I am Maple! I am a polyam, queer, Canadian entity that crawled out of the deep woods 30+ years ago. I started playing The Sims when its first expansions came out and played through every iteration since. However, I am one of those players who became disillusioned with it under the weight of all its paid content, and EA’s change of ownership was the last nail in the coffin for me. Paralives is a direly needed breath of fresh air, and I’m so excited to be telling stories using it as my medium! (Which I promise you – will be filled with occults even if they don’t exist in game yet).
I plan to be primarily doing challenge stories such as: Legacy Challenges, Rags to Riches, 100 Baby Challenge, and any more that come up. Later on, I hope to post speed builds and other video content as early access develops.
This is a side blog, and any following back will be on my main @mapleorbits. I would love to follow anyone who is mainly posting Paralives content, so please don’t be afraid to reach out!
Do you want a specific hairstyle in Paralives? Selection too limited for you? I'm gonna show you how to convert any Sims 4 hairstyle to Paralives in 7 easy(ish) steps!
This tutorial requires you to have some basic knowledge of Blender, modelling, and texturing, so this is by no means a beginner tutorial- if you want that, I'd recommend checking out Paralives' wiki.gg modding guide!
You will need need to download Blender 4.2.4, the Human Rig, and the UV Layout from this page here. To export models and textures from TS4, you will need Sims 4 Studio. This tutorial also requires access to a painting or photo editing tool with layers, I'm using Clip Studio Paint.
Step 1: Pick your hair
Not every hairstyle will be a good fit! Since Sims and Paras don't have the same head shape, any hairstyle that shows the hairline or head will require a lot more work to shape it and remake the textures. For your first try I'd recommend a medium-length style with no hairline showing. I'm using Sienna's hair from Horse Ranch, which only has a bit of hairline on the right side of the head, to demonstrate.
Once you've picked the style, open Sims 4 Studio. Select "Create CAS Standalone" and hit "CAS." Select the grey or greyish white variant of the hairstyle you like, and create a dummy package (you can delete this later).
Now, under the Texture tab, make sure "Diffuse" is selected and export the texture. Name it something or place it somewhere so that you'll remember it's the original. Go to the Meshes tab and export the mesh.
Step 2: Prep The Hair
Open up your original hair mesh in Blender. It'll come with a bunch of crap you don't need, plus three files labelled s4studio_mesh_1-3. That's your hair mesh and the two hat chops. Shift+select those three files and export as FBX. Make sure you tick to limit to Selected Objects. Now you can open up HumanRig and import your hair FBX. Sims are bigger than Paras, so you can grab all three of them and scale them down in layout mode, I chose 0.85 in this project. There will be a weird cap attached to the hair- move the whole object so that it roughly lines up with the head (it doesn't have to be perfect!), paying careful attention to matching the ear position. This cap will be your hairline later. Make sure all your hat chops are all still aligned.
Once all of this is in place, apply all transforms and reset your origin to the 3D cursor. Do this any time you need to adjust it in layout mode!
Step 3: Remodel VERY CAREFULLY
Make sure all three meshes are still selected, and switch to edit mode. Any changes we make to one mesh should also be made to the other two. When you need to move a vertex, switch to X-ray mode and drag to select all overlapping vertices. Enable proportional editing to move larger areas smoothly. Since paras don't have the same head shape as sims, the skull cap won't match up perfectly- we want to approximate a smooth transition by burying the edge vertices in the head, but keep the rest visible so that the hairline shows up correctly. Be careful not to rip any vertices or create any differences between the three meshes. If you make a mistake, don't be afraid to restart. You should also fix any other issues at this stage- sims have huge foreheads, so my para's head was sticking straight out the top of this mesh, I used proportional editing to carefully lift it up.
Step 4: Fix your hat chops!
Hat chops are the alternate version of the hair that is shown when the character wears a hat. In both Paralives and TS4, there are straight and angled hat chops. Identify and label which is which. Under the HatStandards folder, there are a number of reference models we can use to check our work. For each chop, carefully move the vertices with proportional editing so that they match up with, but don't exceed, the "hair limit." With the angled chop, turn on the "HatStandardAngled" model to test if your hair is visible through it- if so, bring it closer to the head.
Step 5: Oh, Textures...
Textures are maybe the most annoying part of this. Load in your base texture as the Base Colour for the material your hair is using. Looks nice, right? Probably not very Paralives-y. Paralives uses a much flatter and more cartoony rendering style than TS4. To fix this, we're going to edit the texture. Now, regardless of what happens, you're going to have to edit the UVs at some point- I'll be doing it at the end and showing you how, but if you find it easier, skip to that step and go back here when you're done.
Here's a sample hair texture from the game and the hex codes it uses. We'll want to adjust the brightness of our texture to roughly match, that way it won't show up too bright or dark in game.
I have a clever strategy for this in Clip Studio. I make a rainbow gradient map, and adjust the colours until they match each zone.
Now that we're in a good colour range, I'm going to separate any important hairline details onto their own layer, lock transparency of the main "block," and start messing with it until it's a good base to draw on. I posterized it with 11 colour levels and then did a gaussian blur for a decent base. Then I went in with a brush to exaggerate and smooth out the shapes. The Paralives team uses a very blendy gradient with some fingertip pulls to make it look paintery, then some more defined shadows. I go in with my dark pencil to sharpen up the shadows and then blend out the other colours.
At this point, you can start saving your file and importing it to Blender. Check what it looks like and start making adjustments. If you find an issue, you can bring the model into Texture Paint mode, paint a dot on the offending piece, and see where the dot appeared on the map to quickly reference where the problem is.
The rest of the painting process is just art! Try replicating a texture from the game that's similar to your hairstyle.
Now that we're done with the fun part.... it's time for UV hell.
Step 6: Suffer
I've never met a single artist who enjoys doing UVs. Luckily, we don't have too much to do here.
Open up the UV editor and replace the background image with the Parafolks UV Layout we downloaded earlier. Now, switch to edit mode and grab all the vertices of your hair. Under the UV tab, select "Export UV Layout." Save the image using a name that indicates it's the original. Now grab that big box of vertices and move it to the right and down so that it lines up with the cyan box labelled "hair." Move the skullcap part up and align the ears. If your hair has extra textures hidden within the skull part of the head, you'll need to move these around to fit into the remaining space in the purple "head" zone. Once your UVs are finished, export them again, this time marking them as the new ones.
Okay, you survived that far. Now back to the image editing. Import both the original and new UVs to your texture file. Place the new UVs below your texture layer, the original UVs over it, and set the texture to a low opacity. With both the original UVs and texture selected, draw a selection box around your square of UVs, and move it to the bottom corner. Place it so that the UV lines match up exactly, pixel for pixel. Voila, now your texture matches the new UVs.
There's just the issue of the hairline (and, if you have them, any pieces hidden on the skull section). Sadly, there's no way around it, you're gonna have to do it manually. Grab each piece using the same method and the lasso tool, and line them up one by one. For hairlines that you had to manipulate, align as much as you can with the least stretched part of the uvs, and then cut, rotate, and stretch them into place. This is why I didn't paint the hairline during the last part. Now that it's in place, I paint it to match.
Step 7: Set up the mod!
Now that you're happy with your hair's model and textures, you can follow this official tutorial to skin it, create a mask, and set up the mod in-game. This Sienna haircut is not available on the workshop yet because uh.... well it's definitely not because I got lazy and didn't feel like skinning it today (the only thing worse than UVs is weight painting).
But now that you're done this tutorial, go forth! Be free! And steal assets from The Sims 4! Just remember to get permission before converting any other CC creators' work. And if you use this tutorial, please let me know! I need more hairstyles....
hi everyoneeeeeeeee. i built bagend on paralives! i spent way too long on this (about 50 hours).... and will probably work on this even more. you can download this on the steam workshop here!
Man, the more I learn about the lore of Melino, the more excited I am -- but it also makes me want to alter things about my Legacy Challenge storyline.
Not in terms of the overall storyline -- but I've been treating characters as blank slates to put my own characterization onto (Namely Heyon and Jason so far). I had no idea that so many of the characters already have their own stuff going on. I think I want to include more of that in my story because I love it so much.
I just love how lore-heavy things already are. And the answer I got to my AMA question still haunts me (in a good way) with them saying there is already supernatural easter eggs all around.
I love this game so much already and we're only in our first month of early access.
Basic rules:
Start gen 1 with a young adult para in preferably a fresh save
Each heir must represent their assigned colour via hair, makeup if they wear it, clothing, etc. They don't HAVE to only wear one shade, you can darken or lighten the shades if you're tired of like one colour.
The colours will not be given specific hex codes but rather names, use whatever colour you associate (or see when you look up [colour name] colour) with the word assigned to each generation
I wouldn't recommend money cheats to add money but if you wanna use them go ahead. Money cheats to remove money may be necessary for storytelling around gen 6 to 7
Spouses don't matter for the rules (unless otherwise specified), marry whoever you want and dress them however you want
Every generation is supposed to get to a specific job, the job postings in paralives change daily, so try to check them daily. If they're not qualified for the job you can work in another to get the required skills and work experience for the goal job
Play whatever lifespan works for you, I don't care this is just for fun
Press the Keep Reading button for all the generations rules
Gen 1: Mint
You're a mischievous scientist that REALLY loves the colour mint. You're career driven but still make time for silly pranks and outings with your closest friends. You love luxury and want the best for yourself and your family.
On the night of the first day in a new save, the storyteller should give you a 'life goals' pack of 3 to choose from. Usually my saves come with one called Big House or something like that, if you see the one with 40,000 paradimes home value that's the one you want to pick. otherwise pick something like the family one or even the job one works
when I was playtesting this one my mouse double clicked on the wrong life goal </3 so I haven't really tested with the life goals sorry </3
Assign 3 points to Mind, assign 4 remaining points as desired
Traits:
Vibe - Jester (Or overjoyed if you find Jester too difficult)
Social perk - Good at making friends
Talent - technology
as of writing there is not a science talent, if when you are reading this after it is posted there is one, probably pick that one instead.
Other traits: Vegetarian
Life Goals: Big House / whatever the family one is called
Career Goal: Astronomy Researcher Supervisor (Requires work experience in science and education)
Recommended starting career: Physical Education teacher (recommended because of work experience in education + no experience required to work it)
Recommended mid-tier career: Environmental Researcher (Requires high level like 10+ science skill) (I got into the one at level 8 science skill but I had a buff that gave me +2 points in each like. of the four main areas. that you see in paramaker? I had a buff for that for 24 hours and got the job!)
Additional Rules: Complete the science knowledge skill to level 20 (this is hard but you can do it), donate every gemstone/mineral to the museum (list of every gemstone/mineral)
Gen 2: Rose
You had everything you desired as a child but you were always longing for more, as an adult you have a hard time committing to relationships as you're so focused on your career. If we had a workaholic trait in paralives you would have it. You have absolutely no parental instincts but still love your child with all your heart.
Because there is no politician career in paralives as of today 31/05/26 when I'm writing these rules we will be aiming for the clickwork studios chief happiness officer job
Assign 3 points to Charisma, 2 to Mind, assign 2 points however you see fit.
Vibe: Serious (Grumpy when it releases) (game is really early access right now so it's not yet there)
Social Perk: Good at romantic relationships (ik the description says they're bad at romance but the description for this social perk + its effects don't necessarily mean they can't be bad at romance while being good at it. they can be both)
Talent: Jack-of-all-trades
No social talent yet </3 if there becomes one use that
Life Goal: Breadwinner or any romance one (don't worry if you don't get a life goal pack at all during the heir's lifetime it'll be fine)
Skill(s): none (as of right now there is no charisma or romance skills, maybe you could use this as a free space for whatever you want to work on with them)
Have only one child
do not get married until you are an Elder
Gen 3: Yellow
Growing up you never had a close relationship with your parents and spent the majority of your time alone in your room obsessing over space. You just really love space. You’ll do whatever it takes to get to [other planets] no matter the cost.
Assign 3 points to mind, 2 to creativity. assign 2 remaining points as seen fit
Vibe: Overjoyed
Social perk: Good at being alone
Talent: Technology
Life goal: Breadwinner
Skill(s): Science, possibly Repair also (if you have the time)
Goal Career: Astronaut
Recommended starting career: anything to pay the bills until you've got 10+ science skill to apply for a mid tier science job (if you already have stacks of cash you can have no job too it doesn't really matter)
Recommended mid-tier career: astronomy researcher or any other science job
Additional rules:
Never have any close friends except for your grandparent from gen 1 until said grandparent dies (If they died before you were born this does not apply)
Neglect your kid selected as heir (but not enough for them to be taken away)
Gen 4: Grey
You always felt that you were different. While the rest of your family was busy messing around in the lab, you just wanted to be outside playing basketball. You’re very good at sports and you dream of becoming a professional athlete. To make up for your nonexistent relationship with your parents you want to be there for your own children as much as possible. Oh, and you love to [make music].
Assign 3 points to fitness, 2+ to creativity, assign 1-2 remaining points as seen fit
Vibe: Energetic
Social Perk: good at taking care of others
Talent: Fitness
Extra: sloppy cleaning habit
Skill(s): Music knowledge skill, fitness knowledge skill
Life Goal: Gym Newbie (if it comes up), New Family
Goal Career: Star/Celebrity Trainer
Recommended starting career: Physical Education Teacher OR anything else in Fitness
Recommended mid-tier career: Trainer
Additional rules:
Take good care of your kids
Watch movies with Spouse and Children weekly (you choose which day)
Marry a neat cleaning habit para
Have 3 failed relationships before finding Spouse
Gen 5: Plum
You’ve always been good at anything you tried. It’s hard to choose a career, so why not try a few? You work as a doctor for much of your life, but as an adult realize that your true dream is to become a professional dancer. You quit your job and join the entertainer career. Basically: you’re an indecisive oddball.
There is no dancer or entertainer career in paralives yet. so instead... uh... give me a second. maybe a chef at chez maurice? that'd be fun, and to me it seems in the same style of the fast food career ts4 version requires
Assign 2 points across the mind, physique, and creativity skills. assign 1 remaining point as seen fit
Vibe: Energetic
Social Perk: Good at making friends
Talent: Jack-of-all-trades
Skill(s): Science, Dancing
Life Goal: Meet new people
Goal Career: General practitioner (until Adult life stage) then Chef (at Chez Maurice specifically, if it doesn't come up you can do chef elsewhere also)
Recommended starting career: Nurse (I swear I've seen people get into nurse at level one.... but if that's not available you could try being a receptionist at the hospital)
Recommended mid-tier career: anything mid-tier in healthcare
Additional rules:
Achieve at least level 8 in six skills
Get divorced & then later remarried to the same para (unsure if this one is possible, if not don't worry about it)
Must live in at least 3 different houses over the course of your lifetime
Gen 6: Orange
You’re the black sheep of your family (but with orange hair) and you were raised in a hectic household. You’ve always wanted to cause mayhem, but you’re just really bad at being evil. You enjoy breaking into your neighbors’ houses and eating their food. You really love baking and spend the majority of your spare time eating sweets.
This one requires major modifications to the career (no criminal career in paralives yet) (God this has taken me like over a week to adapt and it's not even Done) (OR PLAYTESTED.) (I will be playtesting these rules for a while after this is posted) (when I'm done I might make a new post if the rules require major edits)
Assign 2 points to creativity and Mind, assign 3 remaining as seen fit.
Vibe: Overjoyed
Social Perk: Good at taking care of others (use the 'give para a snack' together card when it comes up)
Talent: Food
Skill(s): Food Knowledge skill, cooking to 10 (or further if you can)
Life goal: I don't know, pick whichever one you think fits best
Career Goal: Chef
Recommended starting career: anything you can find in food, waiter maybe?
Recommended mid-tier career: chef is one of those....
Additional Rules:
Must life in a townhouse that's kinda rundown for entire young adult life stage. May move away or fix it up when aged into an Adult
Have twins, but only those two children (recommended to edit the storyteller to cause this, and then edit it back once they're born)
Gen 7: PInk
You grew up poor and are living paycheck to paycheck working in the business career just as your parents did. You long to write romance novels but are too afraid to quit your steady job to follow your dreams. You’re very practical and you know the chances of making it as a writer are slim, so you stay working at your nine to five. As an adult you finally decide to pursue your dreams. You’re a hopeless romantic, but your unflirty nature makes it nearly impossible to find love.
This one also requires modifications (No ability to write books just yet) Unless you have that mod from steam workshop that makes a writing skill. then use that. um. it's not required though. Instead of writing we will do painting and fitness without the mod.
Assign 3 points to creativity, 2 to physique, assign 2 remaining as seen fit
Vibe: Gloomy
Social Perk: Good at making friends
Talent: Art
Extra: Neat cleaning habit
Skill(s): Writing OR Painting. Exercise skill
Life Goal: Breadwinner
Career goal: Operations Director (management career) (quit when you reach Adult life stage to pursue writing/painting) (if you haven't made it to this career specifically by then,, it's whatever go with the flow of your game)
Recommended starting career: Store Clerk (service)
Additional Rules:
Collect every stamp you see via the bills you get
Do lots of yoga (maybe go to each town yoga event?) (going there raises your exercise skill way faster than usual)
Have a well-maintained garden (lots of landscaping at your house if you're playing before the gardening update that has yet to be added) (written 7/06/26 dd/mm/yy format)
Quit your day job as an Adult to pursue Writing/painting
Gen 8: Peach
Your parents always taught you to follow your dreams. You’ve always wanted to be a detective. You’ve always wanted to be a comedian. Well dang it, you can do both! Detective by day, comedian by night, you can do anything you set your mind to.
this one requires modifications again because no detective or comedian careers.
I might rewrite the description hmmm....
Your parents always taught your to follow your dreams. But your dreams are impossible to achieve in Melino, and the train out of Melino is broken down. So, you settle for reading lots and lots of detective novels to satiate your thirst for that career. And as for being a comedian... well you'll figure that one out. Maybe telling jokes to everyone you meet is a good start? You need a job to pay the bills though. Does one of the restaurants in town need a chef?
assign 3 points to charisma, assign 4 points as seen fit
Vibe: Jester / Overjoyed
Social Perk: Good at making friends
Talent: Food
Skill(s): Food, Cooking
Life Goal: Breadwinner
Career Goal: Highest level Food career you can find, it's likely to be a management position also.
Recommended starting career: Lowest level food or service career you can find
Recommended mid-tier career: Chef
Additional rules:
Marry a coworker
Complete the gourmet food and regular food bundles at the community centre
Must live in a different part of Melino than the one they were raised in
Gen 9: Green
You were caught hacking by a major tech company that then offered you a position in their firm. You know Penelope Garcia from Criminal Minds? That’s you. You’re dedicated to your work, but that doesn’t stop you from going out and having a good time. You’re the kind of person that will be at a party at 3am and then at work at 6am.
assign 2 points to charisma, 3 to mind, assign 2 remaining as seen fit
Vibe: Overjoyed
Social Perk: Good at making friends
Talent: Technology
Skill(s): Programming, Technology
Life Goal: Meeting new people
Career Goal: Technical Director (Software Development and Management career)
Recommended starting career: Gameplay Programmer
Recommended mid-tier career: Backend developer
Additional Rules:
Have 'parties' (social events aren't in yet as of 07/06/26) at your house or restaurants
Have at least 5 level 3 friends and 5 enemies (unsure how difficult this will be, to be playtested)
Gen 10: Blue
You have the perfect life. White picket fence, loving spouse, beautiful children. But why do you still want more? You have a one time secret affair and will regret it for the rest of your life. Afterward you pour your soul into raising your children and fixing your marriage. You never admit the affair to anyone and dedicate your life to being the perfect parent.
2 Mind, 2 Creativity, assign 3 remaining points as seen fit
Vibe: Gloomy
Social Perk: Good at taking care of others
Talent: Art
Skill(s): Cooking, Science (don't have to max this one just get it high enough to get the career)
Life Goal: New Family
Career Goal: Conservateur (arts and science career)
Recommended starting career: Tour guide at the museum
Recommended mid-tier career: Museum Researcher
Additional rules:
Adopt at least one child
Have a one time secret affair (unsure if this is possible, playtesting needed)
Marry High school sweetheart, stay with them until death
Holy shit I cannot believe adapting these rules took me OVER A WEEK. anyway. Good luck, have fun, you can adapt the rules further if you have more mods or your game isn't allowing you to get the goal careers or whatever. 👍
Man, either my rants about paid mods and how to combat them is working (/jokes) or the Paralives team is on the same wavelength.
Either way I love to see it! They added a section in the discord for modding tutorials and there is a whole bunch of good stuff already!!! Sharing knowledge is going to be the number one way to empower as many people to create for community as possible. Definitely go check it out if you haven’t already.
( Also love that the devs are very much saying “use the steam workshop” and pushing that because you cant charge for mods on there. its not an explicit statement but I understand why they are moving the way they are. ) it is so delightfully canadian. 🤣
Edit: ive been corrected! There has been a statement but still the politely shady passive aggressive “use this!” “Look at all these tutorials!” Etc is making me feel very patriotic ahaha 🇨🇦
Being against monetization is giving classism and communism. Poor people deserve compensation too!
Both classism AND communism, huh? You do realize those are two opposing and conflicting ideals right?
But to your main point: monetization of mods is not normal in spaces outside The Sims and FFXIV. Nor should it be normalized as it does nothing but ultimately harm communities. There are other ways to exist outside of capitalism and many modders who do make a living with their mods without shitty practice. Tips, pay what you want models, patreon (the Vanilla expanded Rimworld Patreon is a fantastic example of a successful modder patreon that does not paywall) are a few examples of many.
Coming into an indie game space where the devs themselves have stated they will never charge for DLC and charging for mods will always be gross to me.
There are many reasons why paid mods are harmful to communities and if you are actually interested in learning why rather than holding up straw man argument “poor people” as a prop, a well known modder made a well thought out reddit post here explaining it far more elegantly than I can.
Are you playing Paralives? Are you annoyed over the fact that modders are already paywalling content for an indie game that won't charge users for future DLCs?
Content that would improve the game dramatically, like saaaaaay...camera controls that mimic the Sims 3?
So, I assume most of you don't know, but there is a bit of drama inside the Paralives community. It's funny because this whole thing is revolving around The Sims 3.
TwistedMexi made his first paywalled "early access" mod called Sims 3 Camera, and I've been working on the same thing as he was.
1. Let's get the "clone" allegation out of the way first.
(Source: TwistedMexi's discord server)
TwistedMexi is accusing me of cloning his mod, but let’s look at the facts. Thankfully, I always use GitHub, so the commit dates are there to prove it.
(2026-05-26 22:27:02 +0200) is a timestamp of the first commit with hash d82ddd909e06833b0f8d5d439ad602d04a4f3e08
(2026-05-27T19:57:44.000+00:00) is a timestamp of the publication date of his Patreon post.
Honestly, I didn't know I could see the future, but ok.
2. The second thing I want to address is that currently there are a lot of awful comments directed at Tmex. PLEASE do not harass other creators.
3. Regarding early access and paywalls: My mods are developed in my spare time as a passion project. I believe in keeping my work accessible to everyone, which is why all of my content will remain completely free, forever. I believe the community should play a role in maintaining projects if the original creator steps away, which is why I always share the source code for my projects
Free mods are a pillar of a healthy community, whereas paywalls only lead to gatekeeping and unnecessary drama. My hope is that more creators choose to release their mods in a way that prioritizes community growth and shared resources.
A reblog would be greatly appreciated to help spread this message.
Thanks for reading,
xoxo, Arro
Ps. If you want to see a broader discussion on this topic, I recommend this Reddit post that goes way more in-depth than I do. It's a good read.
