Finding my way around Create A Sim

If you have been following Sims 3 Blog at all, then you know that the thing I have been looking forward to the most is being able to play with Create A Sim. So, of course that is the first place I am heading now that I have the game.

I figured I would write this post as I find my way around Create A Sim for the first time.

Getting Started With Create A Sim

The first thing I notice when I go into Create A Sim is that the game is offering me a tutorial straight away. I am liking the Sims 3 lessons. They are better than those somewhat annoying info popups from The Sims 2 and if you need them they are there rather than in your face. So, I took the small tutorial. To be fair, it didn’t tell me all that much that I wouldn’t have already known from playing previous versions of The Sims.

The Basics

So, now I have a Sims character standing there in front of the mirror waiting to be altered. I actually like the premade Sims 3 character it is offering me but there is no way that I am not going to create my own Sims character the first time out. It is interesting, to me anyway, that they start you off with the ‘young adult’ option selected rather than the adult.

I am not sure what I will be able to do as a young adult Sims 3 character. So, I think I am going to make my first Sims 3 character an adult. After all, I am 32 years old and I am going to try to make one that looks a bit like me. Right, the the ‘basics’ option is already selected to the left of the Sims 3 character.

The first thing they want me to do is pick a first and last name for my new Sims 3 character. Like I said, I am going to try to make one a bit like me this time. So…first name Sarah and for the last name I am going to use my middle name. Which is Jayne. So, now my character is Sarah Jayne.

Okay, now the Create A Sim wants me to pick a gender and age for the character. It is set on female and young adult as default. I am keeping it as female (duh) and picking adult.

Now, is where Create A Sim it is getting different than making a Sims character in The Sims 2. The next option is ‘Skin Tone’. There is a pull down menu where you can pick from six basic tones. They range from a pale tone to even a blue, green and pink. When you pick one of these basic Sims 3 skin tones you then have a slide tool that you can move along to make a custom shade.

I am going to say here just how much I love how much you can zoom in on your character in The Sims 3 Create A Sim tool. Really, as I am picking the skin tone for my Sims 3 character, I am right up on her body. You can go super close into her face to the point of being nearly in her eyeball. Neat!

I am a fairly pale person – though, not ghost level. So, I slide it along until I get to a tone that I think is a fair representation.

Body Modifiers in Creat A Sim

Now, it is on to the ‘body modifiers’ part of the tool. The first part of that is to pick if your Sims 3 character is go to be skinny or fat or somewhere in between. Now, I am a big lady. However, I have lost nearly 100lbs over the last couple years. Even though I am still big, I don’t think I need to make myself up to the very largest size. However, I will say that the fat Sims 3 character looks great even up to the very biggest size. They are true BBW style big women! I love the the face plumps out in proportion with the face and looks like it ‘fits’ with the body.

Once I pick the appropriate level of ‘fat’ then I still need to adjust the muscle size. Which, means you can be fat and totally flabby or fat with muscles. I will stick Sarah Jayne somewhere in the middle of this scale.

At this stage, I am now done with the ‘basics’ screen on the Create A Sim tool. The next option on the menu is hair. However, I like doing hair last when I make a Sims character. So, I am going to move down to the third button on the menu which is ‘looks’. When I click that the first thing that comes up is the ‘head and ears’ menu. You can go for the basic option or the advanced option.

Making  Your Look In Create A Sim

It looks like the basic option involves a bunch of default shapes and the advances is where you can mold the head and ears yourself. For Sarah Jayne, I end up doing a mixture of both. I pick one of the pre-made face structures and then tweak it to get what I think looks best. I then go on and do the same thing for the eyes (love the way you pick eye colour), nose and mouth.

After that there is a ‘topical details’ option which is totally new to the Sims 3 versus what was available in Sims 2. Here is where you can decide if your Sims 3 character will have freckles, beauty marks or age detail. I don’t have any of those things. So, neither will The Sims 3 Sarah Jayne.

Makeup is the next option but I think I will do hair and clothing first to get the feeling for my Sims 3 character before I do her makeup. I like to make the Sims makeup fit with clothing and personality and I don’t think that fully develops for me until I see the whole package.

Creating Sims Hair in  Create A Sim

So, off to hair I go. I am really looking forward to see what we can actually do after seeing so many teaser pictures of the hair options in the build up to The Sims 3.

There really are a lot of possibilities for colour selection here. I know in the future I will play with that for hours but for now I just go with a brown and then make it slightly darker than the default. I do like that you can do the colour of eye brows independent of the hair colour. The unibrow option is also a hoot!

Sims 3 Clothing  in  Create A Sim

Now it is Sims 3 clothing time! I like that we can pick nearly every part of an outfit. That is particularly great with the shoes which have often been pretty bad in previous versions of The Sims. The only thing I will say, is that we need some t-shirt type tops for women that don’t show their bellies. Not every woman wants to flash their belly button to the world and I would assume that is the same with Sims 3 women. That said, I know that if they gave us every type of possible Sims clothing from the start then there would be little reason for us to go buy more items from the Sims Store.

I picked out some jeans for Sarah Jayne but I wanted them black and there weren’t any nice black jeans. So, I went into the Create A Style tool and took an existing pair of blue jeans. Then, I used the colour wheel – very easy to use by the way – to make them black and to give them a funky red and black belt.

I saved those as a custom style and chose to share them. So, they are now available for download on the exchange.  I am not sure how to link to a particular item on the Sims exchange. But I think if you Click Here you will be taken to the download page for it.  If you use them I would love to see pics from your games.

Sims 3 Makeup  in  Create A Sim

Now that all my outfits and my hairstyles are sorted out it is time to do the makeup for Sarah Jayne. The first thing I love about the Sims 3 makeup is just how much more control we have over their look. No more horrid foundation to put on your Sims 3 character.

Instead it is more about the eyes then anything else. We can pick various styles of eye shadow and eyeliner and then pick an infinite number of shades.

The blusher is simple but neat in that it gives a lot of character to the skin tone of your Sims 3 character. Finally, it is onto lipstick which also has a lot of shading possibilities.

Sims 3  Personality   in  Create A Sim

I am really happy with the colour palette that i have chosen for Sarah Jayne. So, it is now on to the final step of the Create A Sim. Time for Sarah Jayne to get a personality. When I click the ‘Personality’ button from the menu, I am offered the chance to do a tutorial on Sims 3 personality traits. I figure it can’t hurt to learn more and click yes. It turns out to be a pretty straight forward lesson once again but if this is your first time playing any of the Sims games it will be a help for certain.

The first task under personality it to pick the traits for Sarah Jayne. There are five boxes available for selecting traits. You can have them filled randomly but I want to explore a bit this time. When I click at an empty traits box I am brought to a list of categorized traits. The categories for the Sims 3 traits are mental, physical, social and lifestyle. I am going to start out by picking one of each for Sarah Jayne.

I end up giving Sarah Jayne – great kisser, heavy sleeper, natural cook and vegetarian. That leave one slot open so I picked ‘childish’. Sounds like a mix that just about sums up the real Sarah Jayne too. Especially that bit about being a great kisser..lol.

After the traits were in place I was told to pick a lifetime wish. These wishes I could pick from changed whenever I added a trait so obviously they are generated based on those selections. I chose to make Sarah Jayne’s lifetime wish to become The Culinary Librarian. I am a mad cook in real life so that makes sense.

Next, I have to pick the favourites and voice for my Sims 3 character. The favourites remind me a lot of the way we picked attraction traits in The Sims 2. This time though we are picking the favourite food, music and colour for our Sims 3 character. I made Sarah Jayne’s favourites be fruit parfait, indie music (btw..where is the rock or metal choice?) and black.

The voice selection thing is neat. For all the research I did waiting for The Sims 3 release date I had no idea we would be able to influence the voice of our Sims 3 character. I picked voice 2 and just a little bit past the middle for tone.

Finally Sarah Jayne was done and ready to play!

I put Sarah Jayne on the Sims exchange so that you can download and play with her too.  You can grab her - here.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 5th, 2009 at 11:52 pm and is filed under Sims 3 Game Play. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.