MTS2:Creator Guidelines/Sims 3 Objects

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Creator Guidelines - Objects and Object Recolours

Have you made new objects or colour options for objects, EA or custom? This guide will walk you through every step of what we require on MTS. Please make sure you read these guidelines carefully, as our standards have changed over the years, and there may be some items you weren't aware of before. You can click any heading to get more information on that topic.

Please note that while some guidelines are common to all sections (such as having nice big clear screenshots), others are specific to this section. Those that are specific to objects and object recolours are noted with a (*) symbol.


Definitions

Object Mesh: You have created or edited the 3D shape in a 3D editor such as Milkshape or Blender.

Object Recolour: You have changed the overlay or other parts of an object's texture files - with or without editing the mesh.

CAST recolour: Recolours of existing objects, done in-game using the Create-a-Style tool to change the colours/patterns applied. As these are easy for anyone to do in-game, we do not accept CAST recolours at MTS.


Quality/General

The first thing moderators look for when moderating uploads is quality - simply, is the item well-made or not?


Textures and Shadows

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.

Well-lit
Chairs-EnoughLight.jpg
Make sure you take your pictures during the daytime in bright sunlight, in a well-lit room, etc., - make sure your screenshots are nice and bright enough that people can see what you've made. Nighttime shots or those in a dark room really don't show off your creation very much.

At the same time, make sure you don't use too much light: if you put light-coloured item under a bright light, it can wash out and lose a lot of the detail of what you've made.

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 Screenshots

Certain screenshots are absolutely required when uploading TS3 objects.


Right Info and Right Files

Once you have your creation made and screenshots taken, you need to make sure you have the correct files and information ready to do your upload.

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.
Upload in sets
If you have created several items in a set, or similar items in the same sort of theme at the same time, please upload these together in a single set, all on one thread (instead of all separately, one by one, on different threads). This is easier for everyone: on our upload moderators, as they only have one thread to review rather than several... on you, as submitting a single thread is much quicker and easier than several... and on downloaders, as they can get everything they want all in one place rather than having to hunt around.

If you are doing a huge set, you can always break the set up into pieces, posting more screenshots along with the downloads as comments in the thread, as is done here and here. To do that, create a new thread in the Creator Issues Forum and arrange your thread there, using the first post as an introduction, and attach your uploads and images to subsequent posts in the thread. When you're done, PM a moderator to have it moved to the upload queue. For more information, read the message that displays when you go to post in Creator Issues.

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

Patch required?
Certain coding is changed with patch versions, which may render previously-working items broken. You may also need a certain patch and later to use certain features. This is especially applicable to modded objects that have extra scripting, but may also apply to features added in later patches such as additional sliders in Create-a-Sim, new build tools, or other features.

If a particular patch level is required for your creation, make sure to state it in the text of your post! Even just indicating that you always run your game updated and will only be creating items that work with the latest-released patches is enough - at least people know then that they need to be updated too.

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