The Sims 3

By Cammie HallFOR A TECHNICAL

AUDIENCE

The Sims(The First)

The Sims 2(Improved)

The Sims 3(The Latest)

The Sims • From the start The sims was a big hit. Many things went into the

making of the sims but these 3 items help make this dream a reality.

• File formats• IFF resources • IFF bundles

• All these things were important as they allow certain aspects of the game to work in there own way.

• They've been improved and developed over the years but they all still help the sims game run

• Click on the links below to view each individual item and see in more detail how they helped.

File formats

IFF bundles

IFF resources

File Formats• There a just over 50 Different file formats used in the

sims 3. Going through them I saw that the file formats where mostly binary

• Furthermore the file formats allowed the graphics of the game to be 3D. But as the game was not as developed yet some of the parts stayed 2D, but this was later developed.

• But not only is it about graphics the files also relate back to the musics, sounds, floors, walls, animation, cheats, cursor, lighting, textures, index, audio formatting etc.

• But there are also a few more files that no one knows what they where really for. But they are all important as in order for the game to work properly they needed all the big important files as well as the less important ones.

• In fact without these the game wouldn't be the same. • These are a few files that you will find; .far, .iff, .bef, .bmf,

.cfp, .cmx, .flr, .skn, .spf, .stx, .wll, prefs and many, many more.

Return to The Sims

IFF resources• This part was more about the functions in the game.

• My resources show me that its about the town, tracking the sims in multiple areas, this includes careers and how your sims behave, sprite imagining, object definitions, game options and other files.

• With this side of the sims however there are many resources that its not understood how it helps the game but just like all the other files they are important. Further investigation shows me that they may be something to do with families in the neighbour hood, rotating objects templates(although unknown what for), the houses; floors, walls and the house in general.

• Some examples of these files are; rsmp, BCON, CARR, CTSS, DGRP, FAMs, FWAV, GLOB, OBJf, PALT, SPR# and so on and so forth.

Return to The Sims

IFF bundles• This part of designing sims was a lot more complicated than the rest.

So I've broken it down for you.

• Careers.

– Using the CARR resource, the game is able to track your Sims Career. The 2 STR# is important as it allows the sims to track there careers.

– There is another features called strings; one is called Grade Strings and it tells the user how well a child is doing in school, the other is called performance strings and that allows the user to track there sims Career by telling them how well there doing at it.

– The variety of CARR resources alas make sure, the times, pay, name & jobs of each job are done correctly. There is even a code for unemployment, D11.

• People

– This is more about the characters round town, not the actual characters you control. Depending the different resources the characters will have features, variety of controls and even there names. These resources are OBJD & CTSS. BMP_ gives the characters there looks. SLOT allows your sims to approach objects in the game. GLOB provides global interactions, with others around the town. BHAV, TPRP & TREE, which allows your sims to be interactive and have actions much like ordinary people. IFF give the people around town names. And there are many more program's that give the sims there wonderful features. These are just a few of the important ones.

Return to The Sims