Semi-guide to make CC for The Sims 3, Part 1

[JoshQ]

Because english is not my first language I cannot write a lengthy, step-by-step, super-detailed, fool-proof guide (I tried before and it was a fucking mess...). Fortunately there are dozens scattered all over the web, you can start on modthesims or thesimsresource also you can ask me if you need help.

What I'm going to do is to share what I've learned while trying to mod TS3.

Part 1: Tools

(all software listed here was tested on Windows 7 and Windows 10 64)

Patience: Unlike Bethesda's games there's zero official support/tools available for modders (beyond worlds and patterns creation), so almost every bit of knowledge is a product of hacking the game and most people involved already abandoned it so there's still a lot of unknowns. Also this is a DX9 game that still has TONS of bugs and bad programming everywhere and most of the tools hasn't seen an update in YEARS, so yeah...

TSR Workshop: The main program I use to join together or extract meshes and textures you can also use it to clone objects/garments. Some creators recommend using older versions of the program but I haven’t had any problems with the latest YMMV

Cmar’s Mesh Toolbox: If you don’t want to make morphs and bone assignments by hand this is what you need (albeit is not perfect) plus a bunch of other useful stuff like converting a WSO or GEOM to OBJ and back (download version 1.4.4.4 located in the second page, message #37)

Milkshape 3D: I use it to modify EA’s meshes and UV Maps even if it's ancient by today standards it has enough tools to do the job EXCEPT when you need to create something from scratch

Balancer Lite: Useful to create LOD2 meshes, you can also use it to make LOD3 but is so low-poly you can reuse any from the game and nobody will notice . Lite version only works with meshes below 10k

Sims3pack Multi-extracter: I use it to convert sims3packs into packages

Delphy’s Dashboard: I use it to test said packages

 

Those are the basics but I also use:

s3pe: it opens packages so you can see the contents and make some edits or replace almost everything inside

s3oc: you can clone anything from the game with it, that also includes objects outside CAS and Build Mode that TSRW cannot reach

SimGeomEditor: apparently it has many uses sadly I only know how to make transparent CC

Metasequoia: After trying several programs I found Metasequoia to be the easiest and fastest for my needs (well, except when I need an UV mapper for that I use Blender)

Adobe Photoshop: for basic editing you’re better using Paint.net but for more complex projects Photoshop has no equal (yet) don’t forget to download Nvidia or Intel’s DDS plug-in

Adobe Fireworks: I use it to create custom vectors for accessory stockings, lingerie and everything in between you can also use Inkscape

Edited May 30, 2017 by JoshQ