MTS2:Creator Guidelines/Sims

Sims

So you've made a Sim and you want to share it on MTS2. Below are guidelines you need to follow before you can share your Sim here at MTS2 in our Downloads section.

Quality

As a site primarily devoted to learning how to mod the game, MTS2 is committed to excellence in uploads - we have certain standards for your submission to be accepted to this site. Please read these guidelines carefully to make sure your sim upload is up to MTS2 standards. Uploads which do not meet our standards may be rejected.

Celebrity/Character Sims

Celebrity Sims/Sims modeled after real people or characters from games/anime/etc. must bear enough of a resemblance so that they are immediately recognizable as who it's supposed to be. If your sim is off by more than one feature (ex. eyes, nose, lips, shape of face) then it will be rejected. Please utilize our Creator Feedback forum for great tips on how to get your sim looking perfect.

Making a Skin or Mask for Your Celeb? If you are making a face mask or special skintone for your celebrity so they bear a closer resemblance through texturing, please consider doing it via the Dependent Skintones Method which will greatly reduce the filesize of your upload and will reduce the amount of bloating of peoples' Downloads folders!

Duplicate Celebrities/Characters

We will no longer be taking celebrity sims on the site that have been done repeatedly. We do not need 50 Angelina Jolie sims... and while we appreciate your contributions, there is no need to continue to upload the same sims over and over. Only if your sim is remarkably perfect and completely accurate will we consider it. But please try to create celeb sims that have not been made before

You can see the list of "do not make more of these celebrities" here: We Are No Longer Accepting This Celebrity.

Unique Faces for the "Other" Category

When it comes to sims, having a pretty sim or one with nice content is not enough. Anyone can take a Maxis face with a few tweaks here and there, add some pretty content, and make an attractive sim - we're looking for unique, interesting sims with unusual facial features. We would rather see sims that look more like real people - not so pretty but interesting - than another "hot model" type sim with a bland face that anyone could make.

There is no reason for anyone to download a random sim that they could have made themselves with a few minutes and the same content. Please make a real effort to make interesting, unique faces that not just anyone could put together. This includes anime/cartoon sims, and some effort should be made to give them a unique look, and to differentiate characters by more than just content.

Here are two illustrative comparisons (male and female) of what we are looking for in sim uploads (please click for larger versions):

Sim 1: An attractive sim, with all custom parts, and an interesting, unique facial sculpt that took a lot of tweaking and playing with to create. This is a good example of what we are looking for in terms of uniqueness, and assuming all other guidelines were followed, a sim like this would likely be accepted.

Sim 2: An attractive sim, with all custom parts, with a face that is mostly Maxis, with a little tweaking here and there. Anyone could make this sim with the same content and a few minutes in Body Shop. Even if the other guidelines were followed, a sim like this would likely be rejected.

Sim 3: Sim 1, but with all Maxis parts and no makeup. Perhaps not as attractive as Sim 1 or Sim 2, but still quite interesting. With a little makeup and a custom part here and there and the rest of the guidelines followed, this sim is still unique in facial shape and would likely be accepted.

Sim 4: Sim 2, but with all Maxis parts and no makeup. Just... a sim. All the custom content on Sim 2 doesn't make this sim acceptable, as the face shape is very plain and not unique.

Creators of sims are highly encouraged to strip your sims down to all non-defaults (take out your default replacement eyes and skin), no makeup, and Maxis content... and see if the sim you created really has an interesting, unique face... or if they just look special because of the content they're wearing.

Make Your Own Content for Your "Other" Sims!

Please do not be offended if your sim uploaded to the Other category gets rejected for not being unique enough. MOST sims uploaded to that category get rejected for that reason. With literally thousands of "Other" sims already uploaded, we only accept the very best of the best, sims that represent a unique overall look as well as an interesting face.

If you like making sims, we strongly encourage you to branch out into creating Celebrity or Character sims or to try making some content for your sims yourself "Other" sims which have new, unique content created for that sim have a much greater likelihood of getting accepted - anyone can tweak some sliders in Body Shop to make a sim face and slap on some ready-made content and give them a name. This of course does not mean that you should just make random content just to get your sims accepted, but that the content you make should improve on the overall look and feel of what you were going for in the first place.

• For great examples of what we mean by this, see Kamikitten's fantastic Robert Hawkwood and Emily or Zombiejill's Jill, which all have several pieces of content made by the sim creator especially for those sims (as well as nice unique face sculpts too). These are the kind of "Other" sims we are looking for on MTS2.

Where to Upload

Please make sure you upload to the correct category. Click here to see what forums we have for offer. Self-sims do NOT go in the Downloads forum - please do not upload sims of yourself or people you know... you may share them by email but due to the limited demand for downloading random users' self-sims, we do not allow non-staff self-sims posted in the Downloads forum.

Screenshots

In addition to overall quality standards, you will need to show pics of your sim so people know what they're downloading. Here's what we're looking for:

Screenshot Basics

For instructions on:

• Taking large, clear pictures (bigger than the game will allow)
• Changing your in-game settings for best graphics quality
• Camera controls

See: Screenshot Basics

You need to make sure you have nice big, clear pictures that show off what you've made. They can't be too blurry or pixellated, and you need to know how to use the game's camera controls properly, so make sure you review the information on that link thoroughly before continuing.

Required Screenshots

These screenshots are a requirement when uploading sims and you will not get your upload accepted without them!

Neutral Face Closeup (Required for All Sims!)

Show a close-up of your sim's face with a neutral expression. While it may look a little boring, sims' faces distort quite a lot when they make expressions so having a good idea of what your sim actually looks like normally is necessary. Extreme facial expressions like big smiles, open mouthed animated talking, laughter, etc., can distort the face and can make an interesting sim just look like another goofy sim.

Body Shot (Required for All Sims!)

Show a further-away shot of your sim from a distance. This can be from at least their hips and up or you can show the sim from head to toe. If you have made the sim's outfit, make sure to show them head to toe, to show off the outfit you've made.

The below images are a good example of a body shot and neutral face closeup for a sim upload.

Comparison Pic (Required for Celebrity/Character Sims!)

If your sim is based on a celebrity, anime character, cartoon character, game character, etc., then you need to include at least one picture of the original person or character for comparison purposes.

Please provide at least one plain basic comparison pic of the character or celebrity - just a photo of them. Simmerized (combining the sim's face with a photo in Photoshop) or divided pics (left side is sim face, right side is real face split down the nose) provided for comparison are not acceptable. You can, however, put two pics side-by-side like the below example with similar poses and expressions as this will best show how close your likeness is.

A good example of a celebrity sim comparison pic.

Big Enough

Your pics should be large enough to see the detail of what you've made. Remember, MTS2 allows images up to 1280x1024 pixels and 195 kilobytes so you should be able to upload nice big pictures. See the information above under "Screenshot Basics" for info on taking larger pics than the game will normally allow.

And please don't take smaller pics and just make them larger in your graphics program - this just gives you a blurry pic that's bigger in dimensions with no additional detail.

In-Game

In order to see what your creation looks like in-game, we require in-game screenshots. You must actually load the game and take your screenshots there. We do not accept Body Shop pics, texture pics, SimPose, 3D program pics, etc., without the required in-game pics too. Please don't try to cut out backgrounds or fake in-game pics. We can definitely tell the difference.

For best results, put your item on a sim on a lot. Create-a-Sim screenshots are acceptable, but the lighting in CAS is pretty bright and you may not be able to get detail pics and that sort of thing, too.

Enough Light

Don't take your pics at night or in a dark room! Take your sim outside in the sunlight (make sure they're facing the sun - light comes from a certain direction on the lot!) or put them in a well-lit room. At the same time, make sure you don't use too much light: Create-a-Sim screenshots can sometimes be too bright.

Inline/Attached Screenshots

When posting images that appear in the text of the thread (these are called inline screenshots), please make sure to limit these images to no larger than 800x600 pixels (so it doesn't create a horizontal scroll on the page for people on lower resolutions).

Please also do not post more than 4 inline screenshots - having a lot of images that have to load on the thread makes browsing downloads very slow and can make the thread jump around as they keep loading.

You may host your inline screenshots elsewhere like Photobucket.com - however, these screenshots hosted elsewhere must be additional screenshots, and you must make sure to actually attach your required screenshots 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 can attach up to 8 screenshots to the thread itself, with the 4 additional inline screenshots hosted elsewhere (or attached) for a total of 12 possible screenshots. This should be plenty to show what you've made, even for fairly large sets. Remember, you can always collage several different images together into one image if you have a bunch of stuff to show off.

No Pay Content

Do not use pay content in your screenshots! Do not use pay hair in your screenshots!

You MUST use free or Maxis hair in your screenshots! MTS2 promotes and supports free content, and using pay content in screenshots is basically like free advertisement for paysites. This includes pay content you found elsewhere for free - if it was pay originally, it's still promoting pay content.

As of 21 July 2007, MTS2 no longer allows the use of pay content in screenshots. This includes (but is not limited to) hairstyles. You must use free or Maxis hairstyles on your sims! Do not use pay or donation hairstyles on your sims when uploading here. For more information, please see the Site News article on the subject.

MTS2 has an extensive collection of free hairstyles in our Downloads section, and you can look in the Sims2Wiki Hair Gallery for more free hairstyles. You'll be able to find something you like.