Here I’ll be sharing tips and tricks that I personally find helpful while I go on my render journey!
If you’re completely new to rendering, check out what you’ll need here.
If you’re not completely new, then explore the blog at your leisure! It’ll be constantly changing as I update it for easier viewing. This theme (Which if you haven't noticed yet, is by @taezsthemes) is interactive! You can click and drag the windows around! Enjoy!
My DMs and ask box are always open to questions and problems! I’ll have an FAQ for the more common problems. I may not be able to answer all of them, so bare with me if I cannot.
I’m very sad to report that Sims 3 and 4 creator CmarNYC passed away in October 2023. For 15 years, Simmers benefited from Cmar’s long-honed computing skills as she created much-loved modders’ and players’ tools, including the Sims 3 and 4 MorphMakers and Skininators, the TS4 SimRipper, the Sims 3 XCAS core mod, and many CAS sliders. She was also a contributor to S4PE, which likely was used by creators you rely on. Without Cmar’s work, the Sims franchise would have had a much less rich array of mods and custom content. She will be greatly missed.
As well as Sims, Cmar loved cats, and donations are suggested to the ASPCA, the TinyKittens Society, or an animal-related charity near you.
So any fans of @kikovanitysimmer ‘s renders know that she adds a lot of extra detail to her sim’s skin. Her process has changed since then, but she still hosts her old tutorials on her discord!
We’ve been getting a lot of talk about how hard it can be to follow so I’m providing a text-based step by step tutorial!
Requirements
TheSims4Ripper
Blender 2.9+ (I’ll be using 4.0.0)
Any photo editing software (I’ll be using Ibis Paint) that has these features:
Multiple layers
Adding noise
Changing brightness/contrast and Hue/Saturation/Value
Inverting colours
Sims4studio (optional)
First things first:
You do not need to export a custom skin. Using the _diffuse.png you got from exporting your sim works just fine!
It’s preferable that you export your sim naked. Not a requirement, but makes it a lot easier. Here’s a video tutorial about dressing your sim in blender.
Onto the tutorial!
Displacement Map (Pores and the like)
Import your texture. Here, I’m using Kiegross’s Kiera Skin, edited for personal use.
2. Change the texture to black and white
3. Duplicate the layer
4. Edit the Brightness and Contrast to your liking
5. Add noise. Pictured here are my personal settings
6. Erase parts that realistically would not have a lot of pores, ex. Lips, hands and feet. Kiko suggests putting your eraser hardness or opacity lower as these areas still have texture to them.
7. Save picture as is! You can delete the noisy layer if you wish, but we will need the original black and white layer for everything else.
Specular and Roughness Map (Shine)
Creating a new layer is highly recommended so you can backtrack
Using the original layer, edit the brightness and contrast. Pictured here are my preferred settings
2. Take a black brush and colour in areas you don’t want to shine. Realistically, these are the palms of your hands and the soles of your feet and their respective nails. You may also want to take a white brush to the areas you do want to shine, like lips, chest or thighs.
3. Save as is!
Adding to Blender
First things first: Go into the Shading tab. Link your sim's materials using Ctrl+L to make it easier on yourself!
Add your new Displacement and Roughness Map to your material
2. Add a Displacement Node
3. Plug the Displacement Map's colour into the Height. Change the scale to whatever you like (I chose 0.0005)
4. Add two Color Ramp Nodes to your material
5. Plug the Spec + Roughness Map's colour into each Color Ramps' Fac
6. Plug one Color Ramp into the Roughness and another into the Specular/IQR (you may need to roll out the Specular tab to find it)
7. Drag tabs on the Color Ramp to change the strength of them. For the Roughness Color Ramp, you'll need to swap them around to have the desired effect.
And that's how you get the details! There are other ways to get the details, but for beginner renderers, you can start with this!
I've gotten a couple asks about my process, so I decided to make a lil tutorial. Beware though, I'm not finna explain Everything so if you're brand spankin new to Blender, this might not be the one for you.
Step 1: I go in game to build the room first, this way I know all the objects I wanna use and have a pretty good reference for the scene I'll make in Blender.
Step 2: I save the lot to my in game gallery then open Sims 4 Tray Importer. Click the lot you just saved then click the CC tab.
Step 3: This is gonna be a bit tedious, but since there's no way to mass export all of the textures and objects used, you'll have to go one by one. Double click each package file, the folder where the object is located will pop up, open it in Sims 4 Studio. Export the texture(s) and the mesh.
Step 4: Once you've gone through all kajillion package files, whatever folder you decided to keep them in should look a little like this.
Step 5: Open Blender. If you're doing a basic 4 walled room, you can just use the starter cube. I usually remove the top face then apply the solidify tool to thicken the walls. For some nice wall and floor textures, I recommend Poliigon (watch this tutorial for the download link + how to apply the textures).
Step 6: Click File, then Append, navigate to where you saved all of your textures and meshes and click one of the .blend files.
Step 7: It will lead you to even more folders, click the one that says Object. Once inside the Object folder, click the s4studio_mesh files (one of these will typically be the shadow which you won't need so you can delete it once you see which is which) then click Append.
Step 8: The object will appear completely white, so click it then go down to the Material tab, click Use Nodes. A Principled BDSF automatically appears, click the little yellow dot right next to Base Color then hit Image Texture.
Step 9: The object will then turn black (it also adds a specular, I usually just turn that all the way down to 0 depending on what the object is). Click open, then select the corresponding texture you saved. And boom, you just added a piece of furniture to your lil digital room.
Step 10: Repeat this 600 times until you get carpal tunnel and voila...
Side Note: Sometimes textures get lost from being moved around or just because Blender decided to be an asshole, so to avoid that, you can click File, go down to External Data, and hit the button that says Automatically Pack Resources. But please be aware, this does take up quite a bit of memory and could possibly slow down Blender depending on your specs.
If anyone here are @kikovanitysimmer fans, you might've seen her latest story (or message if you're on discord) Here's the video she shared with us! I recommend watching all for the full experience but this should help a lot if you plan on making your render look more realistic!
avoiding squiggly fingers when posing in blender
a tutorial + rig downlad by ratboysims
hey! when i deleted my old blog i completely forgot to back up my old tutorial on this, so i’m just gonna remake it :-) this tutorial will show you how to lock joints in blender, so you can bend body parts (in this case fingers) in only one or more directions depending on what you need!
Hi! I was wondering how you add textures on specific parts of the body in blender? So far my textures are showing up on my clothing items and I am not sure what to do.
Good afternoon! (Or whenever you're reading this)
When I want to add or change the texture to items, I duplicate the texture the current texture and give it a new name!
Then I assign it to the part I want in edit mode! I have a video demonstrating that here (tumblr's lack of zoom in 😖)
After that, any edits I make to the new material will only affect that area!
hi thank you so so much for this account! it has honestly been so helpful and I am learning a lot. I was wondering if you maybe had a tutorial on how to use blender jewelry? and how to go about using them on the sim in blender? sorry if this is a little confusing, but I really appreciate it!
Hi Hi! Thank you for visiting!
As for blender only jewelry, the process is similar to adding any other blend file to a project, but I’ll show a quick demonstration in case it helps others!
Here, I’ll be using @cocoelleansims’ Dior Necklace, available on her Patreon!
First, you’ll need to append the item. Go into File > Append, then double click the item. You’ll be brought to a bunch of folders. Select the Object folder and double click the mesh.
Most blender creators are nice enough to name the item(s) as what you’ll be looking for, or make it the only item in the file. If you’re confused on what the item is, I personally just select all of the items and delete the ones that aren’t what I’m looking for ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
When the object appears, click the name in your menu, and in Object Modifiers (wrench icon), you should find the armature modifier already added. Change the “Object” location to the name of your rig (in my case, BiaRig)
After that, you can do whatever you need to do to fit it to your sim. It’s important to note that with .blend file exclusive items, symmetry is not guaranteed, so using elastic deform to symmetrically sculpt may not come out the way you intend. Here, I’m scaling and rotating the necklace in edit mode
And TADA! You’re done!
Troubleshooting under the cut
Problem 1: Item doesn’t move with sim
Check your weights in Object Data Properties. If it’s blank, that means none were assigned. For items like jewelry, this is a minor setback. You’ll instead have to move the item into the posed position using G. For items like nails and clothing, that will be a different matter that I will have to address separately. In the meantime, contact the creator if possible.
Problem 2: Item is weirdly deformed
There are two causes to this problem:
1. The way it was weighted.
For items like jewelry, this is a minor setback. You’ll instead have to move the item into the posed position using G. For items like nails and clothing, I have yet to figure out a fix, so I’d advise contacting the creator if possible about the issue.
2. Your object is in a different position than your rig. (Most common)
If you’ve moved your rig in object mode at all, any objects not parented to the rig object must match the EXACT location, rotation, and/or scale of the rig. To prevent this in the future, I recommend dressing your sim first, parenting it to your rig and THEN add/create the pose.
Creating Poses in Blender 2.8/2.9/3.0 - Rigs & Compatibility Tips for S4S
🔔 Update as of October 4th 2022: Sims 4 Studio released a new beta version and now supports the Blender version 3.3. Therefore, the info below concerning S4S is obsolete, but some tips might be still useful, if you need to switch between different Blender versions or maybe you like to use the prepared rigs I shared below. Leaving the post up here, just in case.
In our Pose Makers server I notice more and more questions about working in newer Blender versions and how to make poses/animations created in the newer Blender versions compatible for S4S, which until now, only supports the 2.7 series.
Some people would like to use the new features and the more modern & convenient interface. Some people are struggling to get the old 2.7 series to work on their computers.
And since I am sort of in the process of moving to Blender 3.0 (from 2.7) myself, I decided to write down what I understand to be the options, hoping that this will be helpful to someone out there and so that I can refer to this post in the future. Feedback is also welcome, and I will add more info if I learn more.
For convenience, I also re-enabled the textures on the S4S rigs for Blender 2.8/2.9/3.0 and share the prepared rigs below.
Modern themes for Blender 3.6 Alpha. Contribute to kame404/blender-themes development by creating an account on GitHub.
Wanna spruce up your Blender Layout? Use these themes!
To install, go to Edit > Preferences > Themes and click Install. Then locate the folder and choose a theme of your choice! It will be applied automatically
