Welcome to the last Sims Community Challenge Showcase for 2021!
For our last challenge of the year, we returned with a fun Winterfest themed build challenge to help get into the festive feeling. So many of you rose to the challenge and created some beautiful Winterfest themed builds using the challenge shell!
Click here to take a look at what was involved for the December challenge otherwise, you can jump straight in and take a look at our favourite entries from this month’s challenge!
Thank you again to everyone who participated in the December Sims Community Challenge. You can find all the creations showcased and more over on The Gallery by searching the #SCWinterFest hashtag!
We’ve had so much fun creating and sharing these challenges with the community these past few months, and have been blown away by how much everyone has been enjoying them! We’re looking forward to returning in the new year with even more challenges!
In the meantime, why not come and join us over on our Discord? Hit the button below to join!
You don’t see this sale very often, especially when it comes to The Sims 3!
Steam has published a special holiday sale where you can save big on both The Sims 3 and The Sims 4 titles. However, one offer that stands out the most is The Sims 3 Packs Collection.
For some time Steam had a special bundle for all The Sims 3 Packs called The Sims 3 Collection. Bundled together in this special offer you’d pay around $190 to get the entire collection of Packs. Buying the packs individually altogether costs around $380.
HOWEVER, with the special Holiday Sale you can now get the entire collection of Sims 3 Expansion Packs and Stuff Packs for ONLY $66.50!
You’ve read that correctly – all 11 Expansion Packs and 8 Stuff Packs for The Sims 3 can be purchased for this limited time offer over on Steam, including:
The Sims 3 World Adventures
The Sims 3 Ambitions
The Sims 3 Late Night
The Sims 3 Generations
The Sims 3 Pets
The Sims 3 Showtime
The Sims 3 Supernatural
The Sims 3 Seasons
The Sims 3 University Life
The Sims 3 Island Paradise
The Sims 3 Into The Future
The Sims 3 High-End Loft Stuff
The Sims 3 Fast Lane Stuff
The Sims 3 Outdoor Living Stuff
The Sims 3 Town Life Stuff
The Sims 3 Master Suite Stuff
The Sims 3 Diesel Stuff
The Sims 3 70s, 80s & 90s Stuff
The Sims 3 Movie Stuff
Unfortunately the only Pack missing is everone’s favorite The Sims 3 Katy Perry’s Sweet Treats. However, that pack was a limited-time Pack that was only available for purchase from July 2012 to July 2013 – after which it was discontinued.
This special Steam offer ends on January 5th, 2022 at 10AM Pacific Time.
NOTE: You will need The Sims 3 Base Game, which is not included in The Sims 3 Packs Collection. You won’t be able to transfer over The Sims 3 Base Game from Steam to Origin, only the Packs, so I recommend getting The Sims 3 Starter Pack on Origin (in case you don’t have it already) which is currently on sale for 20$. (Sale ends on January 11th, 2022)
But wait, I want to play The Sims 3 on Mac and/or via Origin?
Don’t worry! Steam allows you to request a serial code from every single pack you’ve purchased and redeem it on Origin. To do so follow these simple steps:
Right click on The Sims 3 Pack of your choice on Steam
Go to Manage > CD Key
Copy the CD Key and go to Origin > Games > Redeem Product Code
That’s it!
If you play on Mac
After redeeming all The Sims 3 Games on Origin you’ll automatically be granted with a new, 64-bit & Metal version of the game in your game library. Origin will only grant you this version if you’re using Origin via a MacOS device.
For this you will need a Mac which has support for Apple’s Metal graphics API and be on macOS High Sierra (10.13.x, released in 2017) or later.
I’m one of those hardcore gameplay enthusiasts who plays huge families. Grandparents, aunts and uncles, lots and lots of cousins, my families can easily span over 100 Sims sometimes. One of my favourite things to do with my Sims families is get everyone together for the holidays. I always celebrate when the holidays come around in the game, but when the holidays are here in the real world, I go the extra mile and create a holiday card to post on my social media.
Why? Well, because it’s fun and the people who read my Sims stories enjoy the extra effort I put in.
Today, I’m going to teach you how to make the perfect holiday card featuring your Sims 4 family! I’ll be focusing on creating a Christmas card for this tutorial since my family celebrates Christmas which is just around the corner but you can absolutely create your own holiday cards to reflect any holiday that you and your Sims celebrate!
What You Will Need
The Sims 4
Any image editing software. I will be using Photoshop CS6 for this tutorial but Paint.NET is a good free alternative.
(Optional) The Sims 4 Seasons expansion pack
(Optional) Any reshade preset you like
(Optional) Pose Player, the Sim Teleporter, and any custom poses you like
(Optional) The TOOL mod
This tutorial will not teach you how to use custom poses, the TOOL mod, or reshade. They are only listed as optional tools in case you are already a mod user who is familiar with using these in your game. But you can follow along with this tutorial without any mods at all.
Set The Stage
Don’t underestimate the importance of the backdrop! Get this right before anything else. The backdrop is what’s going to really sell your photo as a holiday card.
Open the game and go into any empty lot. Change the lot type to Generic so your Sims can visit it but other Sims will not be able to visit and photobomb your nice family photos. Alternatively, if you have a nice holiday backdrop in your Sims’ home already and want to use that, you can do that, too. Just make sure you clear out any furniture that might be in the way. You’ll want some open space in front of your backdrop for your Sims to stand.
Start setting up your perfect holiday scene. For the best lighting, build your little set facing the direction of the sun and take your photos in the early afternoon in sunny weather. You don’t want to build an entire room. Just a wall and some flooring facing the sun. I’ve opted to use a custom photo backdrop by Ravasheen here but you don’t need to do this. Any little background scene you’ve built will be fine as long as you have good lighting.
Once your backdrop is ready to go, it’s time to make sure your Sims are dressed the part!
Costumes & Blocking
Make sure all your Sims have a holiday outfit if it suits the particular holiday you’re taking a picture for. I’ve decked out all 18 of my Sims in this family with their finest silly Christmas attire. From ugly Christmas sweaters to snowpal earrings to Christmas tree costumes, everyone is looking equal parts ridiculous and festive which is exactly what I want for my photo.
Once everyone is in their holiday finest, it’s time to set them all up for your photo. Depending on how big your family is, this could become very tedious and time consuming. If you do not use mods in your game, I don’t recommend trying to take one holiday photo with multiple households of extended relatives. The Sims outside your household will continue to act with free will even with autonomy turned off, causing headaches for you. If you are not a mod user and cannot use custom poses to your advantage, it’s better to take a different photo for each household and create either a collage card or multiple cards. Just turn autonomy off in the game settings, then instruct your Sims to either sit or stand where you want them. As long as they are all in a positive emotional state, they should be smiling by default.
I am a mod user and a big fan of custom poses. I make a lot of my own poses for the game so I’ve used the Sim Teleporter, the Pose Player, and a mixture of single poses to get all my Sims situated where I want them for this photo. Due to the number of adults I had in this photo that I needed to squeeze into tight proximity, I knew I would need to elevate the back row so everyone would be in view. Platforms will work for this in a pinch. Just plop down a small platform and have your Sims stand on it to achieve a tiered look where everyone’s face is visible.
Even with my mods, it still took me a good hour to get everyone set the way I wanted them. Half the Sims decided to leave their assigned positions and walk several feet away before they posed facing the wrong direction. This used to drive me crazy. I would have to break all the poses by placing down more teleporters and start all over. Since I added the TOOL mod to my collection, that frustration is a thing of the past. I was able to use the mod to nudge and rotate all of my Sims back into their proper places without breaking any of the poses.
When you finally have everyone set up the way you want them, take a screenshot by pressing TAB and then getting the camera angle you want before pressing the C key to generate a screenshot in your Sims 4 folder. If you use reshade, toggle your preferred reshade preset on and then take your picture with whatever key you have assigned to take pictures with using reshade.
If you would like an in-game photograph to display on the wall as well, add a random Sim to the household, give them a camera and max out their photography skill. Then have that Sim take the picture. If you own Moschino Stuff, I highly recommend using the tripod for better control over your shot.
Creating Your Holiday Card
You could of course just share your raw screenshot you took. If you set up everything nicely, it will be a beautiful holiday card all on its own. But I like to dress mine up a little bit and make them look like a real holiday card someone might stick onto their fridge. For that, I use Photoshop CS6. You can use any photo editing program you have but make sure you spend some time familiarizing yourself with it before jumping into this tutorial. Every program is different so what I’m doing in Photoshop may not be the same for you if you are not also using Photoshop CS6.
We’re going to give our holiday card a festive border and add some text to it. To do that, find a large, good-quality image of a patterned holiday border. My go-to is pixabay.com for images that are free for public non-commercial use. I found a red Christmas tree pattern I liked on Pixabay and opened it up in Photoshop, along with my raw shot.
Because I used a reshade preset to take my picture, most of the editing is done for me already. I don’t need to adjust the screenshot but if you want to brighten up your screenshot, you can do that by going to Image > Adjustments > Brightness & Contrast and playing around with the brightness and contrast sliders until you get the results you want. Brightness lightens up the photo. Contrast deepens the richness of the colours.
I copy my screenshot by hitting CTRL+A to select the entire image and then CTRL+C to copy it. Then I go to my red Christmas tree pattern and hit CTRL+V to paste my screenshot on top. My screenshot is just a little too big to have nice even borders on the top and bottom but this is easy to fix. With the screenshot layer selected in the right sidebar, I press CTRL+T and then drag the corners of the image inward while holding SHIFT to manually resize the image while keeping the same dimensions. I also crop the image to cut out a lot of the dead space in the background.
I use the Move tool (the arrow icon at the top of the left sidebar) to drag the resized image to the middle of the Christmas tree background. The background is now too wide on either side but that’s what the Crop tool is for! Select the Crop icon from the left sidebar and drag the sides inwards on either side to where you want to crop it. Then hit Enter.
My holiday card is almost ready! I just want to make the image in the centre stand out more. To do that, I select that layer in the right sidebar, right-click it and select Blending Options. I’m going to add a 5px white border and a drop shadow to the image to make it pop against the red border. From the Blending Options menu that pops up, I select Stroke, change the size to 5px and the colour to #FFFFFF which is the hex code for pure white. Then I select Drop Shadow from the same menu and hit OK since the default drop shadow settings are fine for what I want.
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And voila! Our holiday photo now pops beautifully against the border! Just one more thing left to do; add a nice holiday message! To do this, select the Text tool from the left sidebar, choose your font, size, and colour from the top horizontal sidebar, and type whatever you want anywhere on the card you like. I chose the bottom right corner. You can adjust the placement of your text with the Move tool if it’s not exactly where you want it. To make the text pop, I once again use the Blending Options to add a drop shadow to the text.
Share the Holiday Spirit
And now our holiday card is complete! Save it as a .png file and post it anywhere you like. Send it to your Simmer friends, post it on your social media accounts, or print it out and decorate your room with it. Whatever you want!
I hope this tutorial inspired you to get creative with your Sims families this holiday season. Whatever holiday you’re celebrating, Sims Community wishes you a wonderful holiday and a happy new year!
Origin is having a HUGE Holiday Sale where you can save big on EA titles – including both The Sims 4 and The Sims 3 Games!
That’s right – for the first time (in a long time) The Sims 3 Games are now also on sale. Many Sims Games are included within this sale, so let’s go ahead and see what’s discounted:
The Sims 4 Sale
The Sims 4 Base Game – 88% off
The Sims 4 Expansion Packs – 50% off (Cottage Living is also included!)
The Sims 4 Game Packs – 30% off
The Sims 4 Stuff Packs – 30% off
The Sims 4 Origin Pre-Made Bundles – 20% off
The Sims 3 Sale
The Sims 3 Starter Pack (Base Game, Late Night, High-End Loft Stuff) – 50% off
The Sims 3 Expansion Packs – 50% off
The Sims 3 Stuff Packs – 50% off
The Sims 3 Worlds – 50% off
The biggest sale of this season is live right now on Origin and will last until January 11th, 2022 at 10AM Pacific Time. Make sure you take advantage of these offers if you’ve been eyeing any of the games from The Sims 4 or The Sims 3!
The Sims 4 Get Famous offers almost countless ways to become a celebrity. This makes it one of the most versatile expansions for The Sims 4. One of the ways Sims can become famous is by becoming a vlogger. They can record, edit, and upload videos using the video station for fame and simoleons. Sims can record vlogs by just standing in front of the video station and recording themselves talking, but that can get dull fast.
The good news is that Sims aren’t limited to what they can record at the video station. There’s an entire world out there and Sims can record all of it with the help of their trusty drone. Purchase one from Build/Buy and start recording your Sims’ entire lives. It can be intimidating and overwhelming trying to decide what to record, though. There’s so much to do so where do you even start?
Sims Community has compiled a list of activities that can be filmed using the drone for you to use as prompts in your gameplay. While the full list of everything would be very long and we’ll no doubt get more activities to film in future packs, we’ve done our best to cover as much as possible to give you the most inspiration for your game.
Practice charisma skill and interact with other Sims while building fame and making simoleons at the same time.
Games
chess, card games, video games, Don’t Wake the Llama (Get Together), foosball (Get Together), darts (Get Together), water balloon & snowball fights (Seasons), bowling (Bowling Night Stuff)
Education & Culture
Mentoring other Sims in skills your Sim has mastered, Archaeology (Jungle Adventure), Selvadoradean Culture (Jungle Adventure), exploring and trying new cultural foods (Snowy Escape, Jungle Adventure, or City Living)
Animal Care
Veterinary services (Cats & Dogs), pet training (Cats & Dogs), livestock care (Cottage Living)
Will your Sim become a famous educator from making videos about their archaeological discoveries or a celebrity chef travelling the whole world trying delicacies from different cultures? Get out there and start filming the world around you!
In a recent update, The Sims 4 received two new aspirations that tie into the new Neighbourhood Stories feature; Neighbourhood Confidante and Villainous Valentine. The Neighbourhood Confidante aspiration focuses on your Sim being a force for good in their neighbourhood while the Villainous Valentine aspiration has your Sim breaking hearts all over town.
Today, I thought I’d share my playthrough of the Villainous Valentine aspiration with you. My SuperSim, Elodie Goth, was the perfect candidate for this playthrough. Not only is she a SuperSim who needs to complete every aspiration in the game, but she has a mountain of perks and reward traits from being a SuperSim and she’s currently married. Let the drama commence!
When I first selected the aspiration for her from the Deviance category, one of the goals was already complete. She had previously done the Serial Romantic aspiration back in her wild college days so she had a long list of ex-lovers. This satisfied that goal. I had two more goals to complete with her; get caught cheating and break up 10 couples. I decided to start with having her get caught cheating on her husband.
Of course, I’m quite attached to this Sim and her husband so I’m not SO mean as to break them up over this. I won’t bore you with the irrelevant details but long story short, this is all one elaborate PR stunt for her career that both her husband and her ex are in on. Elodie still happens to be good friends with one of her exes, Caleb Vatore. This ex is also her husband’s best friend and Elodie is a Global Superstar, so the three of them hatched an elaborate plan to stage a tabloid scandal for the exposure and money.
So the three of them head out to a very public place in the city and when Elodie’s husband pretend to get up to go to the bathroom, Caleb saunters over and starts flirting with Elodie, who then wraps her arms around him and plants a big kiss on his lips in front of paparazzi with cameras. Conveniently, at that exact moment, Elodie’s husband comes back and sees his wife and best friend locking lips and pretends to be shocked and horrified by the staged betrayal. The camera clicking intensifies, people start whispering, Elodie is on the front page of the news the next day and everybody has their money. No harm done.
Except there was one problem. I mentioned previously that Elodie completed the Serial Romantic aspiration. This gave her the Player trait, which eliminates jealousy. Her husband didn’t mind at all that his wife was kissing another man right in front of him and had no negative reaction to the scene. While this worked perfectly for the story I’d concocted in my head, it definitely did not work to satisfy the goal for this aspiration. Not even temporarily removing her Player trait solved the issue. She appeared to still have the effects of the trait active anyway. In the end, I had to cheat this goal completed. I don’t necessarily think this is a glitch; the Player trait did work as intended but it’s definitely an oversight that might need tweaking in a future game patch. Normally, I feel guilty about cheating and avoid doing it at all costs, but in this case, it was justified. I did do the task required to complete the goal.
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Anyway, with the exes and the cheating out of the way, all there was left to do was break up 10 couples. Luckily, I had a lot of unhappily married couples in this save that I was dying to break up so Elodie got to work. All of her perks and reward traits came in handy for this goal. She’s immediately good friends with every Sim she meets with a Polite Introduction, making it easy for her to influence whoever she wants. When I did the Neighbourhood Confidante aspiration with Elodie, Sims weren’t always receptive to the idea of a career change. I expected something as serious as divorcing a spouse to be even harder but strangely, it was much easier to convince Sims to end a marriage than it was to convince them to switch career paths. Every single Sim Elodie talked to was all too happy to break up with their spouse at her request. One Sim even divorced her spouse on the spot right in front of Elodie!
I ended up completing this aspiration in one Sim night with my SuperSim. She got the Twisted Heart reward trait which gives her increased Social from Mean and Mischievous interactions and helps her shrug off bad moods faster. Again, not a huge perk because her other 160+ traits combined basically do the same thing but a SuperSim still needs to collect all the traits and aspirations. Even though I did have to cheat the one goal because of a trait conflict, it was still much easier than the Neighbourhood Confidante aspiration, which took several in-game days of grinding to complete. I found that funny because Elodie only had one goal to complete for that aspiration while she had two goals to complete for this one.
Did you complete the Villainous Valentine aspiration? How did it go for you? Let us know in the comments or come chat with us on social media!
The Festive Season now here, I’m sure many of us will be looking for ideas and inspiration on how to make our games more festive. With a variety of prompts covering gameplay, building or creating Sims, you’ll find plenty of ideas to help get you started!
While this is no means a definitive list of ideas to make your game feel more festive, it is definitely a good starting point. There are a number of ways you can have the ultimate Winterfest season with your Sims be that through gameplay and storytelling or building.
Let us know how you plan to spend the festive season with your Sims in the comments below and over on social media!
There is no shortage of ways to make money in The Sims 4. You can choose the traditional 9-5 career if you want, work on your own schedule as a freelancer, or make a living pursuing your favourite hobbies. All of these have the potential to make your Sims wealthy with enough time and effort but what about those Sims who aren’t interested in working hard for their money? What if going to the office every day or slaving away at a computer, easel, or garden just isn’t their vibe? Sometimes, you just want instant money, right?
Of course, you CAN just use the kaching or motherlode cheats. But where’s the fun in that?
Luckily, we’ve got three perfect get rich quick schemes that are so good, they’re almost cheating! But not quite. Console players and rulebook followers rejoice!
Become a Black Widow
For starters, you can just do what many people do in real life! Marry for money! Every world in the game has one or two families with an expensive home and a big stack of simoleons. Seek them out, woo them, get hitched and move in. Everything they have is now yours! Of course, most of these Sims are already married so you might have to convince them to divorce their spouse in order to marry you but this isn’t difficult at all once you’ve achieved a high friendship and romance level with them.
If you’re satisfied with your spoils and like your new spouse, feel free to live out a happy lifelong marriage in the lap of luxury but if you’re feeling a bit evil, you can always arrange an untimely “accident” for them, inherit all their assets, then remarry another wealthy Sim. Rinse and repeat until you have a full graveyard and a full bank account. Easy peasy!
Kidnap Mr. Sandy Claws?!
By “Mr. Sandy Claws,” we mean Father Winter, of course! If you own the Seasons expansion pack, jolly old Father Winter comes with a whopping 500,000! All you have to do is invite him over (or wait for him to show up on Winterfest), befriend him and invite him into your household. If he won’t cooperate, you can always speed things along and just add him to your household manually via Manage Households.
But hold on! Don’t act so fast! Before you rush to move in Father Winter and his vast fortune, have the forethought to assign every teen or older Sim in your household the Fabulously Wealthy aspiration. Why? Well moving in Father Winter will instantly complete this aspiration, awarding your Sims with the Shrewd reward trait. This trait pays your Sim 5% of their household funds every week from investments. 5% of 500,000 is a nice tidy sum of 25,000 every week and that number will only grow as your household funds accumulate.
Once you’ve moved in Father Winter with his money and gotten the Shrewd trait, you can move him out if you like. He’s served his purpose. Enjoy your instant fortune that will only grow larger every week with no effort on your part!
Money Tree Hack
This method requires slightly more effort than the other two suggestions just because you need to save up 5,000 satisfaction points first but there are plenty of easy aspirations you can bounce back and forth with to help you accumulate these points faster. If you own the Paranormal Stuff pack, living in a haunted house will award your Sims with satisfaction points for every night they stay in the house so that can be a good way to rack up points, too. Doing a scenario will give your Sim 5,000 satisfaction points when you complete the scenario goal, too.
Once you have the 5,000 satisfaction points, purchase a money tree seed and raise it to maturity. You can hire a gardener if you don’t want to get your own hands dirty in the garden. When it’s ready to harvest from, don’t harvest! Stick the tree in your household inventory, instead. This will generate more money tree seeds in your household inventory that you can plant without having to buy more trees. Plant those and rinse and repeat as many times as you like.
You’ll have a maxed out bank account in no time!
Do you have any other methods of getting rich almost instantly with no effort? Let us know in the comments or come chat with us on social media!
Back in June of this year, The Sims team introduced us to a limited time event called Sims Sessions. Featuring the likes of Bebe Rexha, Glass Animals and Joy Oladokun. The event its self was received well throughout the community however, since the event ended, we haven’t heard if or when we could potentially see Sims Sessions return.
Despite the unknown surrounding the Sims Sessions, it got me thinking about what a Winterfest Sims Sessions event could look like and also what kind of music you’d probably hear as well as who could be performing.
Location
While the first Sims Sessions event was held in Magnolia Blossom Park in Willow Creek, there are a number of different places where a Sims Sessions event could be held. Magnolia Blossom Park could easily be turned into a Winter Wonderland. You could also look at the world of Mt. Komorebi from Snowy Escape that is already home to several different Festivals, Granite Falls from Outdoor Retreat, Glimmerbrook from Realm of Magic and you could maybe even look at Henford-on-Bagley or Brindleton Bay.
What’s On?
As well as the centre stage where your Sims would be able to catch the latest performances from your favourite artists, you would of course find a variety of vendors offering merchandise as well as food & drink, an area to kick back and relax with friends and family and a handful of activities your Sims could take part in while waiting for acts to come to the stage.
Performers
To be honest, you could choose so many different artists to perform at a Sims Sessions event. While this article is purely for fun with a dash of speculation, you could follow the same format as the original Sims Sessions and have three different artists perform a song or two.
For example, you could have the following artists perform as Sims at a Winterfest Sims Sessions event.
Olivia Rodrigo
BTS
Taylor Swift
Playlist
Here’s a playlist of some of the songs that could be a part of a Winter Edition of the Sims Sessions. It would be a mixture of some tracks from The Sims games past and present as well as music from various artists and of course a festive song or two!
Take a look at our playlist below where you will find songs from BTS, Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, TWICE, The Sims games past and present and some classic Christmas tunes too!
If you could create your own Winterfest Sims Sessions event, who would you like to see perform and where in the world of The Sims would you like to see the event held? Let us know in the comments below!
Every year, one of my favourite things to do over the holidays is build a gingerbread house with my family. Or a gingerbread train. Or a gingerbread castle. Anything gingerbread, really. This year, I don’t have a real-life gingerbread house to decorate but that’s okay because of course, I can always build one in The Sims!
Let’s take a little tour through this yummy edible home for a single Sim, shall we?
I wanted my gingerbread house to look like a traditional gingerbread home with a square shape and A-frame gabled roof. To dress it up, I used framed garlands to dress up the windows in red and white to keep it festive but also recreate the illusion of icing around the windows. I also added wreaths and pinecones for extra touches of detail. Stringing up more white garland near the roof adds to the illusion of a gingerbread home decorated in white icing. Colourful ornate pillars, doors, and windows also help to make an otherwise flat-looking structure pop more.
I added hanging flower lights to look like candy here and there as well as decorative reindeer on the roof but once all of that was done, something was still missing. The gingerbread home still looked a little bare. So I covered all the open spaces left with sized down pool lights to give the illusion of glitter, snow, or powdered sugar sprinkled over the whole house.
With the exterior finally living up to my expectations, I started adding a few details to the yard. An army of nutcrackers guard the front entrance, ushering you inside. A tree strung with lights sits out front with some beautiful evergreen trees in the back to frame the house while cheerful smiling snowmen and more reindeer greet you in the yard. Of course, I couldn’t forget the festive mailbox, either.
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Inside, it’s a cozy little dwelling for a single Sim. The dominant colours are red, gold, and white. The kitchen is tiny but functional and the living room has a little table for two, a rocking chair with plenty to knit and cross stitch, and a bookshelf for warm winter nights reading wrapped up in a fluffy blanket.
Some curtains separate the living area from the bedroom. It’s a simple but inviting space with an ornate single bed next to a gold end table and old-fashioned lamp, and a red wooden dresser with a mirror over it. Next to the dresser sits a little holiday tree all decorated for the season. Red and gold carpet and red striped wallpaper give the whole house a nostalgic festive feeling.
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The bathroom is tiny but just as colourful as the kitchen with red and white mosaic tiles. Matching red towels on gold hangers hang above the bath tub for easy access and an oval mirror sits above an old-fashioned claw-foot sink. The ornate art-nouveau toilet adds an extra touch of detail to this tiny room.
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If your sweet tooth is itching to have this gingerbread delight in your game, click the button below to download it from the Gallery!
Before I begin with this post – please note that the information mentioned in this article is official and talks about new technology developed by Electronic Arts. However, none of the information assures that the technology is fully developed and fully functional. As far as we know these could be just concepts that haven’t been fully developed.
Yesterday we published an articleabout EA’s latest patent that will allow you to scan faces through images – importing the facial features from selected images onto a character model. The patent has been submitted in April 2020 and published this year, with some of the examples taken shown from The Sims 4’s user interface.
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However – it turns out that this isn’t the only patent submitted by Electronic Arts that talks about new technology for character creation. We got a tip from @DancerChip regarding numerous patents that have been published over the last year or two with talks about groundbreaking technology that’s now in EA’s full ownership. Before we dig into each submitted patent please be cautious with the following information as nothing had been confirmed. Although there’s no official mention about The Sims being related to this technology, the patents come with plenty of examples of imagery that resemble The Sims Franchise.
This patent has been submitted just recently in March 2021 and got published this October.
The patent talks about groundbreaking technology that will allow the player to create a character from real life footage. The crazy part about this patent is that it suggests creation of full body character meshes, textures, clothing and animation all generated from the footage provided to the technology.
The Patent Summary
Systems and methods for generating a customized virtual character are disclosed . A system may obtain video data or other media depicting a real person , and then may provide the obtained media to one or more machine learning models configured to learn visual appearance and behavior information regarding the particular person depicted in the video or other media . The system may then generate a custom visual appearance model and a custom behavior model corresponding to the real person , which may subsequently be used to render , within a virtual environment of a video game , a virtual character that resembles the real person in appearance and in – game behavior
The patent later explains how the character creation from provided footage would be done in-game. To simplify the workflow of this suggested technology here’s how it would work:
You’d import video and/or certain image into the technology
The technology would then retrieve and process generic 3D model and behavior data from the footage
…later generating into virtual character information, including both behavior and appearance from imported media
The technology will then generate custom clothing and/or accessories from imported footage onto the virtual character
The player then decides whether they like the determined look, animation(s), behavior and clothing generated by this technology
If the player accepts the prompted character, they’ll be able to import the character and their assets for use in-game.
The surreal part of this proposed concept is that the technology would automatically generate textures from the footage provided. So for example – you could be seeing a texture from a T-Shirt you scanned onto a T-Shirt in the game.
A similar process would also be used for things like character behavior, look and even animations.
The patent also talks about creating custom animations from footage that you’d be able to import in the game for various purposes.
There is also a concept included below with some of the purposes for the custom character animation that you capture. The patent proposes possibilities to give your animation a name and a purpose, as well as set a custom rule on when the animation will play out for in-game use.
Okay, but what about bringing real life pets into the virtual world? EA has secured a patent for that concept as well.
This patent dates back to March 2019, and has been published in October 2020.
The patent talks about creating animals in the game from the media provided. That includes importing both animal appearance and behavior into the game. Check out the summary of this patent and one of the examples illustrated below:
The Patent Summary
Systems and methods for generating a customized virtual animal character are disclosed . A system may obtain video data or other media depicting a real animal , and then may provide the obtained media to one or more machine learning models configured to learn visual appearance and behavior information regarding the particular animal depicted in the video or other media . The system may then generate a custom visual appearance model and a custom behavior model corresponding to the real animal , which may subse quently be used to render , within a virtual environment of a video game , a virtual animal character that resembles the real animal in appearance and in – game behavior
The workflow of this technology is as follows:
Provide media depicting an animal of your choice that you want imported in the game
The technology determines species and possibly a breed of the depicted animal
…later on generating a custom appearance and behavior model from the Media provided
The player decides which imported attributes they want to see in the in-game model
…later storing all of your feedback including Animal’s 3D Model, Textures, Animations and Behavior for use in-game
The patent has also shown a concept of what one of the final prompts could look like:
There are more patents that @DancerChip sent over to us that could be related to The Sims, but are not necessarily related to the game. Check out his full analysis of each patent:
Generation of “engaging” NPCs for multiplayer (Also it is interesting that there is a party type scenario where there are multiple real-users and computer generated intereactive agents see Figure 4, 8, and 9) (Also interesting that it points out in a multi-platform, multi-hardware application see Fig 1)
The following are interesting features that the R&D Team is working on but could not find any indication that they relate to the Sims:
Method to mimic player gameplay (This one might be relevant for the Sims as we know that they did a similar thing for TS Mobile)
So, what does this mean for the future of The Sims? It is my responsibility as a reporter to remind you again that these could be just concepts that are not yet fully developed and tested out. However, EA is now in full ownership of this proposed technology and could be using it in any of their future titles. Still, the two patents that we’ve explained in the beginning of the article hit closest to the gameplay we have in The Sims.
If this technology ever becomes a reality, it wouldn’t surprise me that EA introduces it in their next generation Sims Game. Still, at this point that is just speculation.
In a recent update, The Sims 4 received two new aspirations that tie into the new Neighbourhood Stories feature; Neighbourhood Confidante and Villainous Valentine. The Neighbourhood Confidante aspiration focuses on your Sim being a force for good in their neighbourhood while the Villainous Valentine aspiration has your Sim breaking hearts all over town.
Today, I thought I’d share my playthrough of the Neighbourhood Confidante aspiration with you. My SuperSim, Elodie Goth, was the perfect candidate for this playthrough. Not only is she a SuperSim who needs to complete every aspiration in the game, but she has a mountain of perks and reward traits from being a SuperSim that made this a fairly easy aspiration to get through.
After selecting the aspiration from the Popularity category, I was delighted to see that the last two goals of this single-tier aspiration auto-completed themselves! Elodie already had the Charisma skill maxed out and she was Good Friends with way more than 5 Sims so those two goals were immediately taken care of. That just left the first goal; to successfully influence Sims’ lives 20 times. I could have just went about my business and waited for random phone calls from her many friends to come in but that would have taken forever. I decided a more hands-on approach was necessary.
Luckily, Elodie had just started a new job as a Detective so she had no shortage of criminals down on their luck who might need some encouragement to turn their lives around. I got the goals for her job performance out of the way quickly so I could dedicate most of her shifts to reforming criminals. With all of her perks and rewards, she instantly maxed out the friendship bar with a Polite Introduction. This made Sims very susceptible to listening to her advice right from the start. All Elodie had to do after introducing herself was ask them about their career and then encourage them to get their dream job. Not every Sim wanted to take her advice but the majority of them did.
When criminals at work started getting scarce, Elodie started chatting up Sims while out on patrol. She used the same strategy that worked with the criminals; a Polite Introduction to become instant Good Friends, find out their career, then encourage them to change their career. Like the criminals at the station, not everyone took her advice but many of them did and were appreciative of the suggestion.
When I started this aspiration, I didn’t think 20 Sims was a lot but as I started getting out there and actively trying to influence the lives of Sims, I realised 20 Sims is quite a lot. Pretty soon, Elodie ran out of both criminals and patrol civilians to pester about career changes. I did also try influencing Sims to have babies but had absolutely no luck convincing a single Sim of that. Career changes seemed to work much more often.
Elodie has every reward trait so she doesn’t need to take care of her motives anymore. She’s got a lot of time on her hands after work when her kids are asleep so she heads out to the karaoke bar to spend her night inserting herself into the business of random strangers. Oh, and she’s a Global Superstar so she conveniently always has crowds of Sims swarming her wherever she goes. Very helpful for an aspiration like this. Elodie does have some success… and some failures but by the time she had to get ready for work again, she just had one more Sim left to influence to finish off this career!
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There were no criminals at work that Elodie hadn’t already discussed a career change with and her coworkers all seemed very satisfied with their current career paths. But a police station always has civilians coming in to bail out friends and relatives or to report crimes. So Elodie hung around out front waiting to catch Sims on their way into the police station.
And that’s where she had her final success! She managed to convince someone on their way into the station to switch careers! That made 20 Sims successfully influenced and polished off the career for Elodie. She earned the Confidante reward trait for her efforts. This trait helps her avoid boring conversations and allows her to have more successful conversations with Sims. This… doesn’t really help her much, considering her 160+ other reward traits combined basically do the same thing but oh well. It’s still another box with a checkmark in it on her very long SuperSim list.
If you decide to play through this aspiration, you’ll probably be working on it for much longer than I did. Unless you also have a highly accomplished SuperSim, this aspiration is going to take time and patience. You have to master a major skill, heavily invest yourself in five friendships, and successfully influence the lives of many Sims. As you saw with Elodie, not even all of her SuperSim perks guaranteed a successful attempt every time so be prepared for a long haul.
Did you complete the Neighbourhood Confidante aspiration? Did you find it difficult, easy, or just long? Let us know in the comments or come chat with us on social media!
With 2021 wrapping up Electronic Arts has put up an infographic featuring statistics from some of their most popular franchises that were played this year!
In this infographic they’ve also included The Sims 4 – featuring some impressive numbers for both the players and the actions they’ve done in-game. Take a full look at what The Sims 4 players were doing (and for how long) throughout 2021:
1.2 Billion Hours Played
529 Million Hours Spent in Live Mode
226 Million Hours Spent in Build Mode
146 Million Hours Spent in Create A Sim
376 Million Sims Created
201 Million Gallery Downloads
11.3 Million Gallery Uploads
274 Million WooHoos
Most Common Death: Old Age
You can check out EA’s full infographic featuring other Electronic Arts franchises HERE!
Have you ever wondered what would it look like if you could turn yourself or others into Sims with just two clicks? The Sims Team wants to introduce a new method of creating Sims characters in the game that will allow you to do just that!
In the latest patent filed by EA in April 2020 and approved in October 2021, the team wants to introduce a new way of creating characters in the game through image processing.
As explained in the official patent, the team talks about AI technology that will allow for you to upload one (or multiple) images of characters and faces of your choice. The face from the image would then be converted through the patented technology into an in-game character with corresponding facial features from the submitted images.
A method , computer – readable storage medium , and device for generating a character model . The method comprises : receiving an input image of a reference subject ; processing the input image to generate a normalized image ; identifying a set of features present in the normalized image , wherein each feature in the set of features corresponds to a portion of a head or body of the reference subject ; for each feature in the set of features , processing at least a portion of the normalized image including the feature by a neural network model corresponding to the feature to generate a parameter vector corresponding to the feature ; and combining the parameter vectors output by respective neural network models corresponding to respective features in the set of features to generate a parameterized character model corresponding to reference subject in the input image.
The patent, submitted by a team of developers and AI scientists is in lead by Igor Borovikov, who worked on games likes The Sims 3, The Sims Medieval and The Sims 4. In this patent they’ve used some primary examples of the character creation from The Sims 4, although the patent only covers which facial features could be considered for this character creation processing.
patent3
patent2
There is also one of many examples on how the workflow for this character creation method could look like:
They’ve also shared some primary facial features that are considered for this character creation processing, including:
This isn’t the first time that EA tried to “simify” real life characters into The Sims. Back in 2000s there was an official tool for The Sims 1 that would allow you to upload an image and put it directly onto your Sim’s face! The results were varying though, as the game didn’t have actual facial presets – so your Sims were just walking around with .jpegs on their faces. It was still a groundbreaking tool for the game though!
Welcome to our third entry in our new Story Starter Kits series! If you missed all the info on Story Starter Kits, you can read more about what they are and how they work in our introductory article!
This month, we’re bringing you a taste of the holiday season, reimagined in a steampunk setting!
A Kringle Legacy
Up in the farthest, coldest reaches of the North Pole lives a very famous man you may have heard of. The people call him Father Winter and his wife is known as Mrs. Winter, but their real names are Kris and Gertrude Kringle. They have a very special job once a year but it’s a full-time occupation for them all year round. The Kringles are toy makers who spend the entire year carving, knitting, and cross-stitching toys for good children all over the world. On Winterfest Eve, Kris packs up all the toys they made that year on his sleigh pulled by his nine magical flying “reindeer” (nobody tell them they’re actually llamas! They think they’re reindeer!) and delivers toys to all the children of the world.
Of course, you know all this. Maybe not the llama part but you know the story. What most people don’t know is that Father Winter isn’t immortal. He grows old and eventually dies just like everybody else. That’s why being Father Winter is a family business that has been passed down from Kringle to Kringle since medieval times. When the previous Father (or Mother) Winter passes on or becomes too old to carry out their duties, the torch gets passed down to their oldest child. That was the plan for Kris. But plans have a habit of not going to plan.
Kris had been gearing up to retire and pass the reins to his only child, Nicholas, but Nicholas tragically lost his life during a training flight when he and the “reindeer” encountered bad weather and the sleigh crashed in the mountains. He left behind his young daughter, Giselle, whose mother left them when she found out who the Kringles really were and wanted no part of such childishness. With no one left to care for Giselle, Kris and Gertrude adopted their granddaughter.
Now Kris has another dilemma. Giselle is his only living descendant who can be Mother Winter, but he’s getting on in years and Giselle is still just a toddler. He can’t keep being Father Winter forever; the Grim Reaper comes for them all in the end but when that day comes, will Giselle be ready to continue the Kringle legacy?
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Other Info:
Kris Kringle
Age: Elder
Traits: Perfectionist, Good, Cheerful, Gregarious, Father Winter’s Baby
Packs Used: Seasons, Get Famous, Cottage Living, Nifty Knitting Stuff
Misc. Notes:
Gertrude is a B-Lister with some fame perks already!
Gertrude has a Great Reputation!
Giselle Kringle
Age: Toddler
Traits: Wild, Father Winter’s Baby
Skills: Imagination (5), Thinking (3), Movement (2), Communication (1)
Packs Used: Seasons, Get Famous, Cottage Living
Tinker’s Trinkets
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If Father Winter’s home and toy workshop looks a little… cobbled together, that’s because it is! Originally built as just a workshop in the medieval period, the home has gotten countless additions and upgrades over the centuries. Now, a waterwheel and a series of pipes power both the workshop and the Victorian-style home that was added much later. Some have suggested tearing down the entire thing and rebuilding it to modern standards; much of the technology is long outdated and possibly even dangerous but tradition is tradition! The Kringle family has no plans to start over. They’ll continue to add onto their historical home in haphazard bits and pieces just like they always have.
Lot Info:
Lot Type: Residential
Price: §151,104
Size: 50×50
Beds: 2
Baths: 2
Lot Traits: Home Studio, Child’s Play
Packs Used: Seasons, Get Famous, Cottage Living, Nifty Knitting Stuff
Tips to Use This Lot:
The Kringles come with enough simoleons to purchase their home and have some savings left over.
This lot does not require Snowy Escape but if you own the Snowy Escape expansion, we recommend placing this lot on the 50×50 lot in the Yukimatsu district to get the full winter experience!
The “reindeer” stable is fully functional! The animal sheds are hidden inside the buckets so click on the sheds in the buckets to have your Sims maintain them.
Sims may look a bit silly walking through the water troughs and whatnot around the stable but this is normal. All the décor is placed from the basement level so they don’t block the path inside the sheds. This makes sure Sims can move around the area easily and take care of the “reindeer.”
Giselle is too young to climb the ladder to her play nook above her room but she will be able to access this area and play with her dollhouse when she becomes a child.
Your Story Starter Kit is waiting for you! Get The Household and The Lot by downloading them from the official Gallery Website linked on the buttons below. Or, follow SnarkyWitch in the Gallery and look for A Kringle Legacy and Tinker’s Trinkets!
