Tips: components of creating Maxis Match objects for The Sims 4
This is the first mini tutorial in what I hope will become a series of posts about my custom content creation process. I’ve been creating custom content since The Sims 2 days, and I’ve always wanted to share some tips that I learned along the way. Some of these tips are in no way groundbreaking, but I hope that some aspiring and experienced creators alike might find them useful.
In this tutorial, I will share my tips on how to (better) match the art direction of The Sims 4 when creating custom objects.
Disclaimer: this tutorial does not cover the basics of 3D or image editing. But, this post provides tips that you can use in any software of your choice. This tutorial also assumes that you have prior experience with custom content creation for The Sims 4. I also provide links to useful resources below.
What does Maxis Match mean?
In short, “Maxis Match” means that a piece of custom content matches the overall look and feel of The Sims 4. In other words, it blends seamlessly with The Sims 4 experience contextually and visually.
Before we dive deeper, I must mention that this is my interpretation of the art style and the experience of the game. You may interpret various visual and gameplay elements of The Sims 4 differently, and that’s absolutely fine.
Key aspects in summary
From my perspective, the key aspects to consider when matching Maxis objects are:
Level of detail and polygon counts
Object shading (AO, contrast, highlights and shadows)
Use of texture, texture sizes and texture details
Use of normal and specular maps
Correct naming, description and object tags
Let's dive deeper into each aspect below.
Level of detail and polygon counts
The best way to understand the Maxis level of detail in objects is, well, to study and inspect the Maxis objects.
Generally speaking, Maxis objects tend to be quite reserved on the polygon count. You may notice that rounded edges in objects do not appear to be completely smooth, or that some elements of the objects are "flat". Detail is often added as 2D texture, and not as part of the mesh.
When you play The Sims, you typically hover over an entire lot. You watch your household interact with items from a certain distance. There's no need from the gameplay perspective for the objects to be have very detailed meshes, as the level of detail is only truly noticeable when you zoom in on a specific section of the lot.
There are no set mesh detail or polygon count rules that you could reference. This really depends on the object's type and size. For example, you're creating a dining chair. I would highly recommend to inspect other in-game chairs when working on a mesh. This can help you decide:
Should a certain detail be a part of a mesh, or can you add that detail as a texture element?
Can you decrease the number of polygons of your model and still preserve its intended appearance?
What is the appropriate texture size?
Below are some chairs from the latest expansion packs that I exported using Sims 4 Studio. By inspecting the meshes and texture sizes, I learned that:
The mesh polygon count ranges from about 320 to 800 polygons
The texture size for these chairs is 256x512
Fabric folds, crevices and most tiny design details are added as texture elements rather than mesh elements
Object shading
Let's study this example of a living chair from Snowy Escape EP:
The general shading of objects appears to be smooth. If we imagine a "light source" that casts light over the objects, then it would appear as a diffused light located above the item.
The edges of surfaces have subtle highlights that give objects more character. This stylistic highlight is more pronounced in sharper edges, closer to the tip of the edge's angle. The highlight is also more present in edges that are facing the "light source"
Parts of the objects that do not get a lot of light are visibly darker, but not completely black
So, how do you replicate this shading in your texture? I begin my textures by baking a new texture using the ambient occlusion method in Blender 3.x. What is ambient occlusion?
Here's the baking method described in the Second Life forums post.
When my mesh is ready, I use the default lighting setup that is present in all meshes that you export from Sims 4 Studio. I always add a plane that acts as a "floor" in my scene, which means that object shadows are calculated against it.
Below is an example of a living chair from Tiny Living with the new texture baked:
You can use this baked grayscale texture as a base for your texture and recoloring work.
Here are some resources:
Understanding Light & Shadow Terminology
Video: Axe - Detailed Game Objects -- P18 - Ambient Occlusion Maps in Detail
Tutorial: Start to Finish Object Tutorial For Absolute Beginners
Tutorial: How mapping works & how to map & bake a cube
Use of texture, texture sizes and texture details
Let's study this Tiny Living chair once again:
The softer edges of the chair have a subtle highlight to give the shape more volume
The pillow has soft and blended fabric folds. It also has a subtle knit texture
The chair has seams, and points of higher tension have subtle fabric folds
The legs have a subtle wood texture, as well as "seams" at connection points
The Sims 4 objects are quite stylized. I use Procreate or Adobe Photoshop (with a Wacom tablet) to paint such details as crevices and fabric folds in my textures. You can also repurpose elements from other Maxis objects as an alternative method of adding detail to your items. I frequently do this with e.g. pillows - this way I avoid painting pillow folds over and over again.
When it comes to textures or patterns, I either create Maxis Match textures from scratch, or extract them directly from the game. My hot tip is to use textures from Build Mode items (such as floors and wallpapers) to create your own seamless assets that you can use in objects.
Below is an example of one of my object's textures. This is a soft bean bag chair. My starting point is always the baked AO. I use the exported UV map as a guide when adding details (especially seams). The final image in this row shows the texture with added texture, edge highlights and folds:
And here's the object preview:
Be mindful about the texture sizes. The texture size affects the size of the package. As mentioned above, study similar Maxis objects from the catalog to determine the size that is appropriate for your case. For example:
Small clutter item texture sizes may range from 64x64 to 256x256
Larger clutter and sculpture texture sizes may range from 128x128 to 512x512
Sofa texture sizes may range from 256x512 to 1024x1024, and so on
Try to not go beyond 1024x1024 in texture size.
Here are some additional resources:
My preferred method for recoloring and creating swatches
OneDrive folder with my resources
Tutorial: Components of an EA Object
Use of normal maps and specular maps
I will keep this section fairly short, as I will share links to tutorials about normal maps and specular maps below. Use these texture maps to give your objects more volume and detail. These maps help certain elements (seams, crevices, screws, folds, etc.) of your image texture stand out and appear more voluminous, shiny or reflective in-game.
Tutorial: Normal Maps
Tutorial: Basic Guide to RLES Specular Maps
Tutorial: Advanced Specular Map Techniques
Tutorial: Color picker for your specular maps
Correct naming, description and object tags
Last, but not least. You may not be the type of person who pays attention to how an item name appears in the catalog, or whether the item has tagged swatches. My other hot take of this tutorial is that taking care of the naming, tags, catalog price and other item attributes is important.
Some resources:
Tutorial: How to recategorize Buy Mode items using Sims 4 Studio
Tutorial: Components of an EA Object
Wrapping up
I hope you will find these tips useful whenever you're working on creating Maxis Match objects. I really enjoy working on tutorials (whenever I have time, which is sadly mostly not the case), so I'm hoping that I will work on more of these soon.
In the meantime, you can follow me on social media or support me on Patreon if you'd like to. Cheers!
