Custom Content

**Custom Content** (or **CC**) is the term the Sims community uses to describe asset mods (ie mods that add new items, clothing, etc into the game). This is contrasted by what the Sims community refers to as Mods (which often involve editing game tuning, scripting and/or other types of coding). Most modding communities do not use the term CC and may not draw this type of distinction between asset mods and other types of mods.

Someone who creates CC is often referred to as a **Custom Content** (or **CC**) **Creator**.

## Overview

Custom Content is an umbrella term that includes everything from **Recolors** to **Frankenmeshing** to entirely original pieces with custom tuning. The converse to CC — official items that come in the game or a pack — are referred to as **EA** (or **Maxis**) **items**.

Another type of item are **Debug items**, which are items in the game which are only accessible via cheats or Mods designed to show them. One type of CC is taking debug items and removing their debug tuning so that players can access that item without cheats. Any CC Build/Buy item can be tuned to be "hidden" from the player by tagging them to be found only among EA's debug items (aka "in debug").

The creation of custom content can mainly be split into editing 4 parts of an item: the **texture**, the **mesh**, the **tags**, and the **tuning**. A given CC creator may work with any or all of these on a given item. Though many CC creators work solely with one (usually the texture).

### Texture

The texture is a 2D image file that covers a mesh. It is applied to the mesh via UV Mapping, which assigns parts of the image to specific parts of the model. Conservative UV mapping may use parts of the texture in multiple locations — in whole or in part, sometimes flipped or stretched — in order to limit how large the texture needs to be to cover the entire image. CAS CC differs from Build/Buy CC because a sim's entire body, clothes, accessories, and hair are mapped onto a single 1024x2048 image.

Items need unique textures for every swatch. **Recoloring** is the process of adding more swatches to an item by editing the texture in a photo editing software.

### Meshes

A mesh is the 3D model with makes up an item in a video game.

A **Mesh Edit** refers to a creator taking an existing mesh, particularly an EA mesh, and making changes upon it. **Frankenmeshing** involves combining two or more different existing meshing in order to create a new image.

### Tagging

A item's tags determine where it shows up in the game. Changing an item's tags in Sims 4 Studio is one of the easiest ways to edit an item. An example of this would be to change

### Tuning

The tuning is the coding that surrounds how an item functions in the game. Tuning is used to tell the game that an item is a toilet and can be used as a toilet, regardless of the item's shape. A common beginner custom tuning project is changing an EA item from having its original tuning to function as a trashcan or a toilet.

## Technical

### Safety, Patches, and Bugs

While it is often thought of by the Sims community as easier or safer to make and use than Mods, outdated, poorly-made, and otherwise faulty CC can be just as destructive to a player's game. *All* *mods are used at a player's own risk* and it is not uncommon for CC to be the cause of major game breaking bugs.

For example, CC tables and chairs made before Dine Out and Parenthood can cause major loading errors when placed on restaurant lots, prevent child and teenage sims from being able to Set the Table, and sims from being able to use the chairs even on residential lots. CC beds made before the High School Years patch can cause sims to be unable to eat and may even prevent households or lots from loading.

That being said, CC tends to break less often than Mods, which may need updated with every game patch. The more involved a mod is the more likely it is to break. Custom clutter items are extremely unlikely to be effected by a patch, whereas something that sims interact with, such as custom food, is far more likely to break.

### Poly Counts and Your Game: What You Need to Know

Custom content can be very taxing on a player's computer and even well-made up-to-date CC can cause the game to lag, crash, or be unable to load at all when there is enough of it. The amount that a given player is able to have is dependent on how powerful their computer is and how detailed their CC is.

One of the many factors that contributes to this is an item's **poly count**, which is the phrase used to describe the number of triangles a 3D model (or Mesh) consists of, and — related to that — the number of **vertices**, which are the corners of those triangles. Multiple triangles may share a single vertex in most cases, but the vertices count may

### CC and The Gallery

Custom content used in a room/lot or worn on a sim uploaded to the gallery will cause that lot to be marked as modded. If a player does not have all of the required CC installed on their computer and they download that modded household/build from the gallery, the CC items they do not have installed are remove (or — in the case of custom furniture — replaced with the cheapest base game item of the same type).

### Default vs Non-Default

**Non-default** CC will appear in CAS or B/B as a separate item. This allows players have the option to use either the original or modded item. **Default Replacement** (or just **Default**) CC replaces an EA item completely. This makes them a great option if a player wants to automatically remove, hide, or fix an EA item that they find upsetting, annoying, or just plain ugly. This is a benefit in that the player does not need to repeatedly replace the original item with the modded one, but also a curse if the modded version is too taxing on their computer.

The main drawback of default CC is that players are not be able to access the original item unless they remove the package file from their mods folder. When the CC is removed (or if the build/household is downloaded from the gallery by a player who does not have it installed), it will automatically revert back to the replaced EA item without player intervention. Lots, Rooms, and Households including default CC are marked as modded regardless of this.

Best practice as a creator is to offer a non-default alternative whenever releasing default replacement CC.

## Style

### Alpha, Maxis Match, and Maxis Mix

There are 2 main camps of thought when it comes to the style of custom content: **Alpha** (or **AF**) CC which aims at looking more lifelike and **Maxis Match** (or **MM**) which aims at fitting seamlessly into the existing game items. Players may refer to themselves as their preferred style of CC followed by -player or -simmer (ex: an alpha simmer).

Alpha CC tends to be higher poly and may use textures with larger image sizes in order to appear as realistic as possible. Unfortunately, this excludes some simmers from using it because their computers are not powerful enough to render numerous high poly items at once.

**Maxis Mix** is the term used both for items thats style falls somewhere between the two styles but also for the act of using both styles of CC together. While some Maxis Mix players who blend the two together use them interchangeably, others have specific rules about when they use which style. Two common rules are MM hair with AF clothes and the reverse.

## Catalogue

### Thumbnails

An item's **thumbnail** is the small image preview of it in CAS or Build/Buy. The thumbnail that is shown for an item initially is the thumbnail for the default swatch. While it is possible to create CC that does not have a thumbnail for each swatch, it is a good practice to have one so that players can preview swatches without having to select each and every one to see them. The game will auto generate thumbnails (for swatches that do not have a preexisting user-created thumbnail) whenever a player previews each swatch.

Some CC creators choose to make custom highly stylized thumbnails, which may feature a sim model posed in the CAS CC or the furniture in a fully decorated room. A common and more neutral thumbnail style imitates EA's thumbnails with the exception of a custom colored or patterned background and/or an overlay of the creator's branding logo/icon. Some players find custom thumbnails extremely annoying and distracting, others prefer them as they can help a user quickly find a specific creator's work. Because of this, Sims 4 Studio both offers an easy way to add custom thumbnails and also a batch fix that removes them.

### Swatches

The colors an item comes in are referred to as its **swatches**.

### B/B: Description and Title

One part of creating Build/Buy CC is naming each item, setting its price, and writing a description for it. Some creators try to closely match EA's style with puns or absurd backstories. Others just write keywords for players to search by to find all of their items or all the items in a particular set of CC.

Creators can hide keywords in the titles of CC by using a pipe character ("|") before the words they want to hide.

1. ↑ BakieGaming (Sept 8, 2017). Tutorial: How to make a Custom Catalog Thumbnail + Overlay (English Audio, No Subtitles) (Youtube). Retrieved on September 10, 2022.
2. ↑ It can be found under: Content Manager > Batch Fixes > Misc > Delete CC Thumbnails
3. ↑ MLys Simblr (July 17, 2019). Tutorial: Tag your CC objects using titles like a PRO (Tumblr). Archived from the original on September 9, 2022. Retrieved on September 9, 2022.