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−	=TS2 Sims Guidelines=	+	=Sims 2 Sim Upload Guidelines=
	When uploading a sim for The Sims 2 to Mod The Sims, we have some basic requirements to ensure that your upload is good, shown well, and has the correct info and files needed for people to use it in their games.		When uploading a sim for The Sims 2 to Mod The Sims, we have some basic requirements to ensure that your upload is good, shown well, and has the correct info and files needed for people to use it in their games.

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Revision as of 07:04, 14 October 2013

Contents 1 Sims 2 Sim Upload Guidelines 1.1 Quality 1.2 Title & Description 1.3 Screenshots 1.4 Packaging Your Sim 1.5 Credits for Included or Pictured Content 1.5.1 Looking Inside the Sims2Pack 1.5.2 Custom Content Credits and Links 1.5.3 Removing Content from the Sims2pack 1.5.4 No Pay Content 1.6 Right Info/Right Files 1.6.1 Expansions Required 1.7 No Adult Content/Nudity

Sims 2 Sim Upload Guidelines

When uploading a sim for The Sims 2 to Mod The Sims, we have some basic requirements to ensure that your upload is good, shown well, and has the correct info and files needed for people to use it in their games.

Quality

Sims based on a person or character must be recognizable as who they are meant to be. Any other sim, not based on an existing person, must have a unique face sculpt, not resembling the default faces.

If you have made custom content for your sim, it must be of good quality too, and follow our Body Shop Creator Guidelines. You may need to provide additional pictures or information for your custom content (like polygon counts if you've made a mesh), so be sure to check there!

Title & Description

You must write a text description for your upload, describing the person or sim, at least a couple sentences. If you are not a native English speaker, using Google Translate is okay!

Screenshots

Take some nice big, clear pictures of your sim, in-game (not in Body Shop), indoors and in a well-lit room or in Create-a-Sim. You will need to include at least:

• A close-up picture of the sim's face, 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.

You may, of course, include other pictures like a full-body picture, posing pictures, whatever, to show off your sim how you like, but please make sure to include at least the above. Do not apply filters like sharpen, contrast, etc. to your pictures, as downloaders want to see what your sim will look like in their game, not your skills at using Photoshop.

Screenshot tips

Camera Controls: Take some time to just play around with the camera. It can take a while to get used to the camera controls, and even once you are experienced in their use, it may be challenging to get the shot you want with the constraints on the controls. If you haven't taken many sim pictures before, here is a list of camera controls: TAB : Puts the game into Cameraman mode, allowing better and more control of the camera, and removing the blue user interface. Make sure you are in live mode before going into Cameraman mode or you will see grid lines on the ground and floating where floor tiles may be placed. TS3 Note: You will only be able to go into cameraman mode once per load if you are in buy/build mode (without a family moved in). You can either exit to the neighborhood and return to take more pictures, or instead just move a family in for taking your pics. W and S : W moves the camera forward. S moves it backward. A and D : A moves the camera left. D moves it right. Q and E : Q lowers the camera. E raises it. + and - : Zooms in and out. Windowed Mode: TS2: In order to take your pictures using the methods described here, you will need your game running in a window, so you can easily switch to other applications without causing major instability and lag. Instructions on setting up Windowed Mode for Sims 2 may be found here: Game Help:Windowed Mode. Windowed mode should be perfectly safe - in fact, some users actually report better game performance when running in a window. Your mileage may vary. TS3: In Sims 3, you can use windowed mode by simply choosing it in your game's options. Full instructions can be found in Game Help:TS3 Windowed Mode. Windowed mode will allow you to use Print Screen or FRAPS or whatever screenshotting program you desire, without getting dark pictures. If you choose to NOT use windowed mode for TS3, you must use the C key to take pictures using the in-game camera - taking pictures fullscreened in TS3 without using the C key will result in icky dark screenshots. C Key vs. Print Screen: TS2: In order to take nice big pics, you should not use the game's screenshot system, using the C key or the camera button on the game's controls to take your pictures. Even on the highest picture settings, pictures will still be small, with a very high level of JPEG compression, making them blurry and crunchy. Instead, use Print Screen or a screenshot program. TS3: The C key camera is much improved in TS3, making it possible to use to take pictures for upload and still have nice big, pretty pictures. You can still use a screenshot program or print screen if you desire, but you will need to run your game in Windowed Mode (see above) to keep your pictures from getting dark. Using Print Screen: If you have enough RAM to run Photoshop or another graphics editing program at the same time as TS2/TS3, you may want to take screenshots yourself, without the use of a program to store them for you. To do that, simply press the Print Screen or PrntScn key on your keyboard - it's usually off toward the right, over the arrow keys, above Insert and Delete. This will copy your current screen to your Windows clipboard, as if you had selected and copied it as an image. Then open any graphics editing program, create a new document the size of your monitor's resolution, and paste into that document. Your screenshot should appear in the document. Screenshot Programs: There are many programs available, free and pay, that will take screenshots for you by using a hotkey, and save them to a folder - just like The Sims 2 with the C key, but with options for much better quality settings. Fraps Gadwin Irfanview A quick Google search for 'free screenshot program' will also bring up many other options, which may have other features that are of interest to you. Optimizing, Editing, and Compressing Images: Many simmers struggle with getting their images to be clear, crisp and under the maximum file size while keeping the image size larger than 800px by 600px. After getting your images from the in game camera or using a print screen program you will need to resize them and compress them into a jpeg image. Many graphics programs have a built in optimizing feature. Here are a few common ones: Photoshop *Pay Gimp *Free IrfanView *Free Paint.net *Free

Packaging Your Sim

Your sim must be "packaged" (placed correctly in a .sims2pack file) to upload to MTS. This needs to be a sims2pack of just the sim itself, not the sim living on a lot (as importing sims on a lot can cause major, permanent, unfixable issues in downloaders' games!).

Step 1a: If you have created your sim in Create a Sim or if your sim was born in-game you will need to follow these instructions on how to extract your sim using SimPE, so they are accessible to you in Body Shop. Do that before you go any further, and then do the below instructions to actually package them.

Step 1: Run Body Shop: Body Shop is a utility that comes with your game, used for creating and packaging sims (among other things). You already have Body Shop on your computer. To run Body Shop, click Start > Programs > EA Games > The Sims 2 (or the latest released expansion you have installed) - The Sims 2 Body Shop. If you are having trouble with Body Shop not loading, crashing when loading, or other related issues, please see: Game Help:Body Shop

Step 2: Ready the sim for packaging: If you have just extracted your sim using SimPE, you will first need to clone the sim to make sure all of its content comes along with it properly. Click Build Sims, then Build or Clone Sims. Look for sim you packaged from the game in the list of sims - they may not be first in the list, so you may have to scroll to find them. Click the button toward the bottom to Clone Selected Sim, then click the checkmark (Done Building Sim) to make a copy of the sim. If you have created your sim in Body Shop, you do not need to clone the sim. Just click Done Building Sim to save the sim how you want them.

Step 3: Package the sim: You should be back looking at a bunch of sims. Click the X at the bottom to Close Sim Bin. Now click on Package Sims. You'll be seeing another sim bin. Find your sim here and select them. If you have just cloned your sim or made multiple copies of the sim, it will be the first one in the list. Click the little box icon at the bottom to Package Sim to File. You'll now be at a different screen, where you can type the filename for your sim and enter a description. You can put custom content credits here, a description of your sim, your name, your web address, whatever. Then click the checkbox at the bottom to Accept and save your sim as a sims2pack file.

You'll get a message saying that your sim was saved to your computer's Desktop with the filename you gave it. That sims2pack file is the file you will upload when sharing your sim at MTS.

Credits for Included or Pictured Content

You are responsible for providing accurate descriptions, links, and credits for all pieces of custom content included with or pictured on your sim. This is to give credit to the creators for their hard work, and to make sure downloaders can get anything that isn't included by downloading it separately.

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. This includes any required meshes for hair, clothing, or accessories. This is usually the most labor-intensive part of uploading sims, but if you ensure that the content you use on your sims is shareable and identifiable before you ever make the sims, it helps a lot.

Looking Inside the Sims2Pack

To see what's inside the sims2pack file, you'll need Clean Installer. Click here to go to the Clean Installer website, where you can download it for free. There is also a Quick Start Guide, FAQ, and Manual at the Clean Installer site to help you get started using it. 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.

To open your sim in Clean Installer, go to your Desktop. You should find a new file there, with the same name that you gave your sim in Body Shop when packaging. It should have an icon like the one shown. Right-click on this file and choose Open.
Clean Installer will open and you will see a list of the contents of the sims2pack file, including what tooltips are used.
You can check the filename for a particular item by floating your cursor over it. You can also see the tooltip the creator included, which may have their name or title of the content.

Custom Content Credits and Links

Now you need to:

• Figure out what everything inside is, and track down who made it so you can give them credit for their creation, and a link back to their site, their profile, or the original thread 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.

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

• Check everyone's terms of use and make sure that you can indeed share their work in sim uploads.

You will be asked to provide this information in the MTS 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 are working and correct.

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 tooltips 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 a section for any required meshes and the links to those. 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 tooltip or filename) to track down the source.

• The Table of Custom Contents, the Content List on the SimsWiki, can be extremely 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 these forums, which are great resources of previously asked-for content, and if you can't find what you're looking for, you can post asking if someone knows where it came from. Give as much information as possible, like a screenshot, the tooltip, filename, and any more info you can to help people help you track it down.

Removing Content from the Sims2pack

You may need to remove custom content from your sims2pack file if it is:

• Content that cannot be redistributed: In checking the file for contents and locating all the parts, you may come across some pieces whose creators' policies do not allow for redistribution with sims. Please respect the creator's wishes and remove that content. You can still link to the content in your post and say that it is "required but not included", so that if people download it separately and install it along with your sim, it will properly show up on your sim.

• Content you cannot find: If you just cannot locate a link for a piece of content after searching and searching, or if the particular item cannot be redistributed, then REMOVE that content from the file, or repackage your sim using items you can track down/can share. Do not just put "???" or "unknown" or "message me if you know where it's from" in your post!

For instructions on how to remove unwanted content from a sims2pack, including content that cannot be redistributed, please see this mini-tutorial by Tiggerypum. The tutorial explains how to remove unwanted meshes if you have the Pets expansion, but the exact same method works for removing any content from a sims2pack file, not just meshes.

No Pay Content

Do not use pay content on your sim.

Right Info/Right Files

Make sure you correctly place your sims2pack file into a Zip, Rar, or 7z file, using these instructions:

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.

Expansions Required

When uploading your sim, you'll be asked to tick which expansion packs (EPs) and stuff packs (SPs) are required for your sim. Unless the content used on your sim from an EP/SP is absolutely essential to the overall look of the sim and they would look totally wrong without it, do not tick any EPs/SPs. This is because all sims can be used in the base game, and if someone is browsing MTS to show only uploads that use the EPs/SPs they have ("compatible" uploads) then they will not see your sim, even though they could still use it with just a change of hair or clothes. You can still mention "Hair is from Open for Business, clothes are from Apartment Life" so people without those packs aren't surprised when they go to use your sim in-game.

No Adult Content/Nudity

We do not allow adult content at MTS. Please make sure your sims' butt cracks, genitals, and female nipples are covered in your screenshots.