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Warrior Gryphon
site owner
Original Poster
#1 Old 8th Jan 2009 at 6:29 PM
Default List of features already known in the Sims 3 pertaining to modding
Based on the current information available about the Sims 3, it is expected that the game will ship with a variety of texture editors (possibly similar to Spore) that are directly in-game.

It is not expected, however, that you will be able to customise any meshes nor will be know how this is done until later.

For now, we need to look at the information and screenshots and discussion and come up with a list of possible modding related ideas of how this can be implemented in tools.

Story books are full of fairy tales, of Kings and Queens, and the bluest skies.
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Blenderized to Pieces
retired moderator
#2 Old 11th May 2009 at 4:46 PM
I was talking with my son yesterday and he was on the pre-release testing at EA. He says it's a go this time. Of course, he's under contract and can't give me specific info but he did say these things:

He said furnishings and such have zones that can be independantly 'textured' and that there are a lot of texture options with the game. You can design for wood, couch fabric, pillows, etc.

I need to clarify with him if new textures can be imported as was done in homecrafter. (Sorry, I spaced that important question while I was talking to him.)

Sims - he said there are a lot more facial and body modifiers than in Sims2 so you can get more realistic faces. You can also independantly modify fat and muscle, so you could make a body builder than has a beer gut if you wanted that kind of sim. he also said there were many more skin tone options.

The whole game loads at once, rather than just the lot. The testers think that XP will require at least 1GB to run properly and Vista will need 2GB, but he's not sure what requirements they'll put on the box.

I'll see if I can get more detail from him on texture import capability.

I'll see if I can get him to sign up here. Of course, incognito.
Test Subject
#3 Old 11th May 2009 at 10:22 PM
Taken from pre-order page**

***March 22, 2009 12:34 PM

The Sims 3 requires at least the following:

FOR WINDOWS XP
* 2.0 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
* 1 GB RAM
* A 128 MB Video Card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
* The latest version of DirectX 9.0c
* Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2
* At least 6.1 GB of hard drive space with at least 1 GB of additional space for custom content and saved games

FOR WINDOWS VISTA
* 2.4 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
* 1.5 GB RAM
* A 128 MB Video Card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
* Microsoft Windows Vista Service Pack 1
* At least 6.1 GB of hard drive space with at least 1 GB of additional space for custom content and saved games

For computers using built-in graphics chipsets under Windows, the game requires at least:
* Intel Integrated Chipset, GMA 3-Series or above
* 2.6 GHz Pentium D CPU, or 1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo, or equivalent
* 0.5 GB additional RAM


Windows Supported Video Cards
-----------------------------

NVIDIA GeForce series
FX 5900, FX 5950
6200, 6500, 6600, 6800
7200, 7300, 7600, 7800, 7900, 7950
8400, 8500, 8600, 8800
9300, 9400, 9500, 9600, 9800
G100, GT 120, GT 130, GTS 150
GTS 250, GTX 260, GTX 280, GTX 285, GTX 295

ATI Radeon(TM) series
9500, 9600, 9800
X300, X600, X700, X800, X850
X1300, X1600, X1800, X1900, X1950
2400, 2600, 2900
3450, 3650, 3850, 3870
4850, 4870

Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA)
GMA 3-Series, GMA 4-Series

Laptop versions of these chipsets may work, but may run comparatively slower. Standalone cards that are installed in vanilla PCI slots (not PCIe or PCIx or AGP), such as some GeForce FX variants, will perform poorly.

Integrated chipsets such as the ATI Xpress and the NVIDIA TurboCache variants may default to settings that are higher than what would be optimal for them. Graphics settings can be lowered to improve performance.

The NVIDIA GeForce FX series is unsupported under Vista.


There is also MAC support apparently, but unless requested I won't list.
Pettifogging Legalist!
retired moderator
#4 Old 11th May 2009 at 10:42 PM
It would be nice if you could add the OSX requirements, please. Thank you! =)

Stuff for TS2 · TS3 · TS4 | Please do not PM me with technical questions – we have Create forums for that.

In the kingdom of the blind, do as the Romans do.
Instructor
#5 Old 12th May 2009 at 3:46 AM
An easy way to test if you're not sure of your system specs is to run a check at System Requirements Lab. They have TS3 requirements in their database now: http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/referrer/srtest
Test Subject
#6 Old 12th May 2009 at 2:11 PM
Quote: Originally posted by porkypine
I was talking with my son yesterday and he was on the pre-release testing at EA. He says it's a go this time. Of course, he's under contract and can't give me specific info but he did say these things:

He said furnishings and such have zones that can be independantly 'textured' and that there are a lot of texture options with the game. You can design for wood, couch fabric, pillows, etc.

I need to clarify with him if new textures can be imported as was done in homecrafter. (Sorry, I spaced that important question while I was talking to him.)

Sims - he said there are a lot more facial and body modifiers than in Sims2 so you can get more realistic faces. You can also independantly modify fat and muscle, so you could make a body builder than has a beer gut if you wanted that kind of sim. he also said there were many more skin tone options.

The whole game loads at once, rather than just the lot. The testers think that XP will require at least 1GB to run properly and Vista will need 2GB, but he's not sure what requirements they'll put on the box.

I'll see if I can get more detail from him on texture import capability.

I'll see if I can get him to sign up here. Of course, incognito.

Hey Ma. Yeah, you can import your own textures, although I don't know what file format the game uses. Textures also have up to four color zones that can be changed on the fly. For instance, you can take a zebra stripe pattern and change it from black and white to purple and blue or whatever. All this applies to clothes as well as objects.

I can't really say too much more, other than to confirm that the press releases and screenshots and such are actually pretty accurate (a somewhat rare thing in this industry). Anyway, I was only working on the game for a week so I don't know a lot of under the hood details.
One horse disagreer of the Apocalypse
#7 Old 12th May 2009 at 2:32 PM
I thought I read in other reports that *at this time* custom pattern images could not be imported. Though they didn't appear to be ruling out that ability for later. Or are you saying that because of the delay they have been able to implement that feature after all?

"You can do refraction by raymarching through the depth buffer" (c. Reddeyfish 2017)
Test Subject
#8 Old 12th May 2009 at 3:18 PM
Well, there's a tab in the editor to show custom content. I didn't have any custom content to import, so I don't know if the import function works or not.
One horse disagreer of the Apocalypse
#9 Old 12th May 2009 at 3:30 PM
Oh that might refer to the colour swatch thingies that users can share - once you have set up an object with your custom colours you can export that recoloured item. I did get the impression they were not allowing for user designed patterns yet.

"You can do refraction by raymarching through the depth buffer" (c. Reddeyfish 2017)
Instructor
#10 Old 12th May 2009 at 8:03 PM
Well, they already announced that you will be able to *buy* new individual custom pieces from the sims store 3 (and maybe *partner sites* but that's hypothesis and we will soon see). If meshes can be imported then surely textures can too.
Blenderized to Pieces
retired moderator
#11 Old 24th May 2009 at 4:03 AM
Hey Amber! thanks for that system check link. My system passes. :0)

Hello bearcub! Nice to see you around. :0)
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