Especially as a woman in these times. But some of my favorite characters aren’t introduced until Chapter 2! Chapter 2 delves into the Foundling five, and i’m really excited to share it <3 I don’t think I’ll be sharing anything that reveals about the characters just yet, so I don’t take away from the stuff covered in the chapter itself, but i’ll likely be sharing snippets here and there if the chapter takes too long to come out.
Thank you again for this super sweet message!! It really made my week <3
Hello, Lati! I hope you're doing well. I wanted to ask you if you use Reshade when you're filming. I'm a huge fan of your stories, especially how realistic the storylines for your characters are. I also want to start a series and you are one of my favorite storytellers. The way you film and capture the emotions of your characters is just amazing!
Hiii!
First of, thank you sooooo much. I’m so glad you’re enjoying the series, it really means a lot ♡
I have been using reshade for some time now! The first time I used it was in S2E3, and I’ve been filming with it ever since. I only use it for DOF and coloring, though, as I don’t like how features like MXAO look in my game.
In the episodes I filmed before reshade was introduced for Sims 2, I would manually add the blurring in post effects through this process. It’s definitely not perfect and takes a LOT more time than just having reshade on, but I do still love the DOF effect it gave the series, and it’s a great alternative for those who can’t/don’t like to use reshade :)
As for the reshade I use, I originally started with Falkii’s turniphead, which is still my favorite reshade to use for gameplay, but i’ve edited it aggressively to fit the Rivers style, LOL. The reshade as it is is far too cheerful to fit some of the themes of The Rivers :’) But if you want a reshade to start with and make your own, I’d definitely recommend that one! There’s also HerbalWhite’s if you’re looking for something super pretty but super heavy (my game lags too much with that one)
I hope you start that series!! And that you’ll eventually share it with me/us when you’re comfortable enough! I would love to watch it. ♡
sims noob here- what is it about heavily decorated hoods that make it more prone to corruption? how do you know if the hood/game is corrupt?
Oh wow, sorry I’m just seeing this!
Even tho i’ve been playing the sims 2 for 18 years, i would also consider myself to be a ‘sims noob’ bc I don’t really understand how any of the tech that’s behind it (graphics cards, specs, etc…). Really, I’ve spent the past 18 years just ~winging it~ LOL. So take what I’m about to say with a grain of salt, I’m just speaking based on my experience with the game (filming and playing)
In my experience, heavily decorated hoods + lots crash more often because it takes a toll on my graphics card. This is especially true for high poly CC. High poly CC (and, well, CC in general, but especially high poly ones) can slow down your game, overheat your laptop/computer, cause your game to crash, etc… You can read more about it here. So a neighborhood that has little to no CC will less likely crash than a neighborhood that’s been heavily decorated (or at least that’s been my experience with both a non-gaming laptop, and a gaming laptop).
I usually know my game is corrupt when 1- the game crashes when i try to load the lots in that neighborhood, or 2- the game crashes when i try to load the neighborhood itself
A Pride photoshoot featuring some of the LGBTQ+ characters in my Sims 2 VO series The Rivers! 🏳️🌈 Wishing everyone a month/year/lifetime of pride, acceptance and healing!
Hello Lati! I really love your series. I love The Rivers so much, and I'm always mesmerized by how realistic everything looks! I wanted to ask you, since I want to start a series as well, how do you decorate your neighborhood? Do you only decorate the lot where you film, or do you decorate your entire neighborhood with Neighbourhood Deco? :)
Hiii!! Thank you so much! That means a lot ❤️
I usually only decorate where I film! A heavily decorated neighborhood increases the chances of it going corrupt, so I usually just decorate around the lot Im filming with. I’ve attached pictures of my gameplay neighborhood vs. my filming neighborhood, you can tell the difference is huge :’)
I do make an exception for the outdoor scenes I need to film, where I spend a little more on decoration just so I can get the open world feel that gives the series some realism. But if its a mostly interior scene where the neighborhood is only seen through windows, I just focus on the view outside of those windows.
Also, a tip: I have multiple neighborhoods per episode! This may be because my episodes are really long (1+ hour long), but I’ve found the longer you take to film an episode/the more sets you need, the more likely your neighborhood goes corrupt. So I create multiple neighborhoods for a single episode, usually designated for every character, especially when I know they won’t clash (for example Raign’s neighborhood would include Bellamy/Isla’s dorms, the college campus, etc… While Noah’s neighborhood would include Faye’s apartment, the diner, etc).
Hope that makes sense and helps! Thanks so much for watching ❤️❤️
