Creating High Definition sims in your game....

Subject: Creating High Definition sims in your game.... May 22nd 2012, 10:55 pm

Important...please read...on older computers whose resolution cannot handle this change...crashing has been known to happen. Be sure to make a copy of your original graphics rule file before placing this copy in your game...just in case you find out that your computer cannot handle the change in graphics and you need to revert back.

(Important after each EA update you will need to redo the steps to replace the graphics rule file because when EA updates or you install an new expansion it will revert back to the EA default graphics rule file.)

See i tinkered with the Graphics rule file to make sure that it allows for more pixels thus allowing for better picture taking...that thing on the site that does it for you (AWT's site) didn't work for me so i went in notepad and did it myself...i am willing to upload my graphics rule file for anyone wishing to use it....you have to paste it in c:/ Programs File 86/Electronic Arts/sims 3/game/bin

Click to download the tweaked graphics rule file

This is with the old settings (It is not bad but still i can see a clear difference from what i am taking pictures of now):
Creating High Definition sims in your game.... Noel

This is with the new settings and new graphics rule file:
Creating High Definition sims in your game.... Noeluntoched

This is what i changed so you will know....

setting $High

prop $ConfigGroup RenderSimLODDistances "5, 30, 85, 250"

prop $ConfigGroup RenderSimTextureSizes "2048, 2048, 256, 128" < here I changed the value from 1024 to 2048

prop $ConfigGroup RenderSimUseSpecular "1, 1, 1, 0"

prop $ConfigGroup CASLightMapWidth 1024

prop $ConfigGroup CASLightMapFilteringEnabled true

prop $ConfigGroup CASSinglePassShaderEnabled false

prop $ConfigGroup CASSimpleHairShaderEnabled false

prop $ConfigGroup CASRenderTargetSize 2048 < Same here (This becomes the old Highest settings instead...)

prop $ConfigGroup MinSimLOD 1

prop $ConfigGroup ActiveLODLimit 200

prop $ConfigGroup ShaderSkinCompositing true

setting $VeryHigh

prop $ConfigGroup RenderSimLODDistances "25, 50, 100, 1000"

prop $ConfigGroup RenderSimTextureSizes "4096, 4096, 512, 128" < here I changed the value from 2048 to 4096 (This now becomes Very Highest Setting when you select it in options)

prop $ConfigGroup RenderSimUseSpecular "1, 1, 1, 1"

prop $ConfigGroup CASLightMapWidth 1024

prop $ConfigGroup CASLightMapFilteringEnabled true

prop $ConfigGroup CASSinglePassShaderEnabled false

prop $ConfigGroup CASSimpleHairShaderEnabled false

prop $ConfigGroup CASRenderTargetSize 4096 < Here as well.

prop $ConfigGroup MinSimLOD 0

prop $ConfigGroup ActiveLODLimit 200

prop $ConfigGroup ShaderSkinCompositing true

end

Anyway you can find more info about this on my blog here:
http://dachssims.blogspot.com/2011/10/hidefinitions-sims.html

Creating High Definition sims in your game.... Deanna1

Creating High Definition sims in your game.... Deanna1

This is a newer sim of mine but still using the high definition graphics rule file...i wanted to share a newer sim picture since my sims have improved since i made the graphics rule file last year.

What file is it replacing? O.o I had just used AWT's tool so it did it for me lol.

i tdont replace anything. you can take it out or put it in whenever you like.

You are placing this copy of the graphics rule into your folder and removing EA graphics rule file...all you have to do is save a copy of the older file just in case you prefer to not have my copy of EA's tweaked graphics rule file. Which frankly now i don't even keep the backup copy of EA's because EA's highest quality is not just the high setting. So it's real easy to just set it down a notch to high instead of Very High if you want to go back to EA's default Highest setting.

I will say if you are using AWT's that does it for you...it wont work on a windows 7 computer...i am not sure of any other computers. Because of needing administrator okay to swap it out and there is no way to give the okay to AWT's program. So for that it does nothing especially if you get the error message with it...then you know it didn't do anything. This is why i created this. Because pasting it in the file allows you to be asked if you will allow this and you can thus give the administrator okay.

The key to knowing if AWT's did it for you is if you got the error message when you did it or not...if you did then it did nothing...you can open the file with notepad and look to be sure it did anything for you. If when you see that paragraph of code and the numbers do not match mine then it did nothing for you.

Thanks Dachs this really helped and clarified things !! dancing

Besides these settings and a "reasonably good" graphic card, it's still essential to get the lighting and camera angles right in order to shoot good and high quality pics (also if you want to edit them later), I think.

Just took some quick shots in game with the "normal" Graphics rule file I had:
Creating High Definition sims in your game.... Screenshot-1

Creating High Definition sims in your game.... Screenshot-1

Creating High Definition sims in your game.... Screenshot-2

And the new "Dachs HQ" version (below), I also tinkered with the lighting and camera angles a bit.
Creating High Definition sims in your game.... Screenshot-3

Creating High Definition sims in your game.... Screenshot-3

Creating High Definition sims in your game.... Screenshot-4

All pics are unedited by the way and click to enlarge Razz

Unfortunately this is set too high for my computer's tastes lol The game ran too laggy and eventually I crashed so I had to switch back to AWT's mod....DAMN MY OLD COMPUTER! angry *NEW*

EvaTer wrote:: Thanks Dachs this really helped and clarified things !!
Besides these settings and a "reasonably good" graphic card, it's still essential to get the lighting and camera angles right in order to shoot good and high quality pics (also if you want to edit them later), I think.

For the game default that is great pics...i would love it if you tried to use mine and see the difference...be sure to save your original in case you decide to go back. I think you would be extremely happy with the tweaked version.

And Kosmo...That is always a possibility so that is why i tell people to save the original....most computers can handle the change but an older outdated computer may not...too bad though i think you would have liked it.

I did like it but I guess I just need a new computer now. Stupid windows XP...lol

Creating High Definition sims in your game.... Screenshot-11-2

A new picture i just took...thought you guys would want to see my quality of my sims again with this tweak...oh and the background is something i made special for picture taking and its and in game object....not sure i am gonna share it yet.

Make sure you click the picture to see the full size of it...

dachshundsr4me wrote:: For the game default that is great pics...i would love it if you tried to use mine and see the difference...be sure to save your original in case you decide to go back. I think you would be extremely happy with the tweaked version.

I'm kind of surprised you didn't notice I DID use (and I'm still using) your tweaked version in my game, as the first 2 pics I took are without your tweak and the last 2 pics are WITH your tweak.
However in my case there's not too big a difference between the "default" version and your version, because of the high end graphic card I have. I did notice some slight improvement though Smile

I'm convinced the difference in quality will be more visible with other graphic cards.
The only point I was trying to make, was it doesn't only take good graphics to make a great or nice pic in game, lighting and camera angle are also very important ;)

Very nice pic with the angel wings !! Awesome !! dancing

yes i could tell the difference between the first two and the last two but i just thought it was because they were further away is all. I did feel the graphics on the last two was awesome i thought humm you can still see every eyelash...that is pretty good for default...i know for me there is a huge difference between the default setting and my settings...so yeah. But that is me. I take it no crashing issues then with your game...i know most do not have issues...but i think for low end machines that my graphics rule file is too much for their machine to handle.

This is a pic I took earlier without your tweaked HQ version, as you can see the separate eyelashes are clearly visible in the pic as well. I'm still keeping your version though, as it's (a little) better for me too ! Smile

Nope no crashing issues, I had them in the past though, but I haven't had them for a while now Big smile

She looks awesome Eva...yeah i know i could turn that number up even more but i am not sure...i only did what AWT's mod would have done number wise...i was afraid to do any higher...:/...It's like AWT said...don't be greedy if your GPU cannot handle the increase then don't do it.

Thanks Dachs !! cheers

I think you can turn those numbers up a bit more (pending screen resolution and in combination with the graphics card), but you have to be careful with that. A game can become unstable and crash, or on the other hand maybe start lagging or you won't be able to see the difference and like what aWT said, not to be greedy ;)
Also the Sims 3 isn't really that "super high res", as compared to other (and newer) PC games. I think The Sims 4, probably will be (much) better in that respect, when it's released.