Revision as of 10:06, 29 September 2012

Creator Guidelines - Create a Sim Screens

Have you made a new Create a Sim (CAS) screen and want to share it? This guide will walk you through every step of what we require on MTS2. Please make sure you read these guidelines carefully, as our standards have changed over the years, and there may be some items you weren't aware of before.

Quality

This is by far the most important factor in all uploads, but also the hardest to quantify.

Time and effort
Most good creators spend hours upon hours on even simple creations. We understand that not everything has to be that difficult, but we do expect you to not just slap together something in 15 minutes and upload it and expect it to get accepted. Really try to put some serious effort into what you create, and it will show through in the quality. This is probably the hardest one to quantify, but it's something that is obvious whenever upload moderators look at an upload: have you really expended some serious time and effort on a creation? You can't just crank out a bunch of stuff in a short amount of time and expect it to be good. Nor can you spend a while just fiddling with something but not really trying and expect a good result either.

Uniqueness
No matter what style or design you choose, your CAS screen should be unique and different. A slight tweak to the existing screens really isn't worth anyone's time to download, so, along with the concept of time and effort, you should work to create an interesting and unique overall look.

Lighting
CAS Screens should be nicely lit so that users can see their sims clearly. You don't want it too dark/dim, but you also don't want it too bright. Make sure to remove any lighting hacks before creating your CAS screens so you can be sure you're creating a CAS screen that is properly lit.

No Seasons!
This is very, very important! If you have the Seasons expansion pack installed, you cannot make CAS screens normally! You MUST use the AnyGameStarter to create your CAS screen without Seasons! If you do not do this, any sims in the CAS screen will turn blue and freeze. There is no known way to remove the Seasons defect from an existing CAS screen - if you've already made one in Seasons, you will have to remake it without Seasons!

Screenshots

People want to see what they're downloading! Your screenshots sell your upload - if people don't like the look of your screenshots, they're not going to download - and if your screenshots are too bad, you won't get your upload approved.

Big Enough

The larger your pics, the better! Tiny pics won't show enough detail to see what you've made.

Minimum Size: 800 pixels wide by 600 pixels tall is a good size for the smallest pic you would want to upload. You may have smaller pics for thumbnails and the like, but for your required screenshots, please go as big as you can!

Maximum Size: MTS allows pictures up to 2560 pixels wide by 1440 pixels tall, and a file size limit of 800 kbs - so you can have nice, big, pretty pics. You may have to resize your pictures or apply compression to get them to fit within that limit.

Please don't just take a small pic and size it up in your graphics program to get bigger pics - this only makes the dimensions larger but doesn't add any detail and just gives you a blurry, pixellated larger pic, not a nice clear one.

Well-lit

Make sure you take your pictures during the daytime in bright sunlight, in a well-lit room, etc., - make sure your screenshots are nice and bright enough that people can see what you've made. Nighttime shots or those in a dark room really don't show off your creation very much.

At the same time, make sure you don't use too much light: if you put light-coloured item under a bright light, it can wash out and lose a lot of the detail of what you've made.

Good angle
Remember to take your screenshots at an angle that shows off what you've made. Screenshots taken from a "sim's eye view" generally work best, while pictures taken from a high overhead or "player's eye view" tend to not show your creation very well. Remember, you can always take multiple pictures to show your item from different angles.

No over-Photoshopping
While it can be tempting to get artistic with your screenshots in Photoshop, please don't. Screenshots need to be just as things look in the game, with no extra filtering such as contrast, sharpen, blur, saturation, etc. Also, please don't too crazy when it comes to adding text - make sure your text is in blank areas of the picture or covers an absolute minimum of your creation. Remember, you're showing off what you've made for the game, not your skill in Photoshopping your pics.

Maximum Number of Inline/attached screenshots

Inline screenshots are images that appear in the text of the upload that load for the viewer along with the rest of the text. Inline screenshots can either be linked from the attached screenshots, or from an external hosting site like Tinypic, Photobucket, or Flickr.
Attached screenshots are screenshots that have been attached to the upload using the "manage attachments" feature on MTS. They display as small thumbnails until clicked on.

You may host your inline screenshots elsewhere like Photobucket, Tinypic, or Flickr - however, these screenshots hosted elsewhere must be additional "bonus" screenshots. All of the screenshots we actually require for your upload need to be attached to the thread itself. If your Photobucket account runs out of bandwidth or you delete the pics, people still need to be able to get the required screenshots on your thread.

You may now upload up to 100 pics! Of course, please keep it to a reasonable quantity... only things like huge sets, full worlds, etc. should have that many pics! Remember, you can always collage several different images together into one image if you have a bunch of stuff to show off, or want to show multiple angles of an item.

For the bonus photos, we recommend you use a spoiler tag to hide the images, then people can click on it to see them. Their pages will load faster if all the images aren't downloading at once. [spoiler=interior rooms]http:// wheveremypictureis/picture.jpg[/spoiler] The 'interior rooms' can be replaced by whatever grouping you want to present, 'hidden garden', 'pool views', 'master suite', 'kids room', etc.

You may place as many photos within a spoiler grouping as you'd like.

Adult Content/Nudity
MTS2 is not an adult site. We do have an adult site affiliated with MTS2, Sexy Sims 2 where adult content may be uploaded. But because MTS2 is a PG-13 site, no adult content may be uploaded to MTS2 itself. Content with swear/curse words or sexually suggestive themes may not be uploaded to MTS2. Please upload these items to the adult site instead. Items relating to illegal drugs do not belong on MTS2. You -may- post items relating to prescription and over-the-counter drugs, as well as alcohol and tobacco on MTS2, but items related to illegal drugs should go on our adult site. For more information and a further list of items we do not allow on MTS2, see: Uploads Not Allowed on MTS2.

Screenshot tips

Camera Controls:

Take some time to just play around with the camera. It can take a while to get used to the camera controls, and even once you are experienced in their use, it may be challenging to get the shot you want with the constraints on the controls.

If you haven't taken many sim pictures before, here is a list of camera controls:

TAB : Puts the game into Cameraman mode, allowing better and more control of the camera, and removing the blue user interface. Make sure you are in live mode before going into Cameraman mode or you will see grid lines on the ground and floating where floor tiles may be placed. TS3 Note: You will only be able to go into cameraman mode once per load if you are in buy/build mode (without a family moved in). You can either exit to the neighborhood and return to take more pictures, or instead just move a family in for taking your pics.

W and S : W moves the camera forward. S moves it backward.

A and D : A moves the camera left. D moves it right.

Q and E : Q lowers the camera. E raises it.

+ and - : Zooms in and out.

Windowed Mode:

TS2: In order to take your pictures using the methods described here, you will need your game running in a window, so you can easily switch to other applications without causing major instability and lag. Instructions on setting up Windowed Mode for Sims 2 may be found here: Game Help:Windowed Mode. Windowed mode should be perfectly safe - in fact, some users actually report better game performance when running in a window. Your mileage may vary.

TS3: In Sims 3, you can use windowed mode by simply choosing it in your game's options. Full instructions can be found in Game Help:TS3 Windowed Mode. Windowed mode will allow you to use Print Screen or FRAPS or whatever screenshotting program you desire, without getting dark pictures. If you choose to NOT use windowed mode for TS3, you must use the C key to take pictures using the in-game camera - taking pictures fullscreened in TS3 without using the C key will result in icky dark screenshots.

C Key vs. Print Screen:

TS2: In order to take nice big pics, you should not use the game's screenshot system, using the C key or the camera button on the game's controls to take your pictures. Even on the highest picture settings, pictures will still be small, with a very high level of JPEG compression, making them blurry and crunchy. Instead, use Print Screen or a screenshot program.

TS3: The C key camera is much improved in TS3, making it possible to use to take pictures for upload and still have nice big, pretty pictures. You can still use a screenshot program or print screen if you desire, but you will need to run your game in Windowed Mode (see above) to keep your pictures from getting dark.

Using Print Screen: If you have enough RAM to run Photoshop or another graphics editing program at the same time as TS2/TS3, you may want to take screenshots yourself, without the use of a program to store them for you.

To do that, simply press the Print Screen or PrntScn key on your keyboard - it's usually off toward the right, over the arrow keys, above Insert and Delete. This will copy your current screen to your Windows clipboard, as if you had selected and copied it as an image.

Then open any graphics editing program, create a new document the size of your monitor's resolution, and paste into that document. Your screenshot should appear in the document.

Screenshot Programs:

There are many programs available, free and pay, that will take screenshots for you by using a hotkey, and save them to a folder - just like The Sims 2 with the C key, but with options for much better quality settings.

A quick Google search for 'free screenshot program' will also bring up many other options, which may have other features that are of interest to you.

Optimizing, Editing, and Compressing Images:

Many simmers struggle with getting their images to be clear, crisp and under the maximum file size while keeping the image size larger than 800px by 600px. After getting your images from the in game camera or using a print screen program you will need to resize them and compress them into a jpeg image. Many graphics programs have a built in optimizing feature. Here are a few common ones:

Photoshop *Pay
Gimp *Free
IrfanView *Free
Paint.net *Free

Required Screenshots
These pictures are required for all CAS Screen uploads. Please make sure to take your pics with your CAS working as an actual CAS - that is, don't take pics while you're creating it, as they won't be of the right angles. Sim Creation Part You need to include at least one picture of the sim creation part, zoomed out fully. You can do this with a sim, or without a sim. Family Part You also need to include at least one picture of the family screen, zoomed out fully. You will need to create a sim (or pet) in order to get to this screen to take the screenshot.

Right Info and Files

Once you have your creation made and screenshots taken, you need to make sure you have all the fiddly bits in order.

Right Files
Your CAS screen will be a .package file. You will have put it in your Downloads folder to test it - but you should know that as you made it in the first place! Please also do not include any thumbs.db files (Windows thumbnail database files, which can cause folders to crash if they become corrupted) or DS_Store files (Mac system file, also not needed). Please do not rename your CAS screens. Regular CAS screens will be called CAS!.package and young adult/university CAS screens will be called YACAS!.package - please leave these filenames as they are. Users should only have one CAS screen of each type in at a time, and leaving the names as they should be makes it easier to find them should they wish to remove them later.

Uploading

Zip, Rar, or 7z

To upload your file(s) to MTS, you will need to compress them into an archive file, which makes them smaller and allows you to include many files in one download. The archive file formats we currently accept are .zip, .rar, and .7z.

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.

Upload in sets

If you have created several items in a set, or similar items in the same sort of theme at the same time, please upload these together in a single set, all on one thread (instead of all separately, one by one, on different threads). This is easier for everyone: on our upload moderators, as they only have one thread to review rather than several... on you, as submitting a single thread is much quicker and easier than several... and on downloaders, as they can get everything they want all in one place rather than having to hunt around.

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.

Good title
You'll need a good title for your upload which describes what it is, and interests people in downloading it. Good titles: Mission-Style Living-Room Set 10 Simmer Way (Large family home) Fluffy Party Dresses Bad titles: My First Upload! Lipstick

Good description
In the main text of your upload, you'll need to write a good description of what you have made. The description must be about what you have made - what it is, what its features are, etc... You don't have to write a novel here, just a few sentences to get people interested. Please make sure this description is in English, don't over-use smileys/emoticons, and if necessary, run it through spellcheck and proofread for typos. Good descriptions: This is an edit of the Mission furniture without the silly wooden armrest which makes this lovely set more versatile and suitable for any Arts & Crafts or Mission style home. Here are five dresses perfect for a special occasion. Each is different, with special details, and they come in blue, purple, pink, white, and green. This is a sim of actress Angelina Jolie, famous for her roles in Girl Interrupted and Tomb Raider. Bad descriptions: This is my first upload... I don't know what to put here... My English is bad... just look at the pictures I really liked this dress so I made a sim to wear it!! I hope you like her!

Expansion/Stuff Packs Required
If you use items from expansion packs or stuff packs in your CAS screen, users will need those EPs/SPs for those items to show up. They should still be able to use your CAS without the EPs/SPs - it's just that the items you used won't show up properly. So it's up to you to know which EPs/SPs the items you used are from, and to mark those EPs/SPs as required on your upload. You can look up which expansion is required for a certain object in the following ways: The CEP Documentation - Download the Manual Installation file. Look in the "CEP_Documentation" folder, and you'll see files with object lists in XLS (Excel spreadsheet) and PDF (Adobe Reader) format. The CEP Database - A searchable online database similar to the CEP documentation, only you don't have to download anything. This may be easier than using the CEP documentation, but it is not updated as frequently, so it may not include the newest EPs/SPs. Unfortunately, neither of the above methods work for walls/floors! Make sure you only mark the EPs/SPs required that your upload actually needs! Don't just mark them all please!

AnyGameStarter/No Seasons
Because of the issue with sims freezing and falling over in CAS screens created with Seasons installed, you MUST state somewhere in the text of your post that: You have used Numenor's AnyGameStarter to create your CAS without Seasons OR That you do not have the Seasons expansion pack installed.

Custom Content

It is strongly recommended you do not use custom content for your CAS screens!

Though CAS screens are technically lots, you cannot package them up with their needed custom content in-game the same way you do lots. Thus, if you use any custom content for your CAS screens, you must create a "shopping list" for all custom content used in your CAS screen, and downloaders must follow each link and download the content you used separately. This is a hassle for everyone involved - you, downloaders, and the moderators.

If you DO use custom content, you must provide a link and credit for every single item you used in the CAS screen, and make it clear exactly what users need to get - i.e. name the particular items used if the link is to a whole set. If you cannot provide a direct link due to the site using frames or Flash, you must provide detailed instructions on how to get to the proper page. Please also make sure to put a clear heading in bold above the list of required content so users know that they will need to get that content separately.

Additional Stuff

If your upload is rejected or marked as changes required and you're not sure why, ask in Creator Issues.

If you want some feedback before uploading, post info about your mod in the Creator Feedback Forum to get feedback on it.

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Difference between revisions of "MTS2:Creator Guidelines/CAS Screens"

Revision as of 10:06, 29 September 2012

Contents

Creator Guidelines - Create a Sim Screens

Quality

Screenshots

Right Info and Files

Uploading

Custom Content

Additional Stuff

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