#ts3 creators cave

[ts3creatorscave]

Creator Community Good Faith Practices

Here at the Creator’s Cave, our mission is to create a ‘safe space’ for people to learn how to create new content and mods for The Sims 3, and share their knowledge of how to create new content and mods for the Sims 3.

Frequently, new custom content (CC) is generated by making edits to existing CC. As part of the above mission, we feel it is required of us to encourage ‘Good Faith’ practices, and to discourage ‘Bad Faith’ practices when utilizing content from other creators in your CC or mods.

We've made a  list of ‘Good Faith’ and ‘Bad Faith’, and ‘Grey Area’ practices to serve as guidelines for both existing and aspiring creators.

We asked those in the discord to help distill and tweak it, and will continue to make alterations based on feedback from the creator community. These guidelines are primarily enforced by the community itself, and other creators may decline to provide assistance to someone who is using ‘Bad Faith’ practices.

Here’s a link to the doc for any interested: TS3 Creator Good Faith Practices

[elvgreen]

working on TF versions , all of these are compressed packages

riona pants

YAF-AF only

1 recolorable preset, 3 non-recolorable presets

everyday, athletic, sleepwear, outerwear

all credits to clumsyalien

catalina skirt

YAF-AF only

1 recolorable, 3 non-recolorable

everyday, formal, career

all morphs

all credits to clumsyalien

ali pants

YAF-AF only

2048 x 2048 textures, semi-high poly!!

1 recolorable, 3 non-recolorable

everyday, formal, outerwear

all morphs

all credits to amelylina

straight levi's jeans

YAF-AF only

2048 x 2048 textures, semi-high poly !!

everyday, athletic, outerwear

all morphs

all credits to elliesimple

greta skirt

YAF-AF only

1 recolorable, 3 non-recolorable

everyday, formal, outerwear

all morphs

all credits to clumsyalien

PSA: the skirt clips around the sim's left knee when walking. i tried to fix it as best as i could. i might come back and fix it but it looks fine in other animations

ANY ISSUES LET ME KNOW! i'm a lone tester so if you want to test my cc just slide in my dms!

huge thank you to all the fellow simmers in the ts3 creator cave discord, who helped me with riona's retopology and meshing!

RIONA | CATALINA | ALI | LEVI'S | GRETA

MIRROR (MF)

[twinsimming]

Chaise Lounge Mod by Twinsimming 😴

I created this mod to work with my converted chaise lounge pieces and originally released it as my first script mod back in 2021.

This new version of the mod now allows for translations to other languages and easier updating.

This is a script mod that can be placed in your Packages folder. It was built and tested on 1.69 but should work fine on 1.67.

Requirements

This mod requires one of the sectional sets I converted from The Sims 4: Dream Home Decorator to function:

A Couch Evolved Sectional Set

Tough and Tufted Sectional Set

Chaise Lounge

Sims Teen and older can either "Nap" or "Relax" on chaise lounges, like my sim in the preview picture.

Conflicts & Known Issues

- This is a new object class so there shouldn’t be any conflicts.

- Teen sims sink into the chaise a little when using it.

Credits

EA/Maxis for The Sims 3 and The Sims 4, Visual Studio 2019, ILSpy, SmoothJazz, Blender, s3pe, Sims4Studio, and Notepad++.

Thank You

Thank you to everyone over at the TS3 Creators Cave discord, and to patrycarro for bringing the translation issue to my attention!

If you like my work, please consider tipping me on Ko-fi 💙

Download @ ModTheSims

[simbouquet]

TS3: CAS Lighting Edit

Last year, I was experimenting a little bit with the CAS lighting and managed to come up with this neat little mod that I’ve had sitting around up until now. I figured it was about time I shared, so here it is!💡

More info and download under the cut! 

Previews: White Background / Default CAS Background

This CAS lighting is much less flat than EA’s default, with defined shadows that draw attention to the Sim’s face and add depth to their features, overall making them more faithful to what they’ll look like during gameplay. It also happens to make the mirror reflection just a little more bearable to look at! :P

I’ve included comparison images in the links above, one with the Sim on a flat white background where you can see the differences in lighting without distractions, and another in the good ol’ CAS screen to give you an idea of how it looks inside that environment.

Compatibility

This mod is compatible with all your usual world lighting mods, since they edit completely different resources.

This mod is incompatible with any mods that edit the CustomLightRigging _INI resource. AFAIK, the only other mod like this that’s out there at the moment is @criisolatex's lovely Pure CAS Lighting Mod, which I recommend if you prefer a more stylized, silky-smooth look.

Download: SFS / MTS

Place the .package file in your Packages or Overrides folder.

Credits & Thanks

s3pe: Exporting/Importing resources, creating the .package file.

Notepad++: Editing the .ini file.

Adobe Photoshop 2024: Creating the preview images.

Thanks to @misspats3, @antoninko, @simplyslow and @probablyzora for testing and giving feedback!

Thanks to the lovely community at TS3 Creators Cave!

[ktarsims]

Life Updates and Such...

Soooo.... many things! At the moment, I've finally pulled myself somewhat out of the doldrums caused by lack-of-job + job-search-sucks and am making all the preparations for celebrating the end of this year and the start of a new one.

I think I've binged something like 30+ anime series in the last month or so, along with reading many many books.

Today, I've finally got some bots working in the Creator's Cave discord, to make things a bit easier there. There are more updates I still need to do, but it's a start.

My hope for this week, is that in addition to my preparations for New Year's, I'll be able to actually finish my project of turning some of my flower photos into TS3 art. No promises, but I'm hopeful.

Below the cut, for the curious or nosy, the menu and preparations for New Year's.

Before anyone starts to wonder... two of the friends coming to my place for New Year's are really really into Pumpkin, so this is reflected here. Yes, this is probably too much food and drink for... 6 people, but hey... leftovers.

**Food** 1 frozen lasagna, family size 1 batch homemade mac&cheese (made by not me) Cheeses! (Extra sharp white cheddar, brie, various spreadables, 3 varieties of goat cheese) Crackers! (Ritz garlic butter, rosemary flatbread, 5 other assorted) Meats! (Summer sausage, dry salame, fig salame) Tea Sandwiches! (Cream cheese + smoke salmon or cucumber or jam) Scones! (I plan to make at least 3 varieties, but haven't yet decided which.) Oven ready appetizers! (Takoyaki, bagel bites, baked potato skins, loaded tater tots, mini quiches, mozzarella sticks, and more.) Shrimp Cocktail platter Veggie Platter Sweet Maui Onion potato chips Homemade snack mix (Corn Chex, Rice Chex, Pretzels, Cashews, Pistachios, white cheddar cheeze-its, white cheddar cheese puffs)

**Sweets** Pumpkin Spice Twinkies Iced Pumpkin Cupcakes (this is also hostess brand) Yackwa Korean donuts (gift from a neighbor) Assorted flavors of KitKats Pumpkin Pie yogurt covered pretzels Butter Rum Crunch popcorn Bourbon Crunch popcorn Milk Chocolate cherry cordials Other assorted chocolates

**Non-Alcoholic Drinks** Five different flavors of Martinellis sparkling cider Pumpkin Spice cold brewed tea (caffeinated) Pumpkin Creme Rooibos cold brew tea (herbal) Pumpkin Pie cold brew tea (herbal) Various Gatorade

**Alcoholic Drinks** 'Strong Mead' from a cider festival (gift from friend) Expensive bottle of Sake 'Demon Slayer' 1 bottle Louis Perrier Champagne for ringing in the new year Berenjaeger Green Apple Sake Peach Sake Umeshu Plum Wine Matcha Plum Wine (I'm really curious about this one) Butterscotch Shnapps Pumpkin hard Cider Dark Chocolate Cherry Moonshine Eggo Brunch Sippin' Cream A cupboard full of other assorted things that probably won't be looked at.

[olomaya]

How do you believe in yourself when making these mods? Like how do you not give up on the project before you even start it? I just find myself overwhelmed by so many ideas and features I could add to this car project but I’m getting overwhelmed before I even start it at all, I guess my question is how do you break your projects down into sizable goals so you don’t overwhelmed?

Like the first thing I want to do is to animate the cc car doors and add the features of the fixer upper car to them, but then I just keep thinking of so many ideas I want to do for this project and I guess I get distracted and make myself overwhelmed.

But I think this happens to everyone, whether you're making a mod or a CAS item or doing a conversion. Maybe other modders and cc creators can chime in with tips as I'm sure we all have our coping mechanisms. My own thoughts are after the cut.

I totally relate to getting so swamped with ideas that you get distracted from the actual project. It happens to me all the time! But the ideas can also keep you motivated and excited about a project too.

You sound like you're on the right track already in wanting to focus on the car and the object animations. That's at the core of the mod and for a big project like this, you might want to consider it 3 separate mods. Mod 1: fully animated, TS2-style cars. Mod 2: Custom routing add-on for your custom car so they pull out of driveways. Mod 3: Third (or first) person camera mode when a Sim is driving your custom car.

For an example, I had originally planned to make the Private Clinic mod as one giant mod that had all the features. As I kept adding in more stuff, I got overwhelmed and realized what a bad idea that was so I broke it up into modules, releasing what was finished now and saving the rest for later.

For big projects like what you're describing, I usually plan them out. I write out sort of a thesis statement ("with this mod, you will be able to XXXX") and then I make a bullet point list of the key features and/or objects in the mod and what they do. I also add reference notes that I can go back to later that will give me ideas of how to make those features happen. For me, it's less overwhelming when I write it out and also more satisfying when I can cross off parts of it that are done.

To avoid burnout I don't spend more than a week working on any 1 mod. After a week, if it's not done, I'll stop and do something else to give myself a break. I find it helps to step back from big projects. Also, by working on different projects, you learn new things that can help you with your other projects. I can't tell you how many times I've been stuck on something, I leave it for a while to go work on other stuff and then from working on those other things, I figure out the solution to my issue.

I'd also recommend talking to other modders like on the TS3 Creator's Cave on Discord (MTS Modding section seems pretty dead now unfortunately) which is a good place when you're starting out. They're very encouraging and resourceful. 🙂 Or post your progress on your Tumblr.

So my suggestion would be to write out everything you want to do. Plot out what is core to the mod on one page and what are add-ons on another. I would write the add-ons on another page to reinforce the idea that they don't need to be done at the same time as the core part and so you're not constantly looking at them when you're focusing on the core mod.

As you get more experienced, you'll get more confident and a lot faster so those features that seem overwhelming now won't be later.

The above is what works for me but once you get started, you'll see what works for you and find your rhythm!

[bellakenobi]

Get to Know Me - Sims Edition

I was tagged by @puffkins2000! Thank you so much <3

What’s your favorite Sims death? I never thought about that but the death by freezing ghost is kinda cute '-'

Alpha CC or Maxis Match? Oh well. I like MM clothes, some EA hairs (the store's ones are the most usable) and also alpha hair, and the skins I use could be considered alpha but they're not uncanny valley. So I guess I'm in the middle?

Do you cheat your sims weight? Nope

Do you move objects? Yup ^^

Favorite Mod? The NRaas ones since the game is mostly unplayable without them, and Simler's mod that fix a lot of stuff, even the "natality" issue that one of the patches broke and now babies are being born in my saves without my interference or using Story Progression (that I'm too paranoid with the lag it can cause to use it)

First Expansion/Game Pack/Stuff Pack? Late Night because I wanted hot tubs and the bars and vampires sounded cool too (but I don't play much with the EP features 😬)

Do you pronounce live mode like aLIVE or LIVing? aLIVE, and well being a non-english speaker I never thought about this '-'

Who’s your favorite sim that you’ve made? My girl Mitsuko (the one in my icon) is my fave 💚💙

Have you made a simself? Yup, and of course she got prettier lol

Which is your favorite EA hair color? ... Black? It's the only EA color that I actually use so 🤷‍♀️

Favorite EA hair? Party on the Side from the store ^^

Favorite life stage? Young Adults I guess

Are you a builder or are you in it for the gameplay? I had a sort of builder era some years ago but nowadays it seems that my creativity for that is simply gone (even tho my buildings back in the day weren't that much, but it's stuff that I look today and think "WOW I really did that 😮")

Are you a CC creator? Apparently 💀 but mostly a converter.

Do you have any Simblr friends or a Sim Squad? I'm kinda closer to @deniisu-sims because we know each other online outside tumblr but people at the TS3 Creator's Cave Discord are really friendly. But it's a bit difficult to me to socialize even on the internet since being introvert IRL wasn't enough '-'

Do you have any sims merch? / A Youtube for sims? Nope but honestly if I was less shy and had a better internet connection I guess I would have a channel '-' And I've been delaying for YEARS to make a Bella Goth chibi sculpture....

How has your “Sims style” changed throughout your years of playing? lol I guess it's been the same, I make a family and play with them, but lately I've been playing challenges so it can give me a direction and then I don't get bored easily.

Who’s your favorite CC creator? AAAAA DON'T MAKE ME CHOOSE! But not kidding, everybody that converts the stuff from TS4 has a special place in my heart ❤❤

How long have you had Simblr? I have it since 2013 and was somewhat active around that time, went through some hiatus and now I'm back on activity since last year.

How do you edit your pictures? I use reshade, for CC previews a preset that slightly enhances color and sharpness (becuase one of my pet peeves are those CC previews that are so heavily edited that you can't see what you're actually getting), Photoscape for quick cropping and making thumbnails, and Photoshop to write stuff in previews.

What expansion/ gamepack is your favorite? I guess it's Supernatural? I like the CAS stuff, the furniture, Moonlight Falls is a nice town to play, I LOVE playing with witches, the alchemy skill and the complementing harvesteables are really cool too 😊

I tag everyone who wants to answer those ^^

[deniisu-sims]

Get to Know Me - Sims Edition

Tagged by @puffkins2000 and several others!

What’s your favorite Sims death? Never thought very well about the death types but I'll go for Time Anomaly because the ghost actually looks kinda creepy!

Alpha CC or Maxis Match? MM clothing, semi-realistic Asian-made skins, ALPHA HAIR ONLY. Furniture is a mix, really, but I can't stand MM hair in TS3 AT ALL.

Do you cheat your sims weight? Not at all - if I want to change their weight, they'll go to the gym! Now, for other physical features (read: getting rid off EAxis cartoonishness) Edit in CAS is my best friend :P

Do you move objects? But of course?????? XD

Favorite Mod? The NRaas suite in general + Lazy Duchess ones, but if I need to choose JUST ONE I'll go with DebugEnabler just for the item spawn function and the shifting up/down walls without Decorator's Best Friend (which I like a lot too)

First Expansion/Game Pack/Stuff Pack? I... found this game in the seven seas so I got them all at the same time...

Do you pronounce live mode like aLIVE or LIVing? The former - never figured out people considered the "live" from "live mode" as a verb until NOW.

Who’s your favorite sim that you’ve made? Melody Hills, the cute Black girl with natural hair I often put on my previews (she's the youthful one often with protective hairstyles). Minato Hawthorne (half-Japanese guy with glasses and blue eyes that often goes for my more... twinky stuff) and Lise Béranger (the one with the really pretty long curly hair) are close runner-ups.

Have you made a simself? Yeah, but I ended up not liking it (not a case of self-consciousness) and deleted her x_x

Which is your favorite EA hair color? Eeeeh the dark brown is useable I guess...

Favorite EA hair? NONE, I HATE THEM ALL

Favorite life stage? I readily admit that I'm part of the Millennial Party Simulator school of playing and 90% of my Sims are Young Adults.

Are you a builder or are you in it for the gameplay? I don't BUILD per se, all my lots are downloaded, some build tools are still a bit intimidating, but I rotate between (re-)decorating and playing.

Are you a CC creator? A converter, actually XD Quite balanced between objects and CAS.

Do you have any Simblr friends or a Sim Squad? I'm closer-ish with the Brazilian TS3 Simblr guys and EAxis 4t3 converters but to call it a squad is a tad too much! But I'm on friendly terms with the folks from the Creator's Cave server, yes.

Do you have any sims merch? / A Youtube for sims? Nope and I don't intend to.

How has your “Sims style” changed throughout your years of playing? I actually find very difficult to let go of my powerplaying and shift to a more roleplayer style :P THAT SAID, in my decorating I finally found a balance between bare and overcluttered!

Who’s your favorite CC creator? it's a secret to no one that @joojconverts and I have very similar styles and we often suggest and beta test stuff for each other, and @bellakenobi and I are friendly outside Simblr too, but to say I have a Favorite CC creator wouldn't do justice to my 28GB CC folder 8D

How long have you had Simblr? I actually wanted to make a simblr for TS2 first but it never went forward (at the time I only did some mailbox recolors that I never released), so it's older than I believe, but I started getting active in TS3 around 2017-2018 I believe?

How do you edit your pictures? I cut, resize and add text ONLY. I have no patience for extra editing.

What expansion/ gamepack is your favorite? Can't choose between Ambitions and Supernatural XD

I tag everyone!

[aisquaredchoco]

Do you have any tutorials? I want to create stuff too but don't know how!

Hey there anon!

I really have no self written tutorials, and believe me I have messy writing skills (plus my English sucks lol) so I don't know if I could really write one..

But to help guide you in making stuff, I'll list some of the tutorials I followed as I learn how to make stuff (minor object edits, conversions etc.). Although it really depends on what you really want to make so I'll add that you might have to google stuff for some specific tutorials.

And here goes the list...

Sims 3 Object Creation Part 1: Beginner’s Guide to Meshing

Sims 3 Object Creation Part 2: Object Textures

How to make your meshes recolorable, because CASt is a blessing

Texturing 101: Creating a Bake in Blender

Lazy way to convert objects from TS4 to TS3

Blender Tutorial: How To convert Objects From Sims 4 For The Sims 3

Sims 3 Tutorial: Converting Functional TS4 Objects to TS3

Adding and editing slots to objects using TSRW

...and many more scattered around the internet! Also, these are some useful sites I usually go to when I need a specific tutorial: @sims3tutorialhub, ModTheSims Creation Forums, TS3 Creators' Cave

And finally, as a word of advice, I ask you to have a looooooooot of patience when you try to make cc. Believe me, it didn't take a single reading to understand everything and I took me many many many failures behind the scenes before the finished product. And the saying "practice makes perfect" is what you'll hold on to as you go through the journey of cc making. Good luck!

[echoweaver]

As someone who also dreads making a chore of their passion, I definitely understand. That's why I use ko-fi personally, it's a tip jar with no expectations rather than a subscription service 👌 anyhoo, do you want people to sign up as testers (i.e through google forms or discord) or should we just download the mod when it's up for testing and leave feedback here or MTS? Lastly, do you take feature requests/ideas, or is that a privilege that (understandably) only your kid has? :p

I usually post in the TS3 Creator's Cave Discord server and MTS. If you're going to be reading, Nony, I'll be sure to post on MTS and repost the link here.

TS3 Creators Cave is also open to everyone. I don't like posting invite links in the clear for fear of spam bots, but if you contact me privately on MTS or here, I'll be glad to give it to you.

And lastly, I absolutely do take feature ideas! I won't exactly say, "requests," as that implies more commitment. I have to be careful to keep the scope of a given mod down to something I can do in less than geologic time. My kid was the inspiration for these mods, but I strongly suspect she'll play them for a matter of weeks before losing interest. 🤫 She does want to send them to TS3 Warrior Cats Youtubers in hopes of getting THEM to record with them though.

I'm in the slog of getting the animations and visuals working the way I want for a couple of symptoms in Pet Diseases, but it really I swear is almost to testing. At that point, if I have some folks interested in discussing the feature list for the actual Warrior Cats mods, I would love to brainstorm either here or on MTS. In THEORY that mod could be out fairly quick-ish because I’ve already implemented 60-70% of what I planned. I put it on hold because it seemed like a bad idea to release a Medicine Cat without actually testing the skill on diseases.

[elvgreen]

tips for 4t3 converters/CAS clothing creators

3 main things:

non-recolorable presets

DDS. settings

Adult to Teen conversions

disclaimer: i'm not a CC expert, but these are things i've noticed and learned these last couple months converting cc. special thanks to thornowl and the other converters in the TS3 Creators Cave discord.

Non-recolorable presets:

we obviously know that ts4 lacks a CASt tool, so ts4 creators rely on recolors. In my conversions, I do include a couple of the item's recolors. these usually are patterns that CASt does not have.

one thing I've noticed more and more converters doing is putting such item recolors in the 'Overlay' tab in TSRW.

let me show you what that looks like for a non-recolorable preset:

it looks over-saturated, and almost crunchy. but there's another place you can import the recolor into: stencils.

stencils will be found at the bottom, under patterns. hit the plus sign next to stencils to open it.

opening it will show you this:

by default, it will be enabled as false. import your recolor into the texture tab as you would do for any other texture tab. make sure you tick the 'false' to 'true.' stencils override overlays, so if you want to use an overlay, enable stencils back to 'false.'

here's what the recolor imported into stencils looks like:

here's the two side by side:

see how different they are? let's see how they are in game:

click on the pictures to really see the difference in quality. since TS3 uses DDS. format, it compresses the texture, which results in the crunchy texture. importing the recolor into the overlay tab makes the DDS. compression more noticeable. it ultimately is up to you and whichever one you prefer, but do keep it in mind.

the overlay tab is good for small details that you want to maintain on all recolorable presets, like zippers, buttons, tags, etc. just look at EA clothes for reference, especially their shoes and male clothes.

another thing you can see from the images are the bumps on the mesh. doing normal maps can help you keep those same details on the recolorable presets without importing the recolors.

-----------------

DDS. settings:

something I also see and used to do myself is bloat package files with large file sizes, specifically normal and specular maps, as well as masks. the Sims 3 Tutorial Hub provides a link to plain maps, but the file sizes are unnecessarily big.

let's look at some of EA's maps in TSRW:

here's the specular from one of the basegame sweaters. notice the image size, DXT format, and compression size.

a lot of converters don't want the shine on regular clothes, so we use a plain, black specular map. but ask yourself, why do you need a 1024 x 1024 purely black specular map with no details?

let's try sizing it down:

notice the difference between the image and compression size. instead of bloating the package file, we can keep it down by using a 32x32 plain black specular map instead, since there aren't details we want from the specular map.

same goes for normal maps:

and masks (meant for 1 channel only):

now, notice how I underlined the info about DXT MipMaps. see how the normal map has a different number there compared to the specular map and mask.

the reason these textures use different DXT is because of the colors and alpha channel.

here's how my DDS. settings appear when saving:

DXT1 (no alpha): this keeps only the 3 color channels and has the strongest compression. it results in half the file size as DXT3/5. 3 channel masks should be saved with this, as they don't need an alpha channel.

DXT1 (1 bit alpha): this includes an alpha, but only black or white. it also results in half the file size as DXT3/5.

DXT3: this one is rarely used for TS3 textures. it really is only used for overlays. it compresses the same as DXT5, but may not be the best for images with smooth-blended alpha regions (Neely).

DXT5: multipliers and normal (bump) maps should only EVER be saved with this. it's best for colors but has a larger file size. this is why it's important to reduce the multiplier and normal map image size, especially if you don't make a normal map.

if you DO decide to do a specular and normal map, they should be regular image size, 1024x1024, and saved in the right format.

here is more information on which textures should use which compression.

-----------------

Adult to Teen Conversions:

the default for converters is obviously AF and AM. a lot of people want the items for teens too. I've seen several converters just enable it in TSRW:

please don't do this. it's honestly the lazy route. you can hardly ever get away this, specifically because of the body differences between adult and teen.

some major issues with this include gaps, seams, and unnatural body characteristics:

so please, either skip the teen mesh entirely or spend the time reshaping the mesh. @/sweetdevil-sims has a great tutorial on converting meshes from AF to TF here. the inevitable seams on TF meshes are also now fixed, thanks to @/thornowl with their new version of mesh toolkit.

@pis3update

---------------

here are reduced file sizes and corrected settings of the plain mask, specular, and normal:

download

Sources:

Neely, G. ‘Buckaroo’. Working with DDS/DXT Files. Available at: https://www.buckarooshangar.com/flightgear/tut_dds.html (Accessed: 28 May 2024).

[twinsimming]

Hi! I'm a big fan of your work. I would like to try to create mods for sims 3, however I have no modding or coding experience whatsoever. I have a very specific idea about the kind of mod I'd like to create (it's career related) and how I think it would be possible to create it by exploiting existing interactions an objects from the base game and/or expansion pack. I would like to discuss the idea with someone who can create mods just to get an idea of how complicated it would be of it it's even possible at all... I'm even ready to pay an experienced modders for some advice on chat on how I could make this happen! Could I describe my idea to you just to get some advice? Posting this here so it may reach also other modders who might be interested :)

Hi anon!

Feel free to share your idea in my inbox and I'll publish it so other modders can see it too.

There's also the TS3 Creators' Cave discord server for Sims 3 creators/modders of all skill levels! It's a great place to share your ideas, find resources, and get advice from a bunch of super helpful users with a lot of experience.

[simbouquet]

TS3: Nicer Vendors + Ask Animation Edits

This is a combo of two quick and dirty mods I made last summer to solve some animation-related annoyances I had for a while. 💬

Nicer Vendors

Ever since I started playing TS3, I was confused by the animations used for the Buy Items interaction on registers; it uses the same animations as the "Neutral" outcome of the Ask interactions, where the Sims have vaguely negative reactions to the interaction being performed.

I created a script mod that simply replaces all of the Buy interactions I could find and points them to the "Friendly" state, which contains the more positive animations between the two Sims.

It should work on all registers across all EPs, including objects like the Seasons concessions stand, as well as certain Sims such as the special merchant from World Adventures and the tattoo artist from Ambitions. Let me know if I've missed something!

Ask Animation Edits

This is a jazz script replacement for the Ask animations. It adds more variety to the animations used both for the initiating Sim and the target Sim in the Friendly and Neutral states, so the positive and negative reactions are a little different every time.

The extra animations are generally shorter than the vanilla ones, so Sims actually spend less time performing these socials, which is always a good thing in my book because asking another person what they do for work shouldn’t take as long as it does in this game.

You may still see the vanilla animations happening from time to time, although they will be less likely.

Compatibility

This mod is incompatible with NRaas Consigner.

Ask Anim Edits will conflict with any other mod that replaces the social_askfor jazz script in JazzData.

Download: SFS / MTS

Place the .package file in your Packages or Overrides folder.

Credits & Thanks

Battery’s Script Mod Template Creator: Getting started with scripting quickly.

nraas: I used their Tunings code in my own script, which helped me inject the tuning of one interaction into another.

dnSpy: Peeking into the game’s files.

Visual Studio 2022: Writing the script.

s3pe: Exporting/Importing resources, creating the package file.

Adobe Photoshop: Creating the preview image.

Thanks to @thesweetsimmer111 for helping me work out some issues with the jazz script!

Thanks to gamefreak130 for helping me replace some of the interactions!

Thanks to the lovely community at TS3 Creators Cave!

A Sim walked up to a concessions stand and he said to the man running the stand...!

[omedapixel]

Hi! Have been using your amazing new plant mod and everything to do with the plants themselves seems to be working just fine! However, I did want to report a small bug; there are a bunch of random unclickable apples that are just appearing on or around some lots (see attached pics of apples). When I take out the mod, the apples disappear so am assuming it is just a bug with the apple tree replacement. Just thought it might be helpful to report this issue!

Thank you so much for your work in making this mod, it has really made me love gardening again in ts3 :D

thank you so much for letting me know about this! someone over on the creators cave discord is having the same issue :(

i'll be honest, i have no idea how i'm gonna fix this issue, but i'll do some testing! if anyone has any ideas, let me know!

(also with testing cheats on, you can shift click them to delete! annoying, i know, sorry!) (also your house is very cute!!)

[musicallisto]

Haha Clara, your Sims posts bring my own times with the Simblr community to my mind 😂 I was like uhh 19 at the time? Wow, it's been 8 years, I'm an old hag. I remember being so proud because I wrote these sims stories into my Finnish blogspot blog and there was this content creator who created cc specifically for people who wanted to build restaurants, schools, hospitals etc and she was really popular and all the Finnish sims story writers used her cc in their settings AND SHE FOLLOWED ME and I would say we were sorta friends too?? Haha I remember being so proud about it 😂 Your pics just make me wanna blow the dust off my own Sims games and try creating a sim. (TS4 isn't my piece of cake though, I mean I do love how customizable it is but I personally hate the gameplay, though I guess I could try to just pack it with CC and decorate houses and create sims or do makeovers to Maxis Sims and redecorate their houses with it and then take photos without actually playing because I have the most experience with TS3 and I'm still pretty proud of some of my sims I created back when I blogged about it but damn I hate the bugginess and it being a Crash EAcoot, TS2 is my favorite when we look at the gameplay but I don't really like creating sims or decorating with it so)

I didn't know you used to play the sims too! It's honestly the videogame franchise I've been playing for the longest. i would play the sims 2 on my cousin's computer before my parents bought me the sims 3 and oh BOY... it got me hooked. I spent my best years playing the sims 3 and I wholeheartedly believe that it's the best in the franchise! I didn't plan on buying the Sims 4 actually, I was turned off by the comics-style graphics and the lack of open world. I clung onto TS3 for years, until I played a free demo of the sims 4 and I caved... and here I am, several years and a 4 Go Mods folder later, lol.

maybe you should try creating a Sim too? it would bring back good memories, I'm sure. and it's so relaxing to me!

[olomaya]

Seeing you get motivation for your mods is giving me motivation to finally work on a script mod for an arcade

You don't know what a compliment this is! Thank you! 🤗

If you haven't already, I'd recommend joining the TS3 Creator's Cave Discord, it's a great place to get support and advice! I'm on there too so reach out if you need any help. Don't know what you're planning to do for arcades but I'm already excited so can't wait to see what you come up with!