Tips and Tricks

Feel free to add your own ideas in the comments section below.

• Use invisible items and move_objects on: find most invisible items by doing a search for "pfish" at MTS2 and SxS2
  
• Multilayer plants using move_objects on to make for a more lush outdoor look.
  
• Use ceiling tiles.

• Turn Free Will back on every so often just to see what they'll do. You get some great cameo shots that way.
  
• Spend time learning which animations are which. Better still, write them down as you go, what they're useful for. Sometimes it's not obvious (eg, I used the animation "primal scream" in Hula and More to get Markas to hold a sword in a certain way to get Seth off the plank in CTF1).
  
• Have a lot of patience when it comes to positioning sims in ways they weren't, strictly speaking, designed for. You can't actually throw sims across the room and throwing your computer instead is counterproductive. Use your imagination to work around the foibles of the game.
  
• When Sims get too close to an object or each other, they can end up in some interesting positions. You may need to move them a millimetre at a time. Make sure you put them down occasionally so you can use the "undo" button to get them back if necessary. You may need to move one sim a teeny bit, then the other, then back to sim A, etc., especially if you're trying to get them in positions they weren't designed for.
  
• Use regular items, too, such as chairs, baths, the loo, pool tables, etc., to position sims. SlowMotion set to 6 or 7 and good timing can net excellent results.
  
• Have extra sims on the set so you can use interactive animations differently. Example: I don't use the Insimenator or the Inteenimator, so I can't have an adult and teen sim interact romantically. As a result, to get some of the early scenes between Markas and Iasabeau to photograph properly, I needed an extra sim on lot for Markas to "hug romantically" so he'd hold Isabeau the way I needed him to when I moved him.

That about covers this section. The next section is on Sim Photography.


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