Tomb Building Tutorial

Daring Adventurers! You've explored all there is to explore. You've gathered all the riches, cracked all the puzzles and conquered all the dangers. But have you tried your hand at tomb building? Tomb building is a challenge all in itself and if you are ready for it, here are a few helpful tips to get you started:

·         Opening the Menu. World Adventures is REQUIRED for tomb building. If you don't have it, you won't have access to the tomb building materials. Before beginning, you need to enabled testingcheats.

To do this, press Ctrl+Shift+C and enter "testingcheatsenabled true" (without the quotations as show here):

Nothing visually happens yet. Open the blue box again, but type "buydebug" and press Enter.

Now when you enter Buy mode, you will see a box with a "?". In the screenshot shown below, it is located above the Comfort category, but if you do not have Pets, it will be located where the Pets category currently is in my screenshot.

Once you have built your tomb, you will want to link your tomb items ONE PAIR AT A TIME. This will prevent damage to brain cells. It can get very confusing if you have too many loose triggers and behaviors.

·         Triggers Versus Activated Behaviors. Speaking of damaged cells, I'm going to rewire your brain for the concept of triggers and activated behaviors. Yes, you read that right. Our brains take shortcuts when  processing information. Let's take the direction "turn on the light"; without thinking about it, you go and flip a switch that turns on a light. You didn't physically turn on a light, you turned on a switch that then turns on the light.

The light switch is a trigger that is linked up to the actual light, which is an activated behavior. The light switch is either on or off and the light is on or off. They are two separate actions that are linked together.  Another way to think about it is with the good old "If, Then" statements. If I flip the light switch "ON", then the light will turn "ON". Understand this and you will have so much creative freedom when tomb building.

·         Linking. With the concept in mind, let's link two tomb items to show you how it's done. I'm using a set of stairs and a treasure chest for this example. The treasure chest is found in the buydebug menu we brought up, but the stairs can be any standard set of stairs in the game (spiral staircases do not work for this). Now, we need to know what we want these two items to do so using the "IF, THEN" statement, I will outline how this link will be set up: IF a Sim OPENS the treasure chest [Trigger], THEN the stairs will APPEAR (or UNHIDE) [Activated Behavior].

To begin, you must open the menu by pressing Ctrl+Shift while clicking on an object. This allows you to access the menu that set up that object with a link to another object. For our purposes, we will begin with the stairs. In order to create an activated behavior that UNHIDES the stairs, we first need to hide them.

Now you the stairs are covered by floor tiles, matching the room around them. (Note: If you do this on bare terrain, you will have a hole in the ground. If you wish to have stairs outside, I'd recommend them in a "paved" area, not in the grass.) Let's set up the first half of our "IF, THEN" statement: "IF a Sim OPENS the treasure chest". This will be our Trigger. When you open the menu, there will be two options that mention Triggers. When setting a LINK between two objects, always choose Link Triggers.

We want the stairs to UNHIDE when we OPEN the chest, so select OPEN.

The Trigger is set. Easy right? Now let's set the Activated Behavior. The second half of the "IF, THEN" statement says: "THEN the stairs will APPEAR (or UNHIDE)". Again, we are setting up a LINK so make sure to select Link to Activated Behavior.

Because we want them to reappear, select UNHIDE.

You have now linked your first tomb items! To verify that it is set up correctly, hover over the two items with your cursor. You should see a pink/purple link connecting the two items when you hover over the treasure chest and a green line connecting them when you hover over the stairs.

If you do not see these lines, clear the links by selecting "Clear all links to and from this object" on both the items and try again.

If you want more than one Activated Behavior to happen when you Trigger and item, you can do this by repeating the steps with the second behavior. For instance, IF a Sim OPENS the chest, THEN the stairs will APPEAR (or UNHIDE) AND the door LOCKS. Set up the first link exactly as I described above, then repeat the IF part of the statement, also known as the Trigger, but then click on the door for the Link to the Activated Behavior portion. When you finish linking the three items you will see lines connecting the door and the stairs to the treasure chest.

If you want more than one Trigger to activate for an Activated Behavior, you will need to use a Processor. I will be posting more tutorials about Tomb Building in the Tips and Tutorials section of our website, including one about the Processor, one of the more complex features of Tomb Building.

·         Polishing the Finished Product. Sure you have linked all of your tomb items, but don't forget the polish! Treasure Chests need to be filled and hints and pieces of the storyline need to be given; the tomb would be bland without them. So let's go through that now.

Treasure Chests, Treasure Spawners (the green and yellow Speech bubble), floor and wall holes, dive wells, and sarcophagus' can all give treasure and you can set the treasure you want the tomb item to give by doing the following:

Open the Tomb Building Menu on the Treasure Chest or other item and select Treasure Component.

Now you can select for the tomb item to give a treasure one time, regularly, or both.

Then select the treasure type you want to be dispensed from the list provided.  The "$" are money bags. Ancient coins can be given this way or with the pile provided in the buydebug menu, but the buydebug coin pile does not respawn.

If you want the Treasure Chest, the only tomb item that allows this, to give more than one item at a time, select Set Treasure Chest Info. You can then select for the chest to give up to 5 items.

Storyline progression is what makes your tomb unique. You want to know who built the tomb and why. What are they hiding? To help pass this information on to your explorers gradually you can drop hints with plaques and observations. As an example, I'm going to have my Sim exclaim, "Wow! Where did those come from?" when the stairs appear.

First, because I want the message to appear when the stairs appear, the activated behavior, I click on the stairs and open the tomb building menu again. Then click on Activated Behaviors, NOT Link to Activated Behavior. We have already set up the link, now we just want to add a few dazzling details.

Then select UNHIDE because that's what are stairs will be doing.

Next choose the option Set TNS on Activation.

Now enter the text you want to appear. Viola! Instant personalization.                

Lastly, we want sparkles! No, really, I mean sparkles. You can set the link of the items to sparkle, letting your explorer know that the tomb item activated something. This is very important, especially when you have tomb items that are linked in separate rooms. The sparkles, or Cause/Effect, act as a hint to your explorers as to what direction to look in for something new, like the now apparent stairs.

You always select the Activated Behavior for this, not the Trigger. So clicking on our Stairs, select Activated Behavior again.

And again, choose UNHIDE.

Finally, select Turn On Cause/Effect FX. Very easy.

Now don't forget to test your final product! I highly suggest linking and testing ONE ROOM at a time if possible. It's easier to locate the issues that need correcting.

If you have specific tomb building questions or other tutorial requests, feel free to post your request for me here.

Picture Perfect: Tips for Better Screenshots

Picture Perfect: Tips for Better Screenshots

Thanks, Docusat, for requesting this tutorial.

• Keep Your Goal in Mind. This may seem straight forward, but it can be very easy to see something "shiny" and then find yourself with heaps of useless screenshots. Yes, that vase contrasts nicely with the wallpaper in your bedroom, but you didn't even capture the bed, which makes it a bedroom.

• Off with their head...I mean Plumbob. If you are trying to capture a Sim, the plumbob absolutely must go. It's great for playing the game, but the iconic image can be an eye sore in your photos and it's easy to remove. 

• Hit Ctrl+Shift+C and a thin blue box pops up at the top of the screen. Type in "hideheadlineeffects on" and hit Enter. Viola! Unsightly Plumbob removed!

• Keeping Tabs. When you are at an angle you like, hit the "Tab" key. Not only does the interface disappear, but you won't slide around accidently. The camera view will pivot from where you "stand" allowing you to look up, down, and all 360 degrees around you. It will also let you zoom in and out certain distances. Hit "C" to take the picture. Once you've captured the shot, hit "Esc" or "Tab" again and you will return to the interface view.

• In Full Tilt. Aerial or birds eye shots can be tricky. You want to capture the floor plan of a build and make it easy to understand. Before beginning, make sure all the roofs are up on your build. Then press the Tilt Up button until it stops. You should be looking down on the lot. The front of the lot should be at the bottom of the screen and the back of the lot at the top of the screen. This is important because you want all the floors facing the same direction in the screenshots to clearly indicate the placement of the rooms.

Once you have the entire lot, or the entire floor plan in view, hit "Tab". Zoom in and out as needed and twist the mouse left or right to straighten out your view. Hit "C" to capture and exit the Tab view. Without moving the mouse, hit "Page Down" on the keyboard and go back into "Tab" view. Repeat until all floor levels are captured.

• All Good Things Come to Those Who Wait. Sims are bursting with personality and with great timing, you can use that to your advantage. Observe Sims with different traits. A perceptive Sim will pull out a magnifying glass randomly, a dramatic Sim can faint on cue, or one of my favorites an insane Sim will talk to himself. Using that last example, I made this picture. Notice he actually appears to be tipping his top hat. It was all in the timing. He was actually in the process of pointing, seemingly arguing with an invisible someone and I waited until just that moment with just the right angle.  Sure, it would be easier and faster with a Pose Player, but you don't need one to capture that perfect picture.

• Rule of Thirds. Professional photographers are secretly magicians. When you look at their art, your eyes go exactly where they want them to go. How do they do this? Rule of Thirds. Imagine a tic-tac-toe board with nine equal squares on your screen. The four points where the lines intersect are the strongest focal points and the lines themselves are the second strongest focal points. If your subject is alone, the most powerful placement would be on the left hand line with one or more the points. If you have more than one subject, the bottom right point is the strongest focal point and the top left is the weakest. 

• Mood Lighting. Lighting is extremely important. You don't want the image too dark, making it hard to see, nor do you want it too light, washing out the subject. If you have World Adventures, make use of the lighting panels in the Buydebug menu. Hit Ctrl+Shift+C and type in the blue box "testingcheatsenabled true". Nothing seems to happen yet. Open the blue box once again and type "buydebug". Now when you enter Buy mode, you will see a new Function category with a "?". Inside you will find lots of great items, but under Misc. Objects, you can find white shapes in different sizes. Place these to add more lighting without the actual fixtures. They will disappear in Live mode. Also, if they lights are too bright, you can dim them (or brighten them) by hitting Ctrl+Shift while clicking on a light fixture or shape. You can also change the color of the light to an eerie red or soothing blue.

• Natural light is another great resource. In Sims, the sun rises in the morning, peaks in the afternoon, and darkens in the evening. The stars and the moon twinkle in the dark and the idyllic sunrise and sunset fill the sky with beautiful colors.  Photographers use these to their advantage and so should you. Plan your Sim wedding at the right time and location to have the sunset behind the couple. Bring out your villain at night with only the stars to witness his evil deeds.