Creating A Celebrity Sim For TS3

[wooddragon13]

I was checking out the number of celebrity seems in the TS3 download section, but there were few that I actually liked. So I wanted to create some different ones to submit, but I'm a newbie to this and it's a little challenging. From what I've read, I don't want to build a body mesh, or create a new face skin from scratch. I just want to make a replica of a celebrity face at this point. Can you guys help me out with some tips how to get started.

[whiterider]

There's no real trick to it - it's just a load of tweaking, for the most part. :) Some things to bear in mind:
You need good source pics. Try to get a nice big, zoomed-in photo; one face-on, one at a slight angle (so you can see how the nose is shaped etc), and one profile. The Large search filter in Google Images will be a great help.
Your source pics should, ideally, be of the person without a load of makeup on, and with a neutral expression. That's often a challenging thing to find for celebrities! But a bit of searching will usually yield enough results.
If there are any aspects of the person's face you find particularly interesting, see if you can find an extra pic that shows that feature off well, so you can try to duplicate it.
It helps to have the source pics visible while you're working on your sim. If you have two monitors, put TS3 on one and your pics on the other. If not, set up TS3 to use windowed mode, with a resolution which is smaller than your native resolution, so you can put the two windows side by side.
Always check your work in-game! Sims look incredibly different in-game to how they look in CAS, and it's how they look in-game that's important. The best method is to make a very rough draft of your sim, save them as a family, and pop them down on a lot. Then use testingCheats or a mod such as MasterController or AwesomeMod to edit them in CAS - that way you can make a few changes, hit OK in CAS, and immediately be looking at your sim in-game; take stock, then go back into CAS and so on, without having to go through the whole process of saving a family, loading a lot, blah blah etc... every time.
Once you've got a decent start, post in the Creator Feedback Forum (http://www.modthesims.info/fd.php?f=473). As creator, you will become blind to your sim's strengths and flaws after about eight hours of staring at him/her. The guys in CFF help by pointing out the things you just can't see any more. ;)

If you're struggling to get started - well, I tend not to make celebrity sims so much as whatever takes my fancy, which is usually based on the face I'm looking at :p . But the advice I have seen given before is to start rough, with the big things. What shape and size is the person's head? How big is their forehead? How far apart are their eyes? How long (vertically) is their nose? That allows you to build a kind of skeleton, where you have all the features in the right place, even though the eyes may be the wrong shape and the mouth too thin and whatever else. Once you've done that, you can fill in the details.
You might find it helpful to doodle on one of your source pics, like I have in the attachment: lines to help you compare, for example, how much space should be above and below her mouth - it's much easier to look at a pair of red lines and think "The top one is a bit more than a third the length of the bottom one", than it is to see those kinds of comparisons straight away from a plain photo. Similarly, you can use your red line doodles to see how wide her mouth/nose should be relative to each other, how far apart her eyes and eyebrows should be, and so on.

Leave CC to last. When you're making a sim, the ideal is simple, with hair out of his/her face. You can sort all that stuff out once you've got the face shape right. :)
Decide ahead of time if you're gonna use custom sliders - and if you're not, well, make sure not to use any custom sliders when making the sim :p .

[HystericalParoxysm]

Well, there are a -couple- tricks to it. Mostly some useful custom content and ways of comparing and whatnot. I have a tutorial on doing it here: http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=432920 ... which has links to useful content, tips, and instructions. The actual -sculpting- part (where you adjust the sliders) is just a matter of keeping at it till it's right though. :)

[whiterider]

Hmm, that tutorial doesn't show up on your profile. We'll have to fix that later.

[wooddragon13]

Thanks for the assist Whiterider. I don't expect to be told step for step how to do what I want to do, besides there wouldn't be any fun in that. The direction I need is in the form of the following:

1. I need to know what programs to use. Also, they have to work for TS3 and windows 7 64bit. The Bodyshop software I downloaded keeps looking for TS2, which I don't have.
2. I need to know what order to use them.

Once again, thanks for the assist.

There's no real trick to it - it's just a load of tweaking, for the most part. :) Some things to bear in mind:
You need good source pics. Try to get a nice big, zoomed-in photo; one face-on, one at a slight angle (so you can see how the nose is shaped etc), and one profile. The Large search filter in Google Images will be a great help.
Your source pics should, ideally, be of the person without a load of makeup on, and with a neutral expression. That's often a challenging thing to find for celebrities! But a bit of searching will usually yield enough results.
If there are any aspects of the person's face you find particularly interesting, see if you can find an extra pic that shows that feature off well, so you can try to duplicate it.
It helps to have the source pics visible while you're working on your sim. If you have two monitors, put TS3 on one and your pics on the other. If not, set up TS3 to use windowed mode, with a resolution which is smaller than your native resolution, so you can put the two windows side by side.
Always check your work in-game! Sims look incredibly different in-game to how they look in CAS, and it's how they look in-game that's important. The best method is to make a very rough draft of your sim, save them as a family, and pop them down on a lot. Then use testingCheats or a mod such as MasterController or AwesomeMod to edit them in CAS - that way you can make a few changes, hit OK in CAS, and immediately be looking at your sim in-game; take stock, then go back into CAS and so on, without having to go through the whole process of saving a family, loading a lot, blah blah etc... every time.
Once you've got a decent start, post in the Creator Feedback Forum (http://www.modthesims.info/fd.php?f=473). As creator, you will become blind to your sim's strengths and flaws after about eight hours of staring at him/her. The guys in CFF help by pointing out the things you just can't see any more. ;)

If you're struggling to get started - well, I tend not to make celebrity sims so much as whatever takes my fancy, which is usually based on the face I'm looking at :p . But the advice I have seen given before is to start rough, with the big things. What shape and size is the person's head? How big is their forehead? How far apart are their eyes? How long (vertically) is their nose? That allows you to build a kind of skeleton, where you have all the features in the right place, even though the eyes may be the wrong shape and the mouth too thin and whatever else. Once you've done that, you can fill in the details.
You might find it helpful to doodle on one of your source pics, like I have in the attachment: lines to help you compare, for example, how much space should be above and below her mouth - it's much easier to look at a pair of red lines and think "The top one is a bit more than a third the length of the bottom one", than it is to see those kinds of comparisons straight away from a plain photo. Similarly, you can use your red line doodles to see how wide her mouth/nose should be relative to each other, how far apart her eyes and eyebrows should be, and so on.

Leave CC to last. When you're making a sim, the ideal is simple, with hair out of his/her face. You can sort all that stuff out once you've got the face shape right. :)
Decide ahead of time if you're gonna use custom sliders - and if you're not, well, make sure not to use any custom sliders when making the sim :p .

[HystericalParoxysm]

You don't need to use any programs except TS3. There is no separate Body Shop for TS3. If you look at the tutorial, it tells you any custom content you need to get separately (but technically, you -can- just make sims with the base game and nothing else).

[wooddragon13]

Ok, that fine. However, how do I take that sims that I created, and make it available for to share with anyone on MTS?

You don't need to use any programs except TS3. There is no separate Body Shop for TS3. If you look at the tutorial, it tells you any custom content you need to get separately (but technically, you -can- just make sims with the base game and nothing else).

[whiterider]

Click the Save Sim to Bin button in CAS (it's one of the options that pops up when you hit ... on the little portrait image at the bottom). That'll create a file in the SavedSims folder, named after your sim, which is what needs to be uploaded. It's explained in more detail in the Creatr Guidelines - Create menu -> Creator Guidelines. :)