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celaenacc · 2 years ago

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CDD ~ Fresh Start Styled Look

If you’re like me, the first thing you do in CAS is clear everything off the sim for a nice fresh canvas. This custom styled look (when coupled with Mizore’s hider mod) is intended to make that take as few steps as possible every time.

Download and info below the cut for future updates

Item Details:

Base Game Compatible

Toddler Infant - Elder; Masc & Fem frames (Added infant support on June 16, 2023; please redownload)

1 Variant (per frame)

Custom thumbnails

Needs @mizoreyukii’s Styled Looks Hider to truly be worth it. If you’re overly attached to EA’s styled looks, this cc probably isn’t for you.

Removes all accessories, clothing, shoes, makeup, skin details (excluding acne and scars), tattoos, facial hair and hair (changes color to dark brown for adultFem + children, blonde for AdultMasc, red for toddlers for all of them now I believe (I can’t remember tbh 😅 - if anyone knows how to remove the hair without changing the color, please hmu)

Does not change teeth, eyebrows, eye color, acne and scars (I couldn’t get it to remove these last 2 categories)

Tagged for all outfit categories

Added overrides (June 16, 2023) for shoes/bare feet and masc frame nude tops to resolve the look not applying to those categories after one of the recent patches. If you want to use an alternate override from someone else and it isn’t compatible automatically, (only do this if it’s not working otherwise) open your desired alternative in Sims4Studio, navigate to the warehouse tab, tick the setting box for “ShowInUI”, and save the file. (Edit June 6/20) I’ve been informed by @asixteenthrose that even with changing your desired override to have the showinui checked, you still need my overrides for the styled looks for some reason, and the desired override can’t be in a subfolder/must be in main mods folder.

Added “Stripped Start” (June 16, 2023) which affects the accessories, makeup, facial hair, clothing, and shoes, but does not affect hair, body hair, skin details, or tattoos. You can have both Fresh Start and Stripped Start in your folder at the same time or not; they should not conflict with nor do they depend on each other.

Downloads:

> SFS < (Current Version is a zip)

> Google Drive < (Current Version is a zip)

Needs: > Hider Mod for EA Looks < (by MizoreYukii)

Notes:

There is no way I would have been able to figure out this project without MizoreYukii’s How to Make Custom Styled Looks tutorial, so huge thank you to her.

This look is mainly for simmers who want nothing on their sim when they start in CAS. If there is enough demand for a version that keeps existing tattoos, skin details, and maybe hair; I might make that as a v2 down the road. After receiving nonny asks, I went ahead and added a version like this while updating the original.

I timed myself clearing every outfit category for a new sim using just this look as fast as I could, and it only took 15 seconds total.

I have added patch numbers to the files in case someone needs the outdated version.

Kijiko eyebrow texture defaults cause the fem frame teen-elder not to show Fresh Start.

#ts4cc #s4cc #sims4cc #sims4cas #sims4mods #sims4casmods #mycc

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petalruesimblr · 3 months ago

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Hello and welcome back to my blog! This is another part-time career or internship for teens, which will offer a promotion into the Political career as they transition to young adulthood. This internship is inspired by a real program, specifically the NY Office of the Mayor Internship Program and as the The Sims 3 features a "Leader of the Free World" as the final level of the Political career, I named this internship the Office of the Leader Internship.

For those seeking a full-time career, I am currently working on a second one that will be released soon, so stay tuned!🌺

In the meantime, if you are interested in this one, click on ‘Keep Reading’ below for more information and pictures of the Office of the Leader Internship career.

Office of the Leader Internship

Sim File Share

Do you have a passion for bureaucracy, a knack for turning chaos into order and an unyielding enthusiasm for office coffee? We’re seeking bright, ambitious teens to join the Office of the Leader Internship Program! Dive into the heart of local government, where every day brings fresh adventures in learning bureaucracy. You’ll work alongside the best, gain invaluable experience and maybe even catch the eye of some influential Sims. With fixed hours, free office supplies and the occasional donut day, you’ll enjoy a unique mix of fun and professional growth. Apply now and step into the action!

Career Type: Part-Time Available for: Teens Available Languages: English Levels: 3 Rabbit Hole: City Hall Work Days: M, W, Th Work Hours: 4PM - 7PM Does it have Carpool? Yes Does it have Uniforms? Yes (refer to picture above) File Type: Package Min. Required Game Version: 1.42 Packs Needed: The Sims 3 📣All descriptions for the levels, tones and metrics as well as skills required, salary, uniforms and other details are provided on the pictures above.

NRAAS Careers Mod

I initially considered including logic as one of the metrics but decided to remove it. The Political career in the game relies solely on charisma as its primary skill and mostly depends on funding for promotions. It didn’t make sense to include logic, as it isn’t used in the long run for this career path. The work days for this internship are scheduled for Mondays, Wednesday and Thursdays. If you have the Seasons expansion pack then it will only be two days due to Thursday is considered as a holiday and Drama Club meetings are on Tuesday and Friday if you have the Generations expansion pack (which is useful if you want your teens to increase their charisma faster). 📣 Upon reaching level three in their internship, teens will be eligible for promotion to the Political career upon applying once they become young adults. Instructions are provided in the picture above; right-click on it and select ’Open image in new tab’ for a clearer view. As stated above, you will need NRAAS Careers Mod for this career to show up in the game and as long as you have the latest version of it, it should work for higher patches. You can also read my #psa regarding these careers, click here. I’m not fluent in any other languages to translate so if anyone is interested in translating this career, please don’t hesitate to send me a message here, comment on this post or let me know in my Ask/Contact form (if you don't have a Tumblr account) and will let you know the details. I have tested this career in my game, so far it is working and all scripts are showing up. All feedback is very welcome to help me learn and improve my skills so please let me know if you experience any problems on your end and I’ll do my best to sort it as soon as possible.

MissyHissy step-by-step tutorial Twallan for the Career Mod S3pe

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leonaquitaine · 2 years ago

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ReShade Guide: Transparent Screenshots

Want a nice cut-out picture? transparent chromakey shots are here to save the day!

You can achieve this with a combination of two features in ReShade: ChromaKey.fx, a technique that generates a greenscreen effect, and Clear Alpha Channel, a toggle located under the Settings tab.

1 - Setup

Make sure PNG is selected as the target format since JPG doesn't preserve transparency! Also, don't forget to re-enable Clear Alpha Channel after taking your shots - otherwise, you may capture completely black shots!

2 - Enabling the Shader

Place Chromakey.fx right after FFRestoreUI.fx- otherwise, your UI may be hidden by the shader.

3 - Take your screenshot!

You should now be able to capture shots with transparency properly preserved!

Chromakeyed, transparent images can be used in several different situations! For example, I often use it to create tutorial slides.

What about reference cards for art commissions?

Or maybe stickers with your friends. Or Discord emotes. Or whatever strikes your fancy. The sky's the limit!

This is my first guide adapted to ReShade. If you have any questions about this feature or other aspects of ReShade or GPose, feel free to ask!

And if you need a handy guide to help you migrate from GShade to ReShade, here's a link!

#reshade #reshade tutorial #ffxiv #gposers #aquitaine studio #leon aquitaine #gpose guide #reshade guide #gpose

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flame2ashes · 5 months ago

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A guide to extracting a CC Shepard’s headmorph as a model (for beginners)

Are you a humble CC (Character Creator) Shepard user (like me)? Do you want your Shepard’s head as a 3D model (like me)?

Luckily for all of us, there is a Blender script for that, thanks to mustbetuesday (which I assume is their username; it’s the name of their website anyway). While there is a tutorial on their website on how to use it, it doesn’t go into detail on certain steps of the process (and also it mentions having to manually install UModel and use it to find and export the model, which isn't really necessary these days as Legendary Explorer makes all of that easier).

So here is a different tutorial, written in a way that beginners to ME modding and/or the tools required are able to follow. If you already know how to use these tools, you can pretty much just skim this guide. The guide mentions both OT and LE, but the files mentioned/used will be from the LE version. Note that for the sake of simplicity, I will only cover extracting the model itself and extracting textures.

(btw this is technically part 1 of an overarching guide on mesh swapping an NPC with your Shepard, but I figured that it would help to have it as a standalone guide in case people are interested in this kind of thing. Feedback is welcome!!)

Disclaimer: this guide only pertains to ME3. The script should also work with ME2 facemorphs and ME2 head models, but I haven’t really tried it yet. Maybe you can let me know how it goes if you try it with ME2 assets :)

What you need:

A PC copy of Mass Effect 3, or Mass Effect Legendary Edition

Blender version 2.8 (You can grab it here)

A PSK import/export script for Blender (I use this one personally for 2.8)

Legendary Explorer (You can grab it here. Alternatively you can download it via ME3Tweaks Mod Manager under the Tools options)

A ME3/LE3 save of the Shepard you’d like

(ME3 saves are located in Documents/BioWare/Mass Effect 3/Save)

(LE3 saves are located in Documents/BioWare/Mass Effect Legendary Edition/Save/ME3)

ME3 Gibbed save editor (You can grab it here. The recommended version is from Nov. 14, 2015)

Trilogy Save Editor (You can grab it here. Alternatively you can download it via ME3Tweaks Mod Manager under the Tools options)

The Blender head importer script (You can grab it here. Make sure to get the 2.8 version)

The base head model for male/female Shepard (I’ll go into detail on how to get this one later)

PART A: Getting the .me3headmorph

This part requires:

ME3 Gibbed Save Editor

A ME3/LE3 save

Open the ME3 Gibbed Save Editor. It should look like this when you first open the editor:

The save editor will automatically locate the directory for the OT ME3 career files, meaning that when you click Open, it will list all of your careers. This is useful for those using OT ME3; not as useful for those using LE3. Instead, what you want to do is click on the arrow beside the Open button, which will give you two options. The one you want is the “Open from File…” option:

From there you’ll be able to navigate to your saves and open the save you want. By default it’ll open the directory for OT ME3 saves. You may have to navigate manually to the LE3 save directory. While Gibbed save editor was originally made for OT, LE saves have the same filetype and will load normally.

Once your save is loaded, it will show the basic info for that save, like this:

The tab currently open is the Player > Basic tab. Navigate towards the Appearance tab. It should look like this:

What we’re getting here is the .me3headmorph, so you can ignore the other stuff for now.

Click on Head Morph, then “Export to File…”:

Save it wherever you like. It will save as a .me3headmorph file. Great! You now have the headmorph of your Shepard.

PART B: Getting the base head model

This part requires:

Legendary Explorer

You have the .me3headmorph of your Shepard, but you also need the base head model before you can actually apply that data. For this, we’re going to need the CC base head model.

Legendary Explorer (LEX) is the modding toolset for Mass Effect and Mass Effect: Legendary Edition. You can use it to view, browse, edit, or export any file from both the OT and LE versions of the trilogy. LEX has a tutorial wiki covering a variety of modding topics for those who want to try modding the game, but for now all we’re going to do is export a 3D model.

When you first open Legendary Explorer, it’ll look like this:

Click on the “Meshes & Textures” tab. You will get these programs:

Open Mesh Explorer (abbreviated as MSH). You’ll get this:

(If it’s your first time using Mesh Explorer, you won’t have anything under “Recently opened items”. Also, read the Welcome page, as it has some useful info.)

To get the head mesh you need, you’ll have to open the Package file it’s contained in. Normally you can search where the assets are located using the Asset Database (a different LEX program), but for the sake of the tutorial I’m just gonna go ahead and tell you the package file you need.

Go to File > Open, and if it doesn’t automatically open to the appropriate directory, navigate to your game’s directory. It should look something like this:

Origin Games\Mass Effect Legendary Edition\Game\ME3\BioGame\CookedPCConsole

(Steam users, refer to your game’s file directory path by right-clicking your game in your library, then go to Manage > Browse Local Files.)

Locate and open the file BIOG_MORPH_FACE.pcc. This is what you’ll see:

There are multiple base head models here, but the one you want ends in _CC (so HMF_HED_PROCustom_MDL_CC and HMM_HED_PROCustom_MDL_CC). The models that start with HMF are the female models, while HMM is the male models. When you click on the models on the left, they will render on the right:

To export these models, right-click on the entry you want on the left, then click on “Export Mesh to PSK with UModel”:

Save it in any directory you want. After that it will ask for the output format. Just select “psk” and click OK.

(btw, if this is your first time exporting with UModel, LEX will automatically install UModel for you.)

Once that’s done, File Explorer will automatically open to the directory you saved your model in. A folder named after the package file you exported the model from will be created, and inside there will be three subfolders. The model will be in the SkeletalMesh3 folder.

Congratulations! You now have the base head model. Now it’s time to put it all together.

PART C: Putting it all together in Blender

This part requires:

The .me3headmorph file you exported in Part A

The head model you exported in Part B

Blender

(Make sure your scripts are installed!! If you don’t know how, follow these instructions (just ignore the “Open Blender 4.0.0” part, it should still apply to 2.8))

When Blender is open, delete all the default items in the scene (the cube, the camera, and the light source). Once that’s done, go to File > Import > your PSK import script, then import your head model. (If you’re using a different script than the one I’m using, there may be an option to scale down your model. Make sure this is unchecked.)

Now your scene should look something like this:

To hide the bones for the head model, click the eye on your imported model on the top right.

IMPORTANT: Once you import the head model, DO NOT MOVE IT!!! This will mess up the face import. You can move the model after you do the face import.

If you look on the right of the scene, you should see a section called “Mass Effect Face Importer”, which is located under the Object tab (this tab should be displayed by default). Expand the face importer and you’ll get this:

Click on the file button and navigate to where your .me3headmorph is located. Click “Accept,” and your .me3headmorph’s path will be loaded. When you’re ready, make sure your head model is selected, then click “Import HeadMorph”.

And boom!!! You should now see your Shepard’s headmorph applied to the model. For comparison, here’s the male base head before and after I imported John’s headmorph:

And for further comparison, here’s John’s face in-game:

So there you have it! You now have your Shepard’s head as a 3D model. From here you can save it, export it, edit it, do whatever you want with it. It’s your city now.

….But also I said I’d cover extracting textures so-

PART D: Extracting your Shepard’s textures

This part requires:

Trilogy Save Editor

Legendary Explorer

So you may notice that this guide requires two different save editors. The reason for this is that Trilogy Save Editor (TSE) does not export your headmorph in the filetype required for the script. That being said, It’s much easier to view Shepard’s headmorph data in TSE, hence why we’re using TSE for this part.

(Also, TSE is referred to in a lot of customization mods, so if you use hair or headmorph-related mods you’ve already used TSE in one way or another.)

When you first open TSE, it will look like this:

Click “Open,” and File Explorer will automatically open to Documents\BioWare. Follow the usual steps to getting your save.

When you load your save, it will look like this:

Currently, it’s on the General tab. Click the Head Morph tab to display your selected Shepard’s headmorph.

(Oh yeah, you can also get the file path for your Shepard’s hair mesh if you wanted.)

What’s nice about TSE is that it displays an asset’s file path. The first part of the file path will always be the Package file the asset is placed in.

For textures, click on Texture Parameters to expand the list. To display the parameters for each entry, simply click on each entry to expand it.

In this particular example, HED_Diff is the diffuse texture for Shepard’s face. The package file for this particular diff is found in BIOG_HMM_HED_PROMorph, and the filename for the texture is HMM_HED_PROBase_Face_Diff_Stack. Typically, this means you now have the info needed to open the file in Package Editor and locate the file yourself.

But there’s an easier way, and I mentioned it already: The Asset Database.

On the LEX menu, click the Utilities tab, and click on Asset Database (abbreviated as ADB)

If this is your first time using the Asset Database, you’ll need to actually build the database before you can use it. Each game needs its own database. You should be able to build these by going to Database and selecting “LE3 Database,” then click “Generate New Database”.

Once your databases are generated, the window should look like this:

To look for textures specifically, click on the Textures tab.

Take the name of the texture you need and paste it onto the search bar on the top right. It will automatically filter the file list to the files that contain the name. To view the texture in the middle, click on “Toggle Texture Rendering”.

Whoa, now you can see it! On the left is each individual file containing the name you searched. On the right are the usages – a list of the Package files containing that specific file. (NOTE: Package files from mods are highlighted in red. Vanilla Package files are in black.)

To export the file, click “Export to File,” where you can save it to any directory. You can save the texture as either a PNG, a DDS, or a TGA.

And there you have it! You now have your Shepard’s face textures. You can repeat this for all the textures you need. Note that some of the textures have alpha channels, which will come into play if you decide to edit them. Some textures, such as the eyebrows, may not actually be diffuse but rather normal textures. This is due to the way they’re applied in-game. But that’s a topic for a different guide :)

If you do decide to edit your textures by baking in the colours, you can go back to TSE to view your Shepard’s headmorph again, but this time expanding Vector Parameters. Here’s what it’ll look like:

(All the vector parameters have the option for inputting RGBA values as well as selecting a colour via colour wheel.)

If you’ve gotten this far and successfully followed the steps, then congratulations! You’re well on your way to making self-indulgent content using your beloved Shepard characters and/or learning how to mod Mass Effect in general. If I get around to making more guides (read: if people want them), I’ll get into more detail on other things, particularly on how to mesh swap your Shepard into the game. For now, extra notes:

If you need extra advice on mesh or texture modding, I recommend joining the ME modding Discord. Here’s the invite. There are people there who actually know how to texture/mesh mod better than I can lol

Alternatively, here's the Github wiki for LEX modding tutorials :)

This is mostly a comment, but I am so glad the 2.8 version of the script exists. Back when I first did this I had to use 2.7 and it took a lot longer, especially with the way it affected UV maps. Luckily the 2.8 version doesn’t affect the UV maps, and in fact made this entire process much easier and less archaic.

Incidentally, the reason why I learned how to extract CC Shepards from the game wasn’t even for ME modding. It was for XNALara. Anyway here’s a meme:

#Mass Effect Modding #Mass Effect

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coveredinredpaint · 4 months ago

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Hi! I hope it's okay that I'm sending you an ask.

I was looking at some of your posts about diy clothing and things like that, and I've been really into diy/alt clothing for a while, and I've been wanting to maybe make my own, but I don't know where to start.

I want to start small since I'm actually terrible at art (every time I try to learn how to sew, it just ends in me giving up in frustration, for example).

Do you have any advice you could give me?

-Anon

hey anon!

asks are always welcome, i love answering asks so dont hestitate to reach out. sorry for the wait on this, ive been busy.

i made a post about this months back but cant find it atm so ill just make one again.

if sewing, as you say, is difficult for you, id advise starting with something that doesnt require sewing to train yourself in crafting.

an easy one is for example making armwarmers from old socks by cutting them off above the heel, and using the top part (that goes on your ankles and legs). cut a slit in that on the side for your thumb, and youre done. you can bleach nice patterns or anything on them. which will also teach you how to work with bleach.

some other things you can make/do without sewing are: chokers and cuffs from old belts, bottlecap buttons (i have made a tutorial on those, ill put the link in the comments), fishnet/see-through top from old thights, painting/bleaching clothes, making jewellry from safety pins, chains from soda tabs, and a lot more.

in the long run learning how to sew really is a good and useful skill, and i advise investing time in learning it. it allows you to make way more clothes and accessoires, and also helps when you need to fix up old clothes.

remember it takes time to learn these skills! ive been crafting constantly for about three years to get to the level i am at rn. and i still have a lot to learn too. dont be harsh on yourself when your projects dont turn out how you wanted/expected them to. thats all part of the learning process. look at where you can improve and try different techniques to see what works for you.

also! you are not terrible at art. the "aesthetic-ization" of diy and art as a whole is really bad imo cause a lot of people feel pressured that their diys need to look perfectly aesthetic or else they cant wear/make them. and thats not what diy is about! make whatever you want, and if someone tells you its ugly or not good enough they should get a hobby.

ehh i think thats it for now? let me know if you got any more questions. (again ill drop a link to the bottlecap tutorial in the comments)

#punk diy #diy fashion #diy punk #punk #punk clothes #punk style #my stuff

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kitkatt0430 · 3 months ago

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Instead of doing a Six Sentence Sunday today, I think I'll do a short tutorial on copying over fanfic from FFnet to Ao3.

So you've got some old fics on FFnet and you'd like to back them up to Ao3, given the instability of FFnet. And for whatever reason you don't have the original files for the fics, or maybe you have edits to the FFnet versions that you don't want to lose that the OG files don't have. Whatever the reason, you're looking to directly copy over your fic from FFnet to Ao3. And you're looking for a relatively easy way to do so, but Ao3's import functionality doesn't work with FFnet web pages.

Never fear! It's actually a fairly easy process to get your fic copied over from FFnet.

First, head over to FFnet and open up the fic you want to port over to Ao3. You don't need to log in if you don't want to, just so long as the fic in question is yours and you can access the page, then you're good.

In a separate tab, open Ao3 and login, then choose the option for posting a new work.

Now back on the FFnet tab, you should be able to directly copy over the title, summary, fandom, and what little tagging was available on that site onto the relevant Ao3 fields in the tab you have for a new fic. You'll also want to take note of the published date on FFnet and back date the new work in the Ao3 tab.

FFnet may not have a lot of useful tag data, but it's pretty easy to replicate and build off that in Ao3.

Now for the hard part. Which is still pretty easy. Getting the fic body, plus any notes in the fic itself, copied over to FFnet.

While getting around FFnet's lockdown on the text of the fics they host is fairly simple - I'm pretty sure it's entirely css based - you don't really need to do that in order to get the body of your fic copied. And, honestly, even if you do have a work around in place to allow copying of the fic's text... you will probably find the following method a lot easier still.

In the body of the fic, right click the first line of the fic, which should bring up a menu with a bunch of options. On Firefox or Chrome you want the inspect option.

This'll bring up the dev tools with the html inspection tab open and, if you give it a few seconds to load, the specific line you right clicked to inspect should become the visibly selected section of the html.

The selected section of the html should be a paragraph (or <p>) element. You're going to want to right click the div (<div>) element that encapsulates that paragraph and the rest of the paragraphs in the fic body. This'll bring up another browser menu with the option to copy, which will bring up a flyout menu when you select it. From that flyout menu, you want the select the option for Inner HTML.

You have officially copied the html for the fic body. And you can dump that entirely in html format straight into Ao3's html work text editor. Then switch it to rich text for easier editing if you want to fix any spelling, grammar, formatting, or aesthetic issues. I typically try to fix at least the line breaks since it took a long while before FFnet adopted real line breaks and so there are a lot of fics where I have various combinations of dashes, em-dashes, equals signs, and other characters as line breaks. I figure, if I'm bringing the fic to Ao3 then I can try to make it more screen reader friendly in the process.

You can also move fic notes around in order to move pre/post fic notes out of the fic body or basically whatever you want to the fic. Maybe re-read it to determine any additional tagging you want to add now that your fic has access to Ao3's much more robust tagging system.

But that's it. You can hit post and have your fic with all it's original notes, and a back dated post date to reflect when it was actually written, all available on Ao3 now.

It's a pretty quick process, all told, and the only real bottleneck you might encounter is any time spent in re-editing the fic between migrating and posting. Even chaptered fics are fairly easy to migrate with this process, since the bulk of the work in publishing a new chapter is just copying the inner html and then moving any notes to the appropriate location before hitting post.

Anyway, for my fellow fic writers looking to move your old FFnet fics to a more stable archive, I hope this process helps a lot.

#kitkatt0430 rambles #fanfiction archiving #migrating from fanfiction.net to ao3 #ao3 #ffnet #fanfiction.net #tutorial

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jinxxsims · 2 years ago

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Full disclaimer to begin with. This is just how I do conversions. There are no doubt other ways, possibly even better ways to convert objects, but this is the way I know how. This post is going to be long and image heavy and I am going to walk through it slowly so nothing is missed. If any of it is still confusing once you've gotten through it, feel free to send me an ask and I will answer to the best of my ability. Part One of the tutorial under the cut!

Programs You Will Need (and links where you can find them):

SimPE

Sims 4 Studio

Blender

Milkshape

Not Strictly Necessary, But Certainly Nice To Have:

The Compressorizer by JFade or @lazyduchess edit which can be found here

A Photo Editing Program - I use Photoshop, but GIMP is a completely free, open-source program and it would work just as well for recolors or texture editing.

Now onto the tutorial!

Step One - Launch Sims 4 Studio. If it is your first time launching Sims 4 Studio or if you had launched it before without maybe knowing what to do, click on "Settings" and make sure everything is pointing where it needs to.

If it's not, the objects from the Sims 4 games, EPs, and kits you own won't show once you get into the studio. Once you've adjusted the paths, hit "Save."

Step Two - From the main screen of Sims 4 Studio, select the "Object" header.

Leave it on "Standalone Recolor." Once you hit the "Object" header, the studio will begin loading all the Sims 4 meshes in your game. It will just take a few seconds for the objects to populate.

Step Three - Choose the object you want to convert.

You can use the "Game Pack" or the Search fields (which I highlighted above) to narrow down the items instead of being bombarded with all of them at once. For this tutorial, I'm going to be converting the "Caress Chair" from the Base Game.

@sims4t2bb is the most amazing database of 4t2 content. Here you can find the various packs and kits and see what has been converted already, so you don't end up converting something that's already out there available for download. Seriously, this is an amazing resource. @lafeeverte-sims and @twentyfourfirst-sims update this database in practically real time. I don't know how they do it. This is easily one of the single greatest resources for the 4t2 converters out there. Bookmark it and check it often.

Step Four - Select the item you're going to convert and hit "next" down in the bottom, right-hand corner.

Once you've clicked "next," you'll be prompted to give your file a name and choose where to save it. THIS FILE IS USELESS. It will not be used at any point during the conversion process. In fact, you can delete it the moment Sims 4 Studio creates it. If having a lot of files around confuses you more, get rid of it right away.

For my own part, I keep it around because I have the short term memory of a goldfish. I use it to set up what I'm eventually going to name my mesh file. So in this particular instance, I named this pointless file jinxxsims-4t2-base-caresschair because it is the Caress Chair and it is from the Base Game. I know, super original, right? It works for me though.

You could name this thing xyz, it wouldn't matter. As I said, the file is never going to be used. Give it a name, hit "save," and Sims 4 Studio will spend a few moments getting the file up and ready.

Step Five - It's time to gather the components of the object. First, let's get the mesh.

Choose the "Meshes" tab. The LOD 0 (High) field should already be selected. Don't change it. Finally, choose "Export Mesh." You'll be prompted to give your mesh a name. I always just name mine "mesh," because I want there to be no doubt about what files I have floating around in my WIP folder.

Once you click "save," the game will spend a few seconds extracting the mesh as a blender file. Once it's done, go to the "Texture" tab.

Step Six - Gather the textures.

Highlight one of the color swatches at the top of the window. The first one will always be the "mesh" color. Click "export." You'll be prompted to give your texture a name. I always save the first one as "mesh."

Click on each swatch and extract the textures the same way. You will be prompted to save each swatch when exporting them. I name all of mine in the simplest way possible.... rc-1, rc-2, and so on.

KEEP IT SIMPLE. Especially when just getting started. Feel free to get fancy once you get the hang of things, but when starting out... simple is best.

This is what my WIP folder looks like after I've exported all the textures. Regardless of what you're converting, yours should look similar.

Step Seven - Double-click the "mesh" file to have it open in Blender.

Full disclosure. Blender absolutely baffles me. I know there are people who can create objects from scratch in it and do other, all kinds of impressive things, but... that is not me. I use it for roughly sixty seconds, just to get the mesh in a format that Milkshape will accept, and that's it.

The first thing we need to do is eliminate the white boxes beneath the chair until the only thing left is the mesh. On the right hand side of the window, there are listings of what the mesh is currently composed of. "s4studio_mesh_0," "s4studio_mesh_1," and "s4studio_mesh_2." Next to each, there is what looks like a little eyeball. Click the eyeball and what that part of the mesh is will disappear.

In this case, when you click the eyeball next to "s4studio_mesh_0," the big white box disappears.

So, we know that "s4studio_mesh_0" is really just that white box. Go ahead and delete it by right clicking "s4studio_mesh_0" and choosing "Delete" from the drop-down menu.

Next, click the eyeball next to "s4studio_mesh_1" and the tiny white squares under each leg disappear, so we know that that layer of the mesh is just more white boxes. Right click "s4studio_mesh_1" and choose "Delete" from the drop-down menu.

You're left with just the mesh on its own, and that's perfect! In my experience, the white boxes are almost always on layers 0 and 1 if there are 2 sets of white boxes.

Step Eight - Export the mesh as an OBJ.

Go to File > Export > Wavefront (.obj)

A panel with settings will appear on the left side of the screen. Leave the default settings, but uncheck "Write Materials" beneath "Include UVs." If you leave it checked, that's ultimately fine. All it does is create an unnecessary file in your WIP folder. I uncheck it because the less unnecessary files you have floating around, the better, because there's less of a chance of confusing yourself.

Set your file path to your WIP folder (that's the black line in the image above) and give your mesh a name if you want to rename it (I just leave mine as mesh) and then click "Export OBJ." Once you've done so, you can exit Blender and delete the Blender file that Sims 4 Studio created.

This is what my WIP folder looks like now:

Step Nine - Launch SimPE. Once the program has opened, launch the Object Workshop. I have mine in a side panel, but you can also launch it by going to Tools > Object Creation > Object Workshop. When the Workshop launches, it will ask you to choose between "Start" or "Open...".

"Start" is for cloning and recoloring Maxis objects. "Open..." is for cloning and recoloring custom objects. When doing conversions of things like chairs, tables, beds, etc., choose "Start" and clone from Maxis objects. Clone from "Open..." when creating objects Maxis doesn't really have in the catalog... like the sprinkler I just shared, the single-tile workout bags I shared, or like an end table with multiple slots when you don't want to add the slots in yourself.

Since this is just a basic dining chair, we're going to choose "Start." This will take a little while for SimPE to load the whole Sims 2 catalog. Just be patient. When it's finished loading, you'll be presented with a list that looks like this:

In this instance, I'm going to choose "Seating" and then "Dining Room" since I'm converting a dining chair. This will make sure that the chair I'm converting has all the functions of a dining chair... like it will be pushed in under a desk or a table rather than be stationary like a living chair.

How do you know which object to clone? Honestly, sometimes it's a bit of a crapshoot. IgnorantBliss on MTS has compiled a list of easy-to-clone objects here that you can download and reference when cloning. I used it A LOT when I first started converting.

When you select an item to clone, most of the time it will tell you which EP it is from. I think it's generally most accepted to clone from Base Game items if there is a Base Game item available to clone from, because the most people will be able to use it, but in my own personal opinion... at this stage in the game and time, clone whatever works for you. The Sims 2 is abandonware. Everyone who wants to play the Sims 2 has access to the full game, with all its EPs for free.

OldGamesDownload works in partnership with the Internet Archive to preserve games that have been abandoned by their creators and keep them available to the public. All Sims 2 (and Sims 1!) games can be found on their website, free of charge.

I say all of that just to say... if you clone a dining chair from Apartment Life rather than the base game... that's fine! You're not obligated to meet everyone's needs, and if someone doesn't have Apartment Life but really wants your dining chair, the means to get it are out there. Create for yourself and your own convenience first.

For this tutiorial, I'm going to clone the base game dining chair "Tea Party in Teak." Once I've highlighted it in the list, I'm going to choose "Next" at the top of the Object Workshop panel.

Step Ten - Clone the object. Under "Task," choose Clone in the drop down menu. My settings look like this:

Once yours match, choose "Start."

This will bring up a panel for you to choose the name, price, and catalog description for your item. Notice how I never told you to close Sims4Studio? That's because I go back to it now to copy the information from Sims 4.

In the Sims 4 Studio window, choose the "Catalog" subheading and copy the information over to SimPE.

I always add a line beneath the description with my screenname. If I'm converting CC from Sims 4 rather than EA content, I also always include the original creator's name. I would encourage others to do the same. This way, if there's a problem with something you shared, people know who to contact. Or, if someone gets a WCIF for an object you shared, it's easy for them to know who the maker is to help a fellow Simmer out. And if you convert someone else's object, it's just in good taste to give them the credit they are due.

Once you've given your object a title, price, and description, click "Finish" in the Object Workshop. You can also close Sims4Studio at this time.

Step Eleven - Finish preparing the clone and save your mesh.

The Scenegraph rename Wizard comes up after you hit finish. In the ModelName field, give your object a name. Not everyone does this, but I do, for neatness and clarity's sake. Once you've given it a name, click "Update," and all the values in the field will be adjusted.

Ta-da! Click "OK" and you'll be prompted to save your mesh. This is when I use that dummy file that I said you could delete immediately from Sims 4 Studio. I click it so it automatically names my new save, then I add -MESH at the end.

In this case, my save file is now jinxxsims-4t2-basegame-caresschair-MESH. I always do all capitalized "MESH" because I think there's less of a chance of anyone deleting the mesh accidentally when it's there all big and bold.

Click "Save" and SimPE will create the file for you. If you hung on to the dummy file like I did, at this point, you can delete it.

And that's where I'm ending "Part One" of this tutorial. I will work on "Part Two" which will take you the rest of the way through conversions later today and hopefully have it up tonight or tomorrow!

#tutorial #resources #4t2 conversion

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melbrewer367 · 1 year ago

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So you want to make a recolor...

I made a quick recolor tutorial for a friend group so I thought I'd go ahead and share here too. This is just a super quick guide for how to recolor an object/cas item.

There are two types of recolors. Standalone and Overrides. Overrides will replace the item/swatches that exist in the game. Standalone recolors create an additional item with it's own swatches. This tutorial works for both kinds, you just pick which one in Step 1, and then the rest is basically the same.

This tutorial also works for pretty much all buy mode items and CAS items. Anything that is tileable...I think maybe that's what you could call it...anything that can be stretched across multiple tiles, for instance, wallpapers, flooring, roofing, fencing...these types of items require a few more steps that I will not be covering here.

Ok so you want to recolor something, you need Sims 4 Studio (S4S) and a photo editing program like photoshop (there are plenty of free alternatives out there too, like Gimp is one I know a lot of people use).

Step 1! Open up S4S and pick either "Standalone" or "Override" depending on what your end goal is. Generally, you'll probably do standalone. I usually reserve overrides for permanent world items I want to change, like changing the images on the billboards in San Myshuno, for instance.

For this, I'm going to make a standalone recolor of an object so you would make sure Standalone Recolor is selected and then click "Object."

Step 2. Find the thing you want to recolor. Across the top there's filters so you can narrow it down by pack or search keywords to help find what you're looking for. Pick your item and click "next" at the bottom. A save window is going to pop up, save your file and make sure to name it something useful that's actually identifying so you can easily find it and remove it/update it/etc in the future. If you just hover your mouse over an item, it will give you the game's name for that item.

Congrats, you've created a Sims 4 package.

Step 3. (Optional) If you want to make changes to the in game display name, description, price, or style tags...you can do that on this first screen and then just hit "Apply To All Swatches." You do not have to make changes here if you don't want to though.

Step 4. This is where the fun begins. Click on the "Texture" tab. This is where you're going to get the file that you actually need to recolor. If there's a plain white swatch, I would pick that one, otherwise, I would go with whatever the lightest and most blank swatch is to make it easier on you to recolor. You just click one of the numbered swatch boxes at the top and then in the lower section make sure you have "Texture" highlighted, in this case it is my only option, and then click "Export." Another save window will pop up, just save that texture file somewhere easy to find, it'll only be there temporarily. (Or, if you want to be really smart and you plan on recoloring many things, you should make a project folder for each thing and save your texture files and things in there so you can always come back to them later.)

Step 5. So the exact tools and steps and such will kinda vary here based on what you want to accomplish and what program you use but, the broader overall process is the same. Open your texture file in an image editing software, change the colors/patterns/etc how you want, and then save that texture file. For instance, on this one I'm just going to change that pink section to a different color by just selecting the pink area with a marquee/quick selection tool and then using the Hue/Saturation tool to change the color.

Another example, this is something James Turner did in a recent video that someone asked about, you could choose some in game frames with images, put your own screenshots onto that image, and then boom you have your screenshots in game as framed photos. You would simply add your screenshot on top of the framed image as a second layer, line it up nice and neat, and you're good to go. Here's an example of what that would look like:

That's also basically how you could quickly add patterns to something. Lay your pattern image over top of the texture, change your layer style to something like "Multiply" or "overlay" depending on the look you're going for. Either way you do these, just remember to save your final product as a .png file.

Step 6. Back to S4S! Same place you were before, except now you need to click "Import" down in that lower texture section, select your texture file you just made. While you're on this screen, you should also update the colors in the "Swatch Thumbnail" section to match your new recolor, and you can also "remove swatch" to get rid of any additional swatches you don't need. Once you're done with all of this, hit save, and then go throw that .package file into your Mods folder.

Step 7. Go in game and check out your items and then pat yourself on the back.

Now you too can be cursed with this knowledge so that every time a new item/clothing is added to the game and you think, "wow I'd really like this if it was in better swatches" you can just...make those swatches.

#the sims 4 #sims 4 #tutorial #s4s tutorial #recolors #recolor tutorial

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luyepiaofeng · 1 year ago

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˖⁺‧₊˚✦ ways to make your laptop aesthetic feat. some extensions, websites & apps for students

i created this cause i found some time to finally upgrade and properly personalise my laptop, it took me almost an entire day watching youtube videos, researching for these and setting them up. so... i'm basically posting this for myself lol, but i also feel like sharing cause these are actually really good hehe

i'm using a windows laptop but i think most of these should work on mac too. most of these are free but there are maybe like less than five that require to be paid.

those that are marked with an asterisk (*) are the ones that i'm currently using while others are recommended or alternatives!

here is what my home screen looks like now:

i. screen saver

fliqlo (ios & win) * flipit (win, an inspired & alt ver of ^) flix clock (mac & web, paid ver comes with colours other than black) aura gradient clock (mac & web) retro anime desk clock (mac) flocus (web) * studywithme (web) note: remember to right-click the file and select "install", then ensure that the wait time (e.g: 5 mins) is less than your "turn off your screen" and "put my device to sleep after" (e.g: both 15 mins) in power settings

ii. tab themes

kluk: a clock tab theme * angry study helper: a tab theme that gets angy at u whenever u open a new tab gratitutab: a minimalistic tab theme that works as a to-do list prioritab: a tab theme that shows priorities that u had set for the day, week, and month

iii. extensions

tldr this: summarizes long docs, websites, articles, etc. with just a click * paperpanda: download research papers by clicking on it, it searches on domains like google scholar, semanticscholar, aodoi, and more * coffeelings: mainly a mood tracker that also saves mini journal entries colorzilla: an eyedropper colour picker * whatfont: click on it and hover on any text to show what font it is * mybib: an apa, mla, harvard, and more styles citation generator * read aloud: a tts reader that supports more than 40+ languages * notion web clipper: creates a website into a bookmark into notion * noisli: lets u listen to relaxing playlist while u study/work

iv. websites

lofi.cafe i miss the office i miss my cafe i miss my bar i miss my library a soft murmur patatap tomato timers animedoro lifeat coolors blush designs untools fontjoy zenpen decision maker museum of endangered sounds future me

v. apps

virtual cottage chill corner notion *

vi. rainmeter skins

mond * lano visualizer amatical * small clean weather animated * ageo sonder * cloudy harmattan note: if you're new to rainmeter, it can be a bit overwhelming, u may check out this short and simple tutorial on it, make sure to read the instructions if you're using complicated skins like weather (may require u to edit in txt), i also highly rec watching techrifle's videos

vii. misc.

wallpaper engine * (highly rec getting from chillhop) my live wallpaper (free alt of ^) translucenttb * roundedtb note: u can disable your shortcut icons to be invisible by right-clicking on your home screen, go to "view", and untick "show desktop icons", this is optional and i would always enable it whenever i'm working and gaming for easier access, i also set the icons to small

#luyepiaofeng #students #websites #aesthetic #laptop #desktop #customisation #extensions #minimalistic

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duusheen · 1 year ago

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Duu, I apologize if I'm asking too much, but would you mind doing a tutorial on how you use Rig Plus? The creator's tutorial is too complicated for me to understand :(

omg, okay. this is how I do it, but I'm fairly new to using this, so it might not be perfect. Still, it might help you get started 👇🏽

I'm going to make it as beginner-friendly as possible and include a lot of pictures because maybe you're like me, anon and you're more of a visual learner 🙃

First, let's check that we have the correct version of TS4 Studio and Blender (this is important, trust me). Following the creator's instructions: "It's compatible with any recent Sims4Studio Star (beta) that supports Blender v3.3 & v3.6". so I have Sims4Studio v3.2.1.2 and Blender 3.6 (Is that the latest S4S? I don't know, but it works for me).

you need to download both files. Only extract the one that says 'vyxated - RigPlus v1' (if you extract the other one, Blender won't recognize it. Don't ask me why, I have no idea, but I extracted it and it didn't work, so I had to leave it as it is. we learn from mistakes, I guess). It should look like this:

Ok, can we make the poses now, Du? No, I mean, you can if you want. But first, we need to make sure we have everything ready to export it when we're done. For that, we need this:

You can see this in the right column of the Blender window, under the 'Scene' section at the bottom

Do you have it in your Blender? If you do, yay, then you can make your pose. If you're like me and you don't have it, don't panic yet! I'll tell you how to get it. It's as easy as opening an exported rig from S4S in Blender, and magically, the little window appears. Now I'll show you how (assuming you previously synced your S4S with Blender from 'settings'. I'll assume you know how to do that; if not, send me another ask, and I'll tell you how).

now what? nothing. you SHOULD have that S4S tab (when I first opened the EA Rig+ it didn't show up for me until I did that. You can close that blank rig; you won't need it anymore). ok NOW can we make the poses? yes! wait, no. the Add-ons. that's pretty easy: "File > Blender Preferences > Add-ons > Install… > select vyxated_RigPlus_extras.zip /.py"

NOW you are ready to make a pose. here's mine 🤠

We're going to save the pose. For this, the process is a bit different from saving a pose normally. Just follow the steps and you should be fine. You can check if it's saved correctly at the end; I'll show you how, don't worry.

fist, HIDE 'the RigPlus_Adult' (that's the one with all the controls to move the sim).

It should appear orange, both the selected parts and the points on the sim body. According to the creator's instructions, you MUSTN´T insert keyframes while in Object Mode or you'll end up with the T-pose in the game. Orange = OBJECT MODE, blue = POSE MODE. You need to be in POSE MODE (all blue dots) to insert keyframes. let's see some pictures.

don't insert keyframes here ☝🏽

NOW you can inser keyframes (in other words: on your keyboard, you press A and then I > Location & Rotation). IMPORTANT: always remember to have Rig_Adult selected to insert keyframes.

Now hide Rig_Adult and leave only RigPlus_Adult visible because we're going to insert the keyframes there too. Same process: make sure you're in POSE MODE > A (to select all) > I > Location & Rotation.

You're ready to export your pose. But wait! Remember I told you we needed that S4S window? Here's where that comes in. To export your pose, you need to have 'Rig_Adult' selected, otherwise, it won't save properly. The way to check if you're selecting the right one is by looking at that S4S window. Let me show you how:

You go to Scene, and at the bottom where it says 'S4Studio Animation Tools,' it should say 'Rig_AdultAction.' If you have the right one selected, you can now save your pose as you would normally do.(you know, going to Files > Save As…)"

That would be basically everything!! ✨Now, Some tips:

to view/use the Asset Browser (where you can find objects), you have to go here:

And to install it, in the creator's words: 'Edit > Blender Preferences > File Paths > Asset Libraries > add the vyxated - RigPlus Assets folder you've extracted'

I don't know how much you know about Blender, anon, so I'm going to be super basic here. To move the "bones" use R, RR, and G. Just press one of these keys and see if it moves where you want. Doesn't work with R? Then Ctrl+Z and try RR. Still no? Ctrl+Z and G. Just try until it looks the way you want 😁

Oh, right! I mentioned you could check if the pose was exported correctly and almost forgot to tell you how lol. Once you put the pose in your pose pack in S4S, all you have to do is export the pose you made from there (in the same way I explained to you above). I export it to the desktop, double click and open it. If the pose looks exactly like what you made, then congratulations! You've done it right. If all you see is the T-pose, then go back to the saving step because you've done something wrong (in my case, I was saving the pose in Object Mode, but I also had issues when I didn't have Rig_Adult selected when saving the pose 😆)

Alright, that's all! I hope it's not too confusing and that it helps you! Let me know if something isn't clear, nonny! 💖

#idk how to tag this lmao #pose tutorial #i guess #du replies

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putschki1969 · 1 month ago

Note

Hello Sarah,

I'm so sorry for the multiple posts, but I have some good news!

The first one is that I might have found a way around SKIYAKI's region issue with the sms verification, which (guess what) was also a problem for me. 😅

You need a good VPN that works on mobile devices through an app (nord VPN, express VPN, etc.) I connected to Tokyo and attempted the SMS verification through the SKIYAKI app and it worked!

The 2nd is I managed to become a member of Keiko's FC! After all these countless attempts and failures, perseverance finally paid off!

Some tips for those who want to become a member and may run through similar issues:

At step 2.2 -2.3 where I got stuck and couldn't receive the email to proceed. I tackled it by using a VPN and incognito tab on an android mobile device (on pc this didn't work) in order to get around the possible region lock.

For the name, I just followed your advice for the closest instance of it in Katakana. After I receive the membership ID, I will follow the tip of the fellow fan hkrwa to edit my name.

Be careful as the Lawson ticket registration is extremely case sensitive. A single space after the name can cause an error.

Then, it was the address issue. At that point, I thought of asking tenso support if I had made a mistake at the address step since I couldn't make their tutorial work.

After a couple back and forth e-mails with them (they thought I was trying to get a ticket 😑), they sent me an email with what to place at the address fields and... IT WORKED!!! 🥳🎉

This is what they sent:

City [足立区千住曙町]

Street address [４２－４]

Apartment name and room number [ＴＳ１３３０８２５　転送コム]

Maybe the width I used was wrong 🤔

For payment for both FCs I used my Revolut, which worked fine.

Anyway, my apologies for the long post and spamming your ask corner with posts all these days! I hope the above can be of help to fellow fans!

YAY!!! So happy it all worked out eventually. Thanks for the tip regarding the SKIYAKI SMS verification. I will try this method to register my new smartphone so I don't always have to bring my old one with me to Wakana's concerts. It was slowly becoming a hassle because the old phone required constant charging. I think it should be fine with my Surfshark VPN. *fingers crossed*

It's been so long since I registered my Keiko FC membership but maybe I struggled with similar issues. I don't remember T_T By now, I am almost used to constant errors when I first try to register on a Japanese site. It's always a lot of trial and error so I've learned to be patient and to try many different options. But it's honestly a case by case matter so there are no universal tips that I can give.

Thank you for providing all this info about your personal experience. I am sure it can be useful to people who want to join Keiko's fan club.

#kalafina #reply #tutorial #meat and chocolate #niku to chocolate

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autumnslance · 2 years ago

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Tumblr Cosmetic Customization Tutorial

You there! New Tumblr User with a default icon and header, no description, no custom URL, and not wanting to be mistaken for a bot--you just want to maybe figure out this weird hellsite and follow some people without being blocked, right?

Maybe you've been around for a little while, or are returning from that other hellsite, and don't know what the heck folks mean by enabling the custom URL and why are so many blogs opening on the dash instead of in a new tab?!

Let's sort this mess out below the cut with a screencap-laden tutorial, starting on mobile app (since Most new blogs start there these days, and many people use mobile more, or exclusively) and then moving to web browser for some other features that aren't available in the app (as of 1/27/23 anyway).

This is just going to be about cosmetic customization and accessing the correct blog URL and archive; Tumblr's many other settings and features for how you want to see your Dashboard and how much Privacy control you decide on are for your exploration (or another day and another tutorial, this one's long enough).

The tutorial blog itself literally took me well under 5 minutes to set up, and Tumblr guided me to customizing immediately. Taking the screenshots added a few seconds to the time; it's taken longer to write the first part of this post out. If you didn't customize the blog right away, don't fret! You can always tap the little art palette and cogwheel icons at the top of your blog to sort it out.

Now go below the link to see written instructions with image examples, including a few more with my cat:

TO BEGIN: In the mobile app, I make a new blog. For me, it's a sideblog under my main and existing sides, but otherwise this is all the same info. The following process also isn't actually all that different in web browser.

Now, you can change your URL later on if you want; a lot of folks do over time. Just be aware: changing your URL breaks any and all previous links to your blog, including any posts others have reblogged under "Read More" cuts, with the same result as if the blog was deactivated; the URL no longer exists, so Tumblr doesn't count it as "there" anymore.

Now that's out of the way, once I make a blog it immediately takes me to the Customization screen:

I can--and should!--give my blog a name and a description. Doesn't have to be long or fancy, and can always be changed later with no risk to your links.

I can tap the "Background" and "Accent" buttons to change the default colors, too. Let's go for something easy on the eyes by tapping on the colored circles to find some default options, or the wheel to grab a random custom one. I'm going to go to purple and find a nice shade there.

Next I will tap on the little default icon to choose an avatar photo. I can choose not to show it on my blog, and if I do, whether I want it to be square or circle.

I can also tap to choose a header image if I like. I'm just grabbing some images from my phone. I did have to redo the avatar as it didn't want to stay after selecting a header pic for some reason.

And then I made a quick post and pinned it, to let folks know that I am human and what the purpose of this blog is (lurking for now? A main blog for following while sideblogs get the content? In this case, a tutorial).

OK, so my cat for an icon, my copy of the fanzine I worked on as a header, a quick title and description, and a short post. Even if I post nothing else to this blog (and if it were a main blog; sideblogs can't follow others, nor send asks or replies), people will be fairly certain I am not a bot, hooray! And if I want to change anything, I can tap on the icons at the top of the blog and get back to these customization screens.

I CAN STOP HERE IF I WANT TO

...BUT WHAT IF I, or buddies, try to open my blog in a browser and it opens a dash panel? What if I (or others) want to access my Archive? Unfortunately, I cannot find the correct option in the mobile app at this point, so onto a web browser we go (on my phone or my tablet, or my computer).

I am using a generic default web browser where I don't have many extensions/plugins/addons enabled (though apparently I did set dark mode). When I tap/hover over my icon, it still shows my color option and everything I selected in app setup.

Here is where I am going to direct you to the side bar and the "Edit Appearance" button so I can point out some Very Important Things, even if you don't customize anything else ever.

When I open my blog's appearance tab, right away it's going to tell me some interesting things I have circled and pointed at on the below screenshot:

In RED I have circled my blog's URL: www.tumblr.com/lynmarstesting. This is why a blog opens in a dash panel instead of going to an actual blog. This is the new Default URL, I cannot access an Archive or other blog features like this.

The ORANGE arrow points to the feature we want, right below the "Blog name" and URL: "Custom Theme". When I swipe this feature to active, it tells me my URL is updated.

When I go to my blog, the URL in my browser shows the proper https://lynmarstesting.tumblr.com link.

And the blog looks...well, bare bones and empty, but a proper weblog page. And I (and anyone else) have access to my Archive! When, y'know, I have enough posts to make that a thing on this blog.

Now, if I or anyone else opens the blog by clicking my username or icon, it'll open a dash panel...but also show my actual @ and my proper URL link, so they can go to the blog itself that way if they want. Everyone wins!

I CAN STOP HERE IF I WANT TO;

there's no need from this point to keep messing around in a browser, we've done everything to 1) make ourselves look human and 2) make our blog properly linkable/accessible.

BUT WHAT IF...??

Once again, the little art palette icon at the top is our clicky-buddy, boxed below in orange:

This opens an "Edit Theme" sidebar panel where one can customize the blog. Each theme has different options, and Tumblr's default theme is honestly really modular; change colors, fonts, have multiple columns, add some pages (I've a whole other tutorial on that), etc.

There's also an "Advanced" pane, where you can mess with some other settings (the little ? icon on each line tells you what it does) and, if you're knowledgeable--or just bold--this is where you can add some Custom CSS.

Say the Default Tumblr Official isn't doing it, though; at the top of the Edit Theme pane it tells you your current theme, and there's a handy "Browse Themes" link.

This opens a drop down with multiple sorting options. I don't want to spend money on a premium blog theme at the moment, and the others are a mix, so let's check out the Free Themes options.

There's a lot of options here! Some new ones, some are sponsored, lots of variety. Even the "Accessible" theme I mainly use is there, in its barren glory, compared to what you can see I've made of it on browser (see that previous tutorial I linked above):

Again: Different Themes have Different Levels of Customization.

Some will let you change every color, the fonts, the frames, and so on. Some let you add links everywhere. Some barely let you touch anything. You can tap "Use" at the top to preview, and the "Advanced" pane will let you preview random pretend posts if you don't have many/any of your own to see how they'd look. If you don't like how something's turning out, just click back on "Free Themes" and look for another one.

PLEASE KEEP IN MIND READABILITY!!

When people follow links to your blog--like a Read More cut--they will see the post on your blog's theme and in your blog's colors. Even on mobile app, especially if you override the default mobile theme, your color choices will have an impact! Aesthetic is all well and good, but frames, fonts, colors, and so on, should be legible and readable to most people, especially if you mean to share a lot of text posts.

Another thing to note: Your theme will NOT appear on mobile app. It defaults to a basic setup in the app, keeping maybe only your colors. Any custom links won't show, and cosmetic site options and access are limited in a lot of ways. The site is usable on a mobile web browser, and will have those features there. I get around the app's inability to show my theme's links by adding them all to my informative Pinned Posts on each blog, but that's me.

And there you have it! How to cosmetically customize a Tumblr, in mobile app and browser, to seem like a real person and access the correct URL and features of your blog. Whether you're new or been here awhile, hopefully this helps answer some really basic questions about how and why to do some of these things.

Have a final full-sized silly Chel pic to say goodbye.

#Tumblr #Tutorial #Blogging #How To #Customization #Options #mobile app #web browser #reference #resources

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salemsimsrender · 1 year ago

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Blender Tutorial: Building a Scene Part 1: Importing Furniture from Sims 4

Building a scene from scratch is no mean feat, so this will likely be a multi-part tutorial.

In this tutorial I'll be going over the basics on building a scene. This will be the barebones necessities to get a room with a moose and some nice lighting to place your sims in for a render.

There are, of course, more in-depth and complicated ways of doing this, but these are the basics and the easiest (in my opinion!) way to get a nice little scene without too much work.

With that all said, let's get started!

Let's start by adding furniture into our scene. Usually I'd build a room first but I know many of your were asking how to do this so I'll cover this first!

Step 1: Exporting Meshes and Textures from S4S

Appending furniture and decor to a scene works the same way as appending jewelry to a sim. First we have to prepare it for blender in Sims 4 Studio. If you're using a piece of furniture from the game, select "Object" in Sims 4 Studio. It may load slowly so be patient!

Then you'll see the game's full catalogue:

Filter and sort as needed to find what you're looking for. For this tutorial I'm going to remake (and revamp) one of the first blender scenes I've ever made, which looked like this:

So I'll export the fireplace first. It's from Vintage Glamour, so I'll filter my S4S by Vintage Glamour, and here it is:

Highlight the fireplace then click "Next" Name the package anything, but make it easy to remember. If you need another swatch in the future you can always open the fireplace directly in S4S instead of searching for it each time. Save it somewhere easy to find! Once opened, you'll see this:

To render furniture, we need to export the Mesh and Texture files. I'm in the habit of exporting my mesh first, so we'll do it that way. Click the "mesh" tab and you'll see this:

Click "Export Mesh" and save the .blend file somewhere easy to find! I typically keep the .package, .mesh, and .png (texture) files all in the same place. I find it easier while working in blender. Do whatever makes sense to you just make sure to stay organized! After saving the mesh, navigate to the Texture tab and do the same thing:

Export the texture and save it somewhere easy to find. Repeat this process for all the furniture you'll need for your scene.

Step Two: Appending Furniture Items into Blender & Applying Textures

Now let's go into blender. As always, delete the default cube, lamp, and camera, then set up your workspace in whatever way is comfortable for you. I like to set mine up like this:

Now, just like with jewelry, let's append our fireplace in. Go to File -> Append and locate your fireplace .blend file. Open the file, then the Object folder, then select all "studio_mesh" files you see:

You should then have something like this:

Delete the bone_bone and rig as always, then also delete the footprint, which for me was the first studio_mesh in my Outliner list.

Then you'll have the fireplace by itself:

Navigate to the Shader Editor in your preferred workspace, then to the "Material Properties" tab.

Click the minus beside the diffuse texture to get rid of it. Then click the "New" button that appears once the diffuse is gone.

Nodes will appear in your shader tab!

Like we did with jewelry, add in an Image Texture node, a Mix Shader, and a Transparent BSDF. Connect and arrange them exactly like I have here:

Make sure you add in your texture file in the Image Texture node (click open, then navigate to your .png file we exported from S4S). Change the blend mode to Alpha Hashed in your properties window, like this:

And make sure you're in Material Preview mode (I wasn't) by pressing Z on your keyboard and selecting "Material preview"

Now you should have something like this!

In Part Two, we'll add in the walls of the room and maybe a window!

Some notes before I leave you:

Using CC works the same way, you can add it into the custom content folder in S4S OR you can double-click the package file and open it in S4S that way.

Some objects, like trees, have more than one texture. I'll do a separate mini tutorial on that if yall need but basically you'll export both texture files and then apply them to the proper parts of the object (for a tree, for example, the leaves and trunk are often separate texture files)

Please let me know if yall have any questions! And stay tuned for Part Two!

#salemsims tutorial #render school tutorial #sims 4 render tutorial #sims 4 blender tutorial #render tutorial #blender tutorial #tutorial

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quidcumque · 2 years ago

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GRAVEYARD KEEPER: FIRST THOUGHTS

I heard it compared to Stardew Valley and aside from the silly title screen, it's definitely visually there. Play through? There are a hell of a lot of cons, but they won't keep me from playing it

Con: no character customization, no choices at all. You ARE a heterosexual white male-presenting protagonist with a female-presenting white sweetheart. Any headcannon re either of you being 🏳️‍⚧️ remains headcannon

Hilarious: you are reading a text from your sweetheart when crossing a road and you get hit by a car. Keep track of your surroundings, kids

Con: the dialog writing starts out real clumsy. You do eventually get choices, but I prefer how SV makes you the strong silent type when you're not actively involved

WHICH REMINDS ME, CON: don't let the dialog bubbles cycle on their own without me clicking??? I missed so much unretrievable info because I was mulling over the first half smh

Plot: she swallowed the dog to catch the cat, she swallowed the cat to catch the bird, she swallowed the bird to catch the spider, she swallowed the spider to catch the fly. I don't know why she swallowed the fly, maybe she died crossing the street and woke up in a shitty little medieval FLAT EARTHER village and she has to rube goldburg her way to and through a magic portal to get back to her sweetheart. Or something.

Pro: I don't play rpgs much so while I don't prefer this style over sv's do-whatever-and-you'll-suck-less-as-you-go gameplay, it's pretty awesome in and off itself BECAUSE it's so different. It also contributes heavily to the swallowed-the-spider-to-catch-the-fly effect because it's got EIGHT TABS OF TECH TREES and I started drawing graphs

Pro: you're on a derelict homestead/graveyard with a familiar need to clear rocks/trees/stuff and bring the area back to life. BUT doing things gives you different xp/knowledge points which is how you advance on the tech trees, so it's different from just a carbon copy SV feel

Con: Jesús Christ you can tell this was made by a dude. So was SV, but where it had nearly equal gender ratios (plus the aforementioned character choices), I've seen... not very many women thus far, and what we get is not exactly impressive. I have no problems with "ms charm" telling me to fuck off until I deserved to talk to her, as half the men I met said the same. But I've met two wives thus far, and uhhhhhhhhhhh one is straight up called sweet but stupid in her bio and the other opens EVERY SINGLE DIALOG with "you should talk to my husband, he's in charge" like jfc lady you're the one I need for recipes, calm down? Does he beat you? What the hell?

Con: let's set aside that I'm pretty sure the "medieval idiots thought world flat" thing has been debunked, because I found info but it didn't have good citations. Also maybe we're going for parody over historically accurate, fine whatever. But whyyyyyyyyyy do you have a guy named "G*psy Traveler" like I know I have an inflated sense of how widely it's known that that's a slur, but it on top of the flat earth thing and the WOW that's bad female-or-anything representation, it builds an image of the creator/creators as the really stereotypical basement dwelling head-up-ass dudes who have never ever looked outside their zone and never ever want to

Pro: like two steps into the tutorial you're slapped in the face with Soilent Green is People and you just live with that

Hilarious: I can tell when I have a first conversation with somebody I was supposed to have met already, because my pre-scripted side of the conversation suddenly backslides in terms of my acceptance of the situation

Pro: time is an illusion and represented only by the cycle of emoji-labeled days. Weeks are not counted, so I legitimately have no clue how many "weeks" I went through last night

Unsure??? I don't know how much I'm going to have to drink the church koolaid to progress? I saw an indication up the tech tree that suggested my good/evil choices MIGHT matter, but I've got no idea how. I told the inquisitor who'd just BURNED A PEOPLE ALIVE IN FRONT OF ME that sure I'd be his friend, and I don't know if the game allows for that to have been a choice made out of the fear that I'd be burned next if I said no

Pro: I still want to play it. The myriad cons will influence how I talk about it to my friends, but it's still giving me dopamine, and that's good enough

#graveyard keeper #stardew valley #game review #first thoughts

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okaywannabe · 1 month ago

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How to install the native gog(and maybe steam? I dont own it to check) linux version of Star of Providence (monolith: relics of the past)! a very niche tutorial for maybe 6 people in the world.

This also might slightly help as a base guide in learning how to troubleshoot programs and games on linux.

This guide assumes you have Steam installed and can be trusted to find certain library files if you do not already have them installed. On my personal system I am running openSUSE tumbleweed and will be using Lutris to launch the game, but equivalent steps for launching through Steam will be provided when needed.

Firstly, turn off hidden files.

the base game is 32-bit only and requires files from /.steam/bin/steam-runtime/lib/1386-linux-gnu Base game+DLC is 64-bit only and requires files from /.steam/bin/steam-runtime/lib/x86-64-linux-gnu

if you're using Lutris. inside your monolith game directory place a new folder named "lib" place "libcrypto.so.1.0.0" and "libssl.so.1.0.0" from your respective steam-runtime/lib folders into the monolith lib directory in lutris, right click and confiure on monolith, select toggle "advanced" on the top right of the window under game options "add directory to LD_LIBRARY_PATH" add your lib directory in the monolith folder

on Steam.

into your game properties tab paste either

for base game

LD_PRELOAD="~/.steam/bin/steam-runtime/lib/1386-linux-gnu/libssl.so.1.0.0 ~/.steam/bin/steam-runtime/lib/1386-linux-gnu/libcrypto.so.1.0.0" %command%

for base + DLC

LD_PRELOAD="~/.steam/bin/steam-runtime/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libssl.so.1.0.0 ~/.steam/bin/steam-runtime/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcrypto.so.1.0.0" %command%

for the base game we should be done and the game is playable however, with the DLC at this point we're still missing (on opensuse tumbleweed, your system might be different, check your games logs while trying to launch)one library file to make the game launch, it wants to look for libcurl-gnutls.so.4 which is unavailable in the repos of non ubuntu/debian based distros, however this file (seems to be) completely cross compatible with libcurl.so.4 so we're going to be making a symbolic link, so when the game searches for libcurl-gnutls.so.4 it will find libcurl.so.4

open a terminal in your system's /lib64/ folder, with Dolphin this can be done by right clicking an empty space and under actions select "open terminal here", alternatively just move to the directory inside of your terminal paste | sudo ln -s libcurl.so.4 libcurl-gnutls.so.4

(now, this might have negative consequences however, I do not know what they would be and someone who actually codes might be able to pitch in here. if so, just add it to the lib directory for the game for lutris or add a new folder under LD_PRELOAD on the steam properties) the game should now be playable

Alternatively to all of this, just use proton. on Steam just change the compatibility mode to the latest version and in Lutris install the base games windows version and run it using proton or wine-ge, to get the dlc to work select "Run EXE inside Wine prefix, this can be found to the right of the play button at the bottom of the list to the right of the wine button. Now launch the DLC installer. Congrats! You got the game to work in hopefully a quarter of the time it took me to both figure this out and document all of this!

#star of providence #linux #opensuse #this is primarily for me later lol

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