#i'm loving gshade SO MUCH MORE than reshade

[simulation-machine]

Okay, so the Strand save? Borked. So I am testing to see if I could just save the lot and the families (like maybe four total) associated with The Strands. A bit more play is required before I can determine it ~*~Officially Fixed~*~ but it’s looking promising so far! Maybe! AHH~!  And if I managed to save even just a bit of this family I am going to happy-cry FOR REAL.  Still going to go forwards with the idea of fast-forwarding Bryn and Syd to college but I wanted to do a like, montage of what their teen years were like.  Very, very tentative hope that I saved them! I don’t think I’ll do a legacy for them, maybe some short story snippets? I have ~*~ideas~*~.

[rusticottage]

in her running era 🏃‍♀️

[nerimaemae]

Then vs Now - Galatariel edition!

Thank you so much @lynxden for tagging me!! <3

Ok first, I can't really talk about my gal separately from my Gpose journey, so for that I'm sorry!

When I first started the game, I went straight to Miqo (it was also free trial, but never noticed the viera lol)

I stayed as this Miqo for a month only (whole March 2023). Was also my first time trying out the Gpose thing for real. God the ammount of pics I took that month.. Also, I hadn't discovered Reshade/Gshade yet!

After that 1st month of gameplay, I got my lvl 50 fantasia, gone Viera and never looked back! Those here are the exact first and second pics I took of her as a bun.

The mount pic was a lil too ambicious, it was only a month since I started gposing, barely knew anything, everything I did on Anamnesis fucked up all the poses.. and I also stared messing with Reshade.. but I also felt REALLY happy with the progress with gposing within that month!!

I even did a comparison at that time lol I was amazed bcs the first time I entered Gpose, I just wanted a gear ref pic and it was all so complicated. I accidentally hid the interface, didn't knew How to bring It back and I force closed the game /nice/

For around 6 months, I took sooo many pics! It helped me a lot with some "head issues" I deal with. Drawing has been my main hobbie since I was a kid, was in college for the same area, did a lot of freelance work, It was always good. But for years I've dealt with BD episodes, at least 3 depressive ones for year, and everytime I stopped drawing and had to get the skills back, was like this for ~8 years. Gpose helped me as a creative outlet a lot. Because it'll be around a 1 and half years that I don't draw anymore.

So yeah, my life is kinda depressed as shit and that's why I love doing those happy things \o/

When DT arrived I was like NOOooooOoo bcs those new face bones made me feel the same thing I felt the first time l opened this thing. Decided I wouldn't open It again. It didn't worked for more than a half day. Then I took that as a challenge lol and it's been REALLY fun!!!

This year, with the attention my pics got somehow, I was able to connect with so many amazing people on the community, and I loved to share any kind of knowledge and learn even more from others 🙌

Hope you all have a nice New Year's Eve and even better 2025! Luv you all ❤️

[yooniesim]

any suggestions for becoming a sims based blog? I used to do it back in the hayday of sims 3 but it's been YEARS and I still absolutely love making sims, but I'm too shy and nervous to interact with the community ;;;

hi nonny! this is a complicated question that I'm not sure I'm the best person to ask lol but let me try it out. I think I'm gonna separate it into two parts for ease of reading. And sorry if it's a bit more cynical than you probably expected. I've just learned a lot i wish I had done from the start, lol. So here we go.

Sims content

Post whatever tf you feel like. If you love making sims, post the hell outta them and don't worry about what anyone thinks. There's no one perfect type of content to appeal to everyone; the community is made up of a million smaller niche ones. Editors, sim makers, gameplayers, storytellers, cc makers, etc. If you're passionate about it, you'll find people that love your posts. So don't worry too much.

Don't get too hung up on editing, if you want your pics to look "better" then use gshade/reshade and/or simple psd actions to your liking. Don't let it get stressful cos it ain't worth it. If you don't enjoy editing, don't do it at all. (I wrote more about how I edit & make it easier in this post)

Try your very best not to worry about notes. I know it's hard. Everyone wants their stuff to be seen, but when it comes to engagement on here, you're aiming for quality over quantity. A few awesome mutuals commenting on your stuff is way better than 600 silent likes. Also, having more attention sucks bc it brings the vile swamp rats out of their holes to see what shit they can stir up. The brief serotonins aint worth it. Just aim to find a few cool ppl to talk about your sims with cos thats all that matters.

If you want, find bachelor/ette or similar challenges ppl are doing and submit sims for them. And once you get some mutuals/followers, open sim requests so you can make sims for people. It's super fun and awesome to see your sims in other people's games! And you don't have to talk too much if you don't feel like it, but it's an easy way to get involved with others.

Social stuff & safety

Comment on peoples posts often if you like them. Engage with ppl. Reblog posts you see you like but don't really have any reblogs. I know you said you're shy but, this is most of the way to actual have mutuals that enjoy talking to you and comment on your stuff as well. You can just not talk if you want but it'll make it harder to have any engagement unless you're really good at edits or cc making.

Don't get involved with drama/discourse, it means nothing and amounts to nothing. If you're going to boost someone else's post, look into it first and look for evidence that it's even true before you reblog. If people hate on you in your inbox, block the anon and don't respond even to laugh at them. Block anyone that gives you bad vibes. They look at you funny, breathe wrong, use a color you don't like. Block. If anyone tries to start shit with you, block & completely ignore them & don't comment on it. It hurts, but there's nothing you can do about it, and people will move on if you ignore them.

Don't reveal any personal info about yourself on here or to anyone in DMs. Don't use your real name. Don't have anything connected to your other socials. Don't trust anyone on here with your vulnerable emotions, past trauma, etc. And don't say anything in DM you wouldn't feel comfortable with everyone else on the internet potentially seeing.

If you pledge to people on patreon, be aware that your email will show up on their end when you do. Dont use your real name as your patreon username.

If simblr is causing you stress, you feel like your mental health is suffering, take breaks. Log off or delete the app for a while.

And... I think that's all I can think of for now. If there's anything else detailed you wanna ask about feel free. But these are just my general thoughts. Good luck, nonny :)

[alltimefail-sims]

Do you have any tips for getting into/making sims stories? (Idk what to call them lol, but like your strangersville story), and tips for taking posed screenshots because I’m struggling-

Hello, friend! 🤗

I am so genuinely flattered that you would ask me for advice. I'll admit, I've only been officially on simblr for a little over a year and I'm just getting a groove in posting, so I'm still learning about the storytelling format and posing aspect, too. Here are some really great posts that helped me:

@seaslugsims: Storytelling Resources Part 1

and Storytelling Resources Part 2

Storytelling Tips and Tricks thread started by @citylighten (Check the reblogs on this one - so many amazing, experienced creators have weighed in on their personal tips and tricks)

I hate posing sims, but I've found that it just takes practice and patience. @ts4-poses is a great resource blog for finding poses because it is organized into categories, making finding a specific pose less overwhelming. Put all the sims you need for a story post in the same household so you have full control of them all. Ravasheen's ISO Camera for in-game photos is what dreams are made of because the photos always come out perfect and no one has to be behind the camera to take the picture. When taking photos using the tab key, take them from multiple angles so you have a lot of options when editing your posts.

I also would say don't be afraid to just keep asking for advice! If you see a post you like, don't be afraid to ask someone how they did it! I've learned so much just by going to creators like "Hey, this post you made was so great... what editing do you use? Do you use a reshade/gshade shader? Do you resize photos?" You can learn a lot from others, and over time with practice (and a lot of trial and error) you will gain your footing and develop a style of your own!

Now, onto where I have personal experience: getting into stories and making stories! For me personally, a good story is all about characters and world building. Because simblr stories give you an opportunity to show varying perspectives and focus on more than one character's viewpoint (kind of like a comic or TV show), you can best take advantage of that by writing in-depth characters you love (or love to hate, lol). Knowing the setting and how the characters fit into that setting is really the backbone of any good story, and if you care about the details and you care about those characters, your audience will feel that! Also knowing what you like to write helps, too! I like sci-fi, fantasy, and coming of age; I like mysteries and love stories are my lifeblood (I'm a hopeless romantic); and I am a sucker for a good found family trope... so that's what I write! You'll never catch me writing horror stories full of loss, or adult romance stories, nor am I gonna pop out a teen drama (yk like Degrassi-esque or Disney Channel) or something cutting-edge/dark/with a strong visual aesthetic (like Euphoria) because I know that's not my thing (and editing is not my strength - I would HATE spending hours editing posts where some others might love that part of the process. I don't write or create something because I think it will be popular or on-trend or garner viewership (even though wanting validation is not a bad thing imo) I just create to create. I create using my strengths first, and I would recommend you write to your strengths and don't feel like you have to rush the process.

My biggest piece of advice is that if you have a story to tell, tell it! Trust me, someone (or a lot of someones) will love it. You may only get a few views at first, or it may take off right from the jump, but regardless your story is worth telling. Start by just opening a google doc and jotting down ideas as they come to you until one sticks. Don't be afraid to shelf what doesn't work or what you're not feeling any more. My Strangerville story was not my first venture on simblr, but it is the only one I have loved enough to keep up with.

Lastly, please let me know when you do put your story out there. You've already got one fan!!! 📣💕

[violettssims]

Hi! I love your photos of the game, simply stunning. Can I ask what reshade/gshade you use? Or, if it is custom can you give some advice to noobs like myself on how to go about customising our own or resources that helped you do so?

Hello! Ahhh thank you so much, that really means a lot! I use reshade and yes it is a custom preset, but I'm more than happy to share advice and resources. When I first started getting into reshade I read a lotttt lot of advice and tutorials from pictureamoebae - their blog is so helpful and their knowledge of reshade is really good, so I highly recommend checking out their posts. In terms of personal advice, I recommend first going and downloading a bunch of presets that you like from others in the community, and then going in game to see which shaders they use and checking/unchecking to understand what effect they have (and determine which ones you like the look and feel of). Now, each shader has a lot of numbers to fiddle around with so I'd go and play around with those digits to each extreme and seeing what happens. Shader technicalities aside, I usually think about these two things first when making a new preset:

What type of mood do I want? Cool or warm? Dark and moody or bright and vibrant? This will effect which MultiLUT you use and/or what colour tint or tonemap you wanna apply

What type of blur do I want? Do I want a busy bokeh blur, or a smoother gaussian blur? I find busier ones more stylistic/maxis match and smoother ones more realistic/cinematic. There are a lot of depth of field shaders available and each behave very differently

Then I will add all the other shaders that will enhance the visuals in general - MXAO for shadows, clarity, vibrance, levels (esp if you want a deeper look), ambient light, bloom (you can do coloured or just white) then fancy stuff over it if you want like Chromatic Abberation or lens flares. Also as a basis for every preset I'll put some sort of sharpening and anti-aliasing (FXAA or SMAA). With Reshade it's really a whole rabbit hole so of course there's much more than just this, but I hope this helps you to start making your own!

[kestrelteens]

Hi how are you? I love it when you post pictures of the rooms in the house and your hoods, they are beautiful. Can you tell me how you edit your images or which ts2 program so that your photos are in the shades you post?Is there a hood you've created that you can download or create to make available to people like me who love your work?

Hiii, I'm good, thanks so much for asking! ^^

And thank you so much for your kind words, I'm really glad you enjoy my posts! ♥ I use Reshade, and I have written a bit more about what presets I use here. When it comes to installing Reshade, at first I used Gshade and when it got shut down, it stopped working for me so I just switched some files because both of those programs were build on the same foundation, and now it works as Reshade does, so I can't be of more help when it comes to installing it because back then Gshade was super easy to get to work. :/ Other than that, I just tweak the lighting a little bit and use some of these actions, depending on the vibe I'm going for. ^^

I have never shared a whole neighborhood, but I would love to (as I also promised one sweet Anon a while ago), but I don't know how to go about it because for me creating a 'hood is a months long process and I get distracted a lot and I also try to fit that in with playing the game and CC converting that can be time consuming as well. But since a couple of you guys asked me, I will try to figure it out, maybe share a smaller one that you can later expand? I will think about it! ^^

[windslar]

I love your page. It's so claming to scroll through. Anyway, I wanted to know what reshade preset do you use and how to edit your pictures??

Hi! Thank you so much and I'm so glad you find it so calming 🥰 I'm currently using my own reshade/gshade preset that I've tweaked numerous times since I started using it about three months ago. There are more shaders in use than I would like so I'm trying to narrow it down to see which ones are actually significant, but I do plan on releasing it soon. My Evergreen Harbor gameplay with Guilly will be up this afternoon and those screenshots will feature my most recent editing (which is a little less yellow than what it’s been). But anyway, here’s a sample of how screenshots look with and without the preset.

Honestly, gshade does 95% of the work. I just finish the editing process in Photoshop using some actions to smooth, sharpen, and brighten (if needed). These are some of my favourites:

Avonlea's Smooth & Sharp actions - I always use these, particularly the Super Smooth + Smooth Sharp

Hazelmine's Photoshop actions - Straightforward actions to clean up, brighten, and smooth out a screenshot. Lately been loving the Whisper action to give that dreamy quality

Wooldawn's actions - Great for correcting colours or applying a colour filter to an image to convey a certain mood

Intramoon's Sonder actions - Also great for colour correction, and adding depth and a cinematic feel to an image

Kaleeko's Clean & Clear actions - I've used these actions since my TS3 simblr days

EDIT: The screenshot above is before I’ve applied any of the smoothing and sharpening actions. This is what it would look like if I were to apply them in PS:

Very subtle difference but if you click for HQ you’ll see it’s smoother and just ever so slightly sharper. There’s also a little glow thanks to Hazelmine’s Whisper action, which I haven’t used yet in my editing process but I do plan to use from now on because it’s so pretty!

[potatosimslife]

July 2022 Proof of life

I've been MIA for a while and put my random legacy challenge gameplay on hiatus to focus on personal things and work. However, recently I have been able to squeeze in some time to update my game and mods. And wow, I've been away for more than 2 months, I think, and a lot has changed in the game!

Three kits came out

A new GP was released: Werewolves

A new EP was announced: High School Years

Reshade is out and Gshade is here!

About Gshade: it's so much easier to use than Reshade! Installation was a breeze and it auto-converted all my old presets on installation. Things I like about it so far:

There is a setting to not use Gshade on load

You can move around the game while editing settings or changing between presets

The name of the preset you're using is on the filename of the screenshot! I am using @comfyblob's Storyteller preset and I'm loving it!

Things I don't like so far:

The conversion of my custom preset lost my customizations

MXAO seems off or not as dark as it used to be

Maybe this is all just me being a noob at reshade or Gshade hahaha

And now that I have posted again, will I be resuming my posts and start generation 3 of my Random Legacy Challenge?

The answer is I am still unsure. At my current workload and mental health condition, I can only squeeze in it at least an hour or two of gameplay around 2 to 3 days a week. That's really great for taking screenshots and all, but the whole process of going through the photos, editing photos, writing the actual posts, queueing the posts and so on takes a lot more time. I know it's not supposed to take a lot of time but I'm a perfectionist. I can't help it.

So now, I'm just playing when I can (not necessarily my RLC save), and hopefully when I'm feeling better and up to it, I'll resume posting my RLC challenge again. My goal is accumulate enough posts to queue one month's worth of posts before I turn it on again. I have 7 now, in random degrees of completion, so I just have 23 left.

P.S. writing in Tumblr using Microsoft Edge just seems buggy now???