House Decorating Part 2

It's time to get back into housing! I'm teaching a few new tricks and some interesting things you can do with what you learned last time that make for a very interesting home.

Last time on House Decorating, you received help selecting a house based on its purpose and tips on good houses and housing themes, as well as instructions on using basic glitches to enhance your house. Today I'll be sharing a bit more on glitches, but also look at how they can hurt your house. As we go, I'm going to be decorating my Massive Fantasy Palace, and so I'll need to keep you updated on that, too.

Having learned how to place things directly against something else, you now have the keys to success with glitches. Let's open some doors. First, lets discuss the house and theme I've chosen. It's rather complex, actually. I decided to use the Massive Fantasy Palace because of its secret passages, large space, and many unique features. It really gives me an opportunity to display all sorts of techniques to create a really nice house. I've decided on this house because it's a castle as well. Here is my vision: Upon entering, the archway to the path along the right of the castle will be blocked with trees. Immediately you'll be able to see evidence of shrubs, trees, and all sorts of greenery taking over the castle. If you journey left, you'll be met by my fairgrounds, very similar to the one in Wizard City, with a carousel in the center and stepping stones creating a path around it. The tents there will have one of eight games to play in them, and all of the games will be included. You'll learn how to create these in this segment. There will also be a pavilion and a group of people who are the inhabitants of the castle. During the final release of this house for viewing, there will be people and mannequins alike there to tell you the story of an evil wizard with a green thumb who has locked friends of theirs inside. They'll tell you that the only way in in through a pipe directly below them. This is how you'll first get into the inside, which will also be overgrown with trees and difficult to navigate. Some rooms will have evidence of once being a magnificent part of the palace, but all are fairly ruined. In the secret passageway you'll find the evil wizard, but he's safely surrounded himself with more trees and protection. In the main room,  you'll find the friends guarded by other wizards. Before getting to them, you'll have to navigate a series of "portal gates," which are rows of portals. Only ones takes you to the next gate, while others may teleport you random places in the house, into cages or places where you'll be stuck, or maybe just back to the beginning of the gates. Don't worry if you're stuck, there will be company and there's always the option to teleport back to the host at the Spiral door. If you can make it through, you'll get to fight the evil wizard outside in the courtyard; your one and only chance of saving the castle and your friends. And, um... be careful, I might have misplaced the Wyvern!

Ok, so let's talk about the Fairgrounds. It really a cool place to be, and a place that a lot of lower level wizards, or even higher level ones who enjoy the games, spend their time. The girl on the platform can be done with a mannequin and a pavilion turn backwards so that the entry in in a wall or somewhere that isn't visible. The tents can be bought or crafted, you'll have to craft some in your want a true variety. The stepping stones can be found here and there, specifically at the Bazaar. The carousel can be crafted and is a necessity, it really adds to your house. But then it's just the plain old fairgrounds. If you want something new and useful, try placing the games inside. Place the smaller item first, obviously; the game. Use the rug glitch (see House Decorating Pt. 1 ...) to place the tent on top of the game so that it isn't visible. Now add your shrubbery and stepping stones around it. Having all eight games and each one with its own tent is really fun and fun for 

guests, too.

You can use the tents for more than games, though. Say you wanted a magically expanded tent. The one tent-house I can think of is the Oasis Camp. You can use grassy mounds or other green objects to turn the sand floor into a green one. You see, instead of a game, a portal goes inside the tent. You would need a portal next to the tent exit as well. You can also do this will rooms, doors that go nowhere, or even create your own area. I, for instance, made a wardrobe entrance (Narnia house?). The possibilities are endless here, although I do recommend blocking off only one area of another house for additions. Depending on the one you use, you can have multiple blocked areas in the same house for multiple teleport areas.

Yes, those portals are valuable in house decorating. If you're doing decorating where certain areas are blocked off, you'll need to move from area to area without moving objects. The portal helps you there. It can be useful in quite a few areas for navigation, too. Portals can be used to traps others in objects such as jail cells or... cauldrons.

Now to revisit last rounds's guide. We talked about basic rug glitches turning a home into something that goes about and beyond.

I decided to try out several different things with layering items including that new Bamboo Grove from the Wyvern's Hoard Pack. The first was blocking off entrances with the trees I planned to use. That was quite simple using the double rug method. Nothing more than placing a tree against a wall.

Next I did a few areas within the Bamboo Grove. I tried to create a hideout within a forest setting that might belong to the evil wizard who would be taking over the castle. It could reside in the back of the castle to the right, opposite of the Fairgrounds (they would not connect, the back route would be blocked). It wasn't very hard to hide the area. At first, it was simply a few trees and the grove, but I also tried other items such as a cage. Even without the cage, the grove could as act a teleport destination for the gates where wizards would be trapped in an interesting environment.

After awhile, I added a fountain and a throne, but these didn't come with the result I expected, and I plan for the throne area to be inside anyway. It was fun, however, to experiment with the portal and overlapping items. Finally, I moved on to one of my most interesting mini-projects. I used a Ruined Arch Ring to create a small forest clearing that turned out to be very interesting. 

Housing Test Gallery

While glitches can be very beneficial, the can make your house look awkward and ruin the theme you're trying to create. There are many ways to ruin a house with glitches, and I do suppose that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but here are a couple of things that I think are not as acceptable when it comes to glitches.

First are what I call "cliffhangers." No, that isn't the part of housing where you can't wait to see the exciting part that's up next or that next Housing Post from Swordroll, it's when an object goes over the edge of a tier or "cliff." Cliffhangers can look awkward for many reasons. In this case, I have a tree over the edge, and this is specifically bad in the MFP (Massive Fantasy Palace) because it can be seen from below, ground level, and about three different levels from above. Roots don't grow out of air, it looks unnatural. I used this for a demonstration in a part of my house, but if I ever opened it publicly, I'd fix it for sure!

Another thing you might want, but could also be a problem and is something to watch out for is when your decorating goes "through the roof," quite literally. You have to be careful of tall objects that stick through the ceiling. In my forest setting, the tall tree creating a stump in the upper level is a nice thing, but not everyone might think so, so keep an eye out!

That does wrap up this segment of House Decorating, but be sure to check us out next time where we'll begin the decoration of my Massive Fantasy Palace, and you just might learn something new.