Forum Discussion

annikaperi's avatar
5 years ago

Test Sims, Strange Behavior In CAS, And Image Sharing

I have been working hard to get good likenesses for characters for a story I am writing. One of the characters who is based on a celebrity has been quite a challenge because he is long and lanky and has distinctive features, but I have been making great strides with him. Especially after giving him a rest and then coming back to him and shoving some of the sliders to the extreme left or right.

I remember something about zeroed sliders being bad – that it screws up genetics or something. Is that true?

In my Sunset Valley Test Sims neighborhood, I actually crammed five versions of him into the Shotgun Style so that I could compare them in world. They weren’t bad. I hung different color whistles around some of the necks so that I could tell them apart. They got a vacation opportunity and I let them have it. It was hilarious seeing four Todds get into a taxi. Unfortunately I didn’t have the presence of mind to take a picture or record it. Alas, poor teenaged Todd did not know enough people and could not throw a teen party, but was having mood swings and set a lot of traps instead.

Anyway, I was intent on getting him perfect and went back into CAS. I had pictures of him on the screen of the other computer, along with a CAS tutorial. I took HystericalParoxysm’s advice and shaved his head. (It really does help.) I even got rid of his vampirism temporarily. I went slider by slider and tweaked and tweaked. I caught myself trying to rotate him in some of his photographs. I even played with his face height and profile. He was really starting to look great.

Unfortunately, I had the flu and kept falling asleep. The program ended up running a really long time. I thought it was okay because I had cleared caches and gone straight into CAS. It was mostly sitting there doing nothing, except for the annoying blinking and moving around. After a while I noticed that his thumbnail was getting increasingly muddy and blurry looking. The program also blinked and almost crashed. I decided that I had better save him quick.

He maybe needs a little more tweaking because I may have gotten his mouth a little too wide and low, and his jaw not narrow enough. He looks a little like a dour ancestor, even in his teen form. He needs to look a little more handsome and youthful. But anyway, I saved him and checked in the Select A Sim screen, and Voila! There he was in the thumbnail looking great and with his distinctive expression on his face, albeit a bit serious of an expression. Unfortunately, his thumbnail looks like someone has spattered black paint on his face. His dark brown hair is bright red in places, and his clothing looks like bits and pieces of his various outfits pieced together. He is in a three quarter profile facing to his left just like everybody else, but he is staring to the right and doesn’t look happy.

Sorry I have no photos of any of this. I want to get an image sharing service, but I need to know of a good one. I notice that a lot of people’s images are missing.

I cleared caches, restarted my computer and restarted the game. He was still there in Select A Sim. I want so much to see what he looks like in game and if any more tweaks are needed, but I don’t dare place him in the game with his thumbnails in the condition that they are. I don’t know if there’s any way to repair him. The only thing I can think of would be to install NRaas MasterController so that I can see the numerical values, and rebuild him feature by feature. I’ve always wanted those numerical sliders, anyway. It would be a less tedious procedure than taking pictures, or my old process of holding rulers up to the screen.

I am getting kind of tired of the Shotgun Style and seeing all my characters crammed into it. I think I will give them a lot of money and move them into something more spacious. It is Test Sims after all.
  • karritz's avatar
    karritz
    Seasoned Novice
    A lot of people don't like sims with all zero sliders as they all look the same and are generally referred to as pudding faces. I don't worry too much about where the sliders end up so long as I like the look of my sim. To maximise the variety in the appearance of my sims I find having a variety of non default CC skins is very helpful as different skins can completely change the look of a sim.

    I use postimg to share my images. They have a free and a paid choice.

    Have you saved your sims to the library? That might be a good idea as you'll be able to 'share' them, then pick up their .Sims3Pack file and install them in any new Sims 3 folders you might like to create in the future. I have hundreds of Sims I've made over the years saved like this and it means I can keep them for future use and when reused I get a chance to change them a bit if I want and still keep the original if I ever want to go back them.

    Good luck with this project. You've put a lot of effort into making your sims.
  • @rubytinker, this happens to be a thread in The Sims 3 General Discussion section, not Sims 4... ;)
  • @Annikaperi I hope you are over the flu or at least on your way to recovery :)
    I use Flickr to host my pics but I pay because I have over 30,000 images and the free option wouldn't allow me to keep that many.
    I have never had what you described happen in my game. I would totally recommend Master Controller. The ability to see numerical values of sliders is essential IMO.
    I never play zero slider sims but I know others don't seem to care. They only screw up genetic diversity if you constantly marry them into your sim family and choose heirs that pass down the zero sliders. After a few generations you could end up with every sim in the family looking exactly alike except for colouring and weight.
  • I forgot to mention that I rarely spend more than 20 minutes in CAS in any given session. When I am creating a new sim I will save the sim to the bin several times in a session and delete the earlier versions from the saved sims folder when I am done.