Blog 30

03 OCT 2022

I had the idea of creating SIMS merchandise as I was doing my research into my target market. I realised that there were a high number of gamers worldwide;Grand View Research estimates a USD 583.69 billion revenue in 2030 (Grand View Research, 2021) from its 2022 revenue of USD 300 billion (Business Wire, 2021). Games like Animal Crossing and SIMS are forms of social gaming (extensions of reality) that blew up during Covid. Following the trend of gamification and in-game luxury brand spaces, there is a huge opportunity to create brand awareness in-game. I picked SIMS 4as it is highly popular and had been recently announced to be free, so I expect a large number of people to start playing it.

I had to download two things to start: Blender 2.7 and Sims Creator Studio. I already had Blender installed, but it was the specific 2.7 version that would only be compatible with Sims graphics. I had the idea of creating art meme baby tees, which was something I had initially created as a joke. I and a surprising number of people ended up really liking it, so I figured it’d be perfect to dress my Sim with.

The plan was to pick a shirt that would essentially be my base. I could then change the colour or design of the base by editing its mesh, which is essentially its skin. I tested this first with a cropped tee, but I didn’t like the end result. The fit was too loose and looked pretty bad on my Sim.

I really had my heart set on a baby tee, so I picked a fitted shirt and figured I could crop it in Blender. This took alot of manuevering as I wasn’t used to the old version of the program, but I eventually figured it out through an extensive list of Youtube videos. I then went back to Sims Creator, but couldn’t figure out how to add the base back in and export the mesh to edit. This was when I figured out why all the tutorials I found combined two bases instead of cutting one down.

I had already spent a while cutting the shirt into the perfect baby tee length in Blender, so I was determined to achieve my goal. I was pretty much on my own at this point, as I couldn’t find any tutorials; all I had was a very basic understanding of how meshes worked. I tested importing the new base onto a smaller item hoping it could somehow combine, but it didn’t work. The issue was not with the base, but with the exported mesh. I was still working with the longer, old version so the baby tee didnt look quite right.

I took the old mesh cut it shorter and shorter, importing the new mesh everytime until I got to the right length. This process took around 15 minutes to perfect until I finally matched up the lengths. The rest was relatively quick; all I had to do was edit out the words on my mesh, add my own designs and export the item as a ‘mod’. From there, I put it into the Sims folder on my computer, and the item was successfully worn!

One really cool thing about SIMS is that it’s extremely community driven. All the resources and apps I found were made and freely offered by people within the community. Everytime I encountered an issue, there were numerous forums or videos I could reference.

One issue I encountered was my computer. I had also expected my computer to lag a bit, but it really hadn’t taken to the programs as well as I thought it would. My work process was interspaced with crashes and lags, which made it more frustrating than necessary. It wasn’t something I could help though, so I took small breaks in between and went back to it.

I think that this project is really cool in the sense that I believe it has alot of potential to be used for marketing in the future. Making the shirt was more difficult than I thought, as I was working without a proper guide. I’m looking forward to being able to design more complex things in the future, as I can see SIMS brand merch being utilised for in-game events or rewards. I also think this could potentially be used for my GEM:Z project.

References