Always try to alter every or at least almost every joint a little bit. Altering just a few joints can leave your pose looking quite stiff and unnatural. Begin with the big changes and work your way down to the details. Don't forget to pose the face, hands and fingers as they count a great deal towards the overall quality of your pose.

Just because you can move the joints any which way, doesn't mean it's a good idea. Always try to keep in mind what the human body would be capable of when you move a joint on your pose. Don't go beyond the anatomically possible. Avoid bending joints in impossible directions or at impossible angles unless it's required to fit a certain theme or context. E.g. If you are making acrobatic poses then it's fair to expect that they may be able to bend in ways that the average human being would not be capable of.

Keep in mind that a pose that is anatomically possible for the human body, isn't necessarily doable for sims without looking really bad. It doesn't make a useful pose if you alter a joint in a way that the sim mesh gets badly distorted even if it would be possible for a human. If the mesh gets badly distorted, try to work around it or go for something else.

Tip: Whenever you're unsure, use a mirror to check what's possible on your own body or maybe work from pictures of real people.

The center of weight of the sim should be within the footprint. Whether you're standing upright, balancing on one leg or bending over; if you have no external object to lean on or support you then you must have at least one foot directly under your center of weight. If you don't, you fall over. Try to pose your sims so that they look evenly balanced and not like they're about to fall over.

Of course this doesn't apply to poses that are supposed to show sims falling over or in full movement.

Always keep all the bones at their regular length. Stretched or compressed skeletons never look realistic, and can completely ruin an otherwise good pose.

Tip: Never move a joint! Only rotate them.

Always aim to have no clipping or as little clipping as possible with your poses. On the other hand, if parts of the body are supposed to make contact, e.g. hand on hip, they should actually make contact and not miss each other by a wide margin.

Tip: Remember to consider the type of clothing that may be used along with your poses. E.g it might make sense to factor in winter clothing if you're making poses with a ski holiday theme.

• Show Your Whole Creation: Your screenshots should show all the poses that are included in the file you are uploading. Show each pose top to bottom, left to right. Angle or crop your screenshot so that your poses are centred in the image, with nothing cut off the edges.

• In-Game Screenshots: All required screenshots must be taken in the game with actual in-game backgrounds. Please don't cut the sims out and put them into random non-game backgrounds.

Also please make sure that your poses are shown in a scenery that is light enough and lit well enough to see shadows. It's important that it can be seen that a pose is neither floating nor sinking. Unless it is meant to, of course.

• Additional Angles: Your images should show at least the key elements of each pose which are the face, hands and limb joints. You may need to show side on views of the pose if it's in a bending/crouching position.

If you're struggling to make that one single screenshot that shows a pose in all its glorious detail, why not just make two screenshots from different angles? While one screenshot may be enough to show off a pose, it's never wrong to make two.

• Poses Labelled:

• Clothes and Hair Obscuring the Pose:

• Pose Box (TS2 Only):

You must look inside the .sims2pack file to see what is included. You will need to remove any content that the creator says you can't share. You will also need to collect credits and links for any content you have included in your screenshots, even if it didn't package with your sim (like default replacement skintones or eyes), as well as any required meshes for hair, clothing, or accessories. This is usually the most labor-intensive part of uploading sims, so it may be a good idea to organize your content before making sims to share, so you know all the custom content you might want to use is is shareable and identifiable.

Look inside the sims2pack:

To see what's inside your sims2pack file (look, you'll need to get Clean Installer, a free program which is safe and easy to use. Once you install Clean Installer, it should associate itself with .sims2pack files, so when you double-click on any one of them to open it, Clean Installer will come up and tell you what is inside.

Crediting and Linking:

Now you need to:

• Identify everything inside the sims2pack file, and track down who made it so you can give them credit for their creation, plus and a link back to their site, profile, or the original thread or webpage where you downloaded the item. A proper link and credit should look like this: "Long Wavy Hair by Nouk: http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=427745" - what the item is, the creator's name, and a link. It's okay to link to dead sites if the creator's site is offline and you can't find an alternate link through Google.

• Provide links to any custom meshes required for the included clothing, hair, or accessories. Without the mesh, the item will not work properly in-game. The mesh may or may not have packaged in the sims2pack.

• Check everyone's terms of use for the content on your sim, and make sure that you can indeed share their work in sim uploads.

You will be asked to provide the links, credits, and descriptions in the upload process. While MTS does save links entered previously by other creators, some of those links may not be correct. It is your responsibility to make sure that all of the links for your upload go to the right places.

Start a text file on your computer where you can type everything out as you locate the parts. This can be the most tedious part, depending on how descriptive the original creators were in their descriptions and filenames. They are generally good clues, though. It's a good idea to start your text file by typing in the custom items you know are on your sim (skin, hair, lipstick, etc.), so you know when you have a credit and link for each item, and then also make a section for any required meshes and the links and credits for those meshes. Then you can begin filling in each item as you find out where it came from.

• Search MTS or Google with the information you can find on the item (from the description or filename) to track down the source.

• The Table of Custom Contents, on the SimsWiki can be useful in finding content, especially if it's in a particular theme.

• If all your searching fails and you can't find the item on your own, try the Where Can I Find Forums at MTS. You can search the forum in case someone has asked about the same item before, and if you can't find what you're looking for, you can post a new thread to ask if someone knows where the content came from. Give as much information as possible, like a screenshot, the description, filename, and any other info you can to help people help you track it down.

You will need to include at least:

• 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.
• If your sim normally wears a mask, goggles, sunglasses, etc., you should also include a picture of your sim uncovered as well, if their face is too covered to tell whether the sculpting of the face is unique and interesting or accurate to the person they're based on (if applicable).

Please remember, for your required pictures:

• No photoshopping: 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.

• As packaged: Your pictures should show your sim as you have packaged them, so that what downloaders see is what they'll actually get.

Tip: You may, of course, include other pictures like a full-body picture, posing pictures, whatever, to show off your sim how you like, and if your sim is a toddler, child, or teen, you may want to include a picture of how they'll look when they grow up, just so downloaders aren't surprised when if your cute kid turns into a weird-looking adult.