Custom content

What is Custom Content?

Custom content is user generated content made by Sim players for Sim players. Much custom content allows players to make aesthetic changes to Sims; skins for The Sims, clothing, accessories, and genetics (hair color, hair styles, eye color, skin color, etc.) for The Sims 2 and The Sims 3. Skins/clothes often use custom meshes.

Objects are another popular type of custom content. Customizing an object often involves recoloring all or part of it, but may involve changing its shape. Some creators have even made what are effectively new objects.

Custom walls and floors have always been popular, as have custom lots, houses, and buildings. The Sims 2 allows custom terrain (made in SimCity 4), neighborhoods, and sub-neighborhoods. The Create-A-World tool for The Sims 3 allows the creation of custom terrain and neighborhoods.

Some content for The Sims was what players of later games would recognize as mods, but most game modifcations for The Sims took the form of "hacked objects", objects that were modified to have new functions and interactions. Object hacking was frequently a way of getting around limitations of the game engine. For example, there are hacked objects which allow players to move Sims from one family to another without using the "Marriage or "Move In" interactions, or to remove them from the game. With a little creativity, players could use these objects to move Sims into their own houses, even though the game itself didn't provide for that.

"Modding" really came into its own with The Sims 2, and modifications for The Sims 2' do everything from fix issues and annoyances to make changes in gameplay.

Where to download Custom Content

This is just a short list of some of the more popular areas to get custom content. Most of these sites are for The Sims 2, but some have content for The Sims 3. A larger list of sites with content for The Sims 2 can be found here

• The Sims 2 Exchange
• The Sims 3 Exchange
• ModTheSims
• The Sims Resource
• Garden of Shadows
• Simbology
• More Awesome Than You
• Insimenator
• LianaSims2
• AnnaMariaSims2
• Decorgal

Creating your own Custom Content

Tools

• Body Shop
• Homecrafter Plus
• SimPe
• Milkshape
• Blender

Tutorials & Creator Forums

The Sims

• Simblesse Oblige
• The Secret Society of Woobsha

The Sims 2

• MTS Creation Tutorials and Forums

The Sims 3

• MTS Creation Tutorials and Forums

Tips

• Keep your download files in a folder (clothes, skin tones, objects, etc.) so if there is a problem, it'll be easier to find the culprit.

• Don't be a pack rat. If you have too much custom content, it can consume too much RAM, and that can get very messy.