T A N N I C H T

For those of you looking for a Sims 3 camera mod that is not behind an early access pawall, here is a mod from @arro-now on Nexus mods:

I'm not going to be using mods unless they are available on the Steam Workshop, and I know that means I won't be using scripted mods. However, I want to support modders who are providing free mods to the community, so I wanted to give this a plug.

We're excited to announce that we've released our first hairstyle on Paralives! It's now available on the Steam Workshop and Patreon.

Please contact me if you have any questions. Thank you.

Playing with Reshade on feels dirty

The patch previously known as 1.5.1

Apologies for this taking forever and me disappearing off the face of the Earth, sorry if you've tried to DM me w/ issues, etc etc blablabla. I would like to say I'll be more active now but who knows, life is kind of sucky atm

New patches:

Mirror Reflection Settings - Tunes how far away mirror reflections stay visible. Push reflections out further (or rein them in if you've got a wall full of mirrors and want your frames back, mirrors are each their own little camera). Patch idea from Boring Bones

Animation Blend Tuning - Clamps animation blend (transition) durations to a min/max, so transitions that snap can be smoothed out and slow blends can be made snappier. Also includes a forceBlendOut option that lets through blend-out times the engine would otherwise discard. Big thanks to @thepancake1 for the patch!

Split-Level Lighting Fix - Makes lighting not stop at a single level - lot-bound lights now pass the engine's 'world light' filter in outdoor rooms and terrain lightmaps. May cause a bit of light bleed near walls/floors. All credits to Arro-Now!

Brady Bunch BEGONE - The engine fills unlit/dim rooms at night with a fake blue ambient (the "Brady Bunch Blue" apparently). This allows you to change them or to (ideally) zero the values so unlit rooms render without the gross blue glow. Patch idea from Arro ,thanks!

All four are experimental for now, they'll graduate one day...

Updates/Changes:

CPU Thread Optimization - Fixes Alder Lake+ CPU issues correctly now (hopefully).

Lighting Quality - Improved blur math precision to prevent color banding, plus an additional fix for rooms gradually darkening over repeated passes. Blur is now energy-preserving so it stops drifting the average brightness down.

Startup Warning Dialog Fix - New Hide Dialogue setting that prevents the dialog from being created at all, rather than making it visible.

So, I assume most of you don't know, but there is a bit of drama inside the Paralives community. It's funny because this whole thing is revolving around The Sims 3.

TwistedMexi made his first paywalled "early access" mod called Sims 3 Camera, and I've been working on the same thing as he was. 1. Let's get the "clone" allegation out of the way first.

(Source: TwistedMexi's discord server)

TwistedMexi is accusing me of cloning his mod, but let’s look at the facts. Thankfully, I always use GitHub, so the commit dates are there to prove it.

(2026-05-26 22:27:02 +0200) is a timestamp of the first commit with hash d82ddd909e06833b0f8d5d439ad602d04a4f3e08

(2026-05-27T19:57:44.000+00:00) is a timestamp of the publication date of his Patreon post.

Honestly, I didn't know I could see the future, but ok.

2. The second thing I want to address is that currently there are a lot of awful comments directed at Tmex. PLEASE do not harass other creators.

3. Regarding early access and paywalls: My mods are developed in my spare time as a passion project. I believe in keeping my work accessible to everyone, which is why all of my content will remain completely free, forever. I believe the community should play a role in maintaining projects if the original creator steps away, which is why I always share the source code for my projects Free mods are a pillar of a healthy community, whereas paywalls only lead to gatekeeping and unnecessary drama. My hope is that more creators choose to release their mods in a way that prioritizes community growth and shared resources.

A reblog would be greatly appreciated to help spread this message.

Thanks for reading,

Apparently there's a limit of 50 mods (downloaded from the workshop) to be loaded at a time by Paralives. Downloaded Households and Lots count to that limit unfortunately. So if you have mods disappearing from the game and not showing up in the "Mods" list, that's probably why (it was happening to me and was driving me CRAZY).

EDIT:

Someone made a plugin where you can install plugin mods for the game, including one to REMOVE the 50 limit for workshop downloads! Here (click) is the link for the plugin!

From inside the game, on the main menu go to Mods > Plugin Hub and there you'll find the option to install the Workshop mods limit fix.

Thanks @honowo for sharing! 🫶

Below the cut is the previous workaround I had posted.

Can we pls stop calling paralives the sims killer/comparing it to the sims and let it be its own game for once? The same thing happened with Inzoi and that ended up not well received because ppl was expecting too much out of it for an early access game coupled with the fact that the graphics are too hard to handle on most computers.

The Sims, Inzoi, and Paralives are three different games within the same genre. Ppl who have only played the sims seem to be the only ones that have this problem of not being able to separate games. Ppl compare open world rpg games with GTA all the time, but they also acknowledge that Red Dead Redemptiom and GTA5 are completely different.

What I’m saying is comparing is not the sole issue that I have with the sims vs paralives vs inzoi argument. It’s expecting each of these games to be the same as the sims but in a different flavor, which leads to bad first impressions when confronted with the fact that they’re vastly different.

A person who only been playing gta games their entire life would not go into RDR expecting there to be upgraded cars or modern weapons. This problem where ppl expect the same features to be in totally different games is literally only in the sims community and it gets annoying to see😭

I’ve been looking through vids about paralives and have come across so many that is treating paralives as if it is another part of the sims franchise.

Peeped at Display Depth to see what the depth buffer looks like in game and I don't see the parafolks?!

I'm using a fairly shallow DOF to show you what I'm talking about. Anything in the Depth of Focus should be IN FOCUS, and anything in front and back of this should be OUT OF FOCUS. Since the depth buffer doesn't see the parafolks -just the background- you get wonk like seen above where it doesn't account for the person so parts that should be in focus are out and parts that should be out are in.

What it should look like is something more like this

I'm guessing this will be fixed in the future since photo mode as a DOF setting.

for example:

Ginny took a deep breath, willing herself to shut down the butterflies she felt building in her stomach. This was her first big trip with a horse of her own for a clinic such as this. Following a win in the CTJL circuit, Ginny was offered a sponsorship that brought Z into her life. Zinzano L was originally meant to be a dressage horse, but the gelding made it clear he was not super interested in showing off his fancy footwork. Now, Ginny has been working hard to convert him into a show jumper. Not only was this a big milestone for her professional riding career, but it held a little extra weight. She knew Z's breeder, Therese Lind, was in the crowd. Tess hadn't seen Z in person since his sale, and Ginny hoped that she could impress Tess with how far he had come. While they had kept in touch with texts on his progress, she couldn't wait for them to reunite in the stables after her ride. One thing Ginny continued to need to spend a lot of time with Z on was his enthusiasm for leaving the ground. Trot poles, raised cavalettis, a small crossrail. Often in his mind, they all were as exciting as a 3' oxer, and he was eager to show off his scope. By the end of the first day, Philippa's guidance had Z putting in a normal amount of effort into the poles. However, he still was eager about the cavalettis, and popped over them with a little more pizzazz than it necessarily called for—often treating them like little jumps.

Mallory West on SY Ego, 2024