The gang over at The Sims Workshop is hard at work, and (hopefully) by next week should pump out version 0.8.4 of their all-in-one tool to use for The Sims 3!  Sims 3 Nieuws discovered a new update earlier today which shows off many of the new features and fixes for the tool.  Looking good, fellow Sim programmers!

Workshop Public Beta

It’s not quite ready yet, but we’re certainly getting real close now! The current public release is version 0.6.4 and the upcoming version is up to 0.8.4 – as you can imagine that means a LOT of changes and fixes has taken place. Here’s what you can expect:

User Interface:

  • A revamped more graphical GUI
  • All unnecessary clutter and information removed
  • New editor windows for patterns and textures with zoom and move functionality

CAS Creation support:

  • Unique hair, accessories and clothing meshes, with the exception of morph states
  • Flexible polycounts
  • New bone assignments
  • Animated hair

Object Creation support:

  • Most of the object types available in the game can be cloned/used as a base
  • Flexible polycounts
  • New bone assignments
  • Animated objects
  • Adding/deleting variations
  • Adjusting the footprint
  • Changing the Normal Map
  • Modular objects

Textures/Materials/Patterns:

  • Ability to set final texture sizes with Material Editor
  • Editing of Color and HSV patterns
  • Exchanging patterns with WSP format between projects
  • Possible to view and change material states (dirty and default)

Improved 3D preview:

  • New higher resolution rendering
  • Show/hide normals for the mesh
  • Show/hide footprints/slots
  • Show/hide all different LOD meshes
  • Show/hide the mesh wireframe
  • Improved shaders now supporting shadows, transparency and bumpmaps
  • Preview wall visible when editing wallmasks for windows, doors and arches

Overall Improvements:

  • Faster load times
  • New and improved Milkshape plugins for mesh export
  • Compression of .sims3package files
  • Ability to import .package files
  • A brand new Wiki section covering all creation processes and how to use the tool

Estimated release date is surprisingly soon – possibly even the coming week!