☆☆ Sims 4 Quality Control Practice Challenges ☆☆

QC Competition Guide
Welcome to the QC Competition Guide, we hope this guide is helpful for you to understand what the judges look for when judging your entries. We find a lot of new people that enter competitions really don't know whats expected of them and it can make them quite nervous. So hopefully this will answer most questions you may have, but please don't hesitate to message or post any questions you may have to any of the judges.
I can pretty much guarantee if you study this guide and do the best you can to make sure your build is free of errors and such you will be winning some challenges. It is very rare we come across entries that have no issues.

The main thing to remember is that even though this challenges are competitions, winning is not everything. Remember winning or placing can be the difference of 1 point which is absolutely nothing on the scale of things when working with an overall score of 100 per judge for building comps. So even if you don't win it does not mean your build/entry is not absolutely spectacular.
In all my time of judging I can be 100% honest when I say I have not come across any entry that I have not liked. They are all amazing and even if you are having trouble with placement or any area doesn't mean its amazing.
We hope for people to have fun if your not enjoying it there is no point doing it. Our aim for the challenges is to help people improve, push them out of their comfort zone to try new things with building and to meet new people on the forums who are addicted to sims like most of us. Winning would be on the bottom of the list.

Judging
Since the QC comps started we have some amazing people to join the judging panel, we don't always agree and have the same likes and dislikes when it comes to builds which I feel makes the judging more fair. We do however try to keep personal preferences out of our scoring, I am always saying just because we may not like a style or color scheme doesn't mean it is not great.
We do however look for styles and color schemes to flow through out the build, so it doesn't matter if your style is to build with bright colors or nice earthy tones as long as it flows nicely you wont be punished with scores for your own personal tastes.

Challenge Requirements:
Make sure you double check all the challenge requirements as there is large penalities for missing them. If you have the wrong lot size or not within the budget requirements you will not be eligible to win or place in that particular challenge

Necessities
These are items that sims need to live day to day, you will lose points if you are missing any of these necessities. Some maybe cosmetic but really who can live without toilet paper?

ROOMS

• Bedrooms - bed, dresser
  
• Bathrooms - sink, shower or bath, toilet, toilet paper, towel rack
  
• Lounge - lounge chairs
  
• Kitchen - oven, sink, fridge, bin, empty counter space (at least 1)
  
• Dining room - table and chairs
  
• Study - desk, chair, bookcase
  

Please be aware that pools placed in rooms or using the fountain tool will not upload with your room, so they can not be judged.

Overall Lot entry necessities
Houses must have at least 1 bathroom, 1 bedroom, kitchen/dining and lounge. Rest is optional
A mailbox in a suitable position
At least 1 bin on the lot (indoor or outdoor)
If there is a fireplace on the lot make sure there is a chimney

Room challenges
Standard room challenges should easily be attached to a building or house with windows not being used on the same wall as entrance doorways. Also avoid putting windows on all walls making it difficult to attach to a house or building.

Placement
We are very picky with placement when judging as the name says its Quality so we want to see things looking realistic as possible, though we don't expect everyone to be perfect even us judges make mistakes. Basically any solid item should not be sticking into another solid object.
We do encourage creativity though so if you are creating something new by combining two objects that is fine as long as its done right and looks like it belongs together.

There is not a straight line of things we will pick on and things we wont as it does vary from challenge to challenge.
An example where the rules might bend a little is if you have built a house say to look like its in the mountains and you oversize rocks and stick them through walls to make the walls look like its made of those rocks. We wouldn't critique that as long as you have done your best to make it look natural.
On the other hand if you were to just place a rock near a wall and it was sticking in we would probably take points off for that. Its not always easy to avoid it when creating things to look natural and you wont be penalised for that, like making a natural pond with rocks surrounding it wont be marked down.

Each placement error found will lose one point off your scores to a maximum of 15 points for the build challenges and a maximum of 10 points for the room challenges. Individual judges may score lower on your overall score if placement errors have exceeded those amounts

While judging once a judge has found 15 errors they will stop looking for them or listing them and we will let you know in the feedback that there was more but they may not be listed individually.
Trust me when I say the points add up and can be the only thing preventing you from a win, its a shame when an amazing build doesn't win because of placement errors that can be avoided easily.

A list of some common placement issues we find are:

• Landscaping plants and flowers sticking into walls of buildings
  
• Rocks sticking into walls or outdoor lighting
  
• Plants/flowers sticking out of solid rocks (not realistic)
  
• Plant pots inside rooms sticking into walls
  
• Curtains sticking into any items placed near them
  
• Rugs placed under solid objects like walls, counters, showers, baths, toilets ect....

Play ability
We suggest that everyone play test their builds with a sim to make sure all usable items can be used, it is very common especially when using moveobjects cheat that items can prevent another item to be used. Sometimes it doesn't even look like its in the way but maybe blocking it's required area to be used.
Trust me when we say we understand play testing is boring, I myself dislike play testing my own builds but find it doesn't bother me when judging other peoples.
A tip from me is build your lots with an active sim on the lot then you can flick over to play and test during building, I normally do this when I have finished with a room. It saves you having to do the whole build at the end.
Some play ability issues we commonly find is:

• An unusable mirror, remember sims use them for charisma skill so we do like to see them usable. Though depending on the challenge and if its used to create something new we don't always stick to this rule.
  
• Chairs, we have found some that cant be sat on from either items to close blocking or not placed correctly at a table (make sure they snap in to the table so both can be picked up together)
  
• Another common issue is stairs not being able to be used because something is placed on the wall next to them preventing access, this will make your whole upper floor unplayable and will lose you quite a bit of points. We suggest while sim testing to make sure sims can enter all rooms.
  

Another huge issue we find is items dropping when moveobjects cheat has been used and items have been raised off the ground. If you have done this please save your build to your library, bulldoze the lot and replace your build. Check to see if anything has dropped out of place, it can cause quite a lot of issues with other items being usable.
I suggest if you do raise items like this to check out the Decorations by using basement spaces linked below in the Tips and Tricks list

Creativity
When we changed the judging breakup with scores we added the creativity score, out of 15 for build challenges and 10 for the room challenges. What this means is we want to see your unique touch, what sets your entry apart from everyone elses.
Creativity comes in all different ways such as:
Design - shape and architecture of your builds, obviously you will get a higher score for experimenting with shapes than doing a plain square shape.
Creative decorating - we love seeing unique creations, feature walls, combining several objects to decorate or to create something new. Make sure you take care when doing this as it needs to look like the objects belong together and not just stuck together in a messy fashion.

Even though each challenge has a requirements list try to add more, make it your own, make it unique. It will help your creativity scores adding more than whats required.
For example we may do a park challenge asking for a play ground, a bbq area and some toilets. That's pretty easy to do right? But what will set it apart from the rest. How about including a gazebo for chess players or easels for painters, or maybe even a nice natural looking pond with a fishing sign for people to fish. The options are endless just push your creativity to the limits you may surprise yourself what you come up with.

Interiors and Exteriors
Make sure your styles and color schemes flow, you don't want to have one room looking modern and another room using antique items. Your rooms don't have to be all the same color but just make sure it flows through out the house, try not to have one room all done in purple then another in blue and a third in red. A trick to making them flow is say you have a nice purple and white lounge but you would like to do a yellow bedroom or study, decorate it with some touches of purple in the bedroom or some yellow touches in the lounge.
Breaking up walls especially with the exterior with more than one wall covering really gives the builds more character, they can look quite boring all the same color and texture.

Another area we really look for is bareness, anyone can make a room and put the bare essentials in and there is probably another 1000 rooms exactly like it. Decorating and filling bare areas gives your room or build its uniqueness. This includes landscaping, exterior walls even roofing. So try not to leave big bare areas or bare walls.
I always say when you think you are finished your build go back and spend some more on decorating. I zoom out at the end and go through every level and look for bare spots and bare walls, also is a good time to check placement and see if you notice anything sticking into other things.

Lighting is another area included in the interiors and exterior, we always check the overall night view of the exterior, make sure to add exterior lights to the exterior walls and some garden lights through your landscaping. It can really bring builds alive and give an amazing night view.
On the interiors make sure rooms are well lit, I have hardly ever found a room that doesn't have a ceiling light bright enough. Set your game at night time and view the rooms to look for dark spots.
Lights also double as some great decoration especially on exteriors, but even on the inside a nice table lamp or standing lamp can add that little bit extra decoration.

Clutter is another area that can really give your entry some personality and uniqueness, some people don't like using clutter because its messy but it doesn't have to be.
Its only messy if you place it messy. A tissue box placed on a table or shelves, some soap and toothbrushes in the bathroom can really help make the build look lived in but be neat.
Or maybe you have a messy teen or child that lives in one of the bedroom, clutter it up with some dirty laundry on the floor, some books lying around, toys randomly on the floor.
Also don't forget using the bb.showhiddenobjects then in the search bar type DEBUG and select the *DEBUG* will give you so many amazing clutter and decoration items.

Tips and Tricks
I will be 100% honest here, if you do not learn to use bb.moveobjects and the ALT button tip you will always have some placement issues in your builds.
For example one of the main placement issues is pot plants placed near walls, the default tile that the game places some of the pot plants on will stick leaves through the walls. You will lose points for this.
ALT button - When placing an item on the ground or walls hold down the ALT button and you will have complete freedom to place this object so you can move it away from walls or other items so they are not touching.
bb.moveobjects - Using MOO as we call it for short, hold down the SHIFT, CTRL and C buttons to open the dialogue box at the top.
Type bb.moveobjects and enter. Hold down SHIFT, CTRL and C buttons again to close dialogue box.
Now you can use the 9 key to raise items higher or the 0 button to lower them back down.
So say you want to put a shelf on the wall but its to low, turn on MOO and hit the 9 button til its in the position you want. To have compete freedom where to place it hold down the ALT button and move it where you want it.

Now to have complete freedom say to place an object on a counter or shelf that the game doesn't allow you to place there. Turn on MOO and raise the item to the level of the counter or shelf using the 9 button. Make it high enough so that it's at the level it looks like it is sitting on top of the counter or shelf.
Once you have it at the right height hold down the ALT button and move it into the position you want on that shelf or counter.

Enlarging objects - this is a great tool to make items look more realistic, or simply for something different. I love enlarging plants and flowers to add a different look to landscaping. To do this pick up the item you want to enlarge then press the SHIFT button and ] button. The more times you press ] the larger the item will get. To shrink the object back down press the .

Be careful using MOO as it can create more placement issues as you will now be able to place any object on top of or in, sticking in or sticking through any other object.

We encourage everyone entering the competitions to learn to use these tricks as it will improve your placement and allow you to be even more creative.
All the judges and myself are more than happy to help you so please feel free to ask.

Attention to all areas
Another issue we sometimes come across is sometimes people pay more attention to say interiors and the building itself but put hardly any effort into landscaping. We judge all areas and check them thoroughly. So make sure you give as much attention to landscaping, roofing, exterior walls, interior walls, decoration everywhere, clutter and so on.
Usually this maybe because someone is not as confident in one area than another and that is fine the main thing is that you at least attempt it than leave the area bare. The practice challenges can definitely help on your weaker areas.

One last piece of advice, I would suggest making a check list that you can over view once you finish your build.
It will help you to make sure you don't forget things
An example of a check list could be something like this

Check List:
Mailbox in suitable postition
Bin on the lot
No bare spaces or bare walls
All necessities on lot
Check night view (no dark areas)
Interior lighting (no dark areas)
Everything usable
No placement issues

You could expand your list to include items such as
Landscaping is well decorated
Exterior walls of build decorated well (no bare spots)
Interior style flows
Color scheme flows

Your list can be as big or as small that suits your individual needs.

I hope this gives you more of an insight to how to win the competitions and improve the quality of your builds, please feel free to ask any questions or help at any time from the judges