EgonVM's Ultimate NPC Making Guide 2.0
So yeah, due to how these forums work with the spoilers,the original guide is somewhat messed up and updating it would result in loss of information. So, after some consideration, I've decided to make a V2.0 thread on it, using the similar approach to the List of Traits with link trees and each pack being in its own post (so it is collapsible). This thread will have two main posts under which I'll post the info. Please do not reply under them. You may reply to this post or other replies (including mine). Links to important replies: NPC Making List Additional Guides But how does it all work? Basically, if you ever wanted to make custom NPC sims, good news is that most of them can be done without any mods. The main cheats you are going to require are those: testingcheats on traits.equip_trait [trait_codename] careers.add_career [career_codename] In the guide, there are 5 types of "difficulties" I'm going to use (and emojis I'm using with it): đˇPlayed-Friendly- These ones, usually traits, can not only also be taken from sims the Played Households, switching to the household the sim is in won't make them lose their NPC status. đSimply Assign a Career/Trait- These will lose their NPC status when you play with them. The usual way of making those is by making these sims, equipping them with the required traits and/or careers, then evicting them. đLocation-Based Career- Unfortunately, this is where the career location matters, and it is the venue they'll be working at. As to my knowledge, there isn't any way to set a career location to a sim without mods, the best bet here is to modify sims already working there or make one of the custom sim unplayed and hope they'll appear in that role. đťMust Be Unplayed- You may assign a required career and/or trait, but they'll won't appear in the role until you set the household to be unplayed. đ¨âđŠâđ§âđŚOut of Control- Welp, these sims are chosen randomly from a broad selection. No way to influence the game to pick the sim you want... And in addition, these emojis represent the following: â ď¸Must have, meaning that your sim must have that skill, trait, career etc to appear in this role. đĄOptional, meaning that your sim can have it for the game to consider them more for the role, but they don't need to have it. Sometimes used in sub-types. âď¸Mustn't have, meaning if your sim has the skill, trait, career etc, the game will never place them in the role even when all other conditions are met. âSplits into sub-types, meaning that for the sim to appear in the role, they must meet at least one of the requirements in the following list below for the game to consider them. Ghosts and sims that are currently at work are usually excluded. In addition, this list shows the sims that will be excluded from the most of the roles: I've also decided to bring out templates too. These are not important when making NPC sims, but are rather some interesting side-info on how sims are generated for the role by the game. So yeah, look at the list and have fun making your own NPC sims!List of Traits in The Sims 4
Hello! Despite the discussion collecting these already existing, I've decided to make my own traits list due to how these forums work (it starts from the first post, not the last post, and it takes long to reach the last post). This list contains all the traits in-game, both visible and hidden, in these sections: Base Game Expansion Packs Game Packs Stuff Packs & Kits Non-Pack Filtered Visible Traits Non-Pack Filtered Hidden Traits Popular traits To add a trait, you'll need to use this cheat: traits.equip_trait [trait_codename] And to remove a trait, you'll need to use this cheat: traits.remove_trait [trait_codename] In both cheats, [trait_codename] needs to be replaced with trait's codename. For most of the personality traits, it's same as its name, but there are exceptions (Erratic for example). Find the trait codenames in the list below. These lists will be kept updated as patches and packs come out. Please do not post under these trait lists. If you'd like to suggest traits for the popular section or want to discuss some traits, please reply to either this post or someone else's.
ââ QC Town Maps - Sims 4 ââ
http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee82/cbear13/The%20Sims%204/Town%20Maps%20Sims%204.png As correct names are required on the Quality Control build challenge entry forms I have slowly been working on a correct and fully informative maps for each of the towns so that correct names can be found. They also include lot sizes and also the names of any familys/sims that reside in them from the default new game. I know there is others out there but found a few errors so I wanted to make sure correct names were always used on the competition entry forms. Hope this is helpful to anyone else out there needing original lot names. Map direct links: Willow Creek Map Oasis Springs Map Windenburg Map Magnolia Promenade Map Forgotten Hollow Map Newcrest Map San Myshuno Map Granite Falls Map Brindleton Bay Map Selvadorada Map Del Sol Valley Map Strangerville Sulani Glimmerbrook Evergreen HarbourGuides to SIMS 4 Dine Out
http://i.imgur.com/hZnDjli.png?1 http://i.imgur.com/wL9ZY6b.png?1 Hello :) This thread contains information about the Sims 4 Dine Out Game Pack. It will contain blog posts that are on thesims.com site, trailers, and links to guides that other Simming sites make about the game pack. I thought that it may help to have the information in one thread. There will be more links added as more information and the game pack is released. Happy Simming! :)
Tutorial: How to share apartments in the gallery for the upcoming City Life
Thanks to @catloverplayer for finding out that we CAN NOT share apartments as lots on the gallery. Here is the tweet: https://twitter.com/SimGuruDaniel/status/787135295967735809 I put together a short tutorial on how to share an entire apartment as a single room so you builders out there can still share them. There are a couple caveats but it does work. First, here is the empty apartment, a single room. http://i.imgur.com/5UbxsvE.png First, you want to start dividing the apartment into rooms. We do not want the rooms to become separated because then we can only share each individual room to the gallery. Start by drawing the wall all the way up until 1 square away from forming a complete room as so: http://i.imgur.com/5TQw3xz.png Now this part is important, you have to click on the newly drawn wall, click the arrow and drag it to complete the room. The game wont recognize the newly formed room this way. http://i.imgur.com/VZ93rUv.png Good, now the wall is complete but the apartment is still considered one room! http://i.imgur.com/jMgEXG8.png Lets follow the same steps as above and make a new room. http://i.imgur.com/0VZkVMz.png Drag the final segment by using the arrow, don't forget! http://i.imgur.com/0V8qVfa.png I went and decorated the apartment, you can do the same now! http://i.imgur.com/LfzMXgc.png Now that its finished, select the apartment by clicking a free spot on the floor or wall and you will see arrows appear at the wall edges. You can see the entire apartment is one room. http://i.imgur.com/Yi5INm6.png Now we can click the save to my library button then save as room to save the apartment and share it! As you can see in the image the whole apartment is present in the room including the walls and doors. http://i.imgur.com/IApF19d.png A couple things to be aware of: Since the apartment counts as a single room, you can't have different moodlet decor items active at once. They also share the same decor bonuses. You can manually rebuild the final segment of walls once the apartment is placed so the game forms it into a room. You will have to let players know which specific apartment this is meant to fit in since they are all unique shapes. The gallery image isn't great, its hard to tell exactly how it looks. I hope this helps you all look forward to City Life apartment building!
Paranormal Stuff Pack Dev Blog Part 1
Hello Simmers! Welcome to a small 2-part Dev Blog about our newest Stuff Pack, Paranormal Stuff! This pack has been an absolute blast to work on, and Iâm excited to share what this pack is all about! Iâll try not to reveal too many spoilers either. I think a good portion of the fun is not knowing what's in store, so Iâll keep things somewhat brief. Our topics for today are the new Scared Mood and the Haunted House Lot Type, plus an interview with our Audio Artist too! Get Scared Sims can now relish in the mortal dread of the Scared Mood! The Scared Mood affects Sims in a variety of ways, with my personal favorite, the new Scream Incoherently interaction, where a Sim runs up to another Sim to scream their lungs out. This can result in the other Sim calming down the Scared Sim, or resulting in both Sims becoming Scared. This can create a Scared Mood wildfire if youâre not careful! https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/hizXcXUECUsshx-JQC576FpBPxnEpi7fKJ6uATJ701-Bd4GxOYRcN0bQ0zPFOnsNqGY7XsD0QgkOTqBltCPNZDsyxtDkxPqf9jcAY9IW17JLdu787EB5VCxBIo4XFQ38hEulmFSg Whoa, whoa, whoa, it's okay! Sims afflicted with the Scared Mood also have trouble communicating with others, the urge to panic-run everywhere, and are slightly more prone to accidents. If no other Sims are around to help calm down a Scared Sim, they might just have to Hide Under The Covers for a while. But if being Scared just isnât your Sims style, consider purchasing the new Brave Trait. This Satisfaction Reward Store Trait will rapidly reduce the incoming fear a Sim feels and help Sims regain their composure faster. While no Sim is totally fearless, this trait should help mitigate some of those creepy feelings. The Scared Mood and the Brave Reward Trait are all base game features coming with the Paranormal Stuff patch on January 21st. Tons of previous Uncomfortable Buffs are now becoming Scared Buffs, such as the âStartled By Ghostâ Buff or the âThalassophobia'' Buff from Island Living. While being Scared might not be a common occurrence in your everyday Sims life, living in a Haunted House is a whole different story⌠Happy Haunts Introducing the Haunted House Lot Type! The Duplantier Dwelling, created by Doctor Ashley! This âcanonâ Haunted House will be available in the gallery! Theyâre like regular houses, only haunted! Although unassuming during the day, at night, these places get super weird. Your Sims may notice things like flickering lights, pipes rattling, or even creepy dolls staring at them in the corner. All are totally normal occurrences in a Haunted House, but it may take some time for your Sims to adjust to their new surroundings. Sims living in a Haunted House will also be introduced to floating apparitions known as Specters. Theyâre cute little critters, but their motives arenât entirely clear. You can try talking to them, or even offer them presents in hopes of establishing a good rapport. If they like you, theyâll drop special loot for you and your family. If they donât like you, well, youâve been warned. https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/j86VGoKo6j3DmicCAobmw7IoWpTyAEj6Qaq0DNsYjS_hoJocQLN8eF8erO1AT8LqKKET_cchpSI1rTgGdd3vzwYAbIWfCTUXzebYiFZ4SrmcaeV4trKCBvthrO_8NuKcn3ohMeVt o o o (> â u â )> Learning to get along with your new ghostly inhabitants is crucial in a Haunted House. Things like botching seances, neglecting Specters, or letting accursed objects invade your house will have a negative impact on its spiritual serenity. There is a delicate art to co-existing with the entities of the house, and thankfully youâll have an expert on the matter to assist you! Meet Guidry Claude RenĂŠ Duplantier Guidry was a seasoned Paranormal Investigator in his previous life, but now he exists to help anyone brave enough to live in a Haunted House! Youâll probably run into him eventually living in a Haunted House, but don't worry, heâs a nice ghost! Guidry will gladly offer his wisdom to those who seek it. If youâre confused, alarmed, or slightly uncomfortable by your new haunted surroundings, give Guidry a holler and he might be able to help. He can also offer valuable objects to help your Sims, too; all you need is to reach out! Still got it. All Guidry wants in return is to crash at your place for the time being. Sounds like a fair deal, right? But if youâd prefer to fly it solo, you can always disable his nightly visitsâhe won't be too upset, maybe. As mentioned before, Guidry was a Paranormal Investigator before his untimely demise. If he sees potential in you, he can certify you with a Paranormal Investigation License, granting access to the Paranormal Investigation Freelancer Gigs. Only those who are qualified enough can join the ranks of Paranormal Investigators, but more on that next time! Be Brave! Living in a Haunted House adds a layer of risk and reward for your Sims, and each successful night yields Reward Store Satisfaction Points for everyone in the Household. Specters can also drop treasure that can also be collected, consumed, or sold to an Oddity Collector. So although your Sims might go through a bit of peril, theyâll thankfully be compensated. One of my favorite pieces of haunted treasure is the new Sacred Candle. Not only do they look cool, but they also help protect Sims from paranormal influences. Place them around your house to make sure Sims are properly shielded! https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/Fn7rXuP5S7VQrovXWF_wD8v1sWbGqviMmY5cyYeTdG03CIOx-1x-6H6GQL2jvRKT7KMFm1b4miR-etOMXIv_oQpOsyB74mf9iyo_6n0HO-8zy51405IKHBXTzVJC2Th9IvcaY7py A properly protected Sim. Things like Sacred Candles and performing ceremonies at the Seance Table are integral to keeping your Sims happy in a Haunted House. Without using these paranormal tools, the entities of the house might get a little bossy. And while it might be in your Simsâ best interest to keep the spirits of the house in check, watching things go horribly wrong in a Haunted House can be just as fun too. So whatever works for you! With this Lot Type activated, your house is now a paranormal epicenter. Like Tiny Homes, this Lot Type can be toggled on or off at any time. So whether youâre a casual thrillseeker who wants to spend a couple of nights in a Haunted House, or a seasoned Paranormal Expert who wants to take on a new challenge, this Lot Type should offer something for you! Crosspack Stuff! Pets get to share the fun too! They especially love the accursed objects that show up! https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/DP_Y3zi3LAiz3ltR-MH_nRTo-RS06hbD2BUyIP7THgAMyxu6FYM_oJdKAQTq7kZ3jft_4_Z8JgaDyV-wkG_yYXZMVY6I1fGYeK0P3HTiP8A5o75rGEE5-Fo7ahpJpve-SN6lLYEL I think theyâre gonna get along great. As mentioned before, a ton of old Buffs from multiple packs are now being converted to the Scared Mood. I think 70 something Moodlets were converted? Honestly, I lost count. Anything that seemed more appropriate for the Scared Mood was transferred over. Oh, and you might remember an old Lot Trait from City Living called Haunted. For clarityâs sake, it needed a name change, so now it's the Spooky Lot Trait. It also benefits from being combined with the new Haunted House Lot Type and will have an increased chance of spawning Ghosts at night. So use both for maximum haunted-ness! Audibly Frightened Last but not least, Iâd love to turn it over to our Audio Artist for this pack, Briana Billups! She did a killer job bringing Haunted Houses to life! Trust me! Conor: Can you tell us what an Audio Artist does on The Sims 4? Briana: Big, broad picture: an audio artist decides what everything in The Sims 4 sounds like. We record, create, and edit sounds to the art and animation of the game. Little, very detailed picture: creating the actual sounds is usually one of the smaller aspects of our job. We are meeting with other departments, like design, animation, and VFX, to understand the overall vision of new game features and how we can fit in sonically. We are meeting with each other to make sure all our new content still keeps the very fun and quirky vibe of the Sims. We come up with new tools and implementation where necessary. Conor: What sort of things go into the creative process for creating audio? Briana: Every audio artist/sound designer has their own creative process, but I like to make a âsonic mood boardâ of sorts. I typically like to have a good idea of what I want something to sound like in my head before I record or edit it, so itâs nice to have sound effects or music to refer to that represents my original inspiration or ideas. When I was in college, I would make Spotify playlists for whatever I was working on. I would listen to them once a day, adding and editing as necessary, so when I actually got to work, I was in the right headspace. Now Iâm usually less formal about this sort of stuff, but for this pack, I would refer back to things like Vincent Priceâs demonic laugh from Thriller or Casper the Friendly Ghost Cartoons and the looping soundtrack from the queue of a horror ride at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk (Ghost Blasters) Conor: What were you most excited to work on for this pack? Briana: Definitely all the haunted house sounds! Good sound design is the crux of so many horror movies and video games, so even if we were keeping things more âCasperâ and less âPoltergeist,â I still wanted to give a good scare here and there. I actually scared myself one day while playtesting another feature in the game! Conor: If you had to choose, what is your favorite audio clip youâve ever added to The Sims 4? Briana: I would say my favorite SFX were the sports arena loops in EP08: Discover University. When you visit the arena for the soccer/esports match or graduation, you can actually listen to the whole game or ceremony. It was great to craft a whole story from start to finish using just sound. I also snuck in a lot of developer names when writing the scripts for our voice actors. Thanks, Briana! More To Come! That about covers this first foray into the Paranormal Stuff Pack! This pack has been a ton of fun to work on, and watching my Sims flee in terror has been more enjoyable than Iâd like to admit. Next blog, weâll focus on the Seance Table and developing your Medium skill, as well as the new active freelance career Paranormal Investigator. Big thanks to the Stuff Pack team for helping this pack come to life, and thank you, Doctor Ashley, for building our featured Haunted House! Until next time, SimGuruConor
The Sims 4 Community Voted Stuff Pack: The Forbidden Sweater & Create-A-Sim Art
Hi everyone! We received a lot of positive feedback from you, our community, about the gameplay deep dives and developer interviews we shared throughout the development process on The Sims 4 Nifty Knitting Stuff Pack. We didnât have an opportunity previously to talk about Create-A-Sim asset creation, but obviously clothing is a huge part of what makes our favorite pixel people feel real, and we would be remiss to not discuss it at all. So Iâm excited to share one last deep dive with you! The Sims 4 Nifty Knitting Stuff is coming soon - July 28, to be exact. Iâm sure by now youâve watched the trailer: https://youtu.be/s2r_aaVtsSY And when you watched the trailer Iâm sure you noticed the so-bad-it-is-good-sweater: We call it âThe Forbidden Sweaterâ and the ability to craft it is unlocked once a Sim completes the Lord/Lady of the Knits aspiration. Only a master knitter could craft something so delightfully diabolical...and itchy. Iâd like to share with you a little bit about the Create-A-Sim clothing development process, and what goes into making something as unique as this sweater. Inmar Salvatier, the artist responsible for this delightful abomination, will tell us more about this asset and the CAS process in general. Sarah: Hi Inmar! Can you tell us a little about what a Create-A-Sim artist does on The Sims 4? Inmar: We are the digital tailors, barbers, and cosmetologists of the Sims 4! We take the concept art and pull it into 3-D space with tools like Maya and ZBrush. Constructing every new piece to not only to fit right, but also move right, on all Sims, all the time! Got to have the right fabric and color too, so weâll jump into programs like 3DCoat, Photoshop, and Marmoset to get the right feel and aesthetic. Then we watch our clothing creations come to life in the game and make the right little tweaks to, as Tim Gunn would say, âmake it work!â Sarah: Before joining the Create-A-Sim team you were an artist on The Sims Mobile. How has your time on The Sims Mobile influenced your work as a Create-A-Sim artist on The Sims 4? Inmar: Joining the CAS (Create-A-Sim) team was a big change for me. It was my first opportunity to work on a PC/Console game and I felt very intimidated. But my skills from the mobile world helped me tremendously, and I was able to be an effective team member. Mobile gaming has a lot of constraints and you often have to get crafty with creative solutions to get the most out of the art youâre creating. You learn to adapt and, for me at least, it has instilled what some have called a âcan doâ spirit. My first pack on The Sims 4 was Island Living and early on I was handed a curveball asset with a bunch of question marks. It was a bikini with a sheer sash around the waist. See-through assets are super tricky, especially if itâs not directly on the body. But I love a challenge and I was able to learn a lot about our internal tools on The Sims 4, and I even got to design the different color variants for that asset. There was also the robot arm for Discover University. I was able to take that unique top from Concept all the way to finished asset. The concept art I created helped my fellow CAS artists design the full mech suit and robot. It hit me right in the feels that my team was so stoked about my work that it inspired them. Sarah: The Sims 4 Nifty Knitting Stuff features a delightfully atrocious failure sweater. Itâs so bad, itâs good! What inspired you when making this truly unique asset? What challenges did you face? Inmar: This thing is amazing, and I was all about it from the start! The idea was as big as the sweater itself, and the over-sized ideal was the first real challenge. Sims needed to feel like they were swimming in it without sacrificing our animation fidelity. I had to offset the bones - think of these as the invisible skeleton that helps to shape our clothing and make it work on Simâs bodies - to not only help convey the size, but also to keep the animations working correctly. Then there is the process of making something bad on purpose that still looks good. Yeah, wrap your head around that sentence. As artists we strive to achieve something visually appealing, but what do you do when you are asked to create an appealing failure? Well, you make this atrocity! Itâs about knowing the rules and how to break them in just the right way. From concept to modeling, I think this beast did just that. The first step is concept art. Our concept artist, Amy Kim, sketched several different designs, then she worked with our Art Director and other members of the team to choose which idea to move forward with. Then she further refined that final choice (how many pom-poms is too many pom-poms?!) until the concept was at a good point to hand off to the 3-D artist. Then the Create-A-Sim artist works on the general shape and defining characteristics of the asset. Once weâre happy with the shape we can start working on textures: Coloring the asset comes last: And, finally, the finished product in game! Sarah: So cool! Thanks for walking us through that, Inmar. While Iâm sure this sweater ranks in the top ten, what is your absolute favorite Create-A-Sim item you have ever made? Inmar: My absolute favorite item was on The Sim Mobile. I made a horse head mask! That was another out there, bonkers idea that had me hooked from the moment it was mentioned. It also had its share of challenges and design problems, but I love a good challenge and watching players using and loving it, well, right in the feels : ) Sarah: Thanks for sharing with us Inmar! And thanks again Simmers for joining us on the journey to create The Sims 4 Nifty Knitting Stuff Pack. We here at Maxis had a lot of fun working with you to create this pack, and it was exciting for the SP team members to get to share their passion and creative process with you via these deep dives. The Sims 4 Nifty Knitting Stuff Pack will be released on PC, Xbox, and PS4 on July 28. You can learn more here: https://www.ea.com/games/the-sims/the-sims-4/news/nifty-knitting-reveal Thatâs all for now! Keep on knitting...uh, I mean SimmingâŚ. ~ SimGuruSarah
Tutorial on how to hire your own sims you made, to work in your Restaurant
Please note that the sims you want to hire have to be not in the world and also not employed in another job. I made this tutorial very 123 abc step by step so it has 20 Photos to share. Its for simmers just starting out or those that battle to follow instructions without pics. Hope you enjoy it and that it will help you hire your own sims. It comes in 5 parts with 4 photo's each so I don't break slow internet users computers ;) Once you have made your playable sim and she/he bought their restaurant and is at the restaurant then you can follow these steps Step 1 http://i.imgur.com/GdNraB0.png select and empty lot and then click on create a new household, that wil take you to CAS Step 2 http://i.imgur.com/2e3KM6n.png Import or make your worker sims in CAS and then hit the play button Step 3 http://i.imgur.com/l3vE0PY.png Confirm by clicking save and play Step 4 http://i.imgur.com/ziZCjrI.png Click to purchase the home. More steps to follow ........The Sims 4 Community Voted Stuff Pack Deep Dive: Plopsy!
Welcome back to another Nifty Knitting Deep Dive! This is part 4 of our ongoing series where we take a peek behind the curtain (of yarn?) to discuss in depth upcoming gameplay features, and have a little Q&A with members of the development team. Today, let's talk about Plopsy! Plopsy is an online arts and crafts marketplace to buy and sell goods. It's sort of an amalgamation of real life online stores, but the themes should feel familiar. For a pack centered around knitting, this felt like a really good add. Afterall, there are only so many times you can gift your significant other a sweater...and yet so many sweaters to knit! The flow for Plopsy is relatively straightforward - once youâve crafted an object the List on Plopsy interaction becomes available. Listing an item on Plopsy costs a small fee, and will remain listed on Plopsy for several days. You can keep track of your listed items in your inventory, where you will see the current duration of the item and if there are any interested buyers. (it's that easy!) If someone is interested in buying your item, youâll be notified with a message. If you agree to the buyerâs offer, you can use the Ship on Plopsy action to ship the object in the mail. Youâll be paid immediately and get a thank you message from the buyer when they receive your package. Alternatively, you can ignore a buyerâs offer and relist the object for sale again. (Ship it!) Plopsy offers a higher payout than selling things the old fashioned way, at the cost of some general maintenance and patience. The goal is to offer a better selling experience for both the stay-at-home crafting professional and the fairweather crafting hobbyist. Plopsy isnât tied down to a career or a gig, so anyone is free to try it! Sims can also purchase things on Plopsy through their phones or computers. This storefront will rotate in random crafted items throughout the day, so even non-crafty Sims have a chance at some cool stuff (including the new knitted clothing!). We plan for Plopsy to be available for things like paintings, woodworking statues, potions, knitted items, flower arrangements, and more. Hoping to wrap future arts and crafts under Plopsy too! Without further ado hereâs Rick Rodgers, engineer extraordinaire here on our Stuff Pack team, here to talk a bit about coding, UI, and all the bits between. Conor: Can you tell us what it means to be Gameplay Engineer on The Sims 4? Rick: To understand what a GPE is (we always say GPE), you need to understand a bit about how The Sims 4 works. The Sims 4 uses a client-server architecture, which means it is essentially composed of two separate programs that talk to each other. The first program we call âthe clientâ, and it is responsible for displaying the game to the player. It handles things like graphics, audio, and the user interface (itâs relatively important!). The second program we call âthe serverâ and it manages what we call gameplay systems like autonomy, interactions, relationships, aspirations, skills, and careers. The server keeps track of those systems and condenses them down into operations the client understands, like âplay this animation on this objectâ or maybe âput this cat on top of this vacuumâ. As a GPE, my job is to build (and fix) the gameplay systems on the server and make sure designers have the options they need to create features using them. (Disclaimer: I am simplifying a bit) Conor: You also work on UI Engineering. How is it different from Gameplay Engineering? How is it the same? Rick: To me, gameplay engineering is about solving abstract problems like âwhere and how should a Sim put down the object they are holding?â while UI engineering is usually about solving much more concrete problems like, âWhat do we do if the Russian word for Tiny Home is too long for this button?â. UI engineering can be really satisfying because the changes we make are usually immediately visible. There is also something fun about changing-up the interface of the game that we stare at all day long. At the end of the day though, code is code. I like to work on both because it means I get to implement the gameplay and UI components of a single feature. Conor: Is there one thing in Nifty Knitting that youâre really excited to be working on? Rick: Plopsy â I think partly because the idea of selling things I make at home has always appealed to me in real life. Also, Plopsy breaks some of the assumptions we had previously made about how we would use the crafting system, and itâs been fun to find and solve the problems that have come up. Conor: What is your favorite feature you have ever worked on in The Sims 4? Rick: Can I pick two? Favorite feature to make: I had a lot of fun adding Freelancer Careers to the game. We had done something similar to Freelancer with the Acting Career in The Sims 4 Get Famous, and we wanted to figure out a way to use some of the things we liked about the Acting Career to make other careers. When we added another Freelancer Career for Fashion Photography in The Sims 4 Moschino Stuff Pack, I felt like my baby was all grown up. Favorite feature to play: I really enjoyed working on the Murphy Bed in The Sims 4 Tiny Living Stuff Pack. Itâs convenient design, but sometimes prickly exterior, make it the perfect combination of sensible and a little nefarious. You might say I identify with it a bit. I didnât hook-up the object itself, that was our design team. But I worked on it because we needed gameplay support in code for a bed that was also a loveseat. We had never made anything like that before. Conor: Thanks Rick! Thatâs all I have for this week, Simmers, but never fear, we have one more design deep dive to share with you. I saved the best, and my personal favorite, for last. So be sure to join us next time for the Knitting Deep Dive! Until then.... ~ SimGuruConor
