#I’m working to make better quality cc

[tychosims]

I know I’ve been a little quiet recently but I’m cooking something for you guys 👀

Just a sneak peek of WIP

[cute-ellyna]

OC Layer tag game

I've been tagged by @casa-dei-corvei and @bronzieinthedas, thank you very much <3

I’m super softly tagging @mythals-whore (I don’t think I’ve seen you doing this?) @flowersforthemachines @davrinsleftpectoral

(Also yay, I finally made new shots of Ayanne so I can use them for tag games, lol <3)

LAYER ONE: THE OUTSIDE

Name: Ayanne Aldwir

Eye Color: Purple (yeah yeah, I was in the CC and though it would be very much veilguard-ish to choose that color :D)

Hair Style/Color: Light ginger, or lately I discovered it could be called strawberry blonde? She's been kept her hair very long since forever, and always always braid it (oooh I have a incoming comic about this :3).

Height: 170cm

Clothing Style: I made a moodboard about it, but basically very veil-jumper style: earthy colors, simple & comfortable (but not shabby), always long pants, belt at the waist, rarely showing off too much skin.

Best Physical Feature(s): She would say her hair, but Davrin says she has a great smile :3

LAYER TWO: THE INSIDE

Fears: I’d say the usual deep waters, until I come up with something more profound lol.

Guilty Pleasure: Davrin's tits errr I mean… she likes to nosh on random food, especially when it's not meant for her XD

Biggest Pet Peeve: People who like to play victim and keep self-pitying themselves instead of trying to solve their situation.

Ambition for the Future: Relax :D She’s had enough adventures after veilguard events. She will still do things / help people here and there, but she really really wants to just have the luxury to enjoy her time with the people she loves.

LAYER THREE: THOUGHTS

First Thoughts Waking Up: Breakfaaaaast :)

What They Think About the Most: Davrin? Is it too sappy? She doesn’t care :)

What They Think About Before Bed: probably replaying whatever happened during the day (good or bad)

What They Think Their Best Quality Is: someone once said she makes everything easier and brighter, and it sticked with her :)

LAYER FOUR: WHAT’S BETTER?

Single or Group Dates: Group dates are fun every once in a while, but single dates lead to more interesting outcomes if you know what I mean 😏

To be Loved or Respected: Respected. Love without respect is kinda useless, isn’t it? But respect without love could still work.

Beauty or Brains: Brains. She’s pretty surprised she had been so lucky to find both in Davrin ;)

Dogs or Cats: stray cats, if she really has to choose? She’s not a pet person, with Assan being the only big exception.

LAYER FIVE: DO YOU?

Lie: it might not be honorable, but she thinks a white lie never hurts anyone. Even not that white, if necessary, but it doesn’t have to be something big/harmful. BUT she never lies in the relationship, this is a very firm rule for her.

Believe in Yourself: She does, generally speaking. She's pretty confident on what she can or can't do. Of course when you're given the task of killing two elven gods, it's hard to believe you're the right person to do it XD

Believe in Love: Yes. Love can make you do the craziest things. Although she’s a point in her life where she’s absolutely not looking for any romantic/passional drama; real love for her is the “you make me feel at home, comfy and relaxed” kind of love :3

Want Someone: Ooooooooooooh very much yes.

LAYER SIX: HAVE YOU EVER?

Been on Stage: Never had the chance but she wouldn’t go unless drunk. She likes to play silly and have fun, but she’s not an exhibitionist.

Done Drugs: just once someone made her drink a certain ginger-truffle tea…

Changed Who You Were to Fit In: Yes, especially when she was younger. She doesn’t do it anymore though, she’s learned it’s never worth the effort.

LAYER SEVEN: WHAT’S THEIR…

Favourite colours: Orange

Favourite animal: As I said above, she likes animals in the wild, but she has never had any pet... before Assan XD

Favourite book: Davrin’s monster manual :))

Favourite game: Brain-teasers. She can get really stubborn with those. She also like silly drunk party games every once in a while, cause she likes to laugh among friends :)

LAYER EIGHT: AGE

DOB: I don’t have an exact date, but she’s definitely a summer girl. The year is 9:12 Dragon.

How Old Will You Be: She’s 40 during Veilguard events.

Does Age Matter: It does. Not in a universal way, but the truth is now you are not the same person you were 10 years ago nor the one you will be in 10 years. You look at life differently, you seek different things, you need different things. And that’s fine, that’s how life works.

So when she found out Davrin was so much younger than her, it was a shock, because it’s all good in the horny honeymoon phase, but she feared they might end up looking for different things in the long run. Luckily, the more she spent time with Davrin, the more they just… worked? It’s one of those few times she was happy to be proven wrong :)

LAYER NINE: FINISH THE SENTENCE

I love: Watching Davrin carve/draw

I feel: Silly ;)

I hide: some of my worries so they won’t affect people around me

I miss: the forest

I wish: to grow old happy, carefree and serene

[ophernelia]

As a cc creator, I feel like if I have to decimate a piece so much that it ruins the quality then I shouldn’t even put it out. And it sucks because the decimation is obviously needed. Higher poly count = more lag and less storage space. However, if it just changes the piece in its entirety (and not for the better) I just won’t put it out, I feel like this for hairs especially. If I’m making something with an s-curl and after decimating the hair it turns into a z-curl- it’s getting scrapped. If I can’t figure out how to make it work well AND still look nice- it’s going in the bin! Or I’ll just keep it for personal use and use the high poly version.

[winter-seance]

GIF Tutorial

This is going to be a long post, so I'm going to place the majority of it under the cut.

Disclaimer - There are many ways to make gifs, and this is just one way to make them - it's the process that I have figured out works best for me. I am in no way claiming that this is the "definitive" or "best" way to make gifs. There are probably other, better ways to do things, but because people have asked how I do it, I am sharing my process.

Introduction I use a Mac. I am assuming most of this will also be applicable to those of you using Windows as well. This tutorial is divided into three parts. Here is a video of the following process as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBRbWC-iMOM

Actions I use three Actions, that you can download here through my Google drive, if you want. A tutorial for how to install Actions in Photoshop can be found here.

Photoshop Layout I use Photoshop CC, but I used Photoshop CS5 for years, got used to it, so when I upgraded to CC, I arranged it to resemble what I was used to.

I have the following windows open:

And they are arranged like this:

PART ONE - CLIPPING Part 1 consists of using a screen recorder (i.e., Quicktime) to make short clips of scenes or parts of a scene that you want to make gifs of. I have a Mac, so Quicktime is what I use. For Windows users, I’m sure there are equivalent alternatives that are just as good. Years ago, when I was first starting to make gifs, I frequently heard people refer to KMPlayer as what they used, so that might still be a good option for you if you are a Windows user. The most important part is that it takes high-quality recordings, with as little detail and quality loss as possible.

With this screen recording method, you can make screen recordings of video files that are stored locally on your computer (I use VLC to play videos), or streaming on sites like YouTube, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Disney+, HBO, etc. No downloading of the video is necessary. For some of those websites, if you have trouble with getting it to work, you may have to disable your browser’s hardware acceleration. This process is described here (https://www.theverge.com/23715928/netflix-amazon-prime-screenshot-mac-windows-how-to).

I record the clips with sound, to make it easier to transcribe/write out the dialogue in Photoshop later. When I have recorded all the clips I want, I put the clips into my folder where I store all my clips, and into another folder that is labelled with the episode number so I can remember where each clip came from in order to properly label them later when the time comes to upload them to Tumblr.

Example: A folder containing clips from Good Omens 2x01

PART TWO: EXTRACTING/MAKING GIFS FROM THE CLIPS

Open video file in Photoshop To do this, click on File > Import > Video Frames to Layers

Use the markers to select roughly where you want the gif to begin and end.

With videos that have been clipped with Quicktime (not sure about other programs), the vast majority of the time there are twice as many frames as needed – every other frame is a duplicate. For a smaller gif size and smoother playback, I delete every other frame in the timeline box at the bottom of the screen. I used to do this manually (very time consuming), but now do it with the use of an action that I created that will automatically select every other frame. Downloads and installation instructions for all the actions I use are available above.

To use an action, click on the title of the action, then click the play button at the bottom of the window.

I often get an error message that says “The command ‘Extend Frame Selection’ is not currently available”, but it still works. Just click “stop” and every other frame will be selected.

Click the trash can icon in the timeline window to delete the selected frames.

At this point, you will have half as many frames in your timeline as you did before. You will also likely have extra frames at both the beginning and end of the timeline that you don’t want to be part of the gif – from the previous shot, for example. You can delete those now.

This next step is optional: There will still be some duplicate frames in the timeline that were not deleted earlier. It is not strictly necessary to delete these, and I see many gifmakers who don’t get rid of them. It’s usually not all that noticeable. However, because I’m a bit of a perfectionist, I always go through the timeline frame-by-frame and delete each duplicate. This ultimately will reduce the gif’s file size and make the movement in the gif appear much smoother. I usually find that every fourth or fifth frame is a duplicate. Unfortunately, it’s not always consistent, so using an automated action would not work to make this process go faster.

Cropping Once this part is complete, I select the crop tool. I usually make my gifs 540px wide by 350px high. You can change the height to whatever you want, but Tumblr’s max width is 540px. I find the aspect ratio of 540x350px usually allows gifs to feel large, while at the same time not cutting off too much of the sides. Depending on the type of gif I’m making I may adjust this, but generally, if I’m giffing a scene from a TV show or movie, I stick with my standard 540x350px dimensions.

Adding Text Next, I add text. Select the text icon. In the layers window, make sure the top layer is selected, otherwise the text will not show up when you start typing.

The top layer is selected

These are the font settings I currently use:

If I am just making one gifset, or one or two gifs, I’ll go straight on to the next steps. However, if I’m making a large amount of gifs, I save the gif right now, close out of it, and repeat the steps in this section for the next gifs, so I eventually have an entire folder of “raw” unedited photoshop files that have been cropped and captioned, and just need to be colored, have text effects added, and be sharpened. For me personally, I find I make gifs more efficiently by doing it in this “batch” style process.

All cropped and unedited gifs (psd files)

PART 3: COLORING, EFFECTS, & SHARPENING

Coloring I do plan on making a separate tutorial on this at some point, but will include a brief summary here. When it comes to coloring, I generally tend to go by a “less is more” attitude. I am not by any means great at coloring, but nonetheless I’ll explain the types of adjustment layers I typically use.

Note: Before making any adjustments, make sure you have the layer directly underneath the text layer selected, as shown in the screencap below, otherwise it will also apply those adjustments to the text, which makes it look weird.

I start with a Curves layer to change the overall brightness/contrast, then a Levels layer to adjust the shadows and highlights, and then a Brightness/Contrast layer to do some final minor tweaks. The only time I ever reuse gif coloring is when they are from the same scene with the same colors, lighting, backgrounds, etc. Every other time, I tailor the adjustment layers to the specific gif.

You can add adjustment layers by clicking the half light/dark circle on the bottom of the Layers window.

How the gif looks with both a Curves layer and Levels layer

Before adding the adjustment layers

After adding the adjustment layers

A lot of the time, I'll just stick to adjusting the lighting. However, if the colors look gross, or if they are over/undersaturated, I’ll add a Color Balance layer and play around with the settings on that, or use a Hue/Saturation layer and increase/decrease the saturation of specific color channels. It really depends on what you’re going for, and what you think looks good. There is no one “right” way to color a gif.

Text Effects If you are using the Actions I included in the download, you can just run the "Text Effects" action with the text layer selected, and it will do the following automatically. If not, you can do it manually by doing the following.

Right click on the text layer in the Layers window and click on Blending Options.

I use a stroke and drop-shadow on my gifs. Here are the settings I use.

Drop Shadow settings

Stroke settings

Next, to center the text, click on the text layer. With the text layer selected on the Layers window, Select All by clicking ctrl+a (Windows) or command+a (Mac). Then click on the "Align horizontal centers" icon in the “Move tool” option menu.

Important – in the Layers menu, make sure the buttons “Unify layer position” and “unify layer effects” are clicked an enabled for the text layer.

Sharpening Select all the frames in the Timeline window. Then in the lower left-hand corner click “convert to video timeline.”

In the Layers window, select all of the frame layers (do not include the text layer or adjustment/coloring layers in the selection) and right click on it. Select “Convert to smart object.”

Select Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen. In the same way that coloring can differ depending on the gif, the ideal settings for sharpening can also differ from gif-to-gif. It can really depend on the quality of the source of the gif, like whether it’s HD or not. These are the settings I’m using for the current gif:

If you are using Actions, you can run the "Layers to Frames" Action. If not, do the following:

Click on the button circled in red

It will open up this menu. Click on "Flatten frames into clips"

Click the button circled in red, then click "Make frames from layers"

Delete the first couple of "junk" frames

Select all of the frames. Right click on the "0 sec." to change the frame rate. I usually use 0.05, but it might depend on the gif itself.

Exporting Click on File > Export > Save for Web (Legacy)

I cannot add another screencap because I've reached Tumblr's max for this post, but here are the settings I use: Selective Diffusion 256 Colors Dither 100%

You may find that when you try to export your gif, the file size is too big. Tumblr’s gif file size limit is 10mb – try to make it under that – even anywhere in the 9.9mb range. As long as it’s under 10mb, it should work.

To get gifs that are too large to fit under the limit, I usually end up deleting frames from the beginning or end of the gif. If you’re using the 540x350px dimensions, I typically find that the average number of frames I can fit into one gif is between 80-90. Depending on the colors in the gif, it’s sometimes more, sometimes less.

[katatty]

Hi, Kat! Fellow UK simmer here - been following you for a while here on tumblr (love your MCC posts), and am currently binging all your YouTube content after recently stumbling across your channel! I have a quick question related to YouTube, if you don’t mind answering, as I’m interested in potentially making some videos of my own. May I ask what software and setup you use to record your videos? As your audio is very good, I presume you use a mic? Your screen recordings are very smooth so I’d be interested in what programme you’re using, although I’m sure your computer has a lot to do with that. I hope my question makes sense! Thanks in advance for your help.

Hello! I don't mind answering at all, I am answering it publically in case anyone else is interested but do feel free to message me if you want to chat in more detail, I'd be happy to talk shop :) I wish I had people to talk to when I started out, I was too intimidated to approach anyone lol!

(and aaaa, I'm flattered to hear you are binging my channel, thank you!! its funny (but nice!) hearing a compliment on my audio bc I am self-concious about it and think it is not the best, hahaha)

I use OBS Studio for recording, which I think is pretty standard. But I do my video editing in Vegas Pro which idk if its common (I think people usually use adobe these days?) but I used a pirated version of Vegas to make AMVs back when I was a teenager so that was what I went with XD

I do have a decent PC but also play with low cc when I am recording for Youtube, as the game runs a little smoother and doesn't lag too much, which I think looks nicer on video! I also delete all my raw footage after I have finished editing/rendering as the files can get pretty big

edit: forgot to include this (idk if useful) but my OBS settings are set to recrod at 60FPS at a resolution of 1920x1018

I do use a mic! My first few videos were just recorded on a cheap bluetooth headset I used for work but the sound quality was pretty bad, haha. TBH I don't know much about mics, my partner is a musician and has a bunch of mics & equipment so I just borrowed his stuff lol! The mic is an Audio Technica AT2020 condenser microphone and its plugged into a M-Audio M-Track Solo USB audio interface (as the mic wouldnt plug into the PC otherwise, the interface also lets you adjust the gain which is nice) but idk if you really need something that fancy. I usually see people reccommend the Yeti mic for YouTube, which doesn't need an audio interface, idk if it is actually good or not but it seems like a popular choice?

Although if you are just starting out, I would not invest in any expensive mics or anything right off the bat - since you want to see if you actually enjoy the process of making videos first before spending any money on it! (For me at least I spend a LOT more time editing footage than recording it, it's very time consuming, although I think some creators do a lot less editing so its a style preference maybe). IMO Just start out with whatever you have and you can always upgrade later.

Also, the main thing I learned quickly which I think helped me about as much as using a better mic was having good "mic discipline". That's like, making sure your head/mouth is always the right sort of distance away from the microphone, making sure its positioned properly, trying to keep the volume you speak consistant, etc. I am still not always the best at this tbh! but am getting better :D

Hope this was useful!! Like I said, please feel free to msg me if you want to chat more about YT stuff :)

[zombiewritingblog]

piece of cake

First Zosophick fic! We're actually gonna be not nsfw this time! Yippeee!

Again, fair warning, do not send these to the cc's involved, obviously this is a work of fiction and something something coincidences whatever. Anyways, read on if you wanna see two men and one nonbinary person kiss.

Zo awoke from their slumber, greeting the day with about as much enthusiasm as they usually did. However, this day was not like any other; it was their birthday. That meant their favorite ice cream cake, friends coming over, and, most importantly, their partners planning something big for them. That last part was of particular annoyance, as Zo was the kind of person who never wanted anyone to do something big for them… ever. So, having two boyfriends who gave it their all every single time there was a chance to give Zo a gift… It was almost enough to give them a headache.

Luckily, they loved both of them enough to not let that happen.

They got out of bed, ready to greet Noah and Nick, only to find both of them running around in the kitchen, frantically doing… something. Zo sighed, already expecting something like this to happen. Thankfully, they weren’t elbowing each other or trying to mess each other up, otherwise, they would’ve made a mess, and that would’ve been enough to drive Zo up the wall. Groggily, they made their way to the already prepped coffee pot, grabbed a cup of joe, and sat down on one of the bar stools to watch the chaos unfold in front of them.

“Good morning, baby!” Noah called out, pouring some batter into their waffle maker.

“Good morning, sunshine!” Nick parroted, flipping some pancakes while also cracking an egg open.

“Ha, I said it first,” Noah sneered.

“I said it better,” Nick huffed.

Zo shook their head, stopping the both of them before things escalated.

“Boys, stop. It’s not even 10 am and you’re bickering.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Nick said, returning to his work.

“Nice going, butthead.”

“Shut up!”

“Stop arguing or I’m gonna flick you both on the nose,” Zo grumbled.

The two of them immediately fell silent and returned to their cooking, giving Zo a nice respite.

They knew Nick and Noah meant well, and they all loved each other very much; it just got annoying when the two of them competed for Zo’s love, even though it was very clear that Zo loved them both equally. They were already competitive as friends, so this was probably just an extension of that. But Zo preferred their competitiveness to stay confined to Mario Party rather than their actual relationship.

When they finished, they both presented Zo with their dishes. Nick had made sunny side up eggs, sausages, and pancakes, while Noah did waffles, hash browns, and bacon. Zo was grateful that the two acting toxic towards each other didn’t lower their cooking quality because every part of the meal was amazing.

“So, who’s meal did you like better?” Nick asked, smiling.

Zo swallowed, making sure to keep the suspense high.

“I liked both of them. I just feel like you two could’ve made it even better if you worked together instead of competing with each other.”

Nick and Noah were dumbfounded, staring at Zo, then at each other. After Zo finished eating, both of them cleaned up in silence—though Zo could swear they were scowling at each other, which didn’t bode well for that day. It was time to nip it in the bud before it ever grew into something malicious.

“What’s wrong, boys?” Zo asked, sounding more like a parent rather than a concerned partner.

They said nothing, still scowling at each other while they scrubbed the dishes. Zo groaned.

“Look, it’s best if we talk about our feelings now before things get dicey. So, would anyone mind telling me what’s up?”

“Nothing,” they both mumbled, continuing to clean.

Zo rolled their eyes. It was clear that they weren’t going to get anything out of either of them. They went around, making sure to finish up any last remaining chores before the other two came up behind them. Both of them seemed to finish cleaning quickly, allowing Zo to let out a sigh of relief.

“Happy birthday, Zo! Hope you don’t think we forgot.”

Zo smiled. “How could I? You only make a big deal out of it every year.”

“Well, this year, I made the executive decision to stay in for the night. Give you a night to rest.”

“Hey, I suggested it first!” Noah piped in.

Zo rolled their eyes. “That sounds lovely, you two. Thank you.”

“Ooh, Zo! You should open my gift first!” Noah said.

“I think they’d like my gift better,” Nick butted in.

“Ookay, how about you just give them both to me at the same time, and I’ll open them in whatever order I darn please?”

The two of them winced, knowing it was probably their second strike today. They both grabbed their respective gifts in silence, presenting them like a jester would present gifts to a king.

Zo opened Noah’s first. The box held multiple gifts, starting with a plush of one of their favorite Pokémon, Rowlet. It was the only one that was missing of all of their favorites, so already Noah was earning some brownie points.

Then further down, there were some gay romance novels, all of which were in Zo’s wishlist for that year. There were some drawing materials, like pencils, a sketchbook, and colored pencils. And finally, there was a beautiful bracelet that Zo could add charms to. All in all, Zo loved every part of the gift.

“Woah, Noah, how did you afford any of this?”

“I’ve been saving up for today,” he smirked.

“You didn’t have to do all this for me!”

“You say that all the time, and to be frank, I do. Because you’re so gosh darn cute.”

“Hey, what about me?” Nick asked.

“It’s not your birthday, is it?”

“Okay, how about Nick’s present?” Zo said, trying to dissuade them from arguing any more than they already had done.

Nick handed over his present, which when opened, was a box marked “Memories”. Inside was a collection of memorabilia from the various years they all spent together, as well as a scrapbook, collecting photographs of important moments in their history. There was the time they went to the carnival together and Zo got really scared on the rollercoaster, the first time they all went to the movies together, their first date as a throuple (as well as their first dates for each of the pairings), and even every one of their anniversaries together. At the end of the scrapbook, there were some empty slots left, so there was a lot of room to grow as more memories were had.

It was incredibly cheesy, and Zo loved it.

“Aw, babe.”

“I know,” Nick grinned.

“This is so cute. Thank you.”

“What about mine?” Noah said, panic in his voice. “Did you like mine?”

“Duh, obviously. I love both of your gifts. Thank you so much.”

“But who’s do you like better? Cause mine has more stuff in it.”

“Mine has more memories in it, bozo.”

“Mine has more use cases! Yours is just something to look and smile at.”

“Mine’s cuter, so ha!”

“Enough! I love both of your gifts equally! How many times do I have to say that?”

Zo cringed; they hadn’t meant to snap like that. Normally they were good about keeping their cool and you could tell by the expressions on Noah’s and Nick’s faces. It was just too much for Zo; the competition and toxicity. It felt like they had dialed it up to eleven for that day specifically.

They all fell silent; Zo trying to calm themself down while Noah and Nick searched for something to say. Noah spoke first, trying to break the uncomfortable tension between them.

“I’m sorry it got to this point.”

“I’m sorry too,” Nick agreed. “We shouldn’t have been arguing so much. We know how much you love us both.”

Zo sighed. “I just love you both so much. Seeing you two argue like this—over me, of all things—it was just aggravating. It doesn’t make sense to me.”

“What doesn’t?”

“Fighting over who I love more? Like… first of all, you two are also dating. We’re all in a throuple. So it doesn’t really make sense to fight your partner over this kind of thing, at least not to me. And it doubly doesn’t make sense when you both know I love you equally. You know?”

“Well, I just wanna show you how much I love you,” Nick said sincerely, rubbing Zo’s shoulder as a way to apologize; his heart sinking to the floor. 

“Same here. And we’re both competitive people, especially with each other…” Noah scratched the back of his neck and guilt marked his face as his features softened.

“But why compete in a game when you both already have the gold medal?” Zo’s voice was filled with a mixture of exhaustion and confusion.

Nick shrugged with a slight frown on his lips. “It’s easier to know how much love you can give when you have a benchmark. And for us, we have each other as benchmarks. I guess.”

 “Speak for yourself,” Noah admitted, shooting a piercing glare towards Nick. “I only do it because you put me up to it.” He crossed his arms in front of his chest.

“Well, there you go,” Zo said, lowering their head before they sighed, a little disappointed.

There was a brief silence before Nick spoke up again.

“There you go… what?” He blinked a few times, not quite catching what Zo meant with their statement. 

“Nothing. I just didn’t know what to say after that,” Zo mumbled, their head still lowered.

“Oh.”

They fell into another break of almost hurtful silence. It was longer than before and the air between them was getting more uncomfortable with each second of quietness that passed. The tension was thick enough to cut with a knife. They just sat there, unsure what to do or say, before Noah piped in again.

“Well, again… I’m sorry. We won’t argue over who you love more or who loves you more again.” Noah let his arms fall to his sides, his guilty eyes wandering between Nick and Zo. 

“I’m sorry too. We didn’t realize our competitiveness would cause such a fuss,” Nick's voice was a little quiet but filled with sincerity. He looked at Noah in apology, who returned his gaze and smiled softly. Then, he looked to Zo with the same look, trying to gauge what they were feeling.

“I mean, I don’t mind it when you get competitive—but not when it comes to love. I’ve said before how much it doesn’t make sense to me to do that.” Zo turned their head to look at their lovers.

“Right. And we know now,” Nick nodded in understanding, Noah doing the same as they both looked at Zo.

“Now, can we enjoy your birthday like we were meant to be doing?” Noah proposed with a heartfelt smile, trying to lift the mood as much as he could. He knew Zo couldn’t stay mad for too long. 

“Well, not yet. I have one thing in mind you can do to make up for what just happened,” Zo explained calmly, grinning internally at the idea they had in mind.

“What?” Nick asked, tilting his head in curiosity.

“You two need to kiss and make up. You’ve been arguing all day and you need to apologize to each other.” Zo couldn’t hide their mischievous smirk after they suggested the idea, eyeing Noah and Nick expectantly. 

“Oh, come on. Noah’s fine!” Nick stated and used his arms to point toward Noah’s direction.

“Well, you did say some hurtful stuff earlier,” the older one admitted, trying for a mischievous voice, but his tone revealed that he actually felt kind of hurt and offended by Nick earlier.

“Only because you were saying hurtful shit as well!” Nick tried to defend himself.

Zo cleared their throat as obnoxiously as possible. Nick received the message well, straightening up.

“I’m sorry. I’ll watch my mouth next time.”

“I’m sorry too. I love you, bro.”

“I love you too, babe,” he said, emphasizing the last word as annoyingly as possible.

Nick and Noah looked at Zo expectantly, and Zo just nodded, a wide grin on their face. They leaned in, kissing each other, acting as if they haven’t done it at least 5 billion times before. Both of them grimaced, while Zo squealed at the sight like a schoolgirl.

“Ah, nothing better than having two boys kiss me than watching two boys kiss.”

“Oh, come here, you!”

The two of them dove at Zo, showering them with as many kisses as possible, occasionally stopping to give each other kisses as well. They rounded out the day with rounds of Mario Party, Mario Kart, and Super Smash Bros, each partner winning one game respectively. Then they all made lunch and dinner together, complimenting each other over the meal. Nick commented on how cheesy it was, prompting Zo and Noah to flip him off while he just laughed.

Finally, they finished the night with a round of cuddles in their big bed.

“Today was great, babes,” Zo said, smiling. “I love you both.”

“We love you too,” Nick and Noah said at the exact same time, then cringing at themselves. Zo laughed at that, then grinned uncontrollably when they proceeded to make out passionately in front of them.

“That was one of the best gifts you’ve ever gotten me,” was all Zo commented, prompting both of them to smack them with their pillows.

A nasty pillow fight ensued, which had them all giggling like they were at a slumber party. Eventually, the night ended in a steamy make out session before they got ready for bed.

“Good night gamers,” Zo chuckled.

“Good night, birthday boy,” the other two said before Nick turned out the lights.

It was a beautiful set-up, with Nick being the big spoon, Zo being in the middle, and Noah being the little spoon. It also helped that all of them went to bed shirtless—what with the heat of the summer night—so it was skin on skin on skin. Zo was in relative bliss; an almost heaven-like slumber. They smiled to themselves as they drifted off to bed; they wouldn’t trade any of this for the world.

[rstarsims3]

Hi, RStarSims3, want to say your work on Custom-Content and conversions are great and keep up the good work. I have a few questions; Firstly, Regarding Custom-Content hair and default hair replacements, which are the best and would you recommend and why? Secondly, any future plans regarding Custom-Content and have you thought of doing default clothing replacement? Thank you for taking the time to read it.

Hi, @galacticnightsky123

Thank you for the nice words! I’m really happy you enjoy my work!🥰😘

Now, let’s get into it.

For custom content hair, I use a lot of IfcaSims’ stuff. I just love their retextures (I think the shininess and fluffiness are on point). This creator has also made default replacement textures for most of the in-game hairs, which granted I’m not using myself but I thought it was worth mentioning for people with lower specs on their PCs.

Other creators to check out are Rollo-Rolls, Nemiga, Plumdrops and Chazzy. They make good quality conversions and are mindful about polycounts & bone assignments.

Speaking of polycounts, most of EA hairs are under 10k. So if you find a hair at 30K, you’ll know it’s high-poly. It can still be used in game, but sparsely. In order to prevent lag it’s better to NOT have an entire town of sims wearing high-poly hairs.

And that takes me to the next point – Default replacement hairs:

I’m using default replacements mostly from Maryjanesims3, Agnelid and some from FirefoxSims3. All of these creators have made efforts to have their DFs look good, but also lower the polys in order to prevent lag as much as possible.

Choose just one DF for every in-game item. When using DFs from multiple creators you can get confused and place multiple DFs for the same item. And some creators have two or more versions of DFs for the same item, so be careful with that.

I’m also merging my default replacement hairs by expansion (one package for BG, one for Amb, one for LN and so on).

Expect the defaults to look wonky after the first load. This happens for all kinds of DFs, but it’s very noticeable on hairs. MaryJaneSims3 has provided a solution for this situation here.

Now, about my future plans regarding CC...well, to (try to) make more male and other age categories CC, but I'm always tripping and go back to creating for females. I also have some worlds in the making, among which is a TS4 remake, but I'll provide info about them at the right time.

I thought a lot about creating clothing DF and how I'd go about it, but I don't really have the time to start on that front too. Even conversions have been slow from me lately. I hope I can find some time in the future; at least for conversions, if nothing else.

Hope this helps!

Again, thank you for your kind words and for your interest!

Have a great day & happy simming!

Rae

[professional-sephiroth-scrungler]

This is probably an old topic this point but im thinking about it and feel violent to whatever lol

I’m glad that they remade Crisis Core so that new fans or people who never played the original CC got to experience it with fresh paint. But MY GOD there are a couple gripes i have with Reunion which have mounted a bit more with Ever Crisis.

1. Personal Gripe. Idk if everyone has this issue or if the game has been updated to include this or not since but when i was playing, I had to stop at multiple points and take a break because motion blur makes me genuinely nauseous. And at the time, there was no way that i could find to turn it off. I tried modding it out myself and it didn’t work. I want to 100% the missions but i don’t know if i can because after 10 minutes, I feel like death. But i like the combat system better than the og so hhhhh idk

2. This is not a criticism of the voice actors at all. I’ve gotten used to the voices and I genuinely believe they are doing wonderfully as the characters now. My criticism is at the directors of the english dub of Reunion. The original Crisis Core’s english script can already feel clunky at times. The writing and story as a whole was clunky to begin with. But it really feels like the english voice directors sometimes gave the worst directions and said “Yes! Thats the one!” to the worst takes that sucked any life and personality the OG game cast had given those same lines.

3. I love the shiny, new graphics and animations. And i think there are a few new missions and some quality of life things and it being retranslated. Other than that, i don’t think there is anything new at all. I am certain Square knows that Crisis Core’s story is clunky, sometimes cheesy, probably rushed, and not well written at times. And they did NOTHING to fix it. They didn’t add a couple new chapters to clear anything up. They didn’t add any new dialogue or something to make the relationship and dynamic of the First trio more clear. They didn’t clean up the writing of Sephiroth’s downfall into madness. For the love of everything they could’ve done some justice to a character based off a real person at least in looks and cleaned Genesis’s story and writing. No. Instead…

4. IT LOOKS LIKE THEY’RE PUTTING ALL THAT CHARACTERIZATION AND CHARACTER DYNAMIC AND CLEAN UP IN THE FUCKING GACHA GAME THAT THEY UPDATE SO GOD DAMN INCONSISTENTLY IT MAKES ME WONDER IF THERE’S LIKE 2 PEOPLE WORKING ON EVER CRISIS. ARE THE PEOPLE AT SQUARE OKAY??? IDK BUT AAAAAA I HATE WHEN COMPANIES DO THIIIIIIS

Anyways, I hope you’re all having a wonderful night.

[rivkae-winters]

For the ask game 4, 8, 12, 18 and 25 for any fandom

This is part of this ask game :3 Mostly seven with some general and one intentionally unspecified fandom

4) What was the last straw for finally blocking that annoying person?

I’m very bad at actually blocking people, I tend to cause my own problems that way, but the last time I blocked someone it was because they sent me an unsolicited DM basically trying to guilt me into commissioning them right after an artist I’d just recently commissioned posted the piece. I love getting DM’s and interaction in general even if I’m not super active myself because of anxiety so I was really upset about it when I saw the message. 

On one hand I get it, I do- I’m also a commercial artist and I’m lucky enough to have a decently stable W2 Job right now. On the other hand though: maybe make your sales pitch at least more enticing than a Jehovah's Witness knocking on your door. 

8) Common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about?

This one got WELL out of hand length wise so I'll be posting my full thoughts on why later today or tomorrow.

The apple game in CC (from the Silver Elite fan club letter) is bs, and it baffles me that people trust what Hojo says as much as they do. 

Honestly, most of the fan mail in the game is bs or has the truth heavily muddied but this example is especially egregious in my opinion. It's not an activity that Genesis, Angeal, or Sephiroth would actually enjoy much. Sephiroth himself would be bored to tears since he has such an unfair advantage since his sword is much slimmer than Rapier and Angeal's standard issue broadsword. There is also the issue of the fact that all of them likely have some element of food trauma (or in Angeal's case are confirmed as such) but the expanded post later today will expand on that.

Disclaimer that you can enjoy and write what you want or believe in the story of AGS playing with apples and swords. Make content you feel inspired to, consume content you enjoy, and don’t let me stop you from having fun. 

12) The unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

I don’t know how unpopular he is anymore but Denzel is great- if you can find the ‘on the way to a smile’ anthology and read ‘episode Denzel’ or the OVA from 2010 his character gets a lot better. He’s a complex little guy with layers and plenty of regret already trying to go forward with life. Post AC he starts working with Reeve as a protege of sorts iirc after Reeve blocks him from joining the WRO’s militia. (Which would not have gone over well with anyone if it went through, Denzel is 10ish at that point.) 

He wants to save people like Cloud saved him, somewhat so he can feel worthy of having been saved. There is also still a lingering of the unintentional toxic positivity his mom instilled in him and it is delightful.

The book mentioned above was finally released in English around a decade after Japan got it but it was $35 USD last I checked. I think there are some readings of it on YouTube but I can’t vouch for the quality of any since I don’t do well with audio books. 

The OVA can be really hard to find because it was only on the AC complete Blu-Ray discs of a certain edition- I’m pretty sure it was the first run of them but I may be wrong. Because of this and the fact that I’ve seen take-downs happen continuously each time I went back to reference it last year it’s to the point where some people are incorrectly assuming it’s just totally lost media. Either way I have a so-so quality copy I saved, I won’t put it on the post directly just to be cautious but if you’re interested DM me or contact me through discord (rivkae) if you have that and I’ll shoot you the drive link. 

18) It’s absolutely criminal that the fandom has been sleeping on…

In og CC Gillian dies with a smile on her face. In reunion it’s blocked by a vignette.

I’ve never seen it mentioned in a fic dealing with her death yet, the few that there are, so eventually I’m just going to have to do it myself.

This answer is almost pathetically short because every time I start thinking about this I get the urge to write. Since I can't really sit down to write prose right now so I'm not going to get to into it.

25) Common fandom complaint that you’re sick of hearing? 

(Slightly dramatized for effect, I’m not saying the fandom because I’m mostly out of it writing wise right now but iykyk feel free to send me your guesses)

‘Ewww I hate y and z version of [media]!!! X version of [media] is the only good one- anyone who interacts with y and z supporting posts will be blocked!’

‘I hate this version of my favorite character from x in y and z [complaint that could be very easily interpreted as racism] anyone with art of this design will be blocked! DNI if you have [bastardized version of the characters name to show distaste] content!’

Except then they don’t block you after you DNI, they start following your blog posting stuff for y and z version of [media]

Now obviously blocking is a core part of the tumblr experience, really the entire social media experience but it’s taken more seriously other places. Here though? If they breathe annoyingly it is perfectly fine and normal to block them- encouraged even! I have no issues with a DNI, BYF, etc as concepts I just get a little irked when people don’t practice what they preach while still loudly complaining about [media]. 

Now obviously adaptations make a lot of people angry for good reasons sometimes, I understand that. I dislike many adaptations myself, but it’s the incessant complaining when you aren’t even following your own rules that it gets under my skin a bit. That’s not even mentioning the drama that happens in discord servers with areas about said alternate versions of [media] where most community spaces to discuss said versions die quickly due to the toxicity of comparison and the group norm to conform to being putting x version, the original version, over the other version. You can like y and z but you should like x more- you should agree that x is objectively better. Even if x is also offensive in several ways and dated in others and isn’t as easy to consume story wise- which is how y and z brought new fans to the fandom. 

I’m going to cut myself off there but… Yeah. I hate adaptations too sometimes but it shouldn’t be used to backhandedly bully others into silence. Let people enjoy what makes them happy.

[miinxpid]

THIS IS FUCKING IMPORTANT

Do you know? I can't take it anymore... speaking as a creator and a player... I've been creating custom content for a fucking year... and I've never paid for it because I love that people can enjoy my content !! It's a fucking hobby... for some creators of the patreon sims you have me fucking tired with your fucking complaints that they steal your cc meshes, share them on sites and you know what? I see it normal, logical even ACCEPTABLE! That they share your content because you skip EA's policies! stop treating the sims saga as if you had created the fucking game from scratch ..if you think that patreon is going to give you enough money to support yourself financially, you are totally wrong! You know, sometimes I think that ea should take more measures in the matter or qualify the creators... because this is already too much... I'm also tired that if someone finds out that they share their content, they start to cry... FRIEND, YES YOU COMPLAIN SO MUCH ABOUT THEM SHARING YOUR CONTENT RESPECT THE FUCKING POLICIES OF EA! HOW HARD IT IS TO UNDERSTAND ! If we all complied with policies, no group like patreon destroyed and more ... they would not exist !!

It also seems disgusting to me about some creators that you put on payment walls and on some permanent occasions... such as cowbuild, pixelvibes and others others are from SL and surely open many others from imvu... (here is the one that plays imvu) oh well...

I understand that the programs you use cost you money, the hours you spend on the computer making content but friend...remember that you are a person with a hobby AND CREATING CONTENT FOR THE SIMS IS NOT A REAL JOB!!!

I really know that my content that I make sometimes is shit, the quality, textures, everything... but I try better as a creator and enjoy creating but damn I don't put it on a paywall and I start crying, also if I'm a honest I understand that I have all of you but sometimes I think that why do I have them if in 6 or 7 years I'm not here anymore... I'm still WORKING on what I've studied....

Also if I'm honest, sometimes I really analyze the creators and almost the majority of them see that they are for the fucking money and not for the fanaticism and that they have been playing the game for years

[truly-sincerely]

Back in January I attempted to do a heavily modded Skyrim playthru and I tweeted a thread with lots of screenshots. I got to level 10 before I found out that the thieves guild had a major bug and could not figure out how to fix it, so I put Skyrim down and probably started aggressively playing Vintage Story instead. I’m a very one-game-at-a-time kind of autistic.

I know the joke is that modding Skyrim is a game in-and-of itself but I’ve never done the main plot past returning Jurgen’s horn to the Greybeards and I would really like to. I would like to complete the Thieves Guild questline, and become the Dean of Magic and Werewolves and maybe find out what the Dawnguard’s deal is, if only for the huskies. But what I really want is to go to Solstheim and Blackreach (especially since I installed what look like some really pretty mods for it, and a train!!) and take pictures of mushrooms like a filthy tourist.

I’ve checked a bunch of the major locations with my new loadout and they should be good. If there are any wildly broken dungeons or mechanics I will try to fix them and/or ignore them. I will do my very best not to install any new mods until I’m done with this run.

So here’s Savvy the Forsworn. She’s gonna do great.

I'm using Skyrim Anniversary Edition (that's special edition + all the creation club stuff) with Survival Mode. This is an extremely abridged list of the mods I'm using, not including patches to make them all work together.

UI/Core - SKSE, Address Library, USSEP, Cutting Room Floor, USCCCP, SPID, PapyrusUtil, and a bunch of other acronyms - A Matter of Time (hud clock), A Quality World Map (w/ stone roads), Atlas Map Markers, Dynamic Timescale, Disease Descriptions - SkyUI, RaceMenu, MCM Helper, Menu Maid 2, Better MessageBox, menuHUD/inventory, Use or Take, Read or Take, YesImSureNG, Conner's Survival Mode

Stats - Path of Sorcery, Smithing Perks Overhaul, Stealth Skills Rebalanced, Economy Overhaul and Speechcraft Improvements - Odin, Triumvirate, Tonal Architect, GIST - Evenstar, Morningstar, No Starting Spells, Trade & Barter

Items - WACCF, ACE, CACO, CCOR, Open World Loot, Morrowloot Miscellania - Warmonger, Immersive Jewelry, Cloaks of Skyrim, Winter is Coming, Wearable Lanterns - Dynamic Things Alternative, Book Covers Skyrim Updated

Quests - Alternate Start, Timing Is Everything, Rebalancing AE, Even Better Quest Objectives - Thieves Guild Requirements, College of Winterhold Quest Expansion, Blackreach Railroad, Forgotten City, Tools of Kagrenac, The Midden Expanded, Penitus Oculatus - a whole bunch of mods that tweak existing quests; most of the daedric quests, the CC quests, radiant quests - itty bitty mods like Gildergreen Regrown, Bring Meeko to Lod, Finding Derkeethus, Helgi & Laelette, Nilheim, Battle Brothers, etc

NPCs/combat - Immersive Horses (+Wild Horse integration) with KrittaKitty's gorgeous horse replacers, Haladoon's Dogs, Realistic Husky Sounds, All Couriers are Dogs, Unique Barbas - SkyTEST, True Wolves, True Hunter, Less Confrontational Animals, CLAWS, Zim's Dragon Improvements, Arachnid Brutality - Carriage & Ferry Travel Overhaul, BUVARP, Relationship Dialogue Overhaul, Extended Encounters, Immersive Citizens, Realistic Conversations, Rustic Clothes, Prince and the Pauper - Civil War Refugees, NPC AI Position Fix, More Tavern Idles, Less Charitable NPCs - Thugs not Assassins, Hunters not Bandits, Guard Dialogue Overhaul, Bandit Lines Expansion, Forsworn & Thalmore Lines Expansion, Brawl Lines Expansion, Civil War Deserters, Varied Guard Armor, Immersive Patrols - Know Your Enemy 2, Valravn - ELFX, ELFX Shadows, RAID Weathers (Realistic AI Detection), Dynamic Immersive Seriously Dark Dungeons (w/ ELFX hardcore for just dungeons), Dynamic Weather and Time Based Detection

Scenery - The Great Cities, JK's Whiterun Outskirts and about half of JK's Interiors, Magical College of Winterhold, Capital Windhelm, Enhanced Solitude, Quaint Raven Rock, Ryften Down, Paint it Blackreach (w/ a patch to remove the trees, this isn't elden ring) - Civil War Battlefields, Environs-The Western Watchtower, The Ruined Tundra Farmhouse, Hroggar's House, Haafingar Expanded, Unique Border Gates, Lanterns of Skyrim II, Nordic Ruins of Skyrim - Dracos Hearthfire Homes, Hearthfire Extended, Honeyside, Proudspire, and Vlindrel Hall TNF, some other player homes - Do As You Say Redux, Restoring the Aretino Residence, Smelter for Riften, Clutter Doesn't Respawn - DynDOLOD, so many mesh and texture fixes, majestic mountains, seasons of skyrim, turn of the seasons, and a whole bunch of mods that support changing the look of the world based on the date

[kissyck]

hiii besties!! it’s been a hot minute since i’ve been on/posted on here and i’ve missed y’all <3 i did some cc shopping and finally opened sims yesterday for the first time in months. made this lil simmie and did a quick edit to post! i’m going to start getting caught up on reblogging and replying to asks, sorry that it’s been such a delay! (also am currently working on some new nails *wink* *wink*) love and appreciate all you lovely humans so much <33

more in depth update below the cut for those interested :)

so i genuinely have no idea how to do quality update posts, but i guess i’ll just go in order of events.

i would say july was fairly eventful. i finished my infusion treatments at the hospital, which ended up making me feel SO much better (i had severe anemia). i genuinely didn’t realize how bad the physical and mental toll that it was taking on my body. i gamed a LOT, just had lost pretty much any interest in the sims. fall guys had become my fixation, and i had started a perfection save in stardew which also became the only thing i wanted to do. i bought more squishmallows. i got another piercing in my ears, and that same day i got fitted and met with a physical therapist so i can start the painfully long process of getting a new wheelchair. i saw a rainbow while driving home from my dad’s house. i took wayyyy too many pictures of my puppy who’s literally ginormous now, and taking all the pics of my kitties!! july ended with a mini road trip to see a comedy show, and i took pictures of clouds the whole way there.

the beginning of august was bittersweet, but was followed by one of the best days i’ve had all year. august 1st i hung out with my best friend in the whole universe before she moved 13 hours away. we’ve dealt with long distance before and talk every day, but this is definitely the farthest we’ve ever been from each other. i’m soo happy for her and am so excited to see all the amazing things she’s gonna do in the future. a few days later, i went on another road trip to nashville!! another bestie of mine was having a concert that i could not miss. plus i love nashville, so i will take any excuse to go. this trip was one of the trips EVER!! i got to see a lot of my internet friends too that i never get to see and i love them all so much. the concert was SOOO good <3 ugh i wish i could go backkkk. i also bought more squishmallows in nash lmaooo. they’re addicting. the rest of august was pretty much uneventful. i played stardew and fall guys with friends, animal snuggles bc they’re all terrified of storms and we had some bad ones, and i bought myself a fancy new mechanical keyboard (the new logitech one from the aurora collection!!) it’s so beautiful, i literally cried when i first opened it.

september was eh. i started a new animal crossing island, which i spent a lot a time playing. that and any animal snuggle i could get. the end of september was a bit rough, i was in pretty low spirits. i lost a close friend of mine earlier this year and it was her birthday. i couldn’t stop thinking about her, which was also making me think of my dog that i had also lost earlier this year (both happened on the same day). there was also some other family stuff, so i didn’t love the end of september. good things did happen though! my furbaby niece came to live with us again. i missed her so much. she’s the cutest lil peanut ever. and i went to the movie theater which was fun! also prepped for my birthday trip since we were leaving the first of october!

and now we’re in october. this month so far has been good! it started with another road trip for my birthday (i turned 23 on oct 4!) this was hands down one of the most fun trips i’ve ever been on. we went to austin for a concert two nights in a row and they were both just so magical. i dressed up fun and went shopping too (yes i bought more squishmallows) honestly that trip would have to be it’s own full post bc so much happened. have just been chilling ever since. was supposed to go on another mini road trip yesterday for a concert but pneumonia went through our house (i didn’t catch it thankfully) so that kind of threw a wrench in our plans. oh and dr. ms. taylor alison swift released an album and it has such a chokehold on me it’s not even funny. i literally cannot describe how much i love her. every time i’m listening to it, my puppy runs in and comes to listen too. she’s got TASTE :) oh and omg i almost forgot, i reached perfection in stardew!!!!!!! this is the first time i’ve ever done that and it was so fun.

[canary3d-obsessed]

Tutorial: Making a Gif in Photoshop

(Pinboard of all my Masterposts) (Tutorials Masterpost)

Here’s a beginner’s guide to making gifs in photoshop. I’m going with the assumption that 1. you have Photoshop (I do this in Photoshop CC 2021 at the moment, but this isn’t new functionality, so other recent versions should work similarly.) and 2. You want to be able to upload your gifs on Tumblr.

Note: When I name a menu in bold followed by this arrow thingy  -->  I am telling you what to select from that menu. If I have two arrow thingies, it’s two menu selections deep. Etc. 

Super Basic Stuff

1. Capture a video clip in MP4 format (or another Photoshop-friendly format; I use MP4). There are a lot of ways to do this--google it and you’ll find options. 

2. Drag the video clip into your photoshop session.

3. Image Menu-->Image Size-->width 540 pixels, with whatever height the aspect ratio assigns. Tumblr compresses your gifs to 540, so doing it yourself is the best way to avoid icky artifacts. Fun fact: iPad retina displays throw white flashing pixel artifacts that other displays don’t, so you may be making beautiful gifs that secretly look incredibly shitty on an iPad. I learned this the hard way when I got an iPad and looked at some of my posts. I learned the 540px resize tip from the good folks in Tumblr’s pixel art community, which fixes about 95 percent of my gifs. *bows down to pixel artists* 

4. File Menu-->Export-->Export for Web. These are my settings.

The settings in the top right control the quality of the gif. 

These can be changed around once you get the hang of things, but since this is the super basic version, these are settings I can vouch for. This gets me nice looking gifs without a lot of artifacts. Ignore the preset name; that’s what I call the preset I made for this. On your screen it’ll say “custom” unless you save your own preset.  It will remember your settings even if you don’t save a preset. 

The size of the gif is at the bottom left. For tumblr, this has to be under 10 meg. UNDER 10 meg, if you make a beautiful gif and save it at 10.0 mb tumblr is very likely to reject it and make you re-save it a few bytes smaller, thanks to rounding.

If it’s too big, just cancel and go to step 5. 

5. Window menu-->Timeline. In the timeline, you can trim your video by dragging the ends in, or by cutting with the scissors icon and deleting the extra bit. The controls in the timeline are fairly intuitive and limited to just what’s useful unlike premiere pro cough cough. 

6. There’s a context menu in the right upper corner of the timeline window. Select that and choose “set timeline frame rate” to speed the whole video up or down. Higher numbers mean more frames overall and a bigger, slower gif. Lower numbers mean fewer frames and smaller, faster gif.  

Slightly Less Basic Stuff

(after the cut)

You can convert your video to individual frames by exporting your gif and re-opening the gif, but you’re going to lose quality when you re-save so that’s not ideal. Better is to create a frame animation in the timeline. That has several steps. I’ve recorded an action for it that looks like this: 

1. Timeline Context Menu-->Convert-->Flatten Frames into Clips. This will make layers out of the individual frames in your timeline video. 

2. Timeline Context Menu-->Delete Timeline. This clears the timeline so you can use the layers to make frames. 

3. Window Menu-->Layers. Hopefully you already have the layers window open all the time, because it’s a fundamental part of photoshop workflow, but if not, do this to open it. 

4. At the bottom of the layers window there is a weird unhelpful video group with a single layer in it, shown in picture. Select it, hit the delete key, and chose “delete group and contents.” Otherwise this will become an annoying blank frame, as I recall.

5. In the middle of the currently-empty timeline window is a button that says “create video timeline” with a dropdown next to it. 

Click the dropdown to change the button to “create frame animation,” and then click that. This will create an animation with a single frame. 

6. Timeline Context Menu-->Make Frames from Layers. This puts all of your layers into your timeline. Whew! You see why I made an action for these steps.

7. Now you can delete frames from the ends or middle of your animation by selecting them and using the trash can icon on the timeline. Don’t hit “delete” as that will delete the associated layer, potentially, and cause you a headache while you figure out what happened. With a normal aspect ratio for your frame and 540 horizontal pixel width, you should be able to fit around 100 frames into a <10mb gif. It does vary a lot depending on what’s going on in the scene & how much each frame changes from the one before it.  And aspect ratio makes a huge difference - big square gifs are beautiful, but can’t fit nearly as many frames into the <10mb limit. 

8. If you changed your frame rate and want to introduce a delay between frames, go to Timeline Context Menu-->Select all Frames. This will grab all the frames so you can apply a delay to all of them at once. While they’re selected, choose the delay dropdown from any frame and it will apply to all of them. 

If a gif feels like it’s going too fast, I apply a delay of anywhere from 0.04 to 0.07 (using the “other...” option from the dropdown--all of the default delays are too much). That’s when my gif has a frame rate somewhere between 15 and 30 fps. Try some different settings and save the results out. Note: Always check your speed by loading the gif into a draft on Tumblr, since different previewers play things at different speeds, which is super annoying. 

9. When you’re satisfied or want to test, repeat step 4 of the Super Basic Stuff section.  

Fun with Layers

1. The order of the frames is the opposite of the order of the layers, which doesn’t matter for basic stuff, but when you start messing with adding text, layer effects, etc, this will definitely matter. You can reverse the order of the layers by selecting all of them in the layers window (NOT the frames in the timeline), and then:  Layer Menu --> Arrange --> Reverse. 

2. To put text on top of the whole sequence, choose the top layer in your layer window and click “text” to add your text. You can change your font, color, and size as much as you want, but you can’t drag your text around after you create it because it will (usually) only move on the current frame. So if you don’t like where it ends up, delete the text layer and try again. I usually keep text centered and add spaces to either end to put it where I want it. 

3. To add text in the middle of the sequence, use the timeline to select the frame where you want the text to appear. Then go look at the layers stack; scroll up and down until you see the visible/selected layer. This corresponds to your current frame. Stick your text layer on top of that layer and -- if your arranged your frame order correctly in step 1 -- the text should appear part way through your sequence. For this gif, each “eye contact” is a separate text layer placed a little further down the layer stack. 

4. To make text disappear partway through an animation, go to the timeline and select all the frames where you DON’T want the text. Keep them selected, go to your text layer in the layers menu, and hit the eyeball to make it invisible. That should make it invisible just for the selected frames. For this gif, I put all the text layers at the top but changed the visibility for each one to limit it to a particular set of frames.

5. To change the brightness of your gifs, select your top layer and go to Layers Menu -->New Adjustment Layer-->Brightness/Contrast. Adjustment layers let you make non-destructive modifications, and they affect all the layers below them so you can change the whole gif at one time. 

6. To change the color balance, I like to use: Layers Menu -->New Adjustment Layer-->Selective Color. Within the Selective Color controls, choose “neutrals” and give it some tweaks. As you get the hang of it, you can do a lot more with this, but basic adjustments to the neutrals setting will make a big difference. 

7. I use the BW adjustment layer to make black & white gifs - it has more options than simply desaturating - and I use a levels adjustment layer for more nuanced contrast changes than you get with brightness contrast. Hue/Saturation is good for resaturating flashback scenes. 

8. Any time you like the effect of an adjustment layer, save it (or a group of them) to a new document by going to the Layers Context Menu-->Duplicate Layers and then choose “New document” in the dialog window. Save your new doc, which will just be the adjustment layer(s). Then you can use these layers on other gifs, rather than constantly recreating your tweaks. When you’re giffing a whole show like I am, you find yourself making the same adjustments over and over anyway, so this is a time saver. 

All right, that’s all for now! Other tutorials are linked up at my Tutorials Masterpost. It’s small but it’s growing!

[yooniesim]

Hey Yoonie, I hope this doesn’t come off as annoying or anything but I just wanted to thank you for being so outspoken and eloquent about paywalls and poor quality cc.

There’s a Discord server I’m in where we“fix” CC by lowering poly counts, making proper LODs, adding hat/boot chops etc and reupload it. Sometimes we’ll have people join just to tell us it’s disrespectful to creators to edit and redistribute their meshes but we just link them towards the UGC and a post about the dangers of poorly made CC and continue on. But at one point a CC creator joined and asked us to stop editing their stuff. We showed them several of the issues with their CC that we tend to fix and offered to help them learn how to correct them but they doubled down, and I guess they posted about it somewhere because we had several trolls join just to harass us. It came to a point where we felt like we’d have to close up shop and start over somewhere else. Eventually, it died down but those events made me realize some things.

Why should we have to fix someone else’s stuff that people are paying real life money for because they person they got it from doesn’t care enough to fix it themselves or learn how to make it better? I just found it so frustrating that I took a break from the server and the community in general for a few months because I was so demoralized by it all. In that time I found your blog and it helped remind me why I joined the server in the first place

Keep being awesome and don’t let the haters get you down!

Thank you for sharing this and being kind, nonny! It's not annoying at all! And thank you for taking the time to work on that cc. The internet can be a disgusting place, especially when money is involved. Sometimes we gotta take breaks for ourselves cos it's just too much. But at the end of the day you're just helping others and doing what's right. So keep that in mind and don't let them get you down, either! 💜

[tau1tvec]

the “curating only the highest-quality” part made me roll my eyes. i understand, especially with free cc, that mistakes happen, patches break stuff, and errors slip through the cracks. but still, i can’t trust some of ya’ll to make the correct lods or even tick the right categories in s4s. i just accept that i’ll find out after downloading cc whether it’s broken or not when i check it in s4s and in-game 🤷‍♀️. tbc im not saying everyone teaming up with curseforge cc sucks. but like how well will the moderation team check stuff especially after the pilot round ends on nov 14? because if i download pants from there and my sims torso is hovering, that claim is out the window 😭. and idk how savvy this team is to not accidentally accept stolen meshes and conversions once the pilot ends; i feel like that’s going to end up being a repeated situation where files are reported and removed in hindsight once someone is silly enough to try it, not something caught beforehand. i know a moderation team can’t be 100% perfect. and it’s not the biggest deal to remove broken cc and politely tell the creator. but i’m skeptical and don’t see how this’ll be better than anything else in terms of the ✨premium and quality✨ claim they’re pushing.

Yeah, skimming the rules for this Mods Hub/Curseforge stuff I dunno, lol, I don’t really think it’s essentially going to be what they promised, let alone anything different from what we’ve experienced up to this point.

Will everything be free, sure, will there be ads, of course, no adult content, no suggestive content, no use of EA or The Sims 4’s marketing material, so in essence it’s just TSR basically, but without the VIP nonsense, and Nexus’ Mod Manager. Both of these sites aren’t exactly the best at moderating mod/cc quality either, it’s all kinda on the users to do much of the testing and guess work for them, so I don’t really see this being any different for Mods Hub.

I just think it’s really weird how EA is holding content on it, and content off of it by a completely different set of rules. Many people who do Early Access on Patreon, will also be on the official Mod Squad, so it’ll be interesting to see if many will still be doing both, and only using Curseforge after their CC has been unlocked on Patreon, bc if so, lol… idk, I’m personally just sick and tired of these consistencies and confusing, and manipulative maneuvers that have become so incredibly synonymous with The Sims 4 on all fronts.

[zephirite]

C!Wilbur, the Tragic Perfectionist

This meta is inspired by this fic by

https://archiveofourown.org/works/32491030/chapters/80581537

I’m analyzing c!Wilbur in the context of him being an anxious perfectionist (not because his cc has anxiety) because it contextualizes his drastic actions in an interesting—albeit tragic—light.

So us perfectionists are very extreme on everything we do. Either we put 100% in or 0%, and this makes us very nervous about tackling anything because it’s all a challenge. Goes double for creative folk. It’s a never ending game of proving yourself—to yourself, and the world. You live and die by your own standards, and are constantly aware and anxious about failing. Your work is your worth.

If L’Manburg is Wilbur’s unfinished symphony, his magnum opus, life’s work, he put it on a pedestal. Not an innocent one (it was clear from his first drug scam that Wil had no intention of L’Manburg being legitimate), but his archetype and embodiment/product of that perfectionism.

Perfection, however, is unattainable, and Wil sought the rush of that perfectionism, and his anxiety around losing it (especially since it gave him a community and gradually increased in power and notoriety through the wars against the DSMP) increased. Power built his tower higher so he had farther to fall.

L’Manburg (as in the fic) was Wil’s validation. His legacy. It’s perfection would outlast him, and legitimize all the horrid schemes and sacrifices (Tommy’s disks and everyone’s deaths, whose guilt eats up Wil and propels him into ensuing they’re worth it, compensating them by showing love through creation of a safe haven).

Gradually realizing through the elections that he was slipping caused Wil to latch even harder to that unreachable icon of perfection, power, and safety.

Wilbur’s feigned overconfidence was too potent for a man who thinks of everything—it was an explosive cocktail denial and hubris, that fueled his competition with Quackity.

Which is why he was so nervous, and hid his fear. Because to a perfectionist, if you’re only as good as your work, a slip in quality is all it takes for everyone’s love to crumble.

So when he’s banished, it’s the worst-case scenario he’s been dreading ever since he developed an attachment—a country—to begin with.

Not only was Wilbur run out, but his very creation rejected him. The ultimate perfectionist’s nightmare. Wilbur was at 100%—the highest of highs—and now, he’s at low point. He’s hit the zero.

Now Tommy, was okay. Obviously traumatized, but he cares about people than what they stood for. This is where Crimeboys differ; Wilbur focuses on the meaning behind the flag, and Tommy befriends the people holding it up. He and L’Manburg’s people didn’t bother calling out Wil seizing power because he was the only one who cared about recognition. They all just wanted community. Wilbur ruling was his way of loving them, something his son suffered from. (“Wilbur wanted to give Fundy the world, but all he wanted was his dad.”)

To Tommy, they were okay because the L’Manburg that mattered to him—the people—were all alive. They’d reunite, because the fictional, intangible countries can’t keep them apart. But to Wil, the idealistic purities of those countries were the relationships. What people stood for—none of it mattered if you couldn’t justify your survival through embodying those ideals.

The quote “anything worth doing is worth doing poorly” baffled my perfectionist brain. Meaning, ‘it’s better to stand outside for ten minutes when a walk seems impossible. It’s better to wash your face when you can’t get the energy to shower.’ Little things.

Perfectionists don’t work like that. To not put the effort into a full shower is not worth it, because our reward comes from the mental challenge, the switch, the “I said I’m gonna do this and I will.” If it’s not hard, it’s not worth it.

L’Manburg was not worth ‘doing poorly.’ It’s better the ideas it stood for die with it, then live on as some perverted, zombified shell of their former self. Because that’s what Wilbur would’ve been if he won L’Manburg back.

He can’t handle L’Manburg hating him, and it being anything less than perfect. The illegitimacy of a hostile re-takeover will forever sully the country. No longer can they claim it’s the beacon of democracy and freedom that it was founded on. They’ve dishonored the very treaties that made L’Manburg what it was. No longer can Wilbur justify his actions, now that the haven they created is hostile.

That’s what Wilbur meant by “the thing I worked towards—doesn’t exist anymore.”

(Maybe he even realized his own hypocrisy by rigging the elections and his whole view of even the pre-election times collapsed.)

Wilbur worked toward a perfectly just nation. If it’s even an ounce of corrupt (by his standards), it’s not worth it.

Without the result, the ends can’t justify the means.

Wilbur worked towards perfection, freedom, a utopia. And now that the principals that justified the bloodshed and corruption are broken…he can never look that nation—nor it’s people—in the eye again.

L’Manburg is no longer prefect. And in the mind of a perfectionist…

….It must be perfect, or it must be destroyed.