Tutorials:Creating A World That Doesn't Suck

Main Page		Basics	Starting a New World, Navigating CAW, The User Interface, Exporting a World, etc.
Roads and Sidewalks	Working with Roads, Grading, Using Custom Textured Roads, etc.	The Grid	About the Grid, Using the Grid with Roads and Lots, etc.
Lots	Placing and moving lots, Conforming Edges, Sloped Lots, etc.	Buildings and Road Layouts	Making a Workable Road Layout, Picking a Building Style, etc]]
Sculpting	Using the tools, sculpting hills, cliffs, beaches, etc.(Includes Videos)	Objects, Bridges and Effects	Placing, moving and rotating objects, working with bridges and effects, etc.
Terrain Painting	Painting your world like a pro, with technique suggestions from creators.(Includes Videos)	Distant Terrain	About distant terrain, placing distant terrain, making custom distant terrain, etc.
CAW and S3PE	Making your world a city, changing sky, ocean and sun color, etc. ((ADVANCED!)	Custom Content	Installing CAW CC Framework, Links to Textures, Links to CC Objects, etc.

Welcome Create a World (CAW) was released in late 2009 by EA's development team. The program, which is used by creators around the world, is the major tool required to create a world in The Sims 3. As with a lot of EA's releases, there was no documentation provided that taught technique or anything beyond the extreme basics of the program. Of the information provided, only navigation of the user interface and a brief description of its features were covered. This guide has been created in the hopes that it could fill in where EA's lack of documentation abrubtly ended. It contains all the information that is, currently, known about CAW as well as some techniques, tips and hints on painting, sculpting, routing and many other un-addressed features of the program.

A Word of Warning Before you commit to reading this guide or making a world, you need to understand something; CREATE A WORLD IS VERY TIME CONSUMING. For a WELL DONE world, it can take months, even a year to finish. You cannot, in any way, create a decently sized, QUALITY world in under a month. Because every task in CAW is tedious, even a basic map without lots will take you a month. This isn't to say that its not fun, it's very fun! However, if you hate monotony or you cannot stand doing tasks over and over, CAW is really not for you.

Key This article uses acronyms, phrases, and colour codes which are explained below. CAW Create a World - Just a shortening of the program's name. EIG Edit in Game - This is pretty self-explanatory, it is the version of The Sims 3 that functions directly with CAW to allow you to build lots for your world. RED TEXT in screenshots indicates something is done poorly. ORANGE/YELLOW TEXT in screenshots indicates something that is acceptable. GREEN TEXT in screenshots shows a good outcome!	Programs Needed Create A World is the main program used in this material and can be found here at TheSims3.com S3PE is used to change things like sky and ocean colour in .world files. It can be found here at simlogical Photoshop .dds Plugin is a useful little plugin for Photoshop which allows it to read files in a .dds format. Find it here. Please note that this plugin is free, but Photoshop is NOT. Paint Programs Paint.net is one of a couple of programs that can be used to edit terrain and road texture files. These are generally in a .dds format. Find it here. Please note, this program is free. GIMP is another program that can be used to edit terrain and road texture files. Again, in .dds format. Find it here. Please note, this program is free. Photoshop is, perhaps, the most well known of the paint programs, but it has one major drawback. It costs. A lot.
Tutorial Sections: CAS Tutorials Things you can stick on your sims - skintones, clothing, and more. Pattern, Wall and Floor Tutorials Create a Style patterns for use on all manner of items in-game, plus wallpapers and floor coverings. Object Creation Tutorials New objects that can be placed in game as furniture or build mode objects. Building Tutorials Instructions and help on building the perfect lot in Sims 3. Create a World Tutorials Sculpt and paint your very own world for your game. General Modding Tutorials Creating gameplay modifications and the like. Advanced Modding Reference If you are interested in all the file formats that go to make up the game.
If you have any issues on something that isn't covered in this guide, you can either PM TVRdesigns or, alternatively, go to the CAW forum which you can find under Create > Sims 3 > Create-a-World. or, for convenience, here

DO NOT EDIT WITHOUT DIRECT PERMISSION FROM TVRDESIGNS OR QBUILDERZ.

Create a World (CAW) was released in late 2009 by EA's development team. The program, which is used by creators around the world, is the major tool required to create a world in The Sims 3.

As with a lot of EA's releases, there was no documentation provided that taught technique or anything beyond the extreme basics of the program. Of the information provided, only navigation of the user interface and a brief description of its features were covered.

This guide has been created in the hopes that it could fill in where EA's lack of documentation abrubtly ended. It contains all the information that is, currently, known about CAW as well as some techniques, tips and hints on painting, sculpting, routing and many other un-addressed features of the program.

If you have any issues on something that isn't covered in this guide, you can either PM TVRdesigns or, alternatively, go to the CAW forum which you can find under Create > Sims 3 > Create-a-World. or, for convenience, here

Word of Warning

Before you commit to reading this guide or making a world, you need to understand something; CREATE A WORLD IS VERY TIME CONSUMING.

For a WELL DONE world, it can take months, even a year to finish. You cannot, in any way, create a decently sized, QUALITY world in under a month. Because every task in CAW is tedious, even a basic map without lots will take you a month. This isn't to say that its not fun, it's very fun! However, if you hate monotony or you cannot stand doing tasks over and over, CAW is really not for you.