Here’s how to make your lots in The Sims 3 extra special with some finishing touches in 10 easy steps!
Do you feel like your lots are tedious and tiresome? Want to add in some extra special touches that will turn mess to masterpiece? This tutorial will show you how!
The 10 Easy Steps
1. Get yourself a test family.
These Sims can be used both to test the home and get and buy *Finishing Touches* that are not available in the catalogue.
You can give them normal names but I use:
Firstname – Your User Name
Surname – TSR
So mine would be cazarupt TSR. As you’re going to be collecting, painting and fishing, this means that when people download and use your lot the artist/collector/catcher of your items will have your user name attached to them.1
2. The catalogue is full of boring standard paintings, but who needs them, eh?
We can get our Sims to paint their own. There are a large variety of standard paintings, but you can get your Sims to pains still life, or it they have the artistic trait, Memorize A Scene and paint it later. If you train your Sims up a bit, they can produce great works of art!
A Beautiful Work Of Art – Painted By A Sim!
3. Collect some wonderful jewels, metals and rocks to display around your home.
If you buy the collection helper, you can identify them in map view for easy finding. To collect them, I use the cheat testingcheatsenabled true,2 then shift-click near the jewel to teleport there. This makes it much quicker to collect lots of jewels. You can then get the jewels into many shapes, and the metals smelted into bars.
Jewels Arranged On A Table Looks Very Glamorous.
4. Go and buy yourself a rubber duckie!
And what about some bubble bath, too? These can both be purchased from the grocery store.
5. Stock up bookshelves with the appropriate books!
Go down to the bookstore and purchase some books. You can then put these in the bookshelves at your lot ready for the downloader. Put books in the appropriate places i.e. recipe books in the kitchen, in the nursery books for children. If you have a library/reading room, leave some books out on the tables.
Books on the tables are a great homey touch.
6. Pre-Plant the garden!
If your home has a vegetable patch, plant some seeds there and grow them on to plants, ready for when the new owners move in.
7. Go fishing, and use your catch to either mount on the wall or put in a fish bowl.
8. Catch some butterflies or beetles and put them in a jar.
They look great in kids rooms!
9. Make use of the accents and accessories available in the catalogue.
There are things like toilet rolls, tissue boxes, magazine racks etc. It’s little details like these that are really noticeable.
10. Change the color of the lights!
This is a feature that hardly anyone uses in TS3 and I think that’s a great shame. You can also change the intensity of the lights. To do so, click on the light and choose either Color or Intensity. Note that some of the outdoor lights do not allow you to change the settings.
Colored Lights Make The House Look Beautiful.
Congratulations! You’ve Finished!
Ok, so now you’re done. You can take some photos of the lot while the test family are living there – with them in the photos if you like. It’s useful to have a family living there when you’re taking the photos, because time passes enabling you to take photos at sunset etc., not just he default night and day.
It’s also important to test the lot. Use the lot like you normally would for a few sim days. You’ll than realize if you need to change anything – e.g. diagonal furniture that Sims can’t actually access. After you’ve done the testing, you can move the family out and export the lot.
1By Have your user name attached to them I mean the fact that the artist of the painting, collector of the jewel, catcher of the fish will register as your Sim. So for example: when a downloader chooses to make their sim View a painting, an information box will come up showing who the artist is, meaning your name will be displayed.
2Remember to turn of this cheat when you’re done by entering testingcheatsenabled false.
