#ts4 working process

[dustyratt]

Before | after 😂

Wasn't planning to turn a simple screenshot (it is not even a render) into poster but couldn't resist anyway!

[elderwisp]

𝔗𝔞𝔨𝔢, 𝔭𝔩𝔢𝔞𝔡 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔠𝔯𝔶 𝔴𝔦𝔱𝔥 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔰𝔞𝔦𝔫𝔱𝔰 𝔏𝔞𝔲𝔤𝔥 𝔴𝔦𝔱𝔥 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔰𝔦𝔫𝔫𝔢𝔯𝔰 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔯𝔢𝔰𝔱 𝔦𝔫 𝔭𝔢𝔞𝔠𝔢

[puretopia]

I turned my Henford's church into an art's centre so I could visit more - it was previously a wedding venue getting no use!

[silentgrim]

night market outing!

[faerytrait]

🗣️🗣️ BABY TIME!!!!

[silverseaming]

As the weather warmed, it became clear that Daisy would much rather be out in the field with her father, playing in the soil and cornstalks. Meg did her best to keep her little daughter entertained, promising that as soon as the farm work was complete they could play out to Daisy's heart's content. While she treasured her time with Daisy during the day, it was hard to shift the small pit settling in her stomach each time Daisy called for her father. Of course Daisy should love her father, yet Meg still wished that her company could be equally sought after.

[simandy]

pROGRESS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[avornalino]

have a sim ig :o)

[whyeverr]

Tyler is up at the absolute crack of dawn to get ready and head over to the rooftop kitchen to prepare the most essential part (for Tyler, anyway) of any Christmas gathering: the tamales. 

It’s the first time he’s tried making them since the collapse, and he’ll be working from memory and the ingredients available to him, but at least he won’t be going it completely alone... 

[cautiously0ptimistic]

guess who was forced to update her game and somehow forgot about...infants????

introducing Baby Mags, AKA the love of my life

← | →

[holocene-sims]

next // previous

july 20, 2021 7:30 a.m. ireland

[grant] but what actually made you leave? what was the motivation?

[aoife] well, you spend your whole life doing one thing and it’s a real swift kick in the bollocks when you’re forced a change in trajectory. one minute, you’re farming land in your family’s name, and the next, you’re meant to marry and tend someone else’s land in someone else’s name.

[grant] that makes sense. it's a total directional change. and you were already independent, so going into a partnership is kind of losing all that you’re used to. it doesn't matter how you find the relationship, you still have to make concessions.

[aoife] see, you’re smart!

[aoife] but my parents didn’t feel any of those were worthy problems. they had plans for me and i ruined them. they had different ideals of what i could do to help them as an adult. i won’t blame them, though. every parent has dreams for their children and we all push them too hard once in a while. find me a parent who hasn't done that.

[aoife] and for my father, well, i suppose he felt like he'd done everything in the world in his power to make a perfect country, and i think he took personal offense to me disagreeing with one part of the way things were.

[aoife] but i sacrificed everything for our family farm. i don't believe i slighted anyone. i did what had to be done. for one, i barely went to school, never finished even primary school, because my work was the priority. i gave up the only chance of an education and more, and i was meant to walk away from the fruits of my labor.

[aoife] i was young and somewhat bullish. in the heat of it all, i felt betrayed by their asking me to marry.

[grant] and they did, too.

[aoife] they did.

[aoife] now me? i was so hurt, i told them i'd first live with the yanks in america before i'd give up my name and my family for some man.

[aoife] but are those two options not the same?

[grant] i guess one is by choice, though.

[grant] but did you, um, leave to make a point?

[aoife] what point?

[grant] like, “this is how desperate and serious i am, please let me stay at home with you."

[aoife] and now you're too smart. but you’re bang on.

[grant] did they ever get it?

[aoife] they died resenting me.

[aoife] never mattered how hard i tried to prove i wanted to do right by them and look after the family, they never understood. there’s that rehearsed betrayal line. my siblings didn’t come up with it alone.

[aoife] i kept my surname. i taught my children, my grandchildren, and now my great-grandchildren to know irish and i'd death glare at you if you dared use the colonizer’s tongue without good reason. i retold all the stories i heard as a girl, brought you home for visits...

[aoife] i did everything for you kids that they taught me and wanted from me, but it never made them happy with me again.

[aoife] listen, my parents were glad you all existed and to their standards, had good times with you here, but yes, they’d still look at me like they were embarrassed of me.

[grant] but they were just casually cool with seámus and róisín being in america?

[aoife] oh, jesus. i don’t know. they knew seámus hated farming, so i suppose they knew his whole life he’d never stay, and róisín...well, talk about egos. she has notions.

[aoife] their leaving was no surprise. mine was.

[grant] something something, you were a good girl and did everything asked of you your whole life, so they thought you’d do it one more time.

[grant] and now a whole bunch of people make fun of you for the things you did do "right" because suddenly, those things weren't "enough" to please them. you disappointed someone once and they let it stain every other part of you.

[grant] do you still wish you hadn't left? do you wish you lived here?

[aoife] i love you so dearly but that is a question only a man could ask.

[aoife] very bold of you. never ask me that again.

[grant] that was stupid. i'm sorry. i didn’t mean it that way but i see your point and agree. we did just have a whole conversation about how making the decision as a woman to leave and break up a family’s standing fucks up everything.

[dustyratt]

Okay,

it's time to show the working process! While I'm having a short break from rendering \ texturing \ posing \ ripping things 😆

The amount of work I had to perform is colossal comparing to my previous posts (it is somewhere near Sally Face and Fallout 4 posts) I have extremely warm feelings towards Prototype game series since it's been with me from childhood (even though the game itself IS NOT for children that's for sure 😅)

I've started from the idea. You need to know exactly what you're going to do before actually doing anything. So I've drawn a couple of simple sketches where Alex - the main protagonist - was depicted in various situations. The one sketch was a pure action scene: a tendril barrage devastator and a lot of Blackwatch troopers around - I've decided to stick to that at first.

I've yet had to realise that I'm critically missing models needed to build a convincing city background (burned cars, banners, pedestrians, etc.). Even though I've had some of characters and vehicles, it obviously wasn't enough. That's where you start to think how to solve the problem.

READ THE FULL POST BELOW, (a lot of text and pictures warning):

"I'll just rip them off the game!" me said with instant regret. I've ripped the models, yes, and then I realised how Ninja ripper works 😆 I then decided that scrolling through 1000++ ripped parts of models and again put them back into one piece is not the thing I want to spend time for.

So instead I found a map - a whole city map and was pretty satisfied even if there wasn't a single prop on it. The textures I ripped gave me a perceptible advantage - I made banners and I could now cover the ground with original ingame textures instead of trying to imitate them in Photoshop. The map is called gm_bigcity, I used Garry's mod map ported to SFM.

I started to build a scene. Was fun at first, but then I've noticed something. The bigger scene grew the less FPS I had in the viewport. I ended up with being unable to finish posing. It was only 200 000 ~ vertices and it is already too much for old computers. Will I be able to finish this poster one day I wonder? I like it a lot :(

It wasn't a time for sorrows so I had to give up on that idea and move towards the next - the one that did not require too much models involved. The one you can see on the posters below:

Before \ after and variation in more intense reddish colors that was never used.

Me and my friend (whose computer was used to render all of that) did render a lot of pictures from various angles but as you can see very few of them were actually used to create a finished poster.

And here is the one cover image that took me eternity to complete. I took clothing and claws from 2012 game and face with spikes from 2009 game and merged them into one solid model, posed it and rendered. I don't really like what Radical Entertainment did to Alex's face in Prototype 2 (and made him an empty cliched villain in general) so the original one seemed the best choice.

That's it! That is how it was done. Thank you for reading to the end ❤

[simmireen]

The more poses you make as a pose creator, the more things you learn and the more things you see. 

Maybe you have seen my former post, maybe not. But I want to address again that stealing is not OK. 

I use and see a lot of poses almost everyday, I reblog and maintain the poses masterlist (@ts4-poses), I am a sims-storyteller that loves to pose with poses from other creators for my story and ofcourse, make my own poses to share. But also...

I recognize my flaws in my own poses, my poses are not perfect, I learn everyday, that's why I knew this pose was mine. But by now, we have found 15 posecreators that have been done the same to, by Simsulani. And maybe you have seen in Toys of Dukeness their patreon post there is possibly another pose creator KD89 doing the same to them. What led to them deleting all of their content in our community. And seeing something leave the community over this, is sad. We lost already so many talented creators due to this.  

You have to know, Simsulani @hellosimsulani has around 20k followers on her patreon and about 200 people that support her by paying money to her. No, I'm not jealous, I share my poses because I want you to use my poses in-game. I'm not here in any way to have any financial gain. And I know this is the case of many others on the list down here that were affected. We want to make you happy, to be able to tell your story. 

But this money (maybe even your money) that she is earning over other people's creations that she adjusts, is not earned in a fair way. 

She violates many of the other posecreators TOU's. 

Besides taking poses and adjusting them, she adds accessories to the patreon post instead of linking to people's pages. (@simmisstrait her letterboard in this post) That's okay if it’s deleted, but doing so when this creator is still active? That’s not ok (only if it's okay stated in their TOU)

In her own TOU she even states that you can't take her poses and re-upload somewhere else. But clearly it's okay to do it if she does it?

Please ! Do not re-upload my content. Do not claim my content as your own. Do not upload to Simsd0m/S!msf!nds Do not upload to another site without my permission.

After finding out about Toys of Dukeness and Acha-games, I found out my own pose got stolen and adjusted, and after that I got a lot of messages and pictures. People started helping investigate their own poses. These are the things we found. Thanks to @theserenadeofshadows her detective skills and her super SUPER hard and dedicated work this weekend (she is one of these 15), she made this amazing doc with the proof she and others found. At least a few posepacks are not her poses entirely. If we had more photographic memory skills and time, who knows what we could find out more. 

THE PROOF DOC 

NOTE: IT'S HEAVY UNDER INVESTIGATION STILL, but we wanted to show the proof we already have found! See and judge for yourself.

If you are a pose creator, please check if maybe one of your own poses got stolen, though she is very good at camouflaging it. It is incredibly hard to notice the stolen poses at first glance, it is a real frankenpose fiasco. @theserenadeofshadows tried to dissect the poses and find the original creators, and we found this stated in the doc, but know it is a slow and tedious process, so we can't find every pose and or posepack.

Groups and couples got split up and merged. Places in groups got swapped and/or rotated. Normal couples or single poses suddenly got a kid or partner (or both). Some expressions were made clownesque, exaggerated or the eyes closed. To make it even harder, she added accessories or removed them. She changed the body anatomy (resulting in broken poses sometimes) to make it appear different.

You can spot some weird clipping or gaps in the previews sometimes. 

We are not out to cancel someone, we stand for creativity and hope Simsulani will think about her actions and start making her own poses from scratch. Not stealing someone else's time because you need to create for your patrons. I know myself Patreon gives you a certain pressure to create for the people who pay for you, because you don't want to let them down. 

But doing this by stealing and putting it behind early access to earn a quick buck because you have no time or are too busy? 

Not OK. In no way. 

Thanks to everyone sharing and spreading the word and please keep doing so ❤️ 

[rebouks]

Keeping Lag to a Minimum...

I was chatting about a few things I do to combat lag over on discord and realised I do quite a bit of maintenance to reduce lag/load times. I decided to write em all down and before I knew it, I had a big ol' list. Here's hoping it helps!

Save/File Tips:

Clear your caches (located in the same spot as your mod folder fyi) I usually delete the onlinethumbnailcache, avatarcache and localthumbcache caches every time I exit the game, the main one to delete regularly is the localthumbcache file, they're just temporary files but it can get pretty big after a while.. if you're having any mod issues, particularly ui ones, it's always worth deleting that to see if it helps.

Remove any saves you're not using from your saves folder, and keep an eye on save file sizes. In my experience, any saves over around 30-40mb start to get a bit laggy. Things that bump this size up are the amount of townies in game and the amount of lots/objects in the world.

Regarding the above point, I regularly bulldoze lots I don't need anymore, just to save the game from having to cope with extra shit to load in the background and reduce save file bloat.

Similarly, I delete a lot of unnecessary townies. Also, try to keep the amount of outfits on townies to a minimum, ain't no townie need four swimsuit outfits, the game will thank you..

If you have cheats enabled you can usually shift-click/delete object on things like random coffee cups or stray cupcakes sims foolishly drop around the world (or eat em.. whatever tickles ur pickle) just get rid!

Whilst we're keeping objects in game to a minimum.. I try to clear sims inventories now and then, including townies. You can do this via mccc even if you're not currently playing that household by heading to MC Cleaner -> Sell Sim Inventory/Sell Household Inventory. RANDOM LUMPS OF CLAY BEGONE!

Think of a save file like a lot.. the more objects in it, the laggier it gets! Try your best to remove anything or anyone unnecessary where you can.

Hit "Save As" instead of "Save" now and then - the more you overwrite a save, the more chance it has of going wonky, treat your game to a fresh one now and then and remove the old one from your saves folder (maybe don't delete it right away in case you wanna roll back, keep it somewhere safe).

If you can (although ik it can be a pain) set up a new/fresh save, you'd be surprised how bogged down old ones can get! For legacy players, it's usually best to do this whenever you have a small family to save yourself some pain, since you can just save the household and take em to a new save (you will lose sims inventories/household inventories/relationships with sims outside the household tho so beware! Pictures/other collectables can be saved to a lot however, and you can always cheat back relationship bits etc.. bit of a last resort but new saves are shiny and fast!)

Make sure your Screenshots/Video folders are empty - move em somewhere else, it works, trust me. If you have a lot of custom music installed try n' clear some of those out too.. the smaller that Sims 4 directory is, the better.

Delete any last exceptions/last crashes (same spot as your mod folder again) you don't need em unless you're planning to upload em somewhere for help.

Settings Etc:

If you get a bad lag spike, opening the main menu and/or saving can randomly stop this. If it doesn't, try exiting the game, clearing your localthumbcache and restarting.

Clearing all notifications from the game panel can also help.

If you can, close all other apps and background apps you don't need whilst playing, ts4 is super memory hungry so it can definitely help.

The GraphicsRules Override file by Simp4Sims can reduce lag/latency and make your game look a little better in the process!

Srslysims Simulation Lag Fix mod can help reduce lag too (if you've altered the game speed via mccc tho, don't use this unless you plan on resetting it to default).

If you aren't keen on, or barely use a pack, consider disabling it.

Not ideal, especially for those of us taking screenshots, but lowering the graphics settings whilst playing definitely helps.

If you use re/g-shade, consider switching it off whilst playing and only turn it on for screenshots.

A clean and tidy pc/laptop runs better in general. Remove anything you're not using/don't need anymore to free up space, remove temp files, clean up your folders now and again etc etc.. especially that dreaded mod folder, speaking of...

Managing Mods:

SORT OUT YOUR MODS FOLDER FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.. skdsjdjs it doesn't have to be immaculate but at the very least try n' clear it out now n' then. Also try to separate your script mods/overrides from the rest, patch days don't need to be so stressful ;-;

Personally, I don't merge my mods; if something breaks it's much harder to pinpoint! It makes it easier to find/delete specific mods too.. and let's face it, there's usually one or two items in that set you could do without lmaooo.. also, don't think it helps much tbh! Yeah you could say the game doesn't have to work as hard to load merged files but that's debatable, it's still the same amount of items/polys at the end of the day ¯\(°_o)/¯

If you like merging files and/or see results from doing so, you can merge stuff you definitely know you're never getting rid of, especially CAS/BB stuff.. but steer clear of merging gameplay/script mods! If a merged file seems to be the culprit when using the 50/50 method, try unmerging it and 50/50ing it again! You might not need to get rid of everything if something's borked.

Bulk Rename Utility can be used to remove all spaces and special characters from your mod files, the game doesn't particularly like loading those so it'll thank you.

The Sims 4 Mod Manager is a great way to sort through your mods, you can easily see, move and delete files from here (not great for build/buy, poses etc as thumbnails are usually missing, but great for CAS stuff). An extra hint with this that I've noticed is that if any of my mods get renamed with [D1] at the beginning after looking through them via the mod manager, it means it's a duplicate file so you can get rid.

I also use the Sims 4 Tray Importer to help me sort through mods. Simply save a sim/lot with any cc you don't want and find it in the importer, you can then go through all the cc in the cc tab and delete/sort it (I also use this to sort cc if a bunch has the wrong tags etc, makes it easier to find in my folders by saving em to a lot or w/e - it also spots duplicates which is handy).

It's a ballache, but the 50/50 method is tried and tested if you're having issues.

I like to keep an abandoned cc folder tucked away somewhere, that way you can remove mods willy nilly without stressing about losing them. If you change your mind, you can always grab it back!

[bietjie]

Cooking Assets

I have been working my way through converting recipes. Although I am not ready to share any of my current recipes as of yet for a variety of reasons. I did make some objects which are shared between a bunch of my recipes. I don't know how helpful they will be to other creators but as I have been helping a few people learn how to make new recipes I figured now was as good a time as anyone to actually share something.

I have converted all of the ts4 wedding cakes and these where what I made to use in my recipes. I cloned the mesh EA uses inside the mixing bowl and gave it some new materials. I took a couple of EA meshes for cake tins and made some new materials to match the mixing bowl materials. I didn't like how when you pulled your cooked cake out of the oven it was suddenly a fully decorated cake so I went and made some uniced versions of the cakes. My recipes will now pull this uniced version out of the oven and then when it is placed onto the counter it will switch to the iced version curtesy of the cake connector mod. Instructions on use are in the image hopefully I explained it well.

You can download it at SimFileShare I also made a spreadsheet with an image of every object, geostate, material option along with the coding you would use in your recipe/cooking process in case anyone needed.

Enjoy!

[olomaya]

More Activities Activity Table

Eat, Play, Learn! Family Fun for Everyone!

2-Sep Update: Thank you @jeebeehey for the French translation. Please redownload if you'd like them.

Updated for redownload (27 July):

Fixed an issue where the interaction cancels out if a toddler doesn't like the food. Thanks to @zemyna for catching!

Added the non-English stbls. Sorry, I swear I'm not one of those Anglophones that thinks English is the only language (I actually speak 3!), it's just a small step in the upload process that's easy to forget.

This is the final part of my little Kids and Toddlers mod series. It's meant to complement the Coloring Book and the Toddler foods mods so you will need those for this.

When I started this, I didn't think through how many new animations or custom details it would entail and I as continued, I kept having to add more and more. There are like 60 animations and 40 image assets 😭 hence why the two main files are so large for a mod.

What I've done is added more activities to the Activity Table after years of being annoyed that the Activity Table we have in TS3, despite being the EXACT SAME table from TS2, does not in fact allow your Sims to draw on it. EA, so lazy!

Anyway, what this does is add 4 new interactions to the Activity Table: Coloring, Arts & Crafts, Puzzles and the ability to serve toddlers food so they can eat there.

The activities are for toddlers and kids only but Teens+ can join in the puzzles if it's already been started by a toddler or child.

Note this will work with any of the Activity Tables in the game or Store but the puzzle will look weird as it's placed in the same spot as where the blocks are. You can use it with custom/cc activity tables provided only the mesh has been edited (for example, if slots are changed or removed, it may not work).

Credits/Thanks: The glue bottle, crayon, CAS paint items and one of the arts and crafts image assets are from @aroundthesims. Thanks as always to Sandy for her generosity and creativity in making Sims content! I originally only wanted to add the option to color/draw but this set of hers inspired me to add in more features. (hmm, maybe I shouldn't be thanking you then considering what a pain that was 🤔😅) All other objects and images are from TS4. Custom animations are by me using TS4 and TS3 as bases.

All buyable objects (table, crayons, puzzles) can be found in Kids Room/Toys.

Check out my other mods in the Kids and Toddlers series: Coloring Book for Kids, Toddler Bed, Toddler Foods and Snacks.

If you run into any issues (and YOU'VE READ THROUGH THE INSTRUCTIONS) please let me know!

Please read below the cut for all the details on features and how to play.

Download here | Alternate Link: SFS

Coloring: Toddlers and Kids can color if there is a crayon box on the lot. Just like using a coloring book, coloring a picture will take up one crayon. Coloring increases painting skill for both. When completed, the final project will be in their inventory.

Arts & Crafts: Toddlers and Kids can do an arts and craft project. Not additional object is needed. They go pretty crazy with the glitter and glue so it can be dirty stuff if they don't have the neat trait. This activity decreases their hygiene and they will get covered in glitter paint when done. Similar to coloring, when completed, the final project will go in their inventory and they get painting skill while playing.

Puzzles: You need to buy a puzzle box and have it on your lot to do puzzles. There are two puzzle boxes but they do the same thing. And they stack! (I love stackable things) There are 3 puzzle types: Easy, medium and Hard. Toddlers can only do Easy puzzles. Children can do either easy, medium or Hard puzzles depending on their Logic skill (for Hard, logic needs to be 3 or higher). The puzzle difficulty will also determine how long it takes to complete the puzzle. Teens+ can help with puzzles but they can't start a puzzle on their own. Toddlers can kids can start a puzzle on their own or help another Sim with a puzzle. Puzzles increase Logic skill for all those playing it but will increase faster for whoever starts the puzzle. If a puzzle is completed, everyone who helped put it together will get bonus skill points. If there is already a puzzle on the table, there is no option to start another, you can only help with the current puzzle. There are different puzzle images (15 in total) but there's no difference between them. The only thing that matters is puzzle difficulty. If the Sim who started the puzzle stops for whatever reason (you or the game cancels the interaction), everyone else helping will stop as well.

Eating: Children+ can serve toddlers meals or snacks. It works the same as my Toddler Foods and Snacks mod. They will place the tray/bowl on the activity table and then call the toddler to eat. If the toddler is hungry, they will go over and start eating. Otherwise, they can always eat it later.

Known Issues:

Animations aren't perfect (but what in life is?) so there's some clipping, especially on the toddlers when they kneel.

The comically large puzzle piece accessory jumps around a little and sits kind of weird in the toddler's hand. I suspect this is because the game is using the adult version of the object animation. I've noted it for fixing whenever I do a second pass on the mod.

The food tray is upside down. Setting object rotation in-game messes up the routing for the table so I'm leaving it as is as it doesn't really bother me.

If there is a food tray or bowl on the table, you shouldn't be able to do anything else there because that slot/part is being used but I had this happen once where my tester child started coloring there. It didn't happen again but if it does happen in your game, simply cancel out the interaction and route them to another part of the table.

The puzzle leaves a shadow even when it's pile form because the shadow mesh is there but you only see it until the geostate changes.

This is not an issue but the alternate material states for objects are only available in high so if you play with graphic settings for objects on medium or low, you're going to see the default image for the puzzles or pictures.

Tagging for reblogs: @kpccfinds @katsujiiccfinds @pis3update