How do you guys take those amazing build screen grabs?

Hey!

I am no expert, but maybe these tips might help:

I most of the time take screenshots in live mode. I find in build mode the roof is missing when trying to take nice indoor photos. Not really an issue for me as I have a test sim I move in to playtest the home in any case, so I always have a Sim there.

I also switch the camera mode from Sims4 camera to Sims3 camera. This because I find it's easier to get down to "ground level", to see the rooms from a Sim perspective I guess.

Make sure you have walls up, and roof up, to get nicer images (also for when taking photos of the interior).

Also, if in Build mode to take photos (like when you take Bird's eye view photos) then remember you can toggle the grid on/off with G :blush:

I have now started to use TAB. When pressing TAB you can navigate around the room a bit more easily using the short cuts on the keyboard. Here you can also zoom in and out and more easily take photos of small rooms like bathrooms. Just be careful! If you zoom out too much the room gets distorted and looks funny :p But by testing it out you will quickly see how far you can go ;)

You can rise the camera up and down in TAB mode with Q and E I think it is.

I can be more specific with like quick keys etc to use when I get home, but I don't have my game open and these just are in built in my fingers. lol

For indoor shoots I sometimes tear down walls to get a better view.

Same room both taken in tab view during live mode.

https://i.imgur.com/dQjR4mN.jpg
Here I placed myself against the wall in a corner and zoomed out to get most of the room in the picture.

https://i.imgur.com/pdhxd4o.jpg
Deleted the walls for this picture.

No clue why the light changed, first time that happened to me :sweat_smile: but you might notice the difference in the two pictures

@pronterus ahh then it was because I tore an exterior wall

@Nore well you could always position the camera before entering tab mode, and then only enter tab mode to adjust the camera height and angle. That's what I do sometimes when the keyboard refuses to cooperate lol.

If you are sharing your builds on the Gallery you really should be going into Live Mode to test your builds anyway. You can then simply time your testing with the time of day for taking pictures.

I send my test Sim jogging and once he's out the way and no-one else is in the way, I pause the game to take my shots. If I have to use a family to test then I send them all to the park area in the neighbourhood.

@reanseih Thanks for the teleportation advice haha! It definitely works well as they just stand there in some corner while I wait for the right time of day :)

@sawdust thanks for the advice it has definitely worked!

Been getting much better with picture in tab mode, thanks guys!

Honestly, I dread it every time I have to go take screenshots lmao. Never turns out right.

Here’s the trick for build mode screenies tho, take it WHILE it’s jumping up and down. To get just the right height. It’ll take a few tries, but it’s much less stressful than having to move a sim in for tab mode imo. With that said, it’s certainly not perfect, I only slack off like this for WIPs. xD;;

Tab mode... well it’s tab mode. There’s one trick you could try tho, but not sure if it only applies to my comp. You know how you aim the camera with your mouse in tab mode? Idk about others but for me, it tends to jump erratically, so it’s extremely hard to micro adjust the angle. I found out by accident once that I can fix this by alt tabbing out of the application and back.

I'm not really a fan of deleting walls to take better pics since it affects the lighting of the room, so what I do is use the mouse wheel to zoom out a bit while in tab mode. Or if I really need to delete walls for a confined room, I make sure that I don't delete a wall that lets outside light in, which will completely ruin the lighting I set up.

@reanseih Thanks for the tips haha. For me the most annoying bit is the camera moving way too much when you try to move it around using the keyboard in tab mode.

@Laebeth Thanks for the advice! I have been trying to use tab mode with my latest build haha.

@crysk That’s quite a dramatic change in lighting haha. I never considered to temporarily tear down a wall but that’s a good idea!

@pronterus Ah that likely explains the difference in lighting above. I tried to use zoom as well, but sometimes it distorts the angles way too much haha.

Mostly I just wanted to see if there was a way to get indoor pictures with build mode, rather than having to move a sim in and then fast forward time until you get the lighting you want haha.

@reanseih Ah okay, that might work haha. Yes the keyboard refuses to cooperate quite a lot haha.