Sims2 WCIF: Letters for Business Signs

So the first Simmy business to get its own storefront sign was Portia Rubinia's deli (the Sparkling Tomato); its sign is just four of those Greek House letters from University (with two wall lights placed over them with Ctrl+Alt to light the sign at night), and they don't necessarily spell "Sparkling Tomato"; I like to imagine that the word is "Food," but I'm not fluent in Simlish.

About two years later, I downloaded Kate's Alphalites from Parsimonious and used them to form the light-up sign on Jolene Lupina's gymnasium and fitness center (the Doghouse Gym), but the building's front is presently too small for me to place the word "Doghouse," so the sign just says "Gym". It's a start.

And most recently, I used the Alphalites (along with four of those wheels from Wall Decorations and two lines of neon tubing) to make the rather large, two-story sign gracing the facade of Jazz Freefeet's car restoration and automotive sales lot (the Barefoot Mechanic, seen above), and I was a bit proud of what I had made. So now I have the sudden urge to go around to all of my Simmy businesses and give them storefront signs! Kiki Tsang's House of Beauty (hair salon and massage parlour)? It's getting a sign. Doctor Hal Malevolence's Littlest Bot Shop and MegaloTech Headquarters (robot sales)? They're getting signs. Flora Verbena and Bellandra Heart's Green Thumb Market (garden produce sales)? Sign. The Gearsmith family's Wee Little Car Sales and Big Lot Car Sales (both vehicle sales)? Signs. Jolene Lupina's Wolf Among the Chickens (chicken sales), Wolf Among the Chickens II (more chicken sales) and What the Dog Dug Up (miscellaneous junk store)? Signs. Viviana La Morde's The Stained Canvas (painting sales and art gallery) and The Red Pot (pottery sales and sewing sales)? Signs. Kileighney Hagg's cottage deep in Kileighney's Wood (potion sales and witchcraft object sales)? Okay...probably no sign for that business, seeing as she's like that reclusive, backwoods-dwelling witch whom you stumble across like Hansel and Gretel, and such witches aren't known for their commercial advertising prowess. Everyone who runs a business and isn't Kileighney? Signs.

But Kate's Alphalites look too whimsical and goofy to besuit the vibe of every business, and I'd kind of like to get some sign-worthy letters from the Simlish alphabet instead of the English alphabet. The letters don't have to light up by themselves (though it would be nice); certain floor lights and wall lights can be used to illuminate the signs at night if they don't. And I found a big set of neon letters and neon sign pictures via one of Ginnie's posts, but I haven't given those a try yet.

But variety in my sign-making doodads probably couldn't hurt anything. So have any of y'all dug up any letters, numbers or other goodies for creating business signs? What have you found thus far? And are you willing to share them with a business-loving Simmer like me? I'm all ears.

there are these from Atavera, but they are not in Simlish : http://modthesims.info/showpost.php?p=15...ostcount=4

Thank you. The letters and the generic signs look promising, so I just snagged those two. I can do without the rest.

Or... you can always make your own - Mog's Illuminated Sign

I use that one all the time! Directions to make your own are at the bottom of the post. Good luck!

Oh, Catherine...why do you do this to me? Why do you force me to learn things? I've never tried making recolors of anything before!

I'll give it a shot. Thanks!

If you need help with the recolour let us know.

I may just take you up on that.

Apparently, MogHughson has gone missing in action, so it would seem that his/her offer to "Send it to me and I will make you a recolour" is null and void, meaning that we're on our own in that regard. Mog's do-it-yourself template includes the .png file Sign-Template-6tiles.PNG, which looks like this:



I assume that the black rectangle is our frame and that we're supposed to work inside it, perhaps because everything outside that frame is to be covered by the sign's frame (so don't waste any time or effort doodling around there). So with that in mind, I spent a few minutes in Paint Shop Pro and turned a copy of that template into a .png of my own:



I should probably Google around for a Simlish font for my computer. Does such a font even exist? There's one way to find out!

Anyway, I think I centered everything well enough. Doodling stuff for my play-by-forum D&D campaign has taught me a few tricks.

So...where would I go with my self-illuminating gymnasium-sign-to-be from here?


EDIT: Back from Google Land, and holy fish, are there scads of Simlish fonts or what? It's too bad that the various fonts don't seem to agree with each other on which Simlish letters correspond to English letters; one font might have one squiggle for the letter S, another font might have a completely different squiggle for the letter S.

But that's okay, because if studying Spanish (and other languages by extension, from Romanian to Cantonese to Tolkien's Elvish to friggin' Klingon) has taught me anything, it's that applying the alphabets and structures of other languages to those of English just doesn't work. The German alphabet has letters that the English alphabet doesn't, and vice-versa. The Spanish alphabet recognizes LL, RR and Ñ as letters with their own phoenetic sounds; English doesn't. The words of Spanish and other Romance Languages tend to be more polysyllabic than English words; it might take those languages eight or ten syllables to say what English can say in five or six. The "letters" of Chinese cuneiform are entire syllables — not mere letters — and words are formed from those syllables; it would be as if "tran", "mil", "un", "ton", "ough", "ing" and more combinations of letters were to replace all of the letters in the English alphabet.

So I reckon that I can forgive a few inconsistencies in transcribing English words into Simlish. Maybe Simlish is a complicated, piecemeal language with rules that are often inconsistent and contradictory...rather much like English itself, come to that.

*shrugs* I don't like Simlish. The only language other than American English that I'm remotely interested in learning is Gaelic (But, I'm saving that for when I'm actually living in an old crofters hut somewhere in the Outer Hebrides...) Though I can read fluent-ish French.

I think there's something funky you have to do... split your sign .png somehow, to make it work. (After you get the picture set up the way you want it.)
Here is the .png I made for my Veronaville Furniture Co. as an example (feel free to use it if you want.)
   
Since you're new to recoloring - I would suggest opening one of Mog's original signs, export her png to your desktop, recolor that to what you want - then use that to make your recolored version.

ETA - Shoot, here's the whole sign for you

Attached File(s)

  Mog6TShopSign.zip (Size: 43.21 KB / Downloads: 570)

There are MANY Simlish fonts. I have over a dozen...

You need Franzilla

Also, I might be convinced to make some Simlish letters... They wouldn't light up, so to speak, but I could make them glowy. I could make them lights, but I hate making lights, lol. And/or I could make some more easy recolor sign bases. And those I'd be willing to make lights (the individual letters are just too much of a pain, lol). That's probably something a lot of folks might appreciate having.

Okay, totally newbish question:

Which program(s) would I use to open .package files?

(20-10-2018 07:40 PM)justJones Wrote:  There are MANY Simlish fonts. I have over a dozen...

You need Franzilla

I was just looking at that page! Second hit on Google, right?