Portrait painting

[Katze]

I need help every time I have my sims painting portraits I get everything else in the picture but the sim I want in the portrait.  How can I get him in the picture so he shows up alright. Last portrait I painted I got more tree then sim. I know this might gets me in the IOD. But please can someone help me.

[cwieberdink]

I'm gonna ask the obvious question.... are you zooming in and centering with the red target to get the pic you want?  you can use all the usual controls for moving that red rectangle target and getting exactly what you want in the picture.  You can also choose "paint still life", position the sim you want painted, and then center the target how you want if you wanted them sitting or laying on the grass or whatever.

Chris

[Katze]

I got it stupid me never zoomed in right.
I was fiddling around with the c botton only thing that took was a picture, still have a lot to learn about this game.
Thanks for the help.

[vector]

If you press the tab button, you can use the W, D, S and A keys to move around, and your mouse to look about. Another two keys move your view up and down, I think they're maybe Q and Z, but I'm not sure. It's a bit more flexible than the normal zoom and rotate. Press tab again to exit the first person view.

PS: I find when I use the first person view, if I don't point the camera up at the sky before exiting, I end up with the most useless almost top-down view. If your view goes funny from using the first person mode, just go back into it and look upwards before tabbing back out.

[Ancient Sim]

I have no idea how to get this right, either.  I got someone to paint a bowl of fruit and it was mainly wall, but the picture still sold as a masterpiece.  I wouldn't have put it on my toilet wall, let alone anywhere else.  As for portraits, I got Mortimer to paint Bella once.  I tried to get her to lounge provocatively on the sofa, but she just kept standing-up.  She got so fed-up standing there I had to stop him painting.  I think now that the subject doesn't actually have to stay there, but presumably they need to pose first?  If so, how on earth do you get them to stay put?  Turn freewill off?

[witch]

I guess it must be free will off, once the picture frame appears, the sim to be painted is not positionable anymore. Edit: JM's 'Procrastinate' would work as well./Edit. No, the sim doesn't have to stay once the 'c' to take the snapshot is pressed. The advance pictures showed a sim posing whilst being painted but I think that is misleading.

I've managed with the zooming for portraits, although I find using the keyboard is jumpy, zooms out or rotates too much just from a mere tap on the keys.

Since the original poster's question has ben answered, on a similar topic I'd like to ask a question about taking photos with the career reward camera. Do you just take photos and sell them? How do you see them? What's the point of poses if you can't capture them?

[Kitiara]

You can actually capture them. My success at doing so has been rather sporadic. Maybe someone else knows exactly when you have to grab it?
If you grab the picture at just the right moment before it is sold, you can hang it on the wall. I haven't played with this much. It seemed more trouble than it was worth, so I just paint pictures.

[Katze]

I have one portrait done its a nude but the sim that painted it did't like it.
He doesn't mind woohooing with her all the time. I have it hanging on the wall and every time he sees it he goes like yuck.

[C.S.]

If you meant you wanted to keep the photos you take, I thought you could just go into Buy mode and grab it out of the camera? Zoom in closer and you'll see a piece of paper sticking out of the side. I take photos of sims and put it on end-tables next to their beds, just to personalize the room a bit. The photos fetch a maximum amount of 100 simoleans whether you sell it in Live mode or Buy mode with creativity skill maxed.

As for painting portraits, I make use of the career reward camera to make sims pose for variety. For example, I select Mortimer to paint the portrait of Bella, when they got to the easel and the red rectangle frame comes up, which pauses the game, I hit 'P' or '0' on the keyboard to un-pause the game, select Bella as the active sim and cancel the 'Be painted' action from her queue - this doesn't cancel out the red rectangle frame or affect the painter's action queue, just so long as you don't accidentally press 'C' to take the snapshot or cancel the wrong sim's action queue. Are you guys following? So then I make Bella go to the spot I want her to pose at, click on the camera, choose from the variety of poses (sit on the ground, hands crossed, hands on hips, lay on the ground, monkey pose etc etc), and select one, then center the red rectangle frame on her and zoom to the size I want, wait for her to make the expression I want then hit Pause again so it doesn't change, then finally press 'C' to take the snapshot and Mortimer will start painting. Bella doesn't even have to stay in that pose, I cancel the pose from her queue and let her do something else. It works both ways with freewill on or off. Hope this makes sense to you guys .

[RainbowTigress]

That sounds great, CuriousSpurious.  Also, the keys for raising and lowering camera height in Camera view are Q and E.  Z zooms in, and X zooms out.  You can use A, S, D, and W to move around or use the arrow keys. 

As for getting stuck in a top down view, it is not necessary to go back into camera view to fix.  If you have a mouse wheel, you can press it and rotate the view, or you can hold the control key and the right mouse button to do the same.  I never got the mouse wheel button to work until I removed my Logitech mouse drivers, but I put them back in because the wheel didn't work quite right in my browser, and I liked the additional functionality.  So I just use Ctrl + right mouse button in the Sims.  I'm actually quite used to it now.

[Carmelita]

What drives me nuts about the "Paint Portrait" option is that the stupid Sim you're painting stands so close to the easel that it's hard to catch a picture of the Sim from the angle you want without getting a corner of the easel or the painter's elbow in the shot.  Even then, the Sim just stands there with a goofy smile on her face.  When I want to paint a portrait of a Sim I choose "Paint Still life" and then zoom in on the Sim I want to paint instead of a bowl of fruit or a doorknob or whatever.  It works well for me.

I think the camera reward is pretty cool, but I agree that the pictures could have been more easily retrievable.  You can get them from the side of the camera in buy mode, but the chunk of picture you can grab is very small and is easy to miss.  It took me a few tries to figure out how to do it the first time I fiddled witht that camera.

[Myth]

What I do for the "perfect" painting is turn free will off.  Pose the Sim that I want to have the picture of somewhere away from the easel.  (Using the artist career reward camera is great for posing.)  Then I use the "Paint Still Life" option instead of "Paint Portrait".  As soon as I have my captured shot and the Sim is painting I turn the free will back on so the Sims can go about their business.  An extra tip is if you can't get the great shot because of walls or other obstructions go into build/buy mode before the Sim starts painting and use the moveobjects on cheat to move the Sim or any other objects around.

[C.S.]

What drives me nuts about the "Paint Portrait" option is that the stupid Sim you're painting stands so close to the easel that it's hard to catch a picture of the Sim from the angle you want without getting a corner of the easel or the painter's elbow in the shot.

Haha, yeah, getting other stuffs in the painting that I didn't want annoyed me too before I realised cancelling the 'Be painted' queue only affects the subject to be painted. Don't understand why they have to stand so darn close to the easel, and when they aren't suddenly laughing hysterically, or covering their eyes in embarrassment, or wearing that distorted face with the crooked eyebrows or making some other kooky reactions, they just stand there like a block with hands limply at the side. Then came the Uni EP with the camera, catching snapshots with the expressions I want instantly became easier.

So I just use Ctrl + right mouse button in the Sims. I'm actually quite used to it now.

Me too, using Ctrl+right click to rotate camera view. The middle click used to work, so much more convenient then, now it only works for zooming....

[Ardin Topani]

I think I used "Paint Portrait" once and had the experience of the subject being dumb and standing too close. I normally use "Paint Still Life" to get the poses I want. But if I remember correctly, you can hit play while the box is up to capture the picture and move sims around so you can get the positioning correct. It's been awhile since I did portraits or still lifes though, so don't quote me on that.

[RainbowTigress]

So I just use Ctrl + right mouse button in the Sims. I'm actually quite used to it now.

Me too, using Ctrl+right click to rotate camera view. The middle click used to work, so much more convenient then, now it only works for zooming....

Zooming with the wheel works great for me too.  In fact, the one time I played Sims 1 since getting Sims 2, that was one thing I missed the most!  I kept trying to zoom in with the wheel and wondering why it didn't work!  I finally gave up in frustration because "it just wasn't the same."  Sims 2 ruined me I guess.  Sometimes I think about going back and playing some of the expansion packs again, but I don't know if it's worth the hassle now.

[Brynne]

When I first tried portrait-painting, I would get creeped out by seeing the teeth inside the head of the painter while trying to get in close enough to get a decent shot of the subject. I now do the same thing mentioned above. I turn off free will, have the subjects do whatever I want a picture of them doing, use the "paint still life" option, go into buy build mode and play with moveObjects on and snapObjectstoGrid false  and usually get a pretty decent picture. The only issues I would have is the stupid speech bubbles popping up when I want to paint a large group. Even with free will off, they still have to chat. With the camera, I don't have to worry about that part, so I usually take photos now. 

[cabelle]

I have one portrait done its a nude but the sim that painted it did't like it.
He doesn't mind woohooing with her all the time. I have it hanging on the wall and every time he sees it he goes like yuck.

That's probably because the painting isn't worth as much as other objects in the house. Sims of all aspirations are rather spoiled (like they were in TS1) and like expensive things. If, for example, after building and/or furnishing your sims' house you realize they need another phone in a specific spot (like a second floor hallway) they will go see "what's this?" and give the "yuck" response.

It bugs me that the paintings considered "masterpieces" if sold aren't worth about the same amount as the higher end Maxis paintings. If they were, then we could hang them up on the walls without the sim going "yuck."

[Katze]

I have one portrait done its a nude but the sim that painted it did't like it.
He doesn't mind woohooing with her all the time. I have it hanging on the wall and every time he sees it he goes like yuck.

That's probably because the painting isn't worth as much as other objects in the house. Sims of all aspirations are rather spoiled (like they were in TS1) and like expensive things. If, for example, after building and/or furnishing your sims' house you realize they need another phone in a specific spot (like a second floor hallway) they will go see "what's this?" and give the "yuck" response.

It bugs me that the paintings considered "masterpieces" if sold aren't worth about the same amount as the higher end Maxis paintings. If they were, then we could hang them up on the walls without the sim going "yuck."

I have the "what's this" hack so they don't do that when you buy something new. I had him view the portrait and he painted it it too and he went yuck, and it would have sold as a masterpiece too, go figure stupid sims.

[witch]

Thanks CuriousSpurious, helpful hints on taking photos - much appreciated. I had the same problem with sims too close to the easel, now I have some strategies I might get into recording family members again. Nightlife is supposed to have an inventory I believe, so you can move personal sim stuff from house to house.

[cabelle]

I have one portrait done its a nude but the sim that painted it did't like it.
He doesn't mind woohooing with her all the time. I have it hanging on the wall and every time he sees it he goes like yuck.

That's probably because the painting isn't worth as much as other objects in the house. Sims of all aspirations are rather spoiled (like they were in TS1) and like expensive things. If, for example, after building and/or furnishing your sims' house you realize they need another phone in a specific spot (like a second floor hallway) they will go see "what's this?" and give the "yuck" response.

It bugs me that the paintings considered "masterpieces" if sold aren't worth about the same amount as the higher end Maxis paintings. If they were, then we could hang them up on the walls without the sim going "yuck."

I have the "what's this" hack so they don't do that when you buy something new. I had him view the portrait and he painted it it too and he went yuck, and it would have sold as a masterpiece too, go figure stupid sims.

I forgot about that hack, I should get it. It irritates me to no end that when they get to a community lot they attempt to waste valuable time to ask that idiotic question about a sink or a tree. Stupid sims is right!

[Carmelita]

It bugs me that the paintings considered "masterpieces" if sold aren't worth about the same amount as the higher end Maxis paintings. If they were, then we could hang them up on the walls without the sim going "yuck."

It's probably their art broker taking a huge cut.  Damn the middleman!

[Zeljka]

I never use Paint Portrait, because even though the 'Subject' doesn't need to stand there the whole time, they do need to be there for the artist to start. In my homes of 8, that just doesn't make sense. Still Life is so much more versatile.

[Carmelita]

It also bugs me when you have your artist "paint portrait" but need to stop partway through.  The next time you want him to paint he yells at his subject to get back over there.  Then you have to remember to cancel the "pose for portrait" action or your painter will just stand around for hours until his subject finishes doing whatever she was up to.

Painting a still life is definitely better.

[vector]

Then you have to remember to cancel the "pose for portrait" action or your painter will just stand around for hours until his subject finishes doing whatever she was up to.

Like being at work, for instance. Grr.

It didn't even occur to me to try using the mouse wheel for fixing the top-down view. Ta muchly!

[Brynne]

Just looked through my old photos when I first got Uni. I was a photo-taking maniac! But you can see in these (really really old) pics there's a mixture of regular camera poses and normal animations (I used the toddler and "hang out" animations for a lot of them). And moveObjects on and snapObjectstoGrid false are awesome tools for getting the sims in different positions:


The last one resulted in this cute little glitch when Joe was released from his pose and stood up, which became my old avatar:

I actually do wedding photos for my sims, with all the typical wedding photo shots, brides family, grooms family, etc. I scare myself.