#cas tips

There's nothing inherently wrong with these two sims. I think they're cute! But the problem is, I've made sims that look like them 8,000 times, and I'm sure you have too. You've certainly seen these sims all over the community. They have very common features (common in our community, not real life lol). My issue--the reason I stay in CAS--is I don't want common. I want her...

And him...

...And her too!

Contrary to what you may think, my sims are good looking before I add skin details because I take the time to make them unique. The details enhance their uniqueness; it doesn't create it. Here is a vanilla sim I actually prefer without details to prove it. (He's on the gallery, btw.)

The only difference between these sims and the first two are their eyes, noses, and sometimes their eyebrows. To explain, I will break this down in two methods to cover the breadth of simmers out there. Read whichever section pertains to you or both to get all the CAS tea.

Modded CAS:

For those who enjoy skins, presets, and other CAS mods, this is for you. There are a handful of mods that have made my CAS experience 10,000x better. One is More CAS Presets by zerbu. Some people have reported problems with this mod for a few years including myself, but for me the issue turned out to be other mods related. It's all good over here now! Anyway, more CAS presets means more opportunities for uniqueness. You will find eyes, noses, heads, ears, lips, jaws, and chins you've never seen and never thought possible. I use my modified random method almost exclusively these days. I say modified because after I roll 5 times, I often keep rolling until I see something I like: that uniqueness I'm looking for! I don't like using the same features over and over because I don't want my sims to look related, and when I find myself reaching for the same things, I force myself to keep scrolling or trash the sim.

Another type of mod I enjoy is sliders. If you enjoy making sims of color, sometimes sliders are the only way to get the job done because the game will only allow you to stretch but so far. My favorite ones are mouth scale by teanmoon and septum & nostril nose slider by obscurus. I have many more sliders installed, but those are pretty much the only ones I use these days.

Vanilla CAS:

If you're a vanilla player, or even a modded player who doesn't like CAS mods, this part is for you. You don't need mods to create unique sims! You just need to be willing to do a little work. Edit every little detail that can be edited. Even if it's just a little bit. Go into Detail Edit Mode and adjust those eyelids and nostrils. The game may only give you a handful of presets, but that won't stop you from making unique sims. One of my favorite moves is pulling in the lower eyelids toward the nose, creating a subtle squint. I also like flaring the nostrils on noses that should have flared nostrils. You will be surprised how different a nose can look if you simply rotate it up or down. That's how Nick got his nose! I usually wouldn't use that nose on black sims because in its default state, it looks very European. But at the time, I was mass producing sims for Melany to meet when she got to university, and I didn't have time to handcraft 50 sims. Most of those sims (Anissa included) I made using my random method with very slight modifications, if any. In Nick's case, I didn't want to roll a different nose, so I challenged myself to find a way to make his nose usable. I scaled it up, flared the nostrils, and rotated it up a bit, and man oh man did I fall in love with his nose! It's one of my favorite things about him.

Eyebrows:

Many of my sims have nice, thick eyebrows because I'm personally a fan IRL--probably because I don't have any lol. Most of the time I just pick something that matches their face, but often times eyebrows, like beards, can change a sim. They also sometimes inform about the character. For example, all of my glam girls have really nice, sleek, neat, perfectly trimmed eyebrows. They look like they get threaded on a strict schedule lol. That could give you a clue about their personality. On the flipside, if a female sim has bushy, messier eyebrows, what does that say about her? Maybe she likes herself in her natural state. Maybe she doesn't care about her appearance. Maybe she's just a hairy sim and she comes from a heritage of sims who have naturally thick eyebrows. There's so much you can learn about your characters without even leaving CAS if you pay close enough attention.

Here's a sim from above as I was working on her. See if you think her personality or even ethnicity changes with different eyebrows.

Let's start with the face: arguable the most important feature. Its not bad, but lacks the little features that make it truly Diyox...

Let's start with some eyebags. This is just personal to this character, for me. For you, it could be anything. Acne, moles, wrinkles... these little imperfections add character and individuality to a face. Some might think these details ugly, but I think there's more beauty in that which distinguishes the individual.

Next, I grab an eyelid overlay and ply with the opacity. I make sure it is darker than the fur, to add a shadow and give depth to the eye-socket. The overlay itself gives a little texture to the eyelids, which is preferable to my alpha style, without obscuring the natural black eye lining from the furry overlay.

Hell yeah.

Now for the body. Her chest will be covered by her shirt, but her arms will be exposed. The flatter textures feel a little distracting to me, personally.

I chose to use a classic werewolf hair overlay. I would recommend finding body hair overlays that closer match the color of the character's fur, but for Diyox, I like the way the dark overlay textures her coat. This can get tricky, trying to properly blend it in, but the harsher lines suit my vision of Diyox's design.

The overlay also texturizes her face. I like this outcome a lot. I like the detail it gives to her fur, and find it suitable for my alpha playstyle.

The completed Diyox stands before us.

When you join/start new experiences (activities) for CAS, record them into your documentation location (for me its Managebac) even before you begin the actual process!

Once the term/semester begins, you will be participating in the activity but forget to record things or gather evidence pieces, so earlier the better.

The first thing you do when you choose an experience/activity for CAS, get the supervisor’s contact and let the supervisor know you are doing the activity for CAS.

(if you are doing something outside of school, make sure to explain what your main goal is and what they need to provide/do for you)

Evidence is actually, for real, important!

Your teachers, CAS advisers, DP coordinators... I think all of IB students have been told to not forget the evidence pieces when it comes to CAS.

I have to tell you that you will, at one point, get bored of CAS (unless you really love recording, writing about things you do after school??) so get evidence in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd week of the activities, the sooner the better~

Evidence can be literally anything to prove your participation; pictures of you physically doing the activity, videos (especially for Action), screenshots of contacts with the supervisor, screenshots of documents you have created/modified etc.

Reflections, try to not be lazy!

I know it feels very very time-consuming and bothering to write a whole bunch of reflections just on the things you did... There are few tips I learned in the 1.5 years of DP;

When you write reflections, quality > quantity. Honestly, you don’t have to write a huge paragraph every single time, it’s more about how frequent you update your CAS! Record as many as possible, rather than few & too long.

In the end of each reflection, write about how you met the outcomes! It makes it easier for the CAS advisers, DP coordinators and final examiners, to check whether your CAS is corresponding to the requirements.

Show reflections to your activity supervisor(s)! If you want a well written comment from your supervisor, show them what you did (if they do not understand English, explain briefly what you did instead)

...I hope these help :)

and finally, check whether you have chosen the right activity for the right outcomes. The 7 strands of outcomes are somewhat difficult to achieve so ask your CAS adviser whether your activity meets more than one of them!