Difference between revisions of "MTS2:Creator Guidelines/Walls and Floors"

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''This page was last edited on 5th July 2012, 16:35.''
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=Sims 2 Wall, Floor, and Terrain Guidelines=
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When uploading a wall covering, floor tile, or terrain paint 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. This allows both moderators to check your uploads for quality, and for downloaders to see if your item is something they want to add to their games.
  
=Walls and Floors=
 
HomeCrafter is one of the more accessible programs for making custom content for the Sims 2. If you want to share your walls, floors and terrains here for others to enjoy, please keep the following rules in mind.
 
  
 
==Quality==
 
==Quality==
  
{| class="collapsible collapsed wikitable" style="width:100%"
 
|-
 
! style="text-align:left" | In Game Usability (*)
 
|-
 
|
 
Walls, floors and terrains have to be usable in the game. Try to make something that your sims will want to decorate their house with and that you would see in a real life house.
 
|}
 
  
{| class="collapsible collapsed wikitable" style="width:100%"
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{| class="nicetable" style="width:100%"
 
|-
 
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Scaling (*)
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|  
|-
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*'''Clear Textures:''' Textures should be crisp - not blurry or pixelated.  
|[[Image:Scaled.jpg|right|300px]] Terrain paint with a beautiful leaf texture is unusable if the leaves are the size of a pool table. Same goes for flowers on the wall that are bigger than a sims head. Go for scales that could realistically belong in a sim's house. Compare your texture to a sims hand or head. They should almost never be larger than a sim head.
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Remember that if you're using a photo for your texture, you need to think about how zoomed-in the original photo is. If you take a photo of one square inch of a surface, and use it as a whole floor tile, it's going to look wrong, even if the photo is of a high enough resolution that the texture doesn't end up being blurry. This is particularly important for textures such as stone and concrete, where it's not always obvious by looking how big the area shown in a photo is.
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*'''Texture Details:''' Use shading and highlighting where appropriate to give a 3D effect.
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*'''Brightness:''' Neon or bright colours are fine, but don't go too bright - 80% saturation is usually plenty for even neon textures, but more just looks blinding!
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*'''Black and White:''' Items meant to be black or white should use very light grey and very dark grey textures, not pure black and pure white.  See: [http://simswiki.info/wiki.php?title=Tutorials:Tiptorial:_Making_Black_and_White_Clothing_the_Right_Way Tiptorial: Making black and white clothing the right way] (which applies to all items, not just clothing).
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* '''Usefulness:''' Walls, floors, and terrains should be something useable in-game, and something that your sims will want to decorate their house with.  Random patterns and pictures are generally not suitable for walls, floors, and terrain.
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*'''Scale:''' The texture scale should make sense for the game. A terrain paint shouldn't have leaves the size of pool tables, or flowers the size of a sim's head.  Compare the texture to a sim's head or hand, and make sure the scale is correct. 
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*'''Seamless:''' Textures must be seamless, so that the edges of each tile are not obvious.
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*'''Paintings and Logos:''' Most of the time, it's best to do these as recolours of objects (i.e. make them a picture your sims can hang on the wall, not the wall itself).  For murals or full-wall-designs, consider recolouring the [http://www.leefish.nl/mybb/showthread.php?tid=2033 FullPoster Wall Overlays] instead.
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*'''Undistorted:''' Make sure the textures are not stretched or squashed.  Use the correct aspect ratio.  Please note that if wall textures are made at the template size of 256x512, they will be distorted in-game (if you make a circle, it'll turn into an oval).  You must make your textures at 256x768 and then resize them to 256x512 before importing into Homecrafter for them to look correct in-game.
 
|}
 
|}
{| class="collapsible collapsed wikitable" style="width:100%"
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==Files==
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{| class="nicetable" style="width:100%"
 
|-
 
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Colors (*)
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! style="text-align:left" | Package files
 
|-
 
|-
|Calling it sci-fi or psychedelic won't fly. If you insist on neon wall paper then decorate an entire house with it and play the house for two whole days. Then come back to us.
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| Walls, floors, and terrain paints must be shared on MTS as .package files, not as .sims2pack files.  
 
|}
 
|}
{| class="collapsible collapsed wikitable" style="width:100%"
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{{Guidelines-InfoFiles-UploadinSets}}
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{{Guidelines-InfoFiles-ZipRar7z}}
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==Information==
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{{Template:Guidelines-InfoFiles-TitleDescription}}
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{| class="nicetable" style="width:100%"
 
|-
 
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Seamless (*)
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! style="text-align:left" | Required information
 
|-
 
|-
|[[Image:seamless.jpg|right|300px]]Make your textures seamless. Do not make a pattern that abruptly cuts off on every tile; make sure that the colours match on the edges. If you are making tiles, use grout so that they look like tiles when laid on a floor.
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| Give the in-game location of your creations (i.e. carpet, tile, grass, etc.) and for walls and floors, be sure to include the in-game price as well.
 
|}
 
|}
{| class="collapsible collapsed wikitable" style="width:100%"
 
|-
 
! style="text-align:left" | Paintings and Logos (*)
 
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|Don't take a pretty picture or a photo of yourself and turn it into a wallpaper. The same goes for anime, comic book pics, random posters of celebrities, etc. This also means you shouldn't take your desktop back ground and plonk it on a floor tile. Try to make something more creative that could realistically go on a wall or floor. Look at home decorating sites for inspiration.
 
  
If you want to upload a mural, it's usually better to do so as an object - a large, flat painting which can therefore match multiple wall styles.
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{| class="nicetable" style="width:100%"
|}
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{| class="collapsible collapsed wikitable" style="width:100%"
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|-
 
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Wall/Floor Texture (*)
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! style="text-align:left" | Expansion Packs or Stuff Packs required?
 
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|-
|[[Image:Wallsfloors-texture.jpg|right|thumb|300px|From an upload by [http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=419913 iCad]]] Although the main focus of a wallpaper or a floor is the pattern, they do need shading and texture details as well as just a flat pattern. Wallpaper often has raised/embossed details, and the texture of the paper should be visible - whether that's a rough, grainy texture, or a subtle weave, or anything else. When making floors, think about what type of floor you want to create - is it carpet, lino, tiles, stone etc? - and work on the texture to make it look like real 3D flooring, not just a pattern or colour pasted onto the floor.
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| Walls, floors, and terrain paints never require any expansion or stuff packs. Do not tick any as required.
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{| class="collapsible collapsed wikitable" style="width:100%"
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|-
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! style="text-align:left" | Double-check for Distortion (*)
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|-
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|Unfortunately, walls are very prone to distortion. This is because the game squishes wall textures horizontally. You will need to look carefully at your wall texture, and may need to stretch it in your graphics editor, to get it looking right in-game.
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|}
 
|}
  
===Screenshots===
 
  
{| class="collapsible collapsed wikitable" style="width:100%"
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==Screenshots==
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{| class="nicetable" style="width:100%"
 
|-
 
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Required Screenshots (*)
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! style="text-align:left" | Screenshots
 
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|-
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| You will need to include certain screenshots. You must at least have:
Your screenshots are the basis on which people download your work. After working for hours on a wall set, take care to present it in a nice way, as well. Do not take screen shots from HomeCrafter. These give very little information to your downloaders and if the grid's still in place, it hides seams.
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Make sure you take some good in game shots of your downloads spread across several tiles. People will want to see what the download looks like if they decorate a room with it and so that users can see how it looks when it's tiled. Terrain paint should be applied to several tiles as well. Add some plants or furniture as well, so downloaders can see the scale.
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* '''A picture of each texture''', shown over several tiles. This means showing at least 3 tiles of wall, or 2x2 tiles of floor.
  
It's a good idea to include pictures of your content in a room or on a house/in a garden, since this helps sell your work to downloaders. However, make sure that you don't use so much furniture/windows/shrubbery that your content is obscured.
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* '''Show all items:''' If you use the same textures for everything, just in different colours, it's okay to show one or two good full-size pics and then texture swatches for the rest.  If you use different textures for everything, you need to show everything full-size.
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* '''Unobstructed:''' You can put things like a couch, a window, or a plant, but make sure they're not in the way of your wall, floor, or terrain paint. 
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* '''Angle:''' Please take pictures at an angle that show your creation clearly. As far as possible, screenshots should be taken face-on - from directly in front of the wall, or top-down for floors and ground cover.
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* '''In-game:''' Pictures must be taken actually in-game, on a lot.  It is not enough to just show pictures taken in Homecrafter, or to just show the textures without also showing in-game pics.
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* TIP: Make sure you have square pixels set to on so your images don't appear distorted.
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{{Guidelines-ScreenshotsBigClearEtc}}
  
::As a rule of thumb, your screenshots should include every wall spread over at least three continuous tiles, or 2x2 for floors, without any furniture obstructing that section of wall/floor. For terrain paints, the appropriate size of uninterrupted paint depends on the scale of your terrain paint.
 
<br />
 
<center>
 
[[Image:MTS2_259115_Lethe_s_badscreeny1.jpg|300px]]  [[Image:Wallsfloors-goodpic1.jpg|430px]]  [[Image:Wallsfloors-goodpic2.jpg|450px]]</center>
 
|}
 
{{Guidelines-Screenshots-AllItemsInSet}}
 
{{Guidelines-Screenshots-BigEnough}}
 
{{Guidelines-Screenshots-WellLit}}
 
{{Guidelines-Screenshots-CloseEnough}}
 
{{Guidelines-Screenshots-InlineandAttached}}
 
 
{{Guidelines-Screenshots-Tips}}
 
{{Guidelines-Screenshots-Tips}}
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|}
  
===Uploading===
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==Other==
{{Guidelines-InfoFiles-UploadinSets}}
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{| class="collapsible collapsed wikitable" style="width:100%"
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{{Guidelines-NotAllowed}}
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{| class="nicetable" style="width:100%"
 
|-
 
|-
! style="text-align:left" | Label Pics/Files (*)
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! style="text-align:left" | Helpful links
 
|-
 
|-
 
|
 
|
If you are uploading a set of different colours or designs, please name the files, and add labels to the screenshots, or otherwise make it clear which file is which. This is especially important if your set is big or contains different designs, as downloaders may not want everything in the set.
 
<br />
 
|}
 
{| class="collapsible collapsed wikitable" style="width:100%"
 
|-
 
! style="text-align:left" | Upload Package Files (*)
 
|-
 
|
 
Upload .package files - do not make sims2packs.  It's not necessary, and creates extra steps for people to install them - it is very easy to go get the package files from your downloads folder. Also please give the filenames recognizable names. (See message #6 in [http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=147840 this] tutorial for exact instructions)
 
<br />
 
|}
 
{{Guidelines-InfoFiles-ZipRar7z}}
 
  
===Additional Stuff===
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* Homecrafter Program : [http://simswiki.info/wiki.php?title=Sims_2:Official_Site_Archive Official Sims2 Site Archive Tools]
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* Walls and floors not tiling correctly? See: [http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?p=1911694 Tutorial - How to make Wallpapers Tile Properly with Photoshop]
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* [http://simswiki.info/wiki.php?title=Tutorials:Seamless_Textures How to make Seamless Textures]
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|}
  
* If your upload is rejected or marked as changes required and you're not sure why, ask in [http://www.modthesims.info/forumdisplay.php?f=492 Creator Issues].
 
  
* If you're not sure whether your neighborhood is ready for uploading, use the [http://www.modthesims.info/forumdisplay.php?f=473 Creator Feedback Forum] to get feedback on it.
 
  
 
[[Category:MTS2 Creator Guidelines]]
 
[[Category:MTS2 Creator Guidelines]]

Latest revision as of 21:35, 19 October 2014

Contents

[edit] Sims 2 Wall, Floor, and Terrain Guidelines

When uploading a wall covering, floor tile, or terrain paint 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. This allows both moderators to check your uploads for quality, and for downloaders to see if your item is something they want to add to their games.


[edit] Quality

  • Clear Textures: Textures should be crisp - not blurry or pixelated.
  • Texture Details: Use shading and highlighting where appropriate to give a 3D effect.
  • Brightness: Neon or bright colours are fine, but don't go too bright - 80% saturation is usually plenty for even neon textures, but more just looks blinding!
  • Usefulness: Walls, floors, and terrains should be something useable in-game, and something that your sims will want to decorate their house with. Random patterns and pictures are generally not suitable for walls, floors, and terrain.
  • Scale: The texture scale should make sense for the game. A terrain paint shouldn't have leaves the size of pool tables, or flowers the size of a sim's head. Compare the texture to a sim's head or hand, and make sure the scale is correct.
  • Seamless: Textures must be seamless, so that the edges of each tile are not obvious.
  • Paintings and Logos: Most of the time, it's best to do these as recolours of objects (i.e. make them a picture your sims can hang on the wall, not the wall itself). For murals or full-wall-designs, consider recolouring the FullPoster Wall Overlays instead.
  • Undistorted: Make sure the textures are not stretched or squashed. Use the correct aspect ratio. Please note that if wall textures are made at the template size of 256x512, they will be distorted in-game (if you make a circle, it'll turn into an oval). You must make your textures at 256x768 and then resize them to 256x512 before importing into Homecrafter for them to look correct in-game.

[edit] Files

Package files
Walls, floors, and terrain paints must be shared on MTS as .package files, not as .sims2pack files.
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.

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.


[edit] Information

Title & Description
Give your upload a descriptive title and write a text description for your upload, describing what you're uploading. Your title and description must be in English or provide an English translation. If you are not a native English speaker, using Google Translate is okay. You can also ask for help writing your description in the Creator Feedback Forum.
Required information
Give the in-game location of your creations (i.e. carpet, tile, grass, etc.) and for walls and floors, be sure to include the in-game price as well.
Expansion Packs or Stuff Packs required?
Walls, floors, and terrain paints never require any expansion or stuff packs. Do not tick any as required.


[edit] Screenshots

Screenshots
You will need to include certain screenshots. You must at least have:
  • A picture of each texture, shown over several tiles. This means showing at least 3 tiles of wall, or 2x2 tiles of floor.
  • Show all items: If you use the same textures for everything, just in different colours, it's okay to show one or two good full-size pics and then texture swatches for the rest. If you use different textures for everything, you need to show everything full-size.
  • Unobstructed: You can put things like a couch, a window, or a plant, but make sure they're not in the way of your wall, floor, or terrain paint.
  • Angle: Please take pictures at an angle that show your creation clearly. As far as possible, screenshots should be taken face-on - from directly in front of the wall, or top-down for floors and ground cover.
  • In-game: Pictures must be taken actually in-game, on a lot. It is not enough to just show pictures taken in Homecrafter, or to just show the textures without also showing in-game pics.
  • TIP: Make sure you have square pixels set to on so your images don't appear distorted.

Keep the following in mind for your screenshots, especially the required ones:

  • Size: 800 pixels wide by 600 pixels tall is a good size for the smallest pic you would want to upload. Your images can be up to 2560x1440 pixels, and 800 kb, so you have lots of space to work with!
  • Lighting: For most things, it's best to take pictures in an interior room with good lighting. For lots, pictures should be taken during a nice sunny day, for floorplans, take the pictures with the lights ON.
  • Clarity: Neither blurry, nor pixellated/crunchy. Do not size up small pictures to make a large one as this will blur them, and make sure not to use too much compression/too low quality when saving your images.
  • Distance: Take your pictures so that your creation fills the screen without anything cut off at top or bottom - neither zoomed in too close, nor zoomed out too far.
  • Distortion: If you resize your images, retain the aspect ratio so they don't get stretched or squashed. Take care when zooming in and out with the camera that you do not create a fisheye effect on your pictures.
  • Photoshopping: Do not apply filters like sharpen, contrast, etc. to the required pictures, as downloaders want to see what your creation will look like in their game, not your skills at using Photoshop.
  • Attached: All required images must be attached directly to the MTS upload, not just inserted using the img tag, so that even if the pics get deleted from your Photobucket (or other host), the upload on MTS is still complete.
  • Show all items: For most areas, if you are uploading a set, you must take all the required pics for each item in the set. If there is an exception, it will be noted.
  • Picture limit: You may upload up to 100 pictures for a single upload thread, so feel free to add some additional pictures just to show off your work to its best. Of course, keep it reasonable - nobody needs 50 pics to show off one sim or hair.
  • Inline pictures: Inline pictures are those that use the [img] tag to show up in with the description text. So that it doesn't take too long to load, please keep this to no more than 4 pictures done inline, unless you put them inside an [infobutton] tag. To do this, see our guide on post formatting.

[edit] Other

Uploads not allowed on MTS
These items are not allowed on MTS in any category.
Pay/Pirated Content

Everything required or recommended for an upload must be freely available, without having to pay.

  • No uploads requiring pay content: We do not host content (for example, recolours of a pay hair or object mesh) that absolutely require pay content to function in-game.
  • No optional pay, pirated, or stolen content: Even for optional or recommended content not absolutely required for the creation to work (for example, hair on a sim or a couch on a lot), this means:
    • No content you must pay for. This means you cannot use items that are pay, donation, subscriber only, "special gift", etc. type content, anything accessible only when you pay money or subscribe.
    • No content from sites that are repositories of unmodified content when it is still available from the original creator, whether these items are pay or free (no Booty or Simscave, torrents, sites full of stolen content or similar, but the Graveyard and sites that offer recolours or modifications with the mesh are okay).
    • No EA content simply converted to base game use with no other changes.
    • No pirated EA Store content. EA Store content, linked to the legitimate EA Store, is okay though. TS2 store content may be included, with proper credit, since the store is no longer available.
Other content not allowed
  • Items that belong on the adult site: No content posted on MTS can have visible nudity, sexual content, or adult content, and instead must be posted on our adult site, Sexy Sims. This means on MTS, you may not post:
    • Content that contains nudity, which we define as exposing the female nipples, or the butt crack/genitals of either gender, including semi-transparent stuff like a sheer bra. Items that are merely "sexy" like skimpy miniskirts or string bikinis are fine on MTS. Transsexual/transgender items are also not considered adult content unless they contain nudity.
    • Skintones containing genital details - female nipples are okay on MTS but see below regarding screenshots.
    • Images of skintones with uncensored female nipples. Please blur or cover the nipples, butt crack, and genital area when taking screenshots of your skintones.
    • Fine art uploads containing visible nudity.
    • Items with specifically sexual content (sex toys, sexual poses).
    • Items containing swear/curse words
    • Items relating to illegal drugs. Prescription and over-the-counter drugs, alcohol, and tobacco are okay on MTS though.
  • Sexualized children: We do not allow any sexy/sexualized content for baby, toddler, or child sims in any way - no breasts whatsoever on child sims, no "sexy" outfits, etc. If you want to make preteens, make a less developed body for teen sims. Sexualized child content is not allowed at our adult site either.
  • Offensive content: Racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, bigoted, hateful or otherwise offensive content will not be allowed. Again, also not allowed at our adult site.
  • Gore/violence: We do not allow uploads which feature prominent, graphic violence and/or gore. Examples of things we do not allow would include items centred around mass shootings, images showing explicit violent imagery, cannibalism, and infanticide. Limited violence and gore may be featured if not the dominant focus of the upload, and not excessively graphic. Think a PG-13 movie. If uncertain whether your upload crosses this line, we suggest making a thread in the Creator Issues forum asking for feedback from a moderator before uploading.
  • EXE installers: Creators are not allowed to post exe (or other executable) files for any area of the site but Modding Tools. If your content needs to be installed to a certain directory, you can compress your files and leave the directory structure intact, so you can tell people to just install to Program Files, for instance, and the files will go where they need to. Executable installers can easily hold viruses, and are generally not needed for installing most content.
  • Preorder bonus content: Certain items were only available if you preordered certain expansions or stuff packs from certain retailers. It's unfortunate if someone missed out on getting them, but they can't be redistributed here as EA has made it clear that they do not allow it.
  • Unmodified EP/SP/Store content: While it is common practice to modify and use bits and pieces of game content to create custom content, extracting content from an expansion, stuff pack, or Store item and uploading it unmodified is not allowed on this site. You are welcome to upload significantly modified versions of expansion, stuff pack, or Store content, but you can't just be ripping it and changing one tiny thing (or nothing) just so people who didn't purchase it can still use it.
  • Stolen/reuploaded content: This should go without saying, but do not upload content made by others and claim it as your own, in whole or in part. Don't upload the work of someone else without their permission... if they wanted to share it at MTS, they can easily upload it here themselves.
  • Uncredited content/violating permissions: If any part of what you have uploaded (mesh, textures, alphas, bump maps, coding, etc.) comes from somebody else's work, you MUST provide a link and credit in the text of your post, for the original author. State what you've used of theirs, the author's name, and give a link back to them. You must check the author's policies to see if you can use their content in the way you want, and you may not violate any policies stated. If there are no policies or they don't disallow your type of usage, or the site is permanently offline, then you can assume it's okay. Please see here for more details: Updates and Remixes of Creations.
  • Redirects: If you want to move a creation to another site, please remove your upload from MTS, don't just edit the text to point to a different site.
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