For swimsuit parts of competitions, or just for some cool tropical pics, sims look great in a nicely set beach scene.
Start by painting your entire lot in a nice simple sand textured terrain paint, with the largest brush. The ones I'm using are primarily from the Tropical Beach Terrains set by
BitzyBus at TSR ($$$). For more beach terrains, see:
Content List: Decorating Themes: Beach, Pool, Party, Camping, and Outdoors.
Remember, these are exterior shots so the way light falls on the lot is important. If you don't already know which way the light falls on the lot, place a couple walls to make sure you know which way the light is going to fall - you will probably want your sim facing the sun for outdoor daytime pics.
For this lot, a sim should face the sidewalk (the front of the lot) for the best lighting. We're going to take a picture with the sim on the sand, looking out over the water which will be in the foreground of the picture, so we'll put sand at the far end, and water at the near end. If you wanted water behind your sim, or beside, or some sort of different orientation, you would need to paint your lot accordingly, so you could get that shot with your sim still facing the correct direction for proper lighting.
Now, on the far end of the lot, add some spots of different terrain paint using the smallest brush. If you find certain areas look too regular or you think you've textured too much, try going over that area with a single click of your original texture using a the medium-sized terrain brush.
On the half of the lot closer to the street, use the medium-sized terrain brush to paint a nice large-scale ocean texture over the land. When you get toward the area where your spotty sand texturing starts, wiggle the mouse a little, so you'll get a nice natural-looking shoreline.
Add a few spots of a different water texture up toward the shore line. If you have any snow terrain paints, you can add a single click or two to make white-capped waves, and quick swipes of the mouse left to right will give spotty little bits of white that can create a convincingly foamy-looking shore.
Switch to the terrain tool. Use the Raise Terrain tool on the smallest brush size and draw a rough arc around the back edge of your lot, from the shoreline from one edge, back toward the back of the lot, then down the other side. Let go of the mouse button with each pass. Do this several times, till you build up a little arched area basically like the picture shown. You don't have to be exact... you want it fairly rough.
When you have the whole area fairly raised, then sculpt it with a little more care - areas that are lighter should tend to be a bit higher than areas that are darker. The rocks on my beach are also part of the terrain, so I've raised them up a little bit too.
Now do the same thing on the water - start by tracing along any lighter, highlighted areas on your terrain paint a couple times to raise those areas. Then go over the area closest to the sidewalk, moving the terrain tool horizontally, a couple extra times to raise that area a bit more than all the rest.
This terrain sculpting will basically give you a lumpy little bowl shape in the middle of your lot.
Add a few sprigs of beach grass, some beach decor, and maybe a bit of clutter like a beach umbrella, flip flops, an icy cold beverage, etc. Because your sim is in a bowl-shaped area in the center of the lot for taking pictures, as long as you maintain an angle somewhat above the sim for your pics, you will only get beach and water in your pics, none of the surrounding area.
I've put my sim in a lounge chair, which is rotated 45 degrees. Sims won't get into a chair that's rotated (they'll just complain) but you can put the chair straight, direct the sim to sit, and then pick up and rotate the chair. You'll need both the 45degreeangle cheat and moveobjects on to do so.
This same technique, creating a lumpy bowl shape, can work great on larger lots for making a park or outdoor scene. Earlier you learned how to make a simple outdoor set using a wall to block the surrounding terrain, but this same bowl-shaped lot can work for all sorts of outdoor areas, including water and space terrains as well. The idea is just to get your sim into a subtly sunken area, so what you see around is more terrain, not the ugly neighborhood that will clash with your design.
