Difference between revisions of "MTS2:Creator Guidelines/Sims 3 Blueprints/Sandbox"

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* '''Architecture:''' The way the blueprint is built should be unique, interesting, and more than just a basic box with four walls and a roof.
 
* '''Architecture:''' The way the blueprint is built should be unique, interesting, and more than just a basic box with four walls and a roof.
−
* '''Create-a-Style:''' Get creative with and explore the options available with the CAST tool.  Just make sure your finished CASTing works together with your lot's style, makes some sort of sense, and doesn't require sunglasses to view.  Generally this should mean:
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* '''Create-a-Style:''' Get creative with and explore the options available with the CAST tool.  Just make sure your finished CASTing works together with your room's style, makes some sort of sense, and doesn't require sunglasses to view.  Generally this should mean:
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**Use textures that look appropriate on surfaces.  For example, some of the EA stone textures look great applied to a couch when the colours are tweaked to look like velvet.  So you shouldn't feel too constrained by the categories. But most houses probably don't need a leopard print toilet or a wicker bathtub.
+
**Use textures that look appropriate on surfaces.  For example, some of the EA stone textures look great applied to a couch when the colours are tweaked to look like velvet.  So you shouldn't feel too constrained by the categories. But most rooms probably don't need a leopard print toilet or a wicker bathtub.
 
**Your textures shouldn't be too bright/saturated, or too dark.  Try to use full-saturation colours sparingly, and if you're making something black, you usually shouldn't use 100% black as it just looks like a "hole" without any dimension to it.  Try using dark grey instead.
 
**Your textures shouldn't be too bright/saturated, or too dark.  Try to use full-saturation colours sparingly, and if you're making something black, you usually shouldn't use 100% black as it just looks like a "hole" without any dimension to it.  Try using dark grey instead.
 
**Avoid using some of the EA stone presets or very busy patterns in large areas, as they look very "repeaty" and can create an overwhelming effect.
 
**Avoid using some of the EA stone presets or very busy patterns in large areas, as they look very "repeaty" and can create an overwhelming effect.
−
**Try to use harmonious colours that work with the lot's style.  Look at real-life decorating sites or magazines for inspiration
+
**Try to use harmonious colours that work with the room's style.  Look at real-life decorating sites or magazines for inspiration
 
* '''Playability:''' The layout of the room should make sense and allow sims to get around easily, with access to all the items they would want to interact with.
 
* '''Playability:''' The layout of the room should make sense and allow sims to get around easily, with access to all the items they would want to interact with.
 
   
 
   

Revision as of 14:34, 29 November 2013

Contents

Sims 3 Blueprint Upload Guidelines

Made a cool new blueprint for The Sims 3 and want to share? Please read the following guidelines carefully so you understand what we require for MTS uploads.

Quality

  • Architecture: The way the blueprint is built should be unique, interesting, and more than just a basic box with four walls and a roof.
  • Create-a-Style: Get creative with and explore the options available with the CAST tool. Just make sure your finished CASTing works together with your room's style, makes some sort of sense, and doesn't require sunglasses to view. Generally this should mean:
    • Use textures that look appropriate on surfaces. For example, some of the EA stone textures look great applied to a couch when the colours are tweaked to look like velvet. So you shouldn't feel too constrained by the categories. But most rooms probably don't need a leopard print toilet or a wicker bathtub.
    • Your textures shouldn't be too bright/saturated, or too dark. Try to use full-saturation colours sparingly, and if you're making something black, you usually shouldn't use 100% black as it just looks like a "hole" without any dimension to it. Try using dark grey instead.
    • Avoid using some of the EA stone presets or very busy patterns in large areas, as they look very "repeaty" and can create an overwhelming effect.
    • Try to use harmonious colours that work with the room's style. Look at real-life decorating sites or magazines for inspiration
  • Playability: The layout of the room should make sense and allow sims to get around easily, with access to all the items they would want to interact with.

Screen Shots

  • Floor Plans: Please make sure you to include a picture of each blueprint room (as attachment!), taken directly from above, and zoomed in just to the blueprint.
  • Blueprint: This should go without saying, but each blueprint upload must have a blueprint screenshot
  • |Interior: You should include several screenshots which show the interior of the room from different angles

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.


Custom Content

  • Credits: Custom content needs to be credited as clickable links to the download page of the items. If you can't link to a download page, then link to the creators page/the site you got the content from, and explain in the post how the items can be found. Please do not claim unknown or other creators work as your own.
  • Pay Content: You may not have pay content on your blueprint/room as this is not allowed on MTS. You need to remove every pay item you have used from the blueprint/room. This includes items from The Sims Resource Featured Artists (TSR FA's for short), because of their changing free/pay status.

Uploading

  • Blueprint Price: As with lots, each blueprint/room must include the room price
  • Blueprint size: Uploads must include blueprint/room size in your upload text and this must be the correct one for the upload
  • Game version:You must include your BASE GAME version. In TS3, lots can be installed regardless of the EP/SPs it was built with, as long as the downloader has the same patch version or greater. EP/SP specific content will just leave empty spaces. Please list the BASE GAME version that the lot was built with - NOT the EP version.
  • Furnished rooms: Blueprint/room uploads must be completely furnished and decorated.


Other

Uploads not allowed on MTS
These items are not allowed on MTS in any category.
Pay/Pirated Content

Everything required or recommended for an upload must be freely available, without having to pay.

  • No uploads requiring pay content: We do not host content (for example, recolours of a pay hair or object mesh) that absolutely require pay content to function in-game.
  • No optional pay, pirated, or stolen content: Even for optional or recommended content not absolutely required for the creation to work (for example, hair on a sim or a couch on a lot), this means:
    • No content you must pay for. This means you cannot use items that are pay, donation, subscriber only, "special gift", etc. type content, anything accessible only when you pay money or subscribe.
    • No content from sites that are repositories of unmodified content when it is still available from the original creator, whether these items are pay or free (no Booty or Simscave, torrents, sites full of stolen content or similar, but the Graveyard and sites that offer recolours or modifications with the mesh are okay).
    • No EA content simply converted to base game use with no other changes.
    • No pirated EA Store content. EA Store content, linked to the legitimate EA Store, is okay though. TS2 store content may be included, with proper credit, since the store is no longer available.
Other content not allowed
  • Items that belong on the adult site: No content posted on MTS can have visible nudity, sexual content, or adult content, and instead must be posted on our adult site, Sexy Sims. This means on MTS, you may not post:
    • Content that contains nudity, which we define as exposing the female nipples, or the butt crack/genitals of either gender, including semi-transparent stuff like a sheer bra. Items that are merely "sexy" like skimpy miniskirts or string bikinis are fine on MTS. Transsexual/transgender items are also not considered adult content unless they contain nudity.
    • Skintones containing genital details - female nipples are okay on MTS but see below regarding screenshots.
    • Images of skintones with uncensored female nipples. Please blur or cover the nipples, butt crack, and genital area when taking screenshots of your skintones.
    • Fine art uploads containing visible nudity.
    • Items with specifically sexual content (sex toys, sexual poses).
    • Items containing swear/curse words
    • Items relating to illegal drugs. Prescription and over-the-counter drugs, alcohol, and tobacco are okay on MTS though.
  • Sexualized children: We do not allow any sexy/sexualized content for baby, toddler, or child sims in any way - no breasts whatsoever on child sims, no "sexy" outfits, etc. If you want to make preteens, make a less developed body for teen sims. Sexualized child content is not allowed at our adult site either.
  • Offensive content: Racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, bigoted, hateful or otherwise offensive content will not be allowed. Again, also not allowed at our adult site.
  • Gore/violence: We do not allow uploads which feature prominent, graphic violence and/or gore. Examples of things we do not allow would include items centred around mass shootings, images showing explicit violent imagery, cannibalism, and infanticide. Limited violence and gore may be featured if not the dominant focus of the upload, and not excessively graphic. Think a PG-13 movie. If uncertain whether your upload crosses this line, we suggest making a thread in the Creator Issues forum asking for feedback from a moderator before uploading.
  • EXE installers: Creators are not allowed to post exe (or other executable) files for any area of the site but Modding Tools. If your content needs to be installed to a certain directory, you can compress your files and leave the directory structure intact, so you can tell people to just install to Program Files, for instance, and the files will go where they need to. Executable installers can easily hold viruses, and are generally not needed for installing most content.
  • Preorder bonus content: Certain items were only available if you preordered certain expansions or stuff packs from certain retailers. It's unfortunate if someone missed out on getting them, but they can't be redistributed here as EA has made it clear that they do not allow it.
  • Unmodified EP/SP/Store content: While it is common practice to modify and use bits and pieces of game content to create custom content, extracting content from an expansion, stuff pack, or Store item and uploading it unmodified is not allowed on this site. You are welcome to upload significantly modified versions of expansion, stuff pack, or Store content, but you can't just be ripping it and changing one tiny thing (or nothing) just so people who didn't purchase it can still use it.
  • Stolen/reuploaded content: This should go without saying, but do not upload content made by others and claim it as your own, in whole or in part. Don't upload the work of someone else without their permission... if they wanted to share it at MTS, they can easily upload it here themselves.
  • Uncredited content/violating permissions: If any part of what you have uploaded (mesh, textures, alphas, bump maps, coding, etc.) comes from somebody else's work, you MUST provide a link and credit in the text of your post, for the original author. State what you've used of theirs, the author's name, and give a link back to them. You must check the author's policies to see if you can use their content in the way you want, and you may not violate any policies stated. If there are no policies or they don't disallow your type of usage, or the site is permanently offline, then you can assume it's okay. Please see here for more details: Updates and Remixes of Creations.
  • Redirects: If you want to move a creation to another site, please remove your upload from MTS, don't just edit the text to point to a different site.
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