#and i'm trying out a new reshade preset !!!!

[birdietrait]

made a vampire for @hauntedtrait's cas challenge <3

(4) demure pastels // (dragon) ginger hair // (hawk) hazel // (6) 1950s // (cooking) scars

[violetlypurple]

With the Windows recall shit rolling around, I'm going to be That Girl and put it out there that Linux is, indeed, still a thing, and a thing that has come a long way with regards to user experience and gaming. And a thing that runs 75% of the internet but anyways Saying, "Linux isn't just for nerds and enthusiasts anymore!" wouldn't be an entirely truthful statement, but if all you do is play games, go on socials, and hang in discord... It'll work? I'm speaking to a target audience here, posting from an FFXIV-focused blog, so let me dive into it a little for that target audience, with the assumption that none of you are out there being sweaty over Apex, Overwatch, Fortnite, or whatever zoomers play these days. Basically anything you play through Steam will run flawlessly* on Linux. Valve have baked the Proton compatibility layer into Steam for a while, and since Valve's Steam Deck runs on Linux, they are on point with updates for it. This means that Steam will do the work of making Windows games run on Linux for you without any additional software or tinkering. This includes the Steam version of FFXIV**.

Now, I can't speak to or ensure that reshade or any 3rd party plugin will work. In my case (details below the cut) reshade was more or less intact but all the presets broke so I just kinda said fuck it and removed the remnants. But thats ok, right? You want to try out the 7.0 graphical updates without instagram filters, right? Don't you..?

Mods and other plugins? Don't know, don't care, frankly don't like that they exist outside the narrow window of seeing people's fun screenshots. Sorry not sorry. That said, I have seen some things on the googles.

There are obviously various things that work differently/don't work on Linux like they do on Windows. I can't account for every case, so google is your friend here. The one particularly notable case I ran into was screenshare with Discord being unable to deliver audio, which makes group watching things like netflix a bit of a problem. There are technically workarounds but again, Target Audience.

Sooo... Yeah? If you're mildly tech savvy, go get Ubuntu, install it on a second drive, external drive, or even just try it out from the usb you put the install media on for an hour. If you wanna get spicy with it, do some looking around to see what distribution of Linux might suit you better. Pop_OS is also pretty beginner friendly. Yes, there are some adjustments and some things to learn, but if you have the energy to be mad at what Microsoft is doing, you have the energy to learn a few new things to get away from it. As with anything related to messing with your operating system; back up your important things, just in case!

The Notable Caveats:

*I can't speak to all multiplayer games, since some use anti-cheat or DRM that may not work on Linux. But frankly, a quick google of "will [game] run on Linux" can get you a quick yes or no on if this will be a problem for you. In my case, I mostly care about Helldivers 2 with its nProtect, and it works fine. BG3 has no problems either.

**You might be thinking, "But Basement Witch Noone Knows, I don't use the Steam version of FFXIV!" And yes, that does complicate matters. My brief tutorial is below the cut, should you find yourself committed to this notion, or just have a morbid curiosity.

Ok, so I don't have the Steam version of FFXIV either. There are two ways around this that I am aware of.

The first, which I would not recommend, is to get a 3rd party Linux launcher. If you care about this Windows recall thing, you probably fully understand why I would advise against using a 3rd party app to put your username and password into. If you are willing to do some research into the providers of these tools to determine their trustworthiness, I can't stop you, but I wasn't interested.

The second is Steam! Again! A fun fact about FFXIV is that it runs pretty self-contained in its folder. I have shit internet, so I have been just copying the whole ass SquareEnix folder off my drive and onto other drives to save myself two days of downloading for years now.

If you have Linux installed and familiarize yourself with the Home folder where your usual Documents/Pictures/Videos folders are, I just copy pasted my whole SquareEnix folder in there, to the cries and lamentations of Linux nerds everywhere that would insist I put it somewhere proper. Anyway. Once it's there, all you need to do is add it to Steam. In the Steam Library there is a button to Add a Game in the bottom right corner. When you click that there is an option to Add Non-Steam Game. When you click that, you will get a prompt to locate and select the game. Here you want to hit Browse, navigate to your Home folder, SquareEnix, FINAL FANTASY XIV - A Realm Reborn, boot. in the boot folder you will need to select ffxivboot.exe. Once you have selected it and clocked Open, it will return you to the Add Non-Steam Game list and you should see ffxivboot.exe selected. Hit Add Selected Programs, and that's it! You can now launch your bodged-in copy of FFXIV through steam, and it will apply the necessary Proton layer to make the launcher and the game work as normal. Yay Linux!

i use arch, btw

[itspupppycat]

I bought six kits this morning. I'm so glad I have a job again (and it pays weekly)!

With that in mind, I decided to switch to a vanilla save. I also downloaded a new reshade preset to try out. I really hope I like it. I already use one preset from this creator so that's promising.

I think I'm going to play with the non-binary teen my son made for me, Kai (he/they). I haven't played with them for a while. Kai also has a cat named Fred (he/him). He is also an animal enthusiast so I think I'll have them adopt a new pet soon. I really wish I had HSY so they could graduate high school early but maybe that pack will finally be 50% off during the holiday season since a new EP is coming out right before that.

[itsdejamils]

♡ Bachelor's Studio ♡ (Updated with new reshade preset!!!)

This masculine studio is just perfect for a bachelor who loves cooking and the arts. The bedroom is elevated and overlooks the kitchen and dining area. The living room sports a Simsung™ TV and cozy wood burner.

I absolutely love how this apartment came out and I can't wait to share the sim that's going to live here in my save! Also, I'm sorry I haven't posted in like a week, I've been really busy recovering from surgery and trying to shop for back to school lol. Happy simming! ♡

simterest | simblr | gallery ID - itsdejamils

[lovegoldz]

hi! i'm kira, 25, and black af. here you can find all my links and resources and all the fun stuff i have going on. see ya!

〄 where to find me: twitter pinterest youtube tiktok wattpad

〄 extras: my stuff cc finds

faq ─ 〄 what reshade do you use? i jump between bohodreams by neecxle and serene by amelie. i'm currently attempting to make my own preset and falling apart about it lol

〄 what do you play on? i currently play on a lenovo ideapad 5. i'm in the process of saving for an actual pc.

〄 what do you use to record & take pics? girl xbox gamebar when it decides to work.

〄 where did you find ____? just send me an ask or comment and i'll let you know! i keep my mods folder pretty organized as far as CAS stuff goes. if it pertains to any decorating inside of a build, i promise you i don't know, but i will try my hardest to find it.

〄 do you play anything else besides the sims 4? not really, no. i play animal crossing here and there and i dabble in games that catch my attention like little nightmares lol. outside of ts4, i write and am in the process of writing a new book. i've linked my wattpad and will eventually post random thoughts here and there about what i'm writing.

〄 current series: RUSH ⌘ started: 00/00/2023 genre: slice of life, drama | m!: vulgar language, mature content 〄 sophomore year at hillman university is right around the corner, and lennox already has planned out her entire sophomore year. when she gets on campus, that plan goes somewhat according to plan, and she begins learning what sisterhood and friendship – in and out of organizations – really mean.

[pariisxoxo]

sims 4 cas!!

scarlett shelle

(tumblr pls don't make the image blurry)

i'm back with cas! i'm currently trying out different reshade presets since i just got it and it seems to be working fine with my computer lol but here is scarlett shelle heavenly inspired by the office siren aesthetic if u haven't noticed ;) i love this aesthetic and it was really fun making her!

i'm also gonna get a new background i actually hate the one i have rn :sob:

[pictureamoebae]

Hi Amoebae, literally what would we do without you & your kindness + wealth of knowledge! I was wondering if you could point me in the direction of a tutorial that showed how to update reshade? I’m on 5.7 and trying to upgrade to the 5.8

Hi anon! I hope you're having a great day. I'm sorry I'm only just getting round to answering this.

Updating is super easy, but first I'll say if you're happily using 5.7 the only real reason to update is either because you just like being up-to-date with stuff, or because there are new additions to shaders that are included with the latest download. But in terms of that last one, you can just go and download those shaders independently and add them manually to your shaders folder without updating the whole program.

Note to self: remember to write up that tutorial about what ReShade is and its 3 core components

If you do want to update though, the first thing to do is make a backup of your current ReShade installation.

Go to your TS4 Bin folder and copy reshade-shaders (folder), and d3d9.dll and reshade.ini, and place them somewhere else (you can make a folder that says TS4 RESHADE 5.7 if you like so you remember what it is). You can throw in copies of your current presets too if you want, just so everything is all in one place. You can then go ahead and remove the reshade-shaders folder, d3d9.dll and reshade.ini ready for a fresh installation. (This is how you delete ReShade too.)

Once you've made that backup you need to download the version of ReShade you want to install. If it's the latest one, grab it from the main reshade.me page. Otherwise there's an unofficial repository of every old ReShade binary (that's the d3d9.dll program/installer that makes it work -- it doesn't include the shaders), so you can download your preferred version there.

Now go ahead with the installation as normal. It'll ask you if you want to download all the various shader packs again. You can if you want, but if you have added any additional ones, edited any of them, or just want to keep what you've been using, just download the standard ones (so it sets up the correct paths for you), and then pop back in the ones you backed up at the start.

Now, I think I saw something about the most recent ReShade version adding an easier way to update. Or maybe I dreamt it. I haven't been checking things for a few weeks so I'm not sure. But if so, you may have already worked out how to do that, and it might be even quicker than my method above (which is itself pretty quick once you know what you're doing)!

[boringbones]

Hi! I've seen a couple of people dragging you on twitter, and while I don't agree with them and think they were rude, I do agree that the terrain textures look kinda like pudding. Even if this is a preference, ansel filters don't help. I've seen you use them in all your visual mods and I don't think this is fair because what people see doesn't look exactly like that, people need to see a before and after in a texture replacement. And I also wanted to ask you, for what audience was your beta skin created exactly? Because the only way to make it look good is to use ansel filters and I'm sure almost no one uses them with The Sims 3. Please don't take this as a negative, I don't want to look like those people and I've already seen that you've received harsh criticism but you need to do something about ansel filters because people don't understand what they are seeing. Putting that aside, I do think you are doing a good job and the wall replacements look very good, although your style is quite far from what is the essence of The Sims 2 and that can be seen kinda off, it fits better in The Sims 3 imo.

Fortunately my memory is so quick to eliminate these situations that I don't even remember when it happened xD

In 2020, when I went back to working on OldSunset with everything, I ended up discovering Ansel filters. And they changed my life, because for the first time I was able to have a game as beautiful as anyone who shared screenshots with reshade and never showed their preset. And when I used it, my game looked completely different due to lack of knowledge.

With more and more people asking me how I managed to make my game look good, I identified an opportunity to grow my audience by doing one of the things I love, teaching. So I started teaching. I started doing Sunday lives, in my pajamas, teaching, answering questions and showing the results.

From then on I started to imagine:

When I started oldsunset I didn't have the best computer, I had (if I'm not mistaken) a 9500 gt from Nvidia. It met my needs but it wasn't the best card in the world.

In 2019 I decided that I would invest in a better graphics card as a birthday present for myself, so I gave myself an RTX 2060, it took over a year for me to discover that I could use Ansel filters on the TS3. Again, when I found out was also when I started teaching.

As I was making this knowledge accessible to everyone, I figured: If more people can see how amazing ts3 can be with this, more people can come back to create amazing mods for ts3. It's a two-way street. So I started teaching IDEALIZING this future: "In the future, all gamers will have a graphics card with access to Ansel filters and will be able to leave behind old, outdated looks and embrace new, defined looks."

That future may or may not be now, but one thing is for sure, I won't go back without Ansel filters. As much as I tried throughout this period. It simply doesn't work.

That said, once I see the game from another perspective, details that didn't bother me before started to bother me. The textures started to become very demarcated, pixelated and with an aesthetic style that I didn't like. So I started creating mods to solve this. You might say, "Wouldn't it be easier to just reduce the definition of the Ansel filters?" And the answer is: "No." Because from that point on, I saw the whole game in a blur.

As for whether it's fair or not, I'm creating for the future and I'm creating for a period where I see everyone using this knowledge to their advantage to make the game more beautiful, that being said, I create with that idea in mind. Will everyone join? Probably not, there are people satisfied with the game's current aesthetics. There are people who are proud of this and that's okay, they are different audiences and probably people who won't consume what I create. Just like I don't consume cc alpha which completely changes the aesthetics of some items in the game.

In all my content I try to be as transparent as possible that I am displaying my cc with filter presets that I teach you how to use.

In other words, I'm not depriving the public of this knowledge to make the game equal (which, by the way, in this case would be a little unfair)

As much as you think that a lot of people don't use it, I can see especially on more active Tumblrs, channels, etc., that I follow that there are a lot of people using it. Even on my server, when people share images, my subscribers are also using them. Now, I know that there is a disparity between those who use it and those who don't, but I estimate that this is due to two situations:

-Lack of knowledge on the subject (which I help resolve) -Lack of a compatible video card (which time and money over the years can help resolve)

Then you realize that there are two problems that have a solution.

You have a great point and I really appreciate it. It's a little annoying when we see something with one quality and when we put it in our game it has another. However, I allow myself not to feel guilty about it, because I teach you to get the same results, I literally take your hand and say, "I have nothing to hide, here's what I did"

If you can't have the same look today, I'm the same person who has been through this in the past and I can tell you: "When you get the chance, knowledge will be here waiting for you"

So that's what guides me on my production journey. The idea that at some point everyone who has access to this knowledge will also have visual content that perfectly matches this aesthetic. At least, from my point of view. Aesthetics is something particular and everyone has a different vision of what is beautiful.

The wall panels I'm making in ts2 go through the same situation. They are what they are because I built them with a set of filters overlaid on top of the game. It's not the same without the filters. But, again, it is not information that I hide, I always make it clear in everything I do.

That said, I hope that in the future this all makes sense and everyone can play their games from this perspective (if that's what they want)

If you have any questions, let me know

[honeyjars-sims]

Since I had to update before I was ready to, I went ahead and got Growing Together. I started a new vanilla save with the Maxis sims Dela Ostrow and Mia Hayes and gave them minor makeovers. I figured I'd share some of my gameplay. This is a one-off post so I'm just posting everything together.

Here's the happy couple with their new looks. They don't yet know what they're in for.

I tried to set up a cute romantic shot but Dela had other things on her mind. Anyway, I decided to send Dela to have a science baby.

Oops! This wasn't what I had in mind for my first play-through with infants, but here we are. Dela had twin boys: Emory is on the left, Emerson on the right.

Here's Dela breastfeeding Emory. This is my first time playing with babies since using a ReShade preset with MXAO so idk if this is new or I've just never seen it: the newborns/infants actually suckle when you feed them which is really cute.

Mia gave Emerson a little forehead kiss. I really love this interaction!

I aged them up the next morning. This is Emory who spawned with the cutest outfit. I forgot when a parent has unnatural hair colors that their kids will have random hair colors. I couldn't figure out where the dark hair color came from. Emory's trait is wiggly.

And here's Emerson! I was glad they weren't identical because the similar names were confusing me lol. Emerson originally also rolled the wiggly trait but I wanted to try something different, so he ended up with cautious. The boys both reached the First Smile milestone immediately at age up.

Dela decided the best place for tummy time was on the concrete driveway. Poor Emerson didn't approve of his mom's bad judgment.

Both moms then went inside and left Emerson to fend for himself. Guess we know who the favorite is!

Emerson ended up getting the Frequently Sneezes and Snuggly Sleeper quirks. The tired mamas were expecting to put the boys down for the night and get some rest, but having to hold Emerson threw a wrench in those plans.

Luckily Emory had no trouble sleeping on his own. Wake-up time was another story. He not only hates wake-up time but also being held! (I didn't get a pic). I love how much personality the infants get from the traits and quirks. As a former childcare worker, it was too real lol.

That's all the gameplay I completed, but here are some extras I enjoyed seeing:

This is such a sweet interaction 😭I'm curious what other interactions are available between infants as they reach more milestones.

Both little guys got the Fascinated sentiment towards each other. I forget the description but it was really cute.

I'm looking forward to playing more with this pack. It's a winner so far in my book. Also looking forward to the rest of my mods to be updated so I can get back to my usual saves lol

[daisyeyes-sims]

yet another new save! trying out the divergent mod with her

the mod gave her pt/sd and its so hard to play with. i had to make her quit her job and be a freelancer just so she could actually somewhat enjoy life (wow parallels). now she writes 2hrs max per day, cross-stitch, and watch movies with her cat. its an interesting mod. definitely not a reflection of real life, but i'm just trying to add something to make the game less cartoony.

the story was she's moving into a dead elder cat lady's apartment that came with a heap ton of wonderful cat stuff (and a cat!) and old decrepit furniture. love how i decorated the space, but i didn't take a lot pics of it (and she doesn't live there anymore whoops) (i thought i won't play with her long)

also tried out playing with ww again after a post about how to tone down the debauchery. and also trying out a bunch of reshade presets (hence the mismatched ss)

[fallouttrait]

A Huge Wip + Where I've been:

I can't recall when I did my last update post, but I wiped all of my saves! It was hard as heck to do but I felt like I was burnt out and that the game I love playing so much was feeling like a chore, so I took some time off to be with people I care about and refresh my mind.

I also uninstalled reshade which is why these photos aren't looking the best either! I think causing my gshade presets to try and work with reshade was messing with it and I couldn't get my shaders to work. I've also decided I won't try and make them work I'm just going to use stuff made for reshade.

As far as the house goes, it's very much a work in progress! I'm trying to land on a color palette, but I cannot decide for the life of me what color scheme to go with, but this will be a generations home for whatever new sim family I end with! I plan on doing werewolves again and I'm excited to see where I end up this time. I'm shooting to hopefully dive into gameplay before Sunday.

[ishgardianskypirate]

 forged in fury, tempered in ice

[technicallyswagpizza]

KAIHOLA by technicallyswagpizza

"Sea and people have made the island what it is today. The island's epic landscapes are the stuff of poetry. Sand, wind, unspoiled archipelago and the beautiful bedrock, worn smooth by glacial ice. Glistening in the afternoon sun, yellow, red and white houses cling to rocky shores and fishing boats bob in the water. The verdant pine forests turn to charming leafy tunnels, framing every view. Time stops, people live a quiet life here."

Kaiho is a word that is a bit more difficult to translate as it has a certain type of melancholic nuance to it that nostalgia or longing for something doesn't cover exactly. Kaihola is my ode to Finland, an undefinable sadness that won't go away. The world is loosely based on two islands off the coast of Finland, Hailuoto and Ahvenanmaa, and my tiny hometown up north.

FEATURES

Medium sized map.

35 lots all in all spread across the island.

Unpopulated.

Includes a base camp enabling you to use Kaihola as a travel destination.

Spanking new distant terrain and matching terrain painting textures.

Wide variety of regular spawners, no World Advenures or ITF

Custom lighting mod included in the world file.

But wait, there is more! I have made two versions for you to choose from!

#1 Empty world // Requirements:

All expansion packs except ITF (No stuff packs!). Yikes! It's a lot for an empty world and boy don't I know it! I'm fairly sure I have used every other expansion except ITF for the landscaping. Some more than the others, however if you are missing an expansion pack, the trees and shrubs I have used will simply be replaced by something else.

CC used: Distant terrain, some of the flowers and trees made by me + Hidden Springs decorative barns + Aurora Skies birch tree are included in the download.

Map is completely empty, has a wide variety of spawners and is ready to be built by you.

Empty diving lot off the coast somewhere.

Two options for world installation, either through the launcher as a sims3pack OR bypass the launcher and drop the world package file in the designated folder.

Optional terrain painting textures made by me available for download if you wish to use them for landscaping your lots in game.

⇩ Download // Mirror ⇩

#2 Built and ready to move in! // Requirements:

All expansion packs except ITF (No stuff packs!)

CC used: Rabbit hole rugs by Jynx (Pet fixed), some EA store items, my distant terrain, flowers, trees, house shells and rabbit hole recolours. All included in the download.

If you don’t have some of the expansion packs or don’t want to install the EA store content provided, the items I have used will simply be replaced by something else from your own game. I cannot promise that nothing will break, but some bits might look a little bare or funky due to the replaced items!

All the lots are built and furnished, I have left 5 empty lots for you to build and fill yourself including an empty diving lot off the coast.

Recoloured and rescripted rabbit holes. That being said, Kaihola comes with basic rabbit hole careers you would get in a vanilla game.

Two options for world installation, either through the launcher as a sims3pack OR bypass the launcher and drop the world package file in the designated folder.

Optional terrain painting textures made by me available for download if you wish to use them for landscaping your lots in game.

The church deco has snow issues. To be fixed at some point in the future, maybe?

⇩  Download // Mirror ⇩

Almost there, just few more bits!

I have created a lighting mod for Kaihola and included it in the world file itself, I would recommend at least trying it out (by taking your own lighting mod out of Mods/Packages folder to see it in action)! If you like Kaihola’s lighting and want to use it in other worlds or as a standalone mod, shoot me a message and I’ll make a package for you.

In the screenshots above I have maxed out settings and Reshade enabled, but my preset is very subtle and it only adds a soft blur effect and strengthens shadows a little bit. I don't edit my screenshots other than crop and resize them with photoshop, so basically what you see above is what you will get :>

I would strongly advise downloading Nraas Go Here and disabling boats. They will cause lag as townies have a habit of looping around with them endlessly. I'd also recommend disabling wild horses and stray pets as they tend to get stuck.

I built all the lots myself except for the following 3: A massive thank you to @silvakristiina for letting me use her de-CCd Ivars house as a base camp, I also edited a junkyard from doublemedion694′s Cladbridge-on-Stowe and the boat is an edited version of this made by @fagersims.

If you post pictures, please let me know and tag them with #Kaihola or simply @ tag me. I’d love to see any and all pictures!

Congratulations, you have reached the end credits!

Special thanks to @silvakristiina and @depistako for playtesting and giving me feedback about the feel of the world! ♡

I know it has been like 2 years now, but thank you @hydrangeachainsaw for teaching me how to make distant terrain and for all the invaluable World Machine & Blender help! And a final thanks to @grandelama for sharing the beautiful road textures and allowing me to tweak them further! (  ˊᵕˋ  )♡.°

//Oopsie daisy fixes!

2.2.2022 - Fixed the blue lot/missing lots with fully build version. Redownload please!

17.2.2022 - Added missing bistro rabbithole .package file in the CC folder. You don't need to redownload everything, just drop this file in your mods folder if you downloaded the world on the first day of release http://www.simfileshare.net/download/2986213/

[softpine]

how in depth do you edit your story posts? would you say reshade does a lot of it or do you go in and add details a lot? how long does it take? i’m doing a story myself and i want to keep telling it but the long editing process sets me back and can be de motivating sometimes and i’m just wondering if you have any tips on cutting it down or speeding the process up?

oh i totally know what you mean – editing is by far my LEAST favorite part of the process, so i do anything i can do to speed it up. i would say reshade does about 60% of the work, and then i run my own personal action in photoshop which does another 20% of the work (basically just resize, smart sharpen, denoise, and a very basic color grade to help boost skintones). the rest is just small details that vary from picture to picture. landscape pictures can take me less than 2 minutes to edit, whereas shots with multiple sims can take me upwards of 30 minutes because i'm a freak about using the liquify tool to smooth out sharp edges, redrawing stuff to get rid of clipping, fixing skin banding by hand, etc. the rest is just using various blurs (usually iris blur), and applying a final color grade / hue adjustments. LITERALLY the devil is in the details 😭

so now that i've complained for ages, here are my tips on speeding things up fjksjd

1. put all your reshade effects on a toggle, and take multiple screenshots with the effects on/off. ESPECIALLY if you have a wide variety of skintones. for example, finn is pale as fuck and bloom makes him look like.... well, a ghost:

so i take one pic WITH bloom:

one without:

and then i layer them in photoshop and use a soft eraser at a lower opacity (depends on the pic) to erase some of the bloom on his face. this means i never have to mess with my bloom settings in-game for every single picture i take. i do the same thing for dof or mxao if they’re giving me trouble. one pic on, one pic off, layer them, and erase.

2. create your own action and/or psd! there are tons of tutorials out there. whichever effects you find yourself using on a regular basis, combine them all in one to save you from doing boring shit over and over :’) i don’t find it super helpful to use other people’s actions, because everyone has a different style, but if you’re new to photoshop, it might be nice to download some actions just to try new things out!

3. this tip kinda sucks because i know most people on simblr don’t have a l*gal copy of photoshop (no shade, i p*rated for literally 10 years lmao and i only got the real copy bc it was free through my mom’s work) but the newest version of photoshop has sooo many cool effects. sky replacement (my beloved), neural filters (depth blur is SO good now, the edges are crisp as hell. you could probably get rid of dof in reshade altogether now), and camera raw filter (basically a one-stop-shop for every adjustment you may need, and has the ability to save presets in the same way you would use a psd). all of these save me so much time. i would be happy to do a more in-depth tutorial on this stuff if you’re interested, but like i said, i know most people don’t have access to these :(

EDIT: check the replies for a link that may help you out :)

4. simply edit less. sometimes i have to remind myself that no one will be zooming up into my sim’s hand to see if their ring has some clipping issues. you are your own worst enemy and of course you’ll notice every single flaw, but most other people won’t. if the only way you can realistically and feasibly tell your story is to edit less (or not edit at all) then so be it!! that’s okay!! do whatever you can do to lessen your stress 💖

[tau1tvec]

Hello! I saw that you said you don’t recommend Reshade 2 so do you know how someone could try and replicate the look of it with newer versions? Like, any specific shaders? I’m sorry if this is too much to ask!

Sadly no, I don't, not a lotta people mess with the older Reshades much in the sims community.

I'm gonna be honest tho, I don't know why anyone would even wanna replicate something in Reshade 2, like it seems like a downgrade to me considering all the newer options the new Reshades added. Like I'll legit tell people I use Reshade 2 still, and they'll be like "why" in the most judgmental way lol, and honestly I only really use it bc I'm just more comfortable using it, comfortable in the sense it won't take me days to tweak a preset to how I like it, and still end up hating it.

There are also tons of presets out there already that look great that use Reshade 3 or 4, and are way better imo than anything I could create in Reshade 2 due to the lack of quality bloom shaders, and better DoF, however if you're really adamant, yes I think it's totally possible to replicate the look, a lot of shaders carried over from 2, or were improved upon, all of the DoF options are there I believe, I know the one I use is anyway, but the only AO ( ambient occlusion ) Reshade 3 and 4 have is MXAO, 5 I believe has MXAO and a newer one called Gloom AO, which is pretty good and simple to use, but can eat up resources similar to Cinematic DoF.

Mind you I don't think MXAO is bad, I think it's just got more to do with how depth shaders work so wonky in The Sims, in general.

[starsandskies]

You told me a few days ago that your Cyberpunk 2077 screenshots involve quite a bit of post-processing in Photoshop, and since I'm still thinking about them... 😂 Would you like to share a bit of your PS-specific process? Maybe just in a broader sense, like for instance, if you use sharpening, brightness-contrast, color balance and/or mixing, levels/curves, etc! 💖 (and fyi I'm still amazed you manage to get the in game lighting and character positions right without mods!)

Oh, sure! ♥ No problem! But keep in mind that I do most of this stuff "a ojímetro" so to speak, trial and error.

I try to get the best possible image in-game (in terms of lighting, contrast, depth of field, etc.) to post-process it as little as possible. I also use ReShade, other people's, and my own presets.

By the way, I ended up installing AMM yesterday and although I don't understand 100% how it works, I can tell you that the improvement is so huge. I'm also using Cyberpunk 2077 Camera Tools by Otis_Inf (if I remember right, this is the same person who created the DAI and MEA Cinematic Tools and if it's not them, they were involved somehow) and I find it also so useful.

Hope it's helpful!

Crop/rotate the image if I did not like the angle I choose. Or if I want to go for something more portrait-ish style.

Filter>Sharpen>Smart Sharpen.

(Full-size image)

I think they're the default values since I don't remember changing them at all, but I've been using this PS version since 2017, so who knows, lol.

I'll continue under the cut!

Sometimes I skip this step in Cyberpunk because of how the game renders hair compared to other textures. It's already pixelated per se, so in some pictures, sharpening the image makes it look even worse.

I'm not always using all the next adjustments, depends a lot on the original shot, but overall, it would be something like this.

Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Curves

Preset: Lighter. You can adjust the curve and the opacity of the layer to your taste.

Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Curves

Preset: Linear Contrast.

Same as before!

Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Levels

Preset: Lighter

Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Hue/Saturation

I tend to increase the saturation a little bit, but it's just a matter of personal taste.

Once I'm happy with how it looks, I add some Actions. I don't remember where I found them, though. I got some of them with a pack of brushes by Angel Ganev, and the others (Instagram/Lightroom filters style) maybe from a photography blog. I think I googled "Photoshop Actions" and downloaded some.

Add Dark Vignette - Subtle

Color Filter - Violet (50% opaticy)

Color Filter - Pink (50% opacity)

Filter (Instagram style, 30% opacity or even lower, I don't like them very noticeable.)

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Last (but not least, lol, I duplicate the Background (because I tend to screw it up like a lot, and some blur filter.

Filter>Blur Gallery>Field Blur

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And... I think that's all! As I said, it's just trial and error... and figure out what works best for you and your personal taste.

If you need anything else, don't hesitate to ask! ♥♥♥