Difference between revisions of "MTS2:Creator Guidelines/Full Neighborhoods"

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=Full Neighborhoods=
 
=Full Neighborhoods=
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Have you made a new neighborhood in game and want to share it?  This guide will walk you through every step of what we require on MTS. After you've read through this entire article, you may start the upload process, which is a bit different for TS2 Neighborhoods. The correct way to upload a TS2 Hood is through our [http://www.modthesims.info/forumdisplay.php?f=492 Creator Issues] forum. There you will be able to start a thread and add in as many comment posts as you need to include the lots and their images. After you have completed your thread, create another thread in the same forum asking for your neighborhood (with a link to it) to be moved to Moderation.
  
 
==Quality==
 
==Quality==
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Have you made a new neighborhood in game and want to share it?  This guide will walk you through every step of what we require on MTS.
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{{Guidelines-Quality-ContentNotAllowed}}
 
{{Guidelines-Quality-ContentNotAllowed}}
  
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==Right Info/Right Files==
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==Required Lots==
  
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Once you have your creation made and screenshots taken, you need to make sure you have all the fiddly bits in order.
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A new change has been implemented here. Instead of requiring full images of every lot included in your neighborhood, we are loosening back to what we require of TS3 Worlds. You are only required to show 10 of your lots now. Please remember though, that they are still subject to all of the [http://simswiki.info/wiki.php?title=MTS2:Creator_Guidelines/Lots_and_Houses TS2 Lots Guidelines]. Your moderator also will be looking at the images from your neighborhood to make sure you aren't just doing 10 good lots and all the rest sub par. It is within their right to ask for images of any additional lots to check on quality.
  
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==Sims and Blank Templates==
 
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! style="text-align:left" | Files Required for Upload (*)
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! style="text-align:left" | Required Blank Templates (*)
 
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*One .sc4 file. This file will have the name of your neighborhood. For example, "EnchantedCove.sc4"
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Before you start building your neighborhood, you need to install clean and empty neighborhood templates. This will allow you to create a neighborhood free from any default sims and random townies. This is a requirement. If you choose to include sims, you may do so after, but the blank templates are a requirement. Most of the templates are available for download on MATY, so do a google search for them.
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|}
  
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*At least one .png file.  This should be the default neighborhood picture for your neighborhood and should be named the same as the neighborhood. For example, "EnchantedCove.png"
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! style="text-align:left" | Optional Included Families(*)
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If you choose to include families in your neighborhood, remember that ever sim will be required to follow the [http://simswiki.info/wiki.php?title=MTS2:Creator_Guidelines/Sims MTS Sims 'Other' guidelines]. It is a good idea to first make a backup of your neighborhood without any of the families in it in case the sims themselves are the reason why your neighborhood is not being accepted. This will give you the chance to create new families and try again, or simply upload without them. After a sim has been added to a neighborhood, it is impossible to remove all it's data from the neighborhood, so if your sims are the only problem with your neighborhood, you can't just delete the characters and try again. It will mess up the neighborhood, and we will not accept it. So PLEASE BACK UP YOUR WORK!
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*For your neighborhood to work properly with different terrain types, you will also need to include:
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==Right Info/Right Files==
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Once you have your creation made and screenshots taken, you need to make sure you have all the fiddly bits in order.
  
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*Four additional .png files, taken of your neighborhood using the different terrain types. These will be named the same as your neighborhood, with an underscore, and the terrain type. For example, "EnchantedCove_concrete.png", "EnchantedCove_desert.png", "EnchantedCove_dirt.png", and "EnchantedCove_lush.png".
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{| class="collapsible collapsed wikitable" style="width:100%"
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! style="text-align:left" | Unique Neighborhood Number (*)
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One of the most important things is to make sure that your neighborhood has a unique number. If two neighborhoods have the same number, one of them will not appear in the user's game. MTS has created a [http://simswiki.info/wiki.php?title=MTS2:Creator_Guidelines/Neighborhood_Numbers_Repository Neighborhood Number Repository] so you can be sure that your neighborhood does not conflict with any existing neighborhoods. If/when your neighborhood is approved, your number will be added to the list to protect you from future neighborhoods clashing. After creating your neighborhood, it will likely have a very low number. You will need to rename all of the neighborhood files and folders to your new number. This can either be done by hand, or with a bulk renaming tool. In your upload you will have to also have to list your number.
 
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==Uploading==
 
==Uploading==
 
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! style="text-align:left" | Split RARs (*)
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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 [http://www.rarlabs.com WinRAR] that can compress a file but split it into multiple pieces.
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To create a split RAR/ZIP:
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<blockquote>1.  Find the sims3pack file for the world you have created.<br>
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2. Right-click on the sims3pack file and choose "Add to archive" from the menu.<br>
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3. On the box that comes up, give your file a name where it says Archive name. <br>
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4. Select ZIP or RAR (RAR is preferred).<br>
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5. Change "Compression Method" to Best.<br>
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4. Under where it says "Split to volumes, bytes" type ''9 mb''.  Leave the other settings alone.<br>
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5. Click OK to create your file(s).  This may take a few minutes.<br>
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</blockquote>
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When it's done, you will have one or more RAR files, ready to upload.
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{| class="collapsible collapsed wikitable" style="width:100%"
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! style="text-align:left" | Include Install Instructions (*)
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|Because a broken rar is not something our downloaders usually face, you will need to include instructions on how to put them back together. You may use this text, or write your own.
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<blockquote>Download all the files. Remove the MTS_Creator_(numbers) from their names and you should be left with Hoodname.part1.rar and Hoodname.part2.rar and so forth. Unrar them together, to do this, highlight all the files together and open them at the same time in WinRar. Then place the resulting folder into your Neighborhoods folder. Place any CC into the Downloads folder.</blockquote>
  
 
==Additional Stuff==
 
==Additional Stuff==
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[[Category:MTS2 Creator Guidelines]]
 
[[Category:MTS2 Creator Guidelines]]
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http://simswiki.info/wiki.php?title=MTS2:Creator_Guidelines/Neighborhood_Numbers_Repository
 

Revision as of 20:56, 23 February 2013

Contents

Full Neighborhoods

Have you made a new neighborhood in game and want to share it? This guide will walk you through every step of what we require on MTS. After you've read through this entire article, you may start the upload process, which is a bit different for TS2 Neighborhoods. The correct way to upload a TS2 Hood is through our Creator Issues forum. There you will be able to start a thread and add in as many comment posts as you need to include the lots and their images. After you have completed your thread, create another thread in the same forum asking for your neighborhood (with a link to it) to be moved to Moderation.

Quality

Screenshots

People want to see what they're downloading! Your screenshots sell your upload - if people don't like the look of your screenshots, they're not going to download - and if your screenshots are too bad, you won't get your upload approved.

Big Enough
The larger your pics, the better! Tiny pics won't show enough detail to see what you've made.
  • Minimum Size: 800 pixels wide by 600 pixels tall is a good size for the smallest pic you would want to upload. You may have smaller pics for thumbnails and the like, but for your required screenshots, please go as big as you can!
  • Maximum Size: MTS allows pictures up to 2560 pixels wide by 1440 pixels tall, and a file size limit of 800 kbs - so you can have nice, big, pretty pics. You may have to resize your pictures or apply compression to get them to fit within that limit.

Please don't just take a small pic and size it up in your graphics program to get bigger pics - this only makes the dimensions larger but doesn't add any detail and just gives you a blurry, pixellated larger pic, not a nice clear one.

Maximum Number of Inline/attached screenshots
  • Inline screenshots are images that appear in the text of the upload that load for the viewer along with the rest of the text. Inline screenshots can either be linked from the attached screenshots, or from an external hosting site like Tinypic, Photobucket, or Flickr.
  • Attached screenshots are screenshots that have been attached to the upload using the "manage attachments" feature on MTS. They display as small thumbnails until clicked on.


You may host your inline screenshots elsewhere like Photobucket, Tinypic, or Flickr - however, these screenshots hosted elsewhere must be additional "bonus" screenshots. All of the screenshots we actually require for your upload need to be attached 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 may now upload up to 100 pics! Of course, please keep it to a reasonable quantity... only things like huge sets, full worlds, etc. should have that many pics! Remember, you can always collage several different images together into one image if you have a bunch of stuff to show off, or want to show multiple angles of an item.

For the bonus photos, we recommend you use a spoiler tag to hide the images, then people can click on it to see them. Their pages will load faster if all the images aren't downloading at once. [spoiler=interior rooms]http:// wheveremypictureis/picture.jpg[/spoiler] The 'interior rooms' can be replaced by whatever grouping you want to present, 'hidden garden', 'pool views', 'master suite', 'kids room', etc.

You may place as many photos within a spoiler grouping as you'd like.

Required Lots

A new change has been implemented here. Instead of requiring full images of every lot included in your neighborhood, we are loosening back to what we require of TS3 Worlds. You are only required to show 10 of your lots now. Please remember though, that they are still subject to all of the TS2 Lots Guidelines. Your moderator also will be looking at the images from your neighborhood to make sure you aren't just doing 10 good lots and all the rest sub par. It is within their right to ask for images of any additional lots to check on quality.

Sims and Blank Templates

Right Info/Right Files

Once you have your creation made and screenshots taken, you need to make sure you have all the fiddly bits in order.

Uploading

Zip, Rar, or 7z
To upload your file(s) to MTS, you will need to compress them into an archive file, which makes them smaller and allows you to include many files in one download. The archive file formats we currently accept are .zip, .rar, and .7z.

For instructions on compressing your files into an archive, please see: Creator Guidelines: Creating Archive Files.

  • Do not include multiple archives with the same contents - that is, please don't put your files in both a .zip as well as a .rar because some people only want .zip files. Choose one format.
  • Do not double-compress your files... a .rar file inside another .rar file (or any other archive inside another) doesn't compress it anymore, and it makes it so we can't see the contents without downloading, and also just makes an extra step for the people downloading.
  • The file size limit on MTS is 50 mb. If you exceed this limit you will need to split your archives. This should probably never come up except for large worlds for The Sims 3, or huge sets of smaller items.
Expansion Packs or Stuff Packs required?
Particular items may be added with expansion or stuff packs, and depending on how your creation is made and the item you based it on, your creation may not work for users who do not own that expansion/stuff pack. You need to be sure of which packs are necessary for the items you have made. If users don't have the EP, your stuff may not work! If you are unsure of whether or not your creation will require an expansion or stuff pack, you can ask about it in the appropriate Create forum (under the Create menu on MTS) before uploading.

Make sure you only mark the EPs/SPs required that your upload actually needs! Don't just mark them all! For specifics, please read: MTS2:Creator_Guidelines/Compatibility

Retrieved from "http://direct.simswiki.info/index.php?title=MTS2:Creator_Guidelines/Full_Neighborhoods&oldid=63875"
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