In the next 2-3 months or so I'll have a busy schedule and I probably won't be posting anything, including my simstory. I think that would be the best time for future and current readers to start from the beginning.
I'll still be online from time to time and there are lined up queues in my CC finds but real-time posting will be infrequent.
I'll definitely update if I have more free time and caught up with you guys after.
I've put together a few tips that I've learnt during my pose making escapades. I hope they'll come in handy!
My best piece of advice is just to mess around yourself. You don't even have to make anything useable at first, but you've gotta give yourself time to get used to how Blender feels.. the controls, how stuff moves etc. Give it a chance!
Useful titbits: Under "View" on the righthand side, change the Lens from the standard 35,000 to 250,000. It'll change it from a weird fisheye perspective to something that looks a bit more normal. It especially makes working with the face much easier.
The two tiny clipboards with left and right arrows at the bottom are where you can copy/paste a pose (this'll come in handy later!)
When you open a rig the pivot points are set to Median Point. Change this to Individual Origins (you can do this by clicking the two little white circles at the bottom as you can see below). That way the joints move according to their.. individual origins. Surprise! This means when you move multiple points at once, like the eyes or the knuckles, they move as one but act as though you were moving them separately. It avoids any weirdness, trust me!
Personally, I avoid reference pictures. I find moving my own body (or making my poor husband my muse) is much better. If that means getting into a weird position on the floor or pretending to throw something in the middle of the living room, fine. Maybe close your blinds though...
Move, Rotate & Adjust Height: First of all, make sure you're in pose mode! For the most part, we want to use the rotate feature for the body (press R for rotate or select rotate from the bottom menu. To reset a joint, press ALT+R... If you want to reset the whole body, press A twice to select all the joints, then press ALT+R) and move (press G for move or select move from the bottom menu. To reset, press ALT+G) for the face. If you move the body too much it looks distorted and we don't want that! Same for the face, you can use rotate subtly but use it too much and you'll end up in uncanny valley.
You can adjust the height of sims by using the points shown next to the dots below; try and move each one only a little bit, up or down, to avoid stretching the sim out too weirdly. You can also use the ankles, but not if you've set up an Inverse Kinematic joint on them (we'll get to that soon).
Only move your sim via the pelvis point. Do not touch the orange dot! If you do your sim might not pose in correlation to where you place your teleporter. Also try not to let your sim go below the horizontal line, otherwise they'll clip into the floor! (If you line your view up just right the line appears grey as below, otherwise it's either green or red depending on where you're facing). Leave a lil' gap for shoesies. In fact, you should leave gaps in most places to allow room for clothes etc. So don't make the sim directly touch their leg for example, or their hand will clip into their pants!
Joint Locking: I always work with the bottom two knuckle joints locked on every finger, we don't want any demented fingies! I also lock the jaw point, so no matter which direction I'm facing when I move it, it'll only ever move up or down. You can always unlock them if you're trying to achieve a certain look, but for the most part we don't want them moving in any other way.
Select the joint/joints (you can select multiple joints at once by either pressing C and dragging the mouse over the points, or by pressing B and dragging a box over them) and lock W, X & Y. Once you've done this, save your rig! That way, you won't have to do it every time.
Inverse Kinematics: I have these set up for each leg, arm, finger and thumb to save time. It means that when you move the bottom joint (eg. the finger tip, wrist or ankle) the whole limb moves with it. It's especially useful for the thumbs & arms since they tend to behave themselves better. Stick with three for the thumb, fingers and ankle joints.. with the wrist point, you can go up to four and it'll include the clavicle joint too. Though it's a fussy one, so I prefer to move this alone for the most part. You can always change it temporarily if you want!
To do this, click on the lil' bone with a chain underneath on the right side, as below, and choose Inverse Kinematics. Then change the Chain Length to 3. Save your rig again so you don't have to set everything up next time!
Be especially careful when using this method to move the fingers as it'll throw out those locked joints we mentioned earlier! I really only use these ones to move them ever so slightly.
Also, be careful when using it to move the legs (and sometimes the arms) as they can be unpredictable! It's best to rotate the joints separately to give it an idea of what you're going for, then use the joint to move the limb into a more natural position. You can see underneath how demented it can look if you don't give it a general idea before you start... I used the exact same movement here on the left/right (slightly up and to the left) but the right one started with the knee bent.
Ripping off EA: Use EA animations to save yourself some time! Almost any animation in game can be found/used. To do this go to the Sims 4 Studio > create a new animation > save the package (I called mine RIGBASE) > open it in S4Studio and choose your rig (eg. female, male, child etc.) and pick "EA Clip" > find an animation to work from > export and save the pose > open the pose in blender. You can work from here, or you can copy the pose (press A twice until all points turn blue, then click on the left clipboard at the bottom to copy it) paste it onto your own rig and work from there instead.
This method is super helpful when you're a beginner, or for more tricky body positions. There's no point wasting time, faffing around posing the rig into a kneeling position when there's a perfectly good base you can work from.
Frankenposing: In a similar vein to the above, frankenposing can also save a huge amount of time. So, you've got two poses.. let's say one stood up and one sat down. You want the emotion/arm movements from the standing pose, but you can't be arsed making them sit down. No worries! Copy the top half (press C to select several points at once or B to click and drag) and paste it onto a previous pose you've made (or ripped off EA.. heh). Adjust accordingly and voila!
Move slowly: If you want your sim to bend over, lean to the side, look up etc etc.. you can't just snap their neck/spine or whatever. You've got to work your way down/up to it. Eg. Your sim's looking up; so start from the bottom of the spine, tip it back a bit, move to the middle, tip it back a bit... Right up until you get to the neck. This is where moving your own body comes in handy! 9 times out of 10 we don't just move one body part.
So let's say your sim wants to touch their noggin'. Don't just grab the wrist and try and drag their arm up to their head, it won't look right. First, adjust the clavicle upwards a bit. Then you can grab your wrist and move the arm into a rough position. Rotate your elbow and pose your fingies (you can adjust them more perfectly later, we just need an idea to begin with). Now you should be able to lift the arm and it won't look demented.
I hope all these tips help you out, I promise you'll get better with practice! I plan to make another tutorial about using custom rigs at some point. Maybe one for facial expressions too. Happy posing ❤
TW: Stalking, suicide, death, death threats, Zoophilia, Pedophilia, etc.
This is a long read. Sorry about that. I have lots of thoughts.
A Little Background for Those Not in the Know Regarding Sims "for profit" Modding Drama.
Okay, so I know I've already kind of talked about the implications of the new policy a little, but I haven't really talked about what I personally think about it. This seems like a good time though. I don't really expect many people to read this all the way through but honestly, I just wanted to say something about it.
As some of you know I was the old head of DHM (Dollhouse Mafia) and original founder. I stepped down a while ago because I was spreading myself too thin on personal projects and also, I didn't like the way things were going. I have nothing but good things to say about the current leadership, but it just personally wasn't worth it to me. ANYWAY, that being said, I wanted to put my thoughts about how the community has changed regarding its stance on pay content and how it used to be
So back in the days of TS2 PMBD acted as a receptacle for all pay custom content to be leaked. TSR, way back, was the biggest pay site in the community with several other smaller pay sites that specialized in hair or clothes. These sites generally had a specific style and very obviously made their own content. I couldn't tell you how much creators made but I know that other than TSR users it wasn't a huge amount.
So, The Sims team has pretty obviously always had a love/hate relationship with pay content. Even though it seems to have cooled they used to be VERY close to TSR. I know that they've always had a policy against pay content but it's never been enforced really. Like I said though, the only people who seemed to be making BIG money from non-passive income was TSR.
The reason that I bring this up is that I think the reason that things went so wrong isn't because of pay CC. I'm against pay CC and I always will be, we can talk about paying artists all we want but at the end of the day this is a hobby and if you're trying to use it as your main source of income you're in the wrong but I digress...
EA's Relationship with for profit CC
Fun fact, Patreon was actually started by the voice actor that played Teen/College aged men in TS2. I suspect that he got the idea from watching The Sims community try and set up their own personal online shopfronts and figured there was a way to do it better. I also suspect that many people who worked within The Sims Studio were pro-paysite because it created a demand that kept The Sims brand in people's minds. If people were making a living off of it then it was always being bought and you had people who basically HAD to buy it because that's how they made a living.
When talking about his new NFT (gross.) project Will Wright actually mentioned that one thing he didn't like was that piracy was taking place when Sims players were creating pay CC and others would pirate it. I suspect that the only reason they kept the policy they did was in case creators would make something that rivaled the studio in terms of quality (which according to Don Hopkins was an actual concern and part of the reason that EA's CC tools weren't super powerful, we couldn't create anything "too good")
Like anything to do with money, I think people who were mostly outsiders to the community realized that they could maximize profits through unsavory means such as flipping meshes quickly and reselling them from 3D modelling websites.
The problem is this created a flood of people who started using The Sims as their SOLE income and they began making good money too. Enough that they wouldn't easily be able to make that amount doing anything else without a serious career change.
Low Quality, Quick Profit, Unruly Community
So remember how EA decided they wanted to reach out and start the Game Changer program for the better by doing outreach to players by trying to interact with the community online. Then very recently they were like... trying to start a "sims social platform"? Yeah EA isn't really crazy about the fact that we're a self-sufficient community.
Most other gaming communities that have player made content tend to try and keep that player made content in an official store of some kind. Both so they can monetize it and use it as a selling point and also so they can control what can be done with it. Roblox is a GOOD example of how companies tend this sort of thing to play out. Communities that exploit creators and allow companies to control the player content, so everything aligns with the "brand".
Now, I'm just a person who REALLY likes The Sims and knows a lot about it so take it with a grain of salt but I suspect that EA is trying to find a way to keep us under better control. They've likely seen the messy fights that the patreon creators have been getting in. They've also definitely heard about the wide-spread availability of not just sex mods but sex mods that allow for pedophilia/zoophilia.
People can act like this has happened before in The Sims community but not like this. Before people were getting legal threats here and there and a few people were doing some bad stuff with the game but now we're talking doxxing, half of 4chan has started using The Sims as a sex playground, and people are making crazy money from it. EA was willing to overlook sex mods but I doubt they want a replay of the Jack Thompson case or to get the bad press that Habbo of Secondlife got for being bastions of pedophilia and perversion. It used to be that TSR was one company that made a lot of money and acted like a company acts to protect their business interests. However, now you have several HUNDRED people who were using The Sims as a get quick rich scheme and they were willing to attack community members to keep themselves living well. Not all of them, mind you, but it is an issue.
I suspect EA is worrying how this will look for the brand. It was okay when we were all creating a few mods and making pocket change from custom content. But now, because we've all been content creators we're getting better at it and it's causing problems (TM) for EA.
Both because their overlooking of pay content has backfired as it became more of a business AND because their players started becoming skilled enough to create things that both rivaled their own content and sullied their brand for outsiders and started attracting more and more unsavory types (cough cough ColonolNutty).
TL;DR: EA did this to themselves. They wanted the community to create for their games but didn't consider the outcomes of monetizing it. Now no matter what they do, some group will be mad at them. No matter what they do it's going to result in bad press... And you know what?
So it was EA themselves who caused the very state of The Sims community by literally encouraging paywalls through the monetization of CC and turning greedy creators into so-called “Brands?
Me:
Here is why the news about paywalls today is so important:
The primary reasons are because:
1) The old "ruling" was made by ONE EA staff member and was posted in a forum. So anytime people quoted the 2-3 week early access rule, there was always that potential pushback of "That was years ago, and the guru who stated that isn't even in the company anymore etc."
This is recent (this year, this month), and posted on EA's OFFICIAL FAQ for the sims.
2) There was a screenshot that was being spread around of that same guru making other statements about meshes that some people purposefully misinterpreted to mean that they could paywall if the mesh was 100% theirs. This was always untrue, however a lot of people in the alpha CC community were so desperate for $$$ that they took that misinterpretation and ran with it. This statement debunks that screenshot entirely.
3) It indicates that EA SEEMS willing to enforce their policies. Because unlike Guru Drake's statement saying that EA isn't going to police CC, this not only has links and ACTIONABLE steps, but mentions the team will be reviewing them. The fact that this policy on mods/CC also goes hand in hand with another policy (about using EA's logos/etc) that I KNOW they have been very good at enforcing (The modder/CC maker Nando can testify to this as he got contacted by EA about his previews for one of his CC packs) gives me significant hope.
I should also note that the strong use of phrases like "do not" "must be" and "cannot use" very much seems like they are behind this.
4) It gives the players the ability to cut through the bullshit of permapaywallers and tell them to shape up or fuck off.
Over 90+% of modding communities are not like this one and operate on a donation only model of support for their mods. Usually what happens when people try to make their mods monetized is they are very plainly told what the expectations are for the community and that if they aren't going to follow them, to get out.
This gives simmers the power to tell that to these people. Because they can't hide behind the excuses anymore.
Now the important questions that remain:
1) What does this do to early access creators? Because the new policy seems very much to be anti-early access. People are very mixed on this right now, with some being very "monetization has ruined this community entirely it all should go" and some going "Well I don't mind early access but permapaywalls are bad". We'll see how this shakes out...
2) How will the community handle this new policy? Will creators who are currently permapaywalling quit and take their ball with them, or will they adapt to the new policies and just hope donations are enough? Will early access creators end up having to change policies? Will this lead to an exodus of creators, or a more thriving community as monetization becomes less of a priority?
3) What will perma-paywallers do in reaction? Although this kinda falls under the previous question, I think it is interesting to see what happens. Will perma-paywallers ignore this change and hope that EA does nothing? Will some of them try to lie and justify themselves to the community? Another question is....could some of them try to scrounge up enough money to try to legally challenge EA? [They wouldn't win, but I can speak from past experience they LOOOOVE legal threats.]
And last but most importantly:
4) Will EA actually enforce this?
My hope, is that this is a sign that they will. Since it's pretty stupid to massively update policies you don't plan on enforcing. But of course, this is EA...so we'll seeeee..
The Forgotten Realms Legacy Challenge by @anxiousmoodlet
Logo credit!
A Dungeons and Dragons inspired Sims 4 legacy challenge, woo!! said no one ever
so the deal is friends… a lot of you will have seen this before because i originally published it and started posting my own gameplay of it on @faesprings. but then, i deleted my entire blog by accident and got really disheartened about continuing my save. HOWEVER, there are still a few simblrs playing the challenge so i wanted to republish it here on my new blog and give it another chance at life. i’m also gonna start it again myself
all the deets are below the cut!! please reblog if you like the idea, please tag me in your founder posts if you play so i can follow you, and please please please enjoy!!
So in my game my townies like to spawn in the ugliest outfits, or outfits that don’t fit them at all. All my townies like to show up in City Living outfits and Vampires outfits. And EVERY SINGLE ONE likes to wear this really hideous eyeball ring from the basegame, along with a fedora or the star glasses. This mod disables these clothes from showing up on townies.This only affects NEWLY SPAWNED townies, not preexisting ones, so keep that in mind.
This is NOT a hider for these clothes, it will still show up in CAS so you can decide which sims will wear these outfits. This mod also does not give the townies good fashion sense. They will still probably generate in random outfits. There is no surefire way to stop this unless you stop every outfit for random, but then what would townies wear?
There are separate downloads here one chose which ones you need, as you don’t have to download all of them.
- m toddler
- outfit category
- custom thumbnails for each swatch
- 15 swatches
- new mesh (base game compatible)
- all LODs
- all maps
- HQ compatible
please do not repost anywhere, thanks!
if you recolor, do not include the mesh.
download (SDOM)
special thanks to one of my testers @rockonjenny for suggesting this outfit!
Simblreen Collaboration with @helgatisha
Mortal Kombat 11 Cetrion Set
You can find her set here: [x]
Outfits
20 swatches
custom thumbnails
HQ compatible
fullbody category
teen - elder
all morphs
Hair
10 swatches
custom thumbnails
HQ compatible
hair category
teen - elder
all morphs
Head Accessories
20 swatches
custom thumbnails
HQ compatible
hat category
teen - elder
all morphs
Living Tendrils
20 swatches
custom thumbnails
HQ compatible
index finger l. category
teen - elder
all morphs
Eternal Corona
20 swatches
custom thumbnails
HQ compatible
middler finger r. category
teen - elder
all morphs
Download: Early Access at Patreon
( Public access in October 30)
Note: The suit and hair under the third number have 4 options depending on the color of the glow. They work independently of each other and do not conflict with each other.
You can find the previous set with head acc. here [x]
