• Recolor/Swatch Don't create a full clone for every new texture

• Duplication: Search MTS and see how many recolors have already been done for the particular type of item you're creating - do not duplicate items. We would, however, accept the same kind of thing if your version had significantly improved features (better textures, more subsets, etc.) than an existing item.

• Texture Quality: Your textures should have some detail to them - not just a flat single-colour bucket fill, but with highlights and shadows in the right places. Even for flat, smooth items, you should have some detail.

• Crisp, unpixellated textures:Your textures should look as clear and crisp as textures from the game (or better!). There shouldn't be any blurriness or pixellation to your textures.

• UVMapping: Ensure your texture is correctly scaled and not distorted. Avoid seams in your recolor texture.

• Materials: Most objects have more than one part to them. Make sure you take a good look at the object before you start texturing and use appropriate materials.

• Not Too Bright: Do not use over-bright colors.

• Black & White: For black you use dark grey, and for white you use light grey. That way you can still add lighter or darker for shadows and highlights, and your item will look right in the game - true black just looks like a dark hole, and true white is far too bright.

• Car Recolours: Please limit yourself to basic colours. Looking up factory colours for the model you have chosen is a good idea. You should also search MTS and see just how many recolours have already been done for that model - do not duplicate existing recolours. For sports cars, muscle cars, etc., exotic paint jobs will only be accepted if they are truly unique and exceptional. MTS will not accept such paint jobs for none sports/muscle cars.

• Bedding: All bedding must work for single and double beds. If using a picture on a bed ensure it has a cloth-like texture. See the helpful links section for bedding tutorials/resources.

• Painting Recolors: Painting recolors should be in game style and the images used should be your own work or clearly attributed. Make sure the mesh is appropriate to the image you use: photos in photo frames, posters on poster meshes, art in painting frames/canvases. Do pay attention to what original artists say about reusing their art/photos etc - if they say you can't use their work then please respect that artist's wishes.

• Clearly state that your upload adds swatches to "Object" (replacing "object" with the catalogue name of the actual item)

If your upload clones a Maxis mesh to create a new item with a unique catalogue entry, we need the following information about your new object:

• Catalogue name
• Price
• Catalogue location

If you are doing a huge set, you can always break the set up into pieces, posting more screenshots along with the downloads as comments in the thread, as is done here and here. To do that, create a new thread in the Creator Issues Forum and arrange your thread there, using the first post as an introduction, and attach your uploads and images to subsequent posts in the thread. When you're done, PM a moderator to have it moved to the upload queue. For more information, read the message that displays when you go to post in Creator Issues.

• Please do not include meshes that are uploaded on MTS, even if the creator says it's okay - this creates redundant uploads.
• If you do include the mesh, make sure you include a credit and link in the text of your post and state that the mesh is included.

• Show all recolor options: You will need pictures of each and every recolor, but you can use a swatch to show the colors. The picture to the right with the names of the colors and using a portion of an ingame picture of the object to show the texture is a great way to do this.

• Bedding: Bedding screenshots should be taken from an overhead or mostly-overhead picture (unlike most other items) so the bedding can be clearly seen. Screenshots should also show the bedding on both single and double beds.

Keep the following in mind for your screenshots, especially the required ones:

• Size: 800 pixels wide by 600 pixels tall is a good size for the smallest pic you would want to upload. Your images can be up to 2560x1440 pixels, and 800 kb, so you have lots of space to work with!
• Lighting: For most things, it's best to take pictures in an interior room with good lighting. For lots, pictures should be taken during a nice sunny day, for floorplans, take the pictures with the lights ON.
• Clarity: Neither blurry, nor pixellated/crunchy. Do not size up small pictures to make a large one as this will blur them, and make sure not to use too much compression/too low quality when saving your images.
• Distance: Take your pictures so that your creation fills the screen without anything cut off at top or bottom - neither zoomed in too close, nor zoomed out too far.
• Distortion: If you resize your images, retain the aspect ratio so they don't get stretched or squashed. Take care when zooming in and out with the camera that you do not create a fisheye effect on your pictures.
• Photoshopping: Do not apply filters like sharpen, contrast, etc. to the required pictures, as downloaders want to see what your creation will look like in their game, not your skills at using Photoshop.
• Attached: All required images must be attached directly to the MTS upload, not just inserted using the img tag, so that even if the pics get deleted from your Photobucket (or other host), the upload on MTS is still complete.
• Show all items: For most areas, if you are uploading a set, you must take all the required pics for each item in the set. If there is an exception, it will be noted.
• Picture limit: You may upload up to 100 pictures for a single upload thread, so feel free to add some additional pictures just to show off your work to its best. Of course, keep it reasonable - nobody needs 50 pics to show off one sim or hair.
• Inline pictures: Inline pictures are those that use the [img] tag to show up in with the description text. So that it doesn't take too long to load, please keep this to no more than 4 pictures done inline, unless you put them inside an [infobutton] tag. To do this, see our guide on post formatting.

For instructions on compressing your files into an archive, please see: Creator Guidelines: Creating Archive Files.

• Do not include multiple archives with the same contents - that is, please don't put your files in both a .zip as well as a .rar because some people only want .zip files. Choose one format.

• Do not double-compress your files... a .rar file inside another .rar file (or any other archive inside another) doesn't compress it anymore, and it makes it so we can't see the contents without downloading, and also just makes an extra step for the people downloading.

• The file size limit on MTS is 50 mb. If you exceed this limit you will need to split your archives. This should probably never come up except for large worlds for The Sims 3, or huge sets of smaller items.

• Once you've identified what mesh it is, you need to check back with the original creator on their site or forum and see what they say about that - look for a FAQ or policies page to see what they have to say about including their meshes.

• Do not include meshes that the creator says not to include. If you get special permission to include a mesh that normally cannot be included (or the creator's policies don't say anything) please say in the text of your upload post that you have permission - we can't read your mind! If the creator's site is permanently offline, you can assume they don't mind.

• If you do include the mesh, make sure you include a credit and link in the text of your post - and make sure you state that the mesh is included!

• Please give as direct a link as possible - to the page where the mesh is, if you can. If you cannot give a direct link, or if there are a lot of meshes on the page, please give directions in the text of your post, as clear as possible... i.e. "Look on Bathrooms, Page 5, the pink set - you need the tub and rug" Please do not hotlink the mesh - i.e. you want to link to the page it can be downloaded from, not the actual rar or zip file with the mesh in it.

• For tips on making black and white look right in-game (including suggested settings), see: Tiptorial: Making Black and White Clothing the Right Way. Though this "tiptorial" is written for clothing, the same concepts work for all Sims 2 textures.

• Bedding Tutorial : tutorial by Tiggerypum

• Templates for bedding textures: HystericalParoxysm's bedding textures for Photoshop (attached to that thread, with "Creators Only" in the filename)