MTS2:Creator Guidelines/Sims/Quality
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Sims - Quality
As a site primarily devoted to learning how to mod the game, MTS2 is committed to excellence in uploads - we have high standards for your submission to be accepted. 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 or Character Sims are those that are modeled after real people or characters from games/anime/movies/etc.
These sims must bear an immediately recognizable resemblance as to who it's supposed to be. If your sim is not an accurate representation of who it's supposed to be, it will be rejected.
We are aware of the limitations of Body Shop's sliders, but it is also possible to 3D edit sim faces to get an even more accurate sculpt. Some faces are harder to make into sims than others - if you choose a hard face to sim or you are not an experienced celebrity/character sim creator, be prepared to spend a long time working to get it just right.
Please utilize our Creator Feedback Forum for great tips on how to get your sim looking perfect. Note that using the Creator Feedback Forum is not a guarantee of acceptance, but it is helpful to have other people offer tips and suggestions.
- 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!
Anime/Cartoon Sims
Anime/cartoon sims are some of the most difficult sims to make, due to their strange faces and need for a lot of content. In many cases, it may not be possible to use existing content or utilize the regular sim face sculpting tools to create an accurate representation of an anime/cartoon sim. It may require creating a whole new set of meshes to truly do them right, especially in cases of characters that are extremely inhuman in shape. For example, see the way these sims have been done:
For anime sims, some effort should be made to give them a unique look, and to differentiate characters by more than just content. There's a lovely article on making anime sims at Bogsims which has great illustrations of how to create human-looking anime sims.
Unique Faces for the "Other" Category
When it comes to random "other" sims not based on anyone in particular, 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 - and there is no reason for MTS2 to host this sort of sim. Please make a real effort to make interesting, unique faces that not just anyone could put together.
- 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, enhancing the look of the sim.
- 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 - not just a pretty face, not just some nice content, but an excellent combination of the two.
Quality of Included Content
If you have made your own content for your sims, please make sure you have thoroughly reviewed the Body Shop Creator Guidelines as the included custom content you have made is expected to follow the same guidelines and be up to the same quality standards as if you had uploaded it separately, not on a sim.
