Let your imagination run wild when creating your world, but remember that it will take a lot of effort for your vision to come to life. Any concept can be done well, or done poorly, and your result depends on you.

Even the wildest alien world should still look good and make sense - weird for weirdness sake as a gimmick really doesn't work well for something that will be used as much in the game as a neighborhood/world. Use your imagination, but put enough work into the expression of your idea to make it look plausible.

Does your world/neighborhood look nice, with a good flow to it? Is the layout attractive, interesting, and enjoyable to look at? Do you have a cohesive style or theme that works well and shows throughout the neighborhood? This is hard to quantify, so you may want to get several other opinions (from people who aren't your mom).

The prettiest neighborhood ever made is useless if it's not playable, so it's very important that it's well planned. Consider some of the following:

• Is there enough room for all the rabbit holes, community lots, and plenty of homes?
• Is there room to expand? Consider that new types of buildings will likely be added with later expansion packs.
• Do townies have somewhere to live?
• Is it going to be easy to get around the neighborhood? Are there enough roads and sidewalks, and are they connected up properly?
• Is the routing done right so the sims and player camera don't get stuck?
• Can sims collect bugs and rocks?
• Is your world optimized for good performance?

There's a lot more to it - some covered down below, but put yourself in the player's shoes and imagine what you would want in the perfect downloaded neighborhood and build accordingly.

• Natural: Your terrain should look plausible – not just flat and boring, or jagged for no reason. Terrain paints should blend in a logical way from one to another - a smooth blend from grass to sand, for example. Mountains should be dark and mountainy, grassy areas green and grassy. If you're building a non-realistic world (like an alien or fantasy environment), plausibility just as important as with a terrestrian one.

• No Auto-Paint: Please do not use the option to auto-paint your world in CAW - or if you do, don't just stop there. It creates a very blotchy grass-and-stone look which may be a decent start for certain areas, but a world left auto-painted just looks lazy and unfinished.

• Optimized: You should not use more than 8 different terrain paints per chunk, for improved performance.

• Custom Terrain Textures (Optional): If you make your own terrains, they should be seamless without repeating too much visually, have the right scale, and look good in-game.

• Easy to view: Make sure you can view all lots and other points of interest without steep hills or valleys getting in the way – be aware that the camera will move up and down with the surrounding terrain.

A good transportation network means sims can get around your world/neighborhood with ease; a poorly done one means routing issues and a lot of stomping and complaining. Even for a rustic neighborhood, you should still have some roads for playability's sake - you can always use custom textures to make them seem like wide dirt paths.

• Intersections: Place intersections where your roads meet, and at the end of any dead end road. Cars/vehicles will not be able to turn around otherwise.

• Smooth Grade: Use the road tools to give your roads and sidewalks a smooth grade (i.e. if you were driving down it, your car wouldn't tilt dramatically from side to side but would stay mostly level).

• Not Too Steep: If you have a very steep cliff, you may need to make your roads wind back and forth instead of going up near-vertically.

• Sidewalks: Place additional sidewalks where needed, and connect them to your road system.

• Custom Roads/Sidewalk Textures (Optional): If you make your own textures, they should be seamless without repeating too much visually, have the right scale, and look good in-game.

Well-thought-out placement of lots is essential to a useful and well-functioning neighborhood.

• Plenty of Lots: Place at least enough lots for several residential homes, all the rabbit holes (make sure they're big enough to fit even the largest rabbit holes!), and some community lots. Add a few extra in various sizes so players can add their own buildings. Too many lots is better than not enough.

• Standard Sizes: Lot sizes should be a multiple of 5: 10x25, 20x20, 30x50, 40x40, 50x60, etc. (the exception being the 64x64 lots the game uses as its largest size), so that players can easily move buildings around. Look at the bottom right corner in CAW when dragging out a lot to see the size - no guesswork. You -can- have other lot sizes for things like community lots or to fill in gaps, but try to make your residential lots multiples of 5 whenever possible.

• Flat Lots: Use the Flatten Terrain tool before placing a lot, so that you are always putting lots on a completely flat patch of ground (unless you have a very good reason to not have a flat lot, like a beach lot or one built into a hillside). This makes it easier to place and share lots.

• Near Roads: Lots should be placed next to a road in most cases, unless you have a very good reason not to do so. Make sure you use the grid tool so your lots are aligned right up against the roads too, without a gap.

• Proper Routing: Routing for both the camera and sims should make sense - areas that look like they'd be off-limits should actually be non-routable, and areas that look accessible should be easy to reach, with no random non-routable spots. You can find more information on routing in the CAW Help Document.

• Smooth Edges: Make sure the edges of your non-routable areas are smooth, not jagged or blotchy, so the camera doesn't bump around.

• Layering Correctly done, layering increases world performance. Don't just dump everything on one layer! Items you have placed in your world (lots, decorations, effects, etc.) should be layered and grouped in a logical way.

Additional items added such as rocks, landscaping, and effects can really give your neighborhood character and a unique and interesting feel.

• Aesthetically Pleasing: Your decorating should add to the overall beauty and theme of your neighborhood, with good choices and placement of items - neither too many nor too few.

• Thematic: Try to keep your decorations to a particular style - use trees and flowers that make sense for the type of region you're building. Giving your neighborhood a particular unique flavour and style makes it more charming and realistic than just using one of everything, or a random pyramid because it'd look cool.

Beetles, butterflies, fish, gems, ores, and space rocks all appear in the game because the neighborhood/world creator has placed spawn points for them. The CAW Help Document contains a list of all of the Spawners and what they produce.

• Full Set: You don't need to place one of each Spawner, but you probably want to place enough so that sims can collect all of the base game collectibles.

• Logical Placement: Place spawn points in areas that make sense - near landmarks on the map or in an area you've decorated specially for them - not just randomly, or stuck all together in one place.

• Balanced Rarity: Vary the type of spawn points you use so it's not too "cheaty" - use a mixture of common, uncommon, and rare spawns (not just all rare ones).

Rabbitholes

Rabbit holes provide places for your sims to do important tasks as well as attend school and their jobs.

• Full Set: There are 16 different rabbit holes - make sure you include them all for sims to have a nicely functioning neighborhood and be able to get all jobs. If you choose to omit some of them, it should make sense for the theme of the neighborhood, and you should add some extra lots big enough to fit the rabbit hole objects, so players can place their own.

• Decorated: Rabbit hole lots require decoration to make them look part of their neighborhood - benches, trees, terrain paint, etc. - if you're going to tell people where the rabbit holes should be, you should make an effort to decorate the lot so it's integrated into the rest of the neighborhood's style.

Community buildings

• Full Set: You should build all or most of the various community buildings (art gallery, gym, etc.) which are not rabbit holes. If you don't build them all, you should leave empty lots for the player to build or place their own.

Residential buildings

• Enough Lots: You should include several residential buildings in a variety of sizes. Make sure the lot sizes are multiples of 5 (25x30, 50x50, etc.). Some/all residential buildings can be vacant, but all of the houses need to be furnished (see our Lots and Houses Upload Guidelines).

• Quality: If you are doing a full map and including sims for a populated world (including sims is completely optional!), please make sure that your sims meet the MTS Creator Guidelines for Sims. Unique faces for random "other" sims and good likenesses if you're trying to make them look like real people. The standards for sims uploaded with a world are the same as if you uploaded them separately, so make sure they're good!

It's important that you include certain information so that players know what to expect when they use your creation! Part of this is also so the MTS moderation staff knows your world has been made right.

You may want to copy-paste the headings here to use as a template. This information should be in the text description for your upload. If you do not include all of the required information, your upload will not be approved.

Title

You probably already have a name for your world - it makes a good title for your upload.

Description

You need to write a decent description for your upload. You don't have to write a novel here, just at least a few sentences about world's theme, history, landscape, people, whatever. Let people know you've put some careful thought into your creation. If your English is not good, you can ask for help writing a description in Creator Feedback.

The screenshots you take will show off the world you have made and allow people to see what they're downloading. Take some nice big (800+ pixels-ish on the smallest side is a good size to aim for), clear pictures to entice downloaders into using your lovely new creation. Please do not take the pictures in Create a World*.

You will need to include at least:

• at least ONE picture from high above your world, showing the whole thing. If you can't fit it all in one shot, you can take several different shots as long as it's obvious you've shown everything. You can label the overview pictures with text if you want - just make sure it doesn't cover up too much.
• Show at least THREE other pictures of some of the views people will see in your world. This should be nice scenic views, taken from a lower angle (a sim's eye view, or a low player's eye view). You can of course take more pictures to show off all the pretty sights.

Lot pictures

If you have built on the included lots, you will need to give a full set of info and pictures for at least 10 lots - 5 residential and 5 community. You may choose which 10 lots you show, but we suggest you choose lots that are representative of the overall style of the world. We have this requirement so both MTS staff and people who may download your lot can see that your lots are good quality.

The pictures you must include for individual lots are:

• Front View: One picture from the front of the lot, taken from a sim's eye view.

• Floor Plans: At least one overhead floor plan type picture of each floor/level. If your lot has three levels plus a basement, you will need to do four floor plan pictures.

• Comparison Picture: If your lot is based on a real-life or fictional lot (for example, a replica of the Falling Water house, the Disney Castle, or the house from the Munsters), you will need to include at least one comparison picture of the lot it is based on.

Sim pictures

If you are including sims with a save file, or pre-populating your world, you will need to give a full set of info and pictures for at least 5 sims. You may choose which 5 sims, but as with lots, we suggest you choose ones that are representative of your creator style and quality. This is so MTS staff and downloaders can see that your sims are good quality.

The pictures you must include for individual sims are:

• A close-up picture of the sim's face, from the front, with the sim wearing a neutral face expression (like a mugshot) - not smiling, laughing, etc.
• For sims based on a person or character, a comparison picture of the real person, ideally similar to the close-up picture of your sim.

You may, of course, include other pictures like a full-body picture, posing pictures, whatever, to show off your sim how you like, but please make sure to include at least the above. Do not apply filters like sharpen, contrast, etc. to the required pictures, as downloaders want to see what your sim will look like in their game, not your skills at using Photoshop.

Additional Screenshots

You may wish to take optional extra pictures to show off your world. Additional pictures are good! Show people all kinds of interesting stuff, all the little details you've put in. Even if you're making a Basic Map, you may wish to compose your upload in Creator Issues as is advised for Full Maps - you can add additional pictures attached to subsequent posts in the thread, which will show up on the Comments tab.

*Worlds with empty lots

In exception to the other screenshot guidelines, please take one picture in CAW to show how the lots are located in the world.

If you have used any custom items in your world, you MUST provide full links and credit for ALL items used in the world. This means any custom build items, objects, patterns, or content used on any included sims must be linked and credited.

Make sure to state whether or not the content is included or not (as downloaders need to know if they need to download it all separately or not). If you do include content, it must be okay with that content's creator. Please check their policies.

For a complex neighborhood, it's likely that your upload will be over the 10 mb file limit that we have at MTS. You will need to upload your creation in parts. To do this, you will need an archive program like WinRAR that can compress a file but split it into multiple pieces.

Uploading Full maps

Because worlds are so complex, it may be easier for you to compose your upload in MTS's Creator Issues Forum rather than going through the regular upload wizard. Create a new thread - the first post will show as the main post on the upload once complete -; make sure to attach at least one picture to the first post and at least one zip or rar attachment. You can use subsequent posts (which will show up as comments on the upload) to attach files and pictures and organize showing off different parts of your world. Once you're done putting together your upload in Creator Issues, private message an Admin or make a new post at Creator Issues, to ask if your world can be moved to the Moderation Queue. For an example of a full neighborhood done like this, see Plasticbox's Elsewhere Neighborhood. Obviously it's a bit different being a Sims 2 neighborhood rather than Sims 3, but you can see how the general information and description is on the Overview tab, with the main screenshots attached to the first post to show up in Screenshots. Then click on the Comments tab and see how she has a description and pictures for each included house as well as the required sizing and pricing information. Again, the details included would be a bit different, but the concept is the same for both TS2 and TS3.

Additional Stuff

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

• If you're not sure whether your world is ready for uploading, use the Creator Feedback Forum to get feedback on it.