Back To Basic Series: How to make your own more advanced Wallpapers And how to Submit your work to TSR!

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Jewel Daniel
5 years ago
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1 Back To Basic Series: How to make your own more advanced Wallpapers And how to Submit your work to TSR! In this series I'm going to go back to the very basics of starting out on those very first steps to making your own stuff for your Sims2 game. I remember when I first started getting that thought of Oh I wish I had wallpaper like the one I have at home... and no one else had quite done what I was looking for But I couldn t quite find a basic tutorial, and, when browsing through the other really cool rather advanced grand tutorials I promptly broke out into a cold sweat and vowed that making stuff was just too complicated! I eventually got so annoyed as I had such a great idea for a lot I was building but there was no way I was going to find what I wanted. My first ever walls and my first real delve into the world of Photoshop and creating content came in the form of my Skin Deep Tattoo Studio Lot released right here on The Sims Resource. So, in this tutorial I am going to show you a new twist on basic wallpaper creation for your game. Following on from the first tutorial in the Back to Basics theme, in this method, you will create what will be the finished article in your paint program (for this tutorial, I will be using Photoshop CS2) and once happy, you will be importing this into Homecrafter. What do I need? Homecrafter Plus A Paint Program This is available from TheSims2.com if you do not have it already. I use Photoshop CS2, but standard Photoshop, Paintshop pro amongst others can be used. Various patterns or images for your chosen design Page - 1 -

!! Clearly, we cannot use this image (unless you can think of a fitting theme!) and it would take way too much work for us at this stage to start trying to clean up this image!

2 Ok, I m ready what now? First of all comes the hunt for a pattern you want to use and turn into some really nice fancy wallpaper! This may take some time if you are looking on the internet as you may find that perfect design, only, when you click to enlarge etc, this happens: Ah great!!! Clearly, we cannot use this image (unless you can think of a fitting theme!) and it would take way too much work for us at this stage to start trying to clean up this image! So, back to the drawing board to find a design. Eventually, you will find that perfect design, that doesn t have SAMPLE written all over it! And so, on that note, we find our image: What you need to do now, is open this image in your chosen paint program, (i.e. Photoshop CS2 for me!) and we can begin to work with this and make it into nice wallpaper. NOTE: The image here is an excellent choice as the pattern matches up by itself as you will see if you need to repeat it to build your entire image. So, like in real life you will need to make sure that your pattern matches up at each end!! So, once we have opened our image in our paint program, we need to just minimise that for a second, whilst we click on File New to create a blank canvas for what will end up as our wallpaper image. The size for this will be 256 pixels wide, by 768 pixels high. Whoa! I hear you cry, that doesn t sound right! And yes, it does sound odd, but wait! All will become clear in a minute, If you made your design using 256x512 pixels, your finished image will look a bit squished and stretched. I am going to show you how to make your patterns look unstretched in game. Many thanks to Windkeeper for explaining this method to us! Page - 2 -

Your wallpaper will not appear strechted if: While the source textures for Walls are created in a 1x2 aspect ratio, the game displays it in a 1x3 aspect ratio.

2) Create your custom Wall pattern to fit that size. 3) When happy with the pattern appearance, resize the image to 256x512 pixels. Your pattern will look distorted, but do not worry about it.

If this is still a little baffling, I will be following this process in the tutorial, with pictures, and I hope that it will help you.

3 Your wallpaper will not appear strechted if: While the source textures for Walls are created in a 1x2 aspect ratio, the game displays it in a 1x3 aspect ratio. To get the images on your custom content Walls to appear unstretched in the game, you can follow these steps: 1) Create your.bmp size 256 pixels wide by 768 pixels tall. 2) Create your custom Wall pattern to fit that size. 3) When happy with the pattern appearance, resize the image to 256x512 pixels. Your pattern will look distorted, but do not worry about it. 4) Save the.bmp and use it in Homecrafter Plus to make new wallpaper. Because the game stretches your wallpaper back to 1x3 ratio, your pattern will look just fine in the game! SO! If this is still a little baffling, I will be following this process in the tutorial, with pictures, and I hope that it will help you. Right, so we have created the right size image, and now we need to create our new pattern to fit it. Hopefully, your image should look a bit like this: It does? Great!! But do you really want your wallpaper to look like this? No skirting boards (kickboards) or ceiling cornicing? Noooooo! So, if you do not intend to borrow the skirting from a standard Maxis image, then you need to go on the hunt for a suitable image to use. Page - 3 -

I like nice fancy images and thus I found this one that I plan (hopefully!!!) to use for the Cornicing So, now we want to incorporate this into our budding wallpaper design!

and Ctrl V (to paste the image onto our existing wallpaper This might require some moving around and resizing to make it fit your wallpaper so make sure that you are comfortable with

4 I like nice fancy images and thus I found this one that I plan (hopefully!!!) to use for the Cornicing So, now we want to incorporate this into our budding wallpaper design! We can do this by opening the image in Photoshop, and selecting Ctrl A (to select the whole image) and Ctrl C (to copy the image) and then click on the image of our soon to be wallpaper and Ctrl V (to paste the image onto our existing wallpaper This might require some moving around and resizing to make it fit your wallpaper so make sure that you are comfortable with stretching and squashing the images you have picked. Otherwise, pick something plainer to begin with!! Less fussy patterns = easier to make until you have built your confidence in making wallpapers. Page - 4 -

If you want to put on skirting s (or, Kickboards) then essentially this is done in the same way as the cornicing, but you are positioning it on the bottom part of your image.

5 If you want to put on skirting s (or, Kickboards) then essentially this is done in the same way as the cornicing, but you are positioning it on the bottom part of your image. Like so: Once you are happy, then we need to resize this image to the 256x512 pixels that we want to import into Homecrafter. To do this we go to Image Image Size and change the Height to 512. Note: ensure that you take the tick out of the Constrain Proportions box, or it will try to change the width number as well. Page - 5 -

I ve now waited so long my hair has gone grey for Homecrafter to load and now it has! What now??!! So, now Homecrafter is loaded, you see that big plus sign at the bottom and on the left?

6 Next, you want to save the image you have made, and it absolutely HAS to be saved in.bmp format. Now, you can save this wherever you want, but it will have to go into your Homecrafter/Walls folder at some point, so you might as well put it in there if you are ready for the next stage. OKAY! I ve now waited so long my hair has gone grey for Homecrafter to load and now it has! What now??!! So, now Homecrafter is loaded, you see that big plus sign at the bottom and on the left? We use this to Create New Content. It is through this that we shall be importing our new design. Click this and you should get a screen that looks a little like this: As you can see, our new wall is ready to import into the game! I have several papers waiting in here, so I have to select the one we have been working on. If you are new to this and following my tutorial for the first time, then you will only have the one paper in here that you have been working on. So, select this and click on the Tick to accept. Page - 6 -

Once you have clicked the tick, you will be presented with this screen: You will be able to get a rough idea of how your new paper will look in game as you will be able to see a preview of 3 of your

7 Once you have clicked the tick, you will be presented with this screen: You will be able to get a rough idea of how your new paper will look in game as you will be able to see a preview of 3 of your papers side by side. NOTE: Because we have fancy coving and such around the top piece, this is an excellent stage in which to check that the design matches up and you have one continuous pattern. There s nothing worse than unmatched edges! In this screen you need to give your new wall paper a name, tell everyone how much it costs NOTE: If you are going to submit you walls to TSR and you want Lot builders to be able to use your walls, these people love low priced walls, this is because a lot of contests they like to enter set maximum expenditures, so low cost, good looking walls, floors & furniture are always a winner!) and a description of you wall, you can put in here if it is part of a set, TSRAA and your screen name to make it easier for downloader s to identify who made it. Finally, click on a Subsort this will enable you to put your new wall in the right category, e.g. wallpaper, paint, panelling etc. Once done, click on the folder icon with the arrow pointing on it. This will import your new wall into your game! Page - 7 -

Now.. you think I've finished don t you? Well, I haven t, I mentioned a little earlier about submitting your walls? Well, I thought id just show you quickly what you need to do.

Well, still do this, but also, make a copy of this file, and pop it on your desktop or similar. This will serve well as the preview image you will need when you submit your paper to TSR.

8 Now.. you think I've finished don t you? Well, I haven t, I mentioned a little earlier about submitting your walls? Well, I thought id just show you quickly what you need to do. One of my little hints! Do you recall when you put the finished wallpaper into the Homecrafter/Walls directory? Well, still do this, but also, make a copy of this file, and pop it on your desktop or similar. This will serve well as the preview image you will need when you submit your paper to TSR. Now, when you have Homecrafter open and at the wallpaper you want to share. You cannot just take a copy of the wallpaper that you have already imported into your Downloads folder, this will be rejected. If you see on this next shot, on the bottom right, you have an icon of an open box and a bin next to it. The open box is the icon for Package to File and this is the one you want! Click on it and you will be presented with the following: Give your Wall a name and a description (helpful if you use the same details that you did when making the wall description itself. This file will automatically be saved on your desktop! This file, and your preview image can then be submitted to TSR! Page - 8 -

Digital Projection Entry Instructions

Digital Projection Entry Instructions The image must be a jpg file. Raw, Photoshop PSD, Tiff, bmp and all other file types cannot be used. There are file size limitations for competition. 1) The Height dimension can be no more than 1080 pixels.