#so I would not increase the MXAO further.

[grimfolks]

i'm sorry to bother you, i just came across your blog and i'm so shocked with how amazing your sims look. i play sims 3 but my sims look pretty average and my screenshots don't look great, can you please if it's possible explain how your sims look so beautiful like this? (specifically this post hiddenspriings/742135415348330496) like, how do your sims look that good? is that a default skin? and how do they have those shadows on their faces etc, is that editing or reshade? can you please explain deeply? i'm sorry i'm asking for many things, i'm just a noob and i really get confused looking at these beautiful posts wondering how to make my sims look cool like that too!!

I don't even know where to start asdfghjkl 😅 developing a sim style is honestly a journey and when I joined simblr my sims looked like potatoes too, it takes time and effort to actively work on that 'skill' if I might call it that. With that often comes the dissatisfaction of your progress and how your sims look, and sometimes you just have to stop yourself and enjoy the ride, without looking around at what others are doing. Anyways, into actual 'tips':

I think you need to figure out where you stand when it comes to cc (it's not really a need but it's gonna help I guess). I like the look of very simple maxis match skins (I have those linked on my resources page) and very often alpha makeup cc layered on top. I personally don't really like how alpha skins look like on my sims (they usually have much more depth to them but since I’m not into that I can’t recommend anything) so everything you see on them - highlights, blushes, shadows etc. is just makeup cc. For those I recommend: blushes 1 2 3 4 shadows & highlights 1(!) 2(!) 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 (+ tifa’s stuff here). Add them on top of each other and bam! suddenly your sim isn’t so flat faced anymore (little note here, I often use ‘blushes’ as shadows as well depending on their placement ;)

If you are interested in what I personally use as defaults check my resources page. I also have all the skins and eyes cc I use linked there. My advice would be to also check other simblrs’ resources as well, there are some well hidden gems there that otherwise I wouldn’t be able to find on my own. 

But If you are new to sims 3 you might ask: hey, how do you layer cc if you can only apply one for the category in cas? Well...Get yourself nraas master controller if you haven't already. With that mod you can increase the number of sliders which give you freedom of creating more diverse looking sims and assign multiple makeup per location. I won't explain how to do it here as there are multiple guides online, just google your question :) - I even saw great guides on youtube! It might seem like a lot at first but believe me, nraas along with its many modules will save you a lot of time and hussle. 

Lastly, part of the posting process here on simblr is editing and I cannot lie that my sims don’t benefit on that. I use reshade with mxao which enhance colors and shadows (check my f.a.q page for links) and smooth out pictures further with photoshop tools. 

Now I’m gonna expose myself a little, this is from left to right: the oldest sim in my folder currently (I’d say this is my late 2022 style), my newest sim and my newest sim with reshade on (but no further editing).

It’s a shame I don’t have access to my very first sims in sims 3 to really compare them but I think even here you can see the difference. So do not get discouraged, it will take a time and dedication like any other hobby but you’ll get where you want to be eventually :)

[intramoon]

hi! in ur suriya preset i want to increase the shadow but idk what to adjust. im still figuring out reshade b/c i just installed it on my game. what is the use of smaa and mxao? thank u and have a great day! 🥺

Hello! Please read my FAQ before you send an ask, there you’ll see I do not answer ReShade related questions and you’ll find a link to page where I have provided information on how to adjust the settings within ReShade including shadows (MXAO). 

MXAO creates shadows and SMAA is used as an alternative to edge-smoothing since in order for MXAO and DOF to work you must disable the Sims 4 edge-smoothing setting. 

[pictureamoebae]

So I'm a bit confused on DOF. Can you explain how to shift the focus so it's only applied to the background? It always just blurs the whole screen. Also, when I have DOF off, at certain camera angles the screen is blurred when I don't want it to be. It's not reshade or anything, it's the game when the camera is at eye-level. I can't figure out how to clarify it.

I’ll take the second problem first: the game has its own rudimentary type of DoF. It’s not great, but it’s there to hide the flat, low detail textures of the backdrops. There are mods that will let you turn it off, or you can turn it off yourself (which is what I do). 

Go into your Bin folder, and open up graphicsrules.sgr in a text editor (preferably one that makes it easy to ready stuff -- I use Notepad++).

Press ctrl+f in Notepad++ (I’m guessing most editors have a similar search function) and type in DofEnabled and press Find Next. 

It will take you to a section that begins ‘option LightingQuality’, with sub-sections for each level of graphics quality (Low, Medium, High, Very High). Find the sub-section that corresponds to the quality you have set in the game. You’ll see a line that says ‘prop $ConfigGroup DofEnabled true’ -- change the true to false and save.

If you’re not sure which sub-section is the right one, change #prop $ConfigGroup DofEnabled true’ to false in all of them.

Fun fact: a few lines above that is ‘prop $ConfigGroup SsaoEnabled true’. This is what you edit to get rid of the game’s atrocious ambient occlusion (their very bad version of mxao). If you set this line to false it will get rid of their bad ao, but it will also disable DoF, so you don’t have to change the DofEnabled line as well. I only turn off the Ssao line and it switches off them both. Two birds, one stone.

---

Back to the first question: I’m going to assume you have the depth buffer set up correctly. So we need to look at your focusing method in the DoF shader.

A lot of people tick the auto-focus and mouse-driven auto-focus boxes, because it makes it easy to focus. With these two options checked, wherever you point your mouse will be in focus, and everything behind it will start to become blurred. I don’t use that method because it doesn’t work with SRWE (if you don’t know what SRWE is don’t worry about this, it doesn’t apply to your question) so I don’t have it set up like that. I left it set up with manual focus.

If you want to continue using manual focus, the settings you  need to control where the focus lies are primarily the manual focus depth and near and far blur curves. 

The manual focus depth is where the focus should be. So, imagine you standing with a camera, you’re at 0.000. Look into the far distance and imagine the sky is a big cardboard backdrop way back there: that’s 1.000. Everything in between falls somewhere along the distance between 0.000 and 1.000. If you want to have the sharpest focus be on a tree that is approximately 20% of the way in front of you, you would want to set the manual focus depth as 0.200.

Most of the close portraits I take have the manual depth set at around 0.020-0.040. 

Near blur curve and far blur curve determine how softly or sharply the blur starts in front of and behind your focus point. Higher numbers mean the blur starts much more softly and further away from the focus point. Smaller numbers mean the blur starts much more sharply (or abruptly) and closer to the focus point.

I leave near blur curve set at its maximum because I don’t think the regular DoF shader handles near blur very well (near blur means blur in between you and your focus point). If you want good near blur look at the Cinematic DoF shader instead.

I generally leave far blur curve set at its default, but for some wide landscape shots where I just want a gentle blur in the distance I will increase it so there isn’t an obvious line where the blur begins. Far blur is the blur that falls behind your focus point, in between it and the backdrop.

You can still use near and far blur curve if you use auto-focus, but if you use manual focus you’ll probably find yourself playing with them a little bit more.