How to Properly Package Up Sims

by Dour

 

Finally, something Maxis made easy! 

This tutorial assumes that you have already made a sim that you wish to package, and that you have (and know how to use) Clean Installer.

1. Open up bodyshop.

2. Click the top tab that says "Build Sims"

3. Click the button that says "Package Sims"

4. Select your premade sim from the gallery.

5. If you want your sim to end up on the exchange, you can choose package to the exchange (make sure you're connected to the internet) if you are planning on uploading the sim to any other site you will need to package the sim to a file. Click one of these two icons with your desired sim highlighted.

6. Give your sim a name, and fill in the description. A good rule of thumb is to credit any custom hair/eyes/clothing that you have included on the sim, as well as your name/handle and the name of a site you work for (or your e-mail address) so that people can find you again.

7. Click the checkmark to finish.

A box will pop up telling you you were sucessful. The sim is now packaged and sitting on your desktop.

NOTE: Some sites (like MTS2) don't allow meshes to be packaged with a sim, even though expansion packs after Pets will include them (grr). Also, some creators do not wish for their content to be packaged with sims, so you will need to use clean installer to remove those things from your packaged sim.

***If you are uploading to a site that doesn't accept Sims2Pack files alone, or you wish to include a readme.txt or screenshots with your sim, you will need to create a .zip or .rar file to hold everything together. Zip and Rar are simply file compressors. They work exactly like folders, except folders can't be transferred over the internet and these two can.

8. Go to your desktop and right click, then select New > Compressed (zipped) folder [Or WinRar Archive, whichever]. Name your new zip/rar the same name as the sim you are packaging. It will make things much easier for you in the long run (see the packaging bodyshop tutorial for more tips on naming files).

9. Drag and drop your sim, readme.txt, screenshots, and any additional junk into your newly created folder

You're done. Go party.