Just published~cc magic guide to help you get started 🧙🪄 https://youtu.be/qarPD2NjvRA #sims3 #sims3guide #ccmagic #sims3cc #sims3youtuber #sims3youtubechannel #sims3gamer #simsccfinds #sims3ccshopping #sims3ccfinds #thesimsfashion #thesimscc #sims3tutorials #sims3lag #fixsims3 https://www.instagram.com/p/ClqSsksurYc/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
This tutorial has been a long time coming, like 4 years coming. I haven't seen anyone talk about this process, I think I'm the only one who found it. When I was first learning how to upload cc lots to the community I asked several big cc lot creators how they do it, they said they took pictures of each and every cc object they used in their game with their phone, and made a list of it afterwards. This is a daunting and incredibly tedious task. I'm more of a work smarter not harder kind of girl, so I figured this way out, it worked much better for me.
So the first thing you're going to need is:
The sims 3 Pack multi-extractor
S3PE , if you don't already have it.
And an organized cc folder, you can use my template here, if you don't already have an organization process.
First you have to share your lot, pretty simple process, you were going to do this anyway, right.
This is what the export process should look like in game.
And when it's done.
You should see an "Export" folder in your Documents > Electronic Arts > Sims 3 folder.
You should see the lot you just uploaded in sims3pack file form.
Go ahead and create a folder on your desktop, call it "convert" just for simplicity.
Drag and drop your exported lot into the convert folder you just created on your desktop.
Now you're going to find the multi-extractor tool you just downloaded and installed. I keep all of my utilities in a tools folder, i recommend you do the same if you haven't already,
Browse for the converted folder on your desktop, you can do this for both boxes. Then hit "Extract".
All this does is convert the pack file into a package file, very promising, now you have both.
Open up the package file, click tag at the top for a more easier process. Now you're going to find all of the OBJD files in the package file. You'll also see pattern files if you used cc patterns. This is where an organized cc folder comes into play. I already know that this CC stair object is in my BUILDSTAIRS folder, I simply find the file, place it in the converted file.
You're going to do this for all the objects and patterns. Once you've found every piece of cc used in the build, you'll just create a new folder in the "Converted" folder called "CC". Put all the cc in it. You can organize this further if you'd like. Like build and buy mode, patterns, etc. It makes it easier for simmers who may already have that cc in their game, so they won't have to install twice, or run the risk of duplicates.
Then you'll retitle the Converted folder to the name of your lot, Zip it, upload it to mediafire or simfileshare, then simply share the link!
I've tested this with hundreds of files and a lot with 23 cc files. S3PE is a powerful tool that can do a lot of the heavy lifting for you.
If you want to make this process even easier, I recommend creating the lot folder on your desktop early on, copy and pasting sets of cc you intend to use in it before you actually build it in game, then just delete whatever you didn't use in the build, you can double check using this tutorial process above.
I don't believe there to be any tutorials on how to upload lots with cc to the community, many people just hope the cc objects somehow transfer over through the exchange, and some use the pain staking process of taking pictures of every object they just placed down on the lot.
However, if you're like me, and like to tune out to some jams, and freely build with w/e you're got in your mods folder, this may be a less stressful method to use. I don't have to worry about what I used in the build before uploading it, I can easily find it in S3PE, and I'm very familiar with my own CC folders so I'll know exactly where to find the file.
This may be a bit confusing lol so I’ll try to make it easy to understand.
This is the best medium I could find for my longer playthroughs.
Each season is 28 days. 28 x 4 = 112.
112 days = 1 sim year.
This is only kind of important for the estimations.
I use this mod to extend the life spans of all creatures in the game. I use 10+ PETA + everything, I think it’s in the first flavor of the mod. But it’s the longest lifespan available. Then in game in aging I set the lifespans to the highest and bump all the ages to the right that’s how I got the calculations below.
These are the calculations:
baby = 100 days will turn 1-2
toddler = 188 days + 12 2-7 <Optional - turn off aging for these years
child = 208 days 8-13 <Optional - turn off aging for these years
teen = 418 days 14-18 < more exact estimate
young adult = 542 days 18 - 23 < for exact estimate
adult = 1252 days 24-35 < for exact estimate
elder = 632 days 36-42 <for exact estimate
This is how the sims technically age with the PETA life extensions and the sim year. I could either turn off aging for the toddler and child years to give a more realistic growing process. Or turn off seasons, summer and winter gets extended for 2 more EA months. That’s optional and entirely depends on how much more time I want with that sim in my specific household.
Either way this mod calculates those ages for you. The cool part about this mod is that it’ll calculate a sims birthday and your sim will age up throughout their life chapter to let you know when they technically turned that age. You won’t get a prompt to throw them a birthday party or anything like that, but I like to every now and then because I always thought we should have more opportunities to throw birthday parties in the sims.
The technical aging calculations don’t really make a lot of sense to my playstyle but this was my compromise for a longer life span that didn’t break the game’s engine and was well within the limitations to continue the save for years to come (in real time). So it was my trade off.
Nraas Relativity compensates greatly for that in which I can get my game running at the slowest speed possible and get the most out of my sim days. That way a full sim year will actually feel like a year, because it can take almost 2 hours for me to finish a full sim day. So each new day is a new gaming session for me, I have alot more things to fill up in my days.
My interval is set to 11. I also adjust the needs decay and skill learning in the menu, it calculates this for me, combined with my slower skill learning mod this makes the play more interesting imo, and the nraas mod is calculating the new values the slow skill mod has set (I’m pretty sure this is because I merge my mods which automatically creates a patch). It’s just a more realistic speed overall for my sims lives. It should take my sims almost a lifetime to master one skill unless they are very gifted in something specifically. I have no problem playing with ordinary sims who never master anything. It’s not a requirement for anything in the game, for all of the RH jobs you just have to increase the skill in general to gain performance. And getting promotions shouldn’t happen as quickly either, it should feel earned, so the rate of working on all the objects in your job with UC now has a better adjusted rewards system imo. The rate of decay for work performance isn’t effected either.
And when a sim does master a skill they receive a reward in the mail, recognized by all for their mastery. It’s like a nobel peace prize. Everyone doesn’t have to be that special and it seems a bit overkill for most of the stories I want to tell. This has actually inspired me to work on skills even more with sims because they actually have to work at that skill in order to see improvement. And I will use MC to give my sims a base level of skills in the beginning of all playthrough’s only if they are starting older, of course they would have learned a thing or two in all that time so it just builds immersion and makes things more convenient for me.
From Igazor “ Speeds under 10 might be too much for the game engine to handle and are not recommended. “
This is why I don’t jiggle my interval any lower than 11. I also use relativity mods for skyrim and there is a fundamental understanding of time spans in that games engine as well. It’s simply how the engine runs from the water flow, to the sky’s coding, to the reflections, to the traffic, to the animations, to the scripted objects. It’s all counting itself at intervals and you will eventually break your save file if you go lower. It won’t even last a full sim year. And changing the interval back won’t fix it and taking the mod out mid playthrough is just throwing gas on the flame. Your save file won’t be salvageable.
I’ve spent a good amount of time finding a doable medium for my playstyle. I like a more realistic play and timeline of events, but I have to compromise with the games limitations. My loopholes are turning off either aging or seasons modularly throughout my plays but I find I won’t even go for it because the sim days itself are fulfilling enough for my taste.
So this is the slowest time and aging I’ve found that will still work alongside story progression without breaking your game. So if you’re interested in getting all the benefits of story progression without feeling like you’ve just blinked and missed two generations then this masterlist might just be more your speed.
How to make a more realistic school with SonyaYu's UC: School Roleplay Masterlist
The latest update comes with an interaction "Sit in class" and "listen to lecture" which uses University resources and animations.
Very excited for this feature, but the mod itself pushes sims to do a variety of things.
I would much rather have my sims sit in a class and take notes through most of the school day like irl.
Set Up
School outfits: You do not have to use uniforms but if you do I recommend Dresscode mod.
This is the best football mesh I could find with shoulderpads.
The cheerleader uniform can be used with any cc clothes you have with a cropped tank top and skirt. Just set teens to use adult clothes in NRAAS MC CAS menu.
So the only functional rooms should be classrooms with desks and white board (you can also transmogrify blackboard cc into the uni whiteboard), and a cafeteria with cafeteria helper mod.
All the other rooms you typically add on a school lot should be purely for deco or locked for classroom schedule changes.
And admin offices should have deco pc's to eliminate the chances of sims going to use those computers.
You can place custom role generator markers, and use custom sliders to reduce the size of some of the sims.
This is because I believe I changed the age of the custom role sims who were sent to the high school lot in the past and the mod created new sims to come to those markers who were adults.
So I keep them as adults but change their outfits to make them look like teens, and make them shorter (or taller depending) so they can blend in with the world's teen population.
I typically make 3 cheerleaders, 3 goths, 3 jocks, and 3 nerds. You can transmogrify deco objects in the school instead of having the weird white x marker in the middle of the floor.
I also suggest having these sims come in during separate hours in the morning or you'll get a slight lag freeze in the morning when everyone is going to school. Cheerleaders, nerds, and jocks can come in earlier, and goths or potheads can come in much later.
With Flotheories relax to sit mod, these sims will autonomously sit in the available seats in the classrooms. Since they are adults they do not have the push for objects like how teen sims do. So they will sit there either quietly or talking, as long as you don't mind them chattering you should be fine. You can also click available seats in the classrooms and send the sims to come and sit. They will sit for 2 hours, so you may or may not have to do so again.
This is varied because they may want to go to the cafeteria and get food, in which I don't mind because once the teen and child sims get hungry they will autonomously go to the cafeteria to get food anyway.
And they all tend to get hungry around the same time (11:30 or 12:00 pm) which is a good time to have school lunch in game, anyway.
You can either call them back into the classrooms after lunch or let them do their own thing.
Some of the sims will come back to sit on their own (because this lot will only have eating and sitting options available during those school times), some may use the bathroom.
But eventually they will come back to sit. Unless you’ve unlocked other rooms where they can do other things.
I also recommend leaving some of these sims on the lot afterschool as well as creating another role marker for afterschool "teachers". This is for when you sign your kids up for afterschool programs, the UC mod will keep them on the lot until the club times are done.
You can either open up certain rooms like a music room, or gym, have them do their homework in the library of the school lot, etc.
The other assigned sims will continue to do various things around the school and with the opened rooms they may or may not join in.
This just adds more immersion so your child/teen sims aren't the only sims left on the lot afterschool.
For school staff I use deco people as hallway monitors, principal, nurse, librarian, and cafeteria cook.
Transmogrify any custom buffet (I typically go for a university or school themed buffet table) into ITF food distributor, then transmogrify the cafeteria helper into a poster or any misc object in the cafeteria room.
Room idea's for the realistic school:
Math room. Desks and chair, uni white board. Any kind of deco to signal a math room.
History room. Same as above.
Simlish (english writing) room. Same as above.
Cafeteria. Cafeteria Helper. ITF food fridge. Tables and chairs.
Welcome Center/check in center. Could be by or in the lobby. Purely Deco.
Admin offices. Conference room or smaller rooms. Principal office. Purely Deco.
Nurse office. Purely Deco.
Teacher break room. Purely Deco.
Science Room. Chemical station. White board. Science Deco. Lock this room, because it's functional. Open this room one day every week or every other week, and close the other classrooms. This sends sims to this classroom more to simulate a change in class schedule.
Alternatively, you can lock and unlock rooms after lunch to simulate a change in class schedule daily as well. It's minimal maintenance but more immersive.
Art Room. Easels. No white board, instead place a uni podium stand (transmogrify it into a desk or rug in front of a painting to simulate the teacher showing the students how to paint). Same as above, open this room throughout the week or after lunch.
Gym. Gym equipment. Same as above, lock or unlock.
Music room. Music equipment. Same as above.
Storage room. Purely Deco.
Assembly room. Stage with podium stand. Seats all throughout the room. Lock all functional rooms in the school so all sims will be sent to the assembly room. You can have this be all day for an important announcement or "special guest" event. You can also place a big TV screen on the stage to simulate an educational film for the students.
Computer Lab. Functional PC's. Lock other rooms to send sims to this room.
Library. Tables and chairs. Bookshelves. Functional PC's. Up to you to lock or unlock. Some students may get a pass to go to the library during class.
School dances, Proms, and events:
You can either set up an empty room on the school lot, or have a premade room somewhere else in town.
Create a party and invite all the teen sims in the world to that party, make it formal or costume party, etc.
You can set up a prom room at something like a Hotel lot. And keep that room locked all year round until the party starts, can do the same for this room in the school lot.
This makes it so you can have several school based party events with more control over what happens during these dances.
Like a school dance king and queen, have them relax in the throne chairs for two hours throughout the party. Use this mod to turn off EA Proms altogether.
Spring Fling (Formal wear).
Valentines Dance (Formal).
Prom (Formal).
Winter wonderland dance (Formal).
Costume Halloween Party Dance.
Talent Show, everyday wear (with Karaoke, band items, and comic mic on a stage).
You can create a separate sports field lot somewhere close to the school or anywhere else in town. Then set up the lot with seasonal lot marker during Spring with various outdoor activities.
Invite all the teen sims to the lot as an outdoor party.
This can simulate a Field day or Olympic sport day.
This sports field can also double for school sports team nights.
So a basketball court lot.
And the same field day lot during Fall (so no objects are obstructing) with a soccer goal at both ends.
Whatever sims will auto play on the basketball court or soccer goal.
And you can use Flotheories sit mod to make everyone else you invited relax for 2 hours.
Field Trips. Can be afterschool or on the weekend. Museums. The Zoo. City Hall. Can all be lots used more for this roleplay style.
I recommend getting the always throw great parties lifetime wish so you don't suffer from the negative moodlet from these events.
How to roleplay more schoolwork for sims:
This mod makes it so everyone can work from home. You can have teen sims work from home to simulate doing homework for several classrooms. While they may have one journal for the entire day, this can just be assigned by one classroom.
You can also have your teen sims practice writing, or create a nonfiction book titled "Math 101, Math 102" etc. While the book will be published and your teen sims will collect royalties. so this may not work as an alternative. However, you can pretend this is an allowance given to your teen sims for good behavior.
The journal mod does this much better imo. And to make creating a book more interesting, you can have a sim create a poetry book or homework helper book. That way if they collect royalties on it, it makes a bit more sense.
This mod allows sims to study skills online. This can simulate them learning what classrooms are available. Math = logic. Writing = writing. History = logic. Music = music. Art = painting, sculpting.
You can also have a school testing day. This will be once or twice a year, preferably midterms and finals. Open the computer lab, and close all the other rooms.
So as not to OP your skills, I combine a
slower skill learning mod
, and
skills lose progress mod
. This makes this play more challenging and doesn't max out skills as quickly or maybe even at all.
You do not have to have your teen sims do this indefinitely, they may only do this for 30 minutes to an hour at home or the library or afterschool on the school lot, although with the various clubs they can just practice physically in the rooms that are now unlocked and available to use.
This Parenthood set from ATS
, can simulate big projects for sims to do. You could place the chess board items in the library so that sims may randomly work on it.
But I'd mostly set this up somewhere on the home lot.
And a project can be assigned maybe once or twice throughout the year.
Typically in the beginning of the school year (Fall) or right before summer or after holiday break (Winter).
This is best to set up for a science fair event.
You can either create a science fair room on the school lot but keep it locked for most of the school year, or create another science fair room in another part of the world.
I recommend in a community center or Hotel. Just one room.
Here you can place the science board's and completed projects on various tables throughout the room.
And create a party to invite teen sims and their parents and teachers to the lot.
I would add a buffet table with tables and chairs, a podium stand so when a sim speaks other will tune in to listen (simulates an awards show), but for the most part they will just view the boards and art projects and talk throughout the party time.
I have a few projects on the go~ it’s a lot of the reason I haven’t been posting much here 🫠 I’m particularly anxious to get out the how to install store content without the launcher seeing as it’s not working rn for a lot of players 😩 BUT this way is way better anyways ~ The more stuff in yr launcher the more yr game lags~ 🤷♀️ #sims3 #sims3cc #sims3glitches #sims3tutorials #sims3game #simsyoutuber #sims3youtubechannel #simsisbetterthanreallife #sims3life https://www.instagram.com/p/Ck1lhf0hYQ8/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
Hi! Sorry to bother but I just wanted to ask you - Is there a tutorial on how to create snow ball you did with Bella and Mortimer? I have an idea to make functional snow globe Snowy snowy man from the Store
Hello! you’re not a bother at all!
You can use my snowglobe if you like! All you have to do is replace the mesh and make sure that the snow texture is at the same spot as in my textures. You might want to turn them arounf though because….: http://greenplumbboblover.tumblr.com/post/143503487165/have-a-wip-just-need-to-change-the-direction-of
So just turn the UV map around in case you have that issue.
BUT! since you wanted a tutorial on how to do it, this is one way to do it without having to clone my object!
Things you wanna use:
TSRW: CLICK ME!
Some basic TSRW knowledge!
I won’t explain the meshing/export bits. I will explain how to use groups in this tutorial though! Like duplicating them in TSRW. And uhm… some stuff that most people don’t know about which is the reason I’m writing this tutorial as well! :D
1. Boost up your TSRW and select a decoration piece (I usually go with the Cowplant) You could use the tissue box as well but that one is not recolourable, although you can give it a mask when importing it in TT3 (texture tweaker)… aand i’m rambling again!
2. Usually you want to check how many groups that you might have! Let’s take a look!:
- Allright group 0 is the shadow map, so that makes one group.
- Group 1 is the glass, though if you look closely you can see that I used 2 spheres, this is because I wanted a glass shader, and glass shaders don’t really like textures, so I usually try to avoid that. So make sure the outer sphere is the glass one
- Group 2 is the inner sphere. This sphere will have the animated snow!
- And group 3 (Which I selected) is just that one group that doesn’t need anything special
Now you don’t have to do it in this order, in fact it’s just a small explanation about why I grouped certain things this way, and why there are 2 spheres.
3. ‘But how do I find an object with 4 groups?!’ Simple! You don’t! BUT! That doesn’t mean that you can’t do it yourself! In order to get more groups, you want to select the group that uses your mesh. NEVER the shadow map!
In this case, Group 1 is the non-shadow map mesh, so I want to duplicate that one. But there are cases where Group 0 is the non-shadow map mesh. So do check if it’s the right one!
Click yes when the pop up message pops up!
4. Duplicate it 2 times since we have 4 groups!
Your mesh tab should look like this:
- Now import your mesh and your textures!
5. THE GLASS SHADER Let’s add some shaders! I’ll start with the glass shader, so go to the group that needs the glass shader and click on ‘material’ and the 3 dots button, now another window should pop up.
- Expand the ‘shader’ tab. It should be set to ‘phong’ or ‘phong alpha’ by default, but we want to change it to either ‘glass for objects’ or ‘glass for objects translucent’. I usually go with Glass object and delete most of the things TSRW generates after it will ask you if it could fill the recommending settings. So make sure you delete anything but not these settings:
(In case you’d want to know how to delete certain settings, just right click on the thing you want to delete and select ‘remove’.)
-Select the ‘Done’ button
6. THE ANIMATED TEXTURE’S SHADER
Aaaand there we are! Let’s make some animated snow! :D Let’s go to the group that you want to give an animated texture
- Go to the shader/material tab again by clicking that 3 dots button again.
- Switch it to Phong alpha and click ‘Yes’ to make the changes.
- Make sure you keep the settings listed here:
(NOTE: Your Diffuse map will show you the multiplier that all groups share, I’ll explain later on how to make an individual diffuse map, it’s okay to delete the diffuse map as well, we’ll be adding this one).
7. BUT WHAT DO I DO IF SOMETHING’S MISSING? LIKE FOR EXAMPLE, AVERAGE COLOR?!
Weelll lemme tell you the secrets of shader settings! :D So, ever strumbled across this page?: http://simswiki.info/wiki.php?title=Sims_3:Shaders
And you were like ‘What the hell is this all suppose to be?’ or did you close the page because ‘AAH TO MANY NUMBERS’? Well this page is pretty interesting when you’re working with shaders and the settings that we’ve been removing. Right now we’ll be adding some! :D
“But… but… what does it all mean?!” Let’s get started!
Let’s scoll all the way to ‘phong’ and let’s take a look at all those numbers and settings:
All right so you can ignore the IDs. They might be interesting for some people, but not in this case. The things that ARE interesting however are the names and types.
- Names
You might recognize some of the names, like bloomfactor. It’s in our TSRW’s shader list’s settings! But we’re also looking at some settings that aren’t in there. Those settings are compatible with the ‘Phong’ shader. For example, Phong has ‘Transparency’ and in the ‘Simskin’ shader it isn’t listed. This is because transparency isn’t compatible with the ‘Simskin’ shader. Bummer, I know right? But you can always switch it to a shader that is compatible with transparency! Like simhair, and the phong and the phong-alpha shader, etc.
So that’s why the names are important, and to find the correct shader in TSRW’s list which we will soon discuss.
- Types
Types are really hard to explain if you don’t have the correct window in front of you. But the types are REALLY important. Because, it will show you the correct settings for when you want to add a settings. so let’s move on to actually adding stuff!
- Adding
- Click the +add button:
Look! Another window! :D
Did you recognize the ‘Type’? It’s exactly what you think it is! Imagine the ‘Property’ to be name, because it really is just that. And the name values are part of the ‘Type.
All right, so let’s add some shader settings. First I want to look at the shader list, and remember the shader setting we want to add. In this case, we want to add a texture! :D
- So let’s expand the ‘Property’ and find the Diffuse map and click it:
But now it’s time to freak out! Because when you expand the ‘Type’ button, and look up the type that the shader setting has, you’ll notice there is not texture listed. No! Don’t freak out! It took me a while to get the correct settings for this as well- hell I had to ask someone if they knew, and this is the correct type for textures:
But TSRW won’t let you go until you change the Num values! Why are they there? Well, let’s take the ‘DiffuseUVSelector - Float3′ for example. ‘Float’ Is a type, so you want to choose that one as a ‘type’. But what’s the 3 for? Well, see for yourself! Because when you expand the ‘Num values’ you’ll see a 3!
So your property would be ‘DiffuseUVSelector’, your type would have been ‘Float’ and your ‘Num values’ 3!
(if it just says ‘Float’ or if there is no number, just choose 0)
But what about textures? You want to set those to 4! So for textures (Yes all textures, masks, specular maps, overlay, multiplier, etc). Your setting should always be this (besides the property of course):
Soooo why are we adding a new Diffuse map after deleting the original one?
Well we want to have an individual image for the snow! :D Nobody wants the face of Mortimer and Bella (Or something else) to scroll/animate across the entire glass! D: We want snow! :D
- Click OK!
So too lazy to make your own snow? Well here is the snow texture: http://simfileshare.net/download/144111/
So you can either use this texture or maybe another texture! But I would recommend using a 1024x1024 sized one with snow flakes (Or maybe even flowers!)
- Import your image in the diffuse map we just created!
8. Animate your texture!
Phew that was long! But let’s get to the exciting part! The reason why I explained how to add stuff is not just because of the Diffuse map, but we also need a ‘Uv scoll speed’ setting. Usually it’s set as 0, which means you have a non-moving/animating texture. But, when you change the values to 0.2, it will scroll for 0.2 seconds. My snowglobe is set as 0.126.
BUT WAIT THERE IS MORE! So, 0.126;0 is what you’ll see when checking my settings, but the ‘;’ is more like a ‘wall’ or like a line. I’m not sure if you are familiar with the X and Y axis in general (it will come back to you when you’re familiar with UV mapping or meshing) But the X axis is the horizontally line (Left, right) and the Y is the vertically (Up, down). So in this case the 0.126 is the X axis and the 0 is the Y axis.
Now I didn’t know how to fix the snow for going horizontally after looking at it after the release of the TS2 to TS3 set. In fact, I turned the UV map around even though I didn’t had to, so I thought it would be nice to share that with you!
- Add the UV scroll speed with it’s correct settings
- Change the value to 0;0.126 (or maybe another value, you can always play around with it! 0.2 is super speed! Check out @davidmont‘s awesome twinkle lights! You can create awesome things with uv speed scroll: https://davidmont.tumblr.com/post/71243029766/here-david-once-again-twinkly-twinkly-strange
And you’re basically done! :D That’s how you make an animated snowglobe with infinite snow!
Let me know if you have any questions! Sorry for the long texts. >-<