How to Make a Pose: From Start to Finish

This is a step-by-step guide to how I make my poses. A lot of the in-depth tutorials are videos, I don't really like video tutorials and I prefer written ones so I'm writing one. This will teach you how to make a pose that is compatible with either Andrew's Pose Player or the one that comes with WickedWhims/WonderfulWhims

UPDATE: 25/07/25: I have had at least 3 hits from ChatGPT on this blog. If this is a result from one of you running this through ChatGPT to summarise it - DO NOT RUN ANY OF THIS BLOG THROUGH AI. I explain things at length to ensure CLARITY OF INSTRUCTION. If you screw up your project because you let your misinformation robot friend summarise the thing I spent HOURS writing, don't come crying to me asking for further help. And don't ask your misinformation robot friend for help either - READ THE DAMN TUTORIAL.

UPDATES:
- 25/07/23- Replaced the CTRL + A 'select all' on rig keyboard shortcut with the CORRECT shortcut which is just the A key.
- 26/07/23- added Horse and Foal to the Blank Rigs zip folders and a SFS link.
- 04/11/24- added a link to Mouse controls, and cleaned up and made things clearer.

Contents: (Use CTRL + F)

1. Ripping your Sim using the SimRipper
2. Importing the custom rig into Blender
3. Posing the Armature / Rig: The Basics
4. Posing the Armature / Rig: Step by Step
5. Inserting the pose into a Pose Pack
6. Tips, Common Issues and Fixes

YOU WILL NEED:

Blender (Download this one specifically, 2.79 since it's what I'll be using.)
SimRipper (We'll use this to rip a Sim from your game to pose with.)
Sims 4 Studio (Needed to make the pose pack and export the rigs.)
Blank Rigs .zip file (You can get them from Sims 4 Studio, but I saved you the hassle. It has a rig for Adult, Child, Infant, Toddler, all dogs, cat and kitten, Horse and Foal.)
ALTERNATE MEDIAFIRE DOWNLOAD: Blank Rigs
Blender 2.79 manual (optional)
PureRef - For our reference photo.
Andrew's Pose Player- to 'play' the pose and test it.
(If you already have WickedWhims/WonderfulWhims and want to use the Pose Player built into that, then you can do that too.)
GIMP or equivalent image editor (it's just to crop and resize a screenshot, so if you use another program that does this, use that one.)

The Adult Rig in the Blank Rigs .zip already has the fingers and jaw axis-locked to prevent them from going off in weird directions (this'll make more sense later.)

Quick Glossary

Rig: The digital 'wire armature' you move to create your poses for the game.
Mesh: The 3d model parts that cover the rig to form the person or animal.
Keyframe: The 'main' frames of the 'animation'. (We'll only need one keyframe for this.)
Axis: The 3 directions you can move the rig / 3d model around in the 3d space.
Joint: How I refer to each bodily 'point' on the rig.
Clipping: Parts of the body cutting into each other, or clothing / other elements cutting into one another.
3D Viewpoint: When I refer to this, I am referring to your view of the 3d model and surrounding elements as you use Blender. When I talk about moving the 3d viewpoint around, I mean using the mouse, laptop trackpad etc. to change your view of the 3d model.

1. Ripping your Sim using the SimRipper

A lot of people make their poses using the 'base' Adult Rig that exports from Sims 4 Studio, which looks like the image below of 'just some guy'. However, you can export a .dae file of a Sim of your choice to use as the model for the rig, which in my opinion is more fun! But there's more to it than that. A lot of people find it easier to just pose the base rig, but here's a list of reasons why it can be easier using a custom rig:

Not bearing clothing in mind. I find that a lot of poses made using the base rig often don't consider that depending on the poses you're making, there's also going to be clothing on the Sim most of the time. Meaning things like folded arms, hands on hips etc. can cause a lot of clothing clipping. Using a clothed custom Sim can help you pose bearing clothing in mind, helping prevent clipping.
It allows you to make a pose that will suit your Sim's body size. Do you get fed up of every single pose clipping majorly on fat Sims? Or even on your Sims that are more than 5% up the weight slider? Using a custom rig can help with that because you have your actual Sim's body shape and size right there in Blender.
It's easier to see how good your poses will look in-game. Especially when it comes to expressions, something that might look good on the blank rig might look not-so-good on your Sims in-game.

The base Adult Rig, as exported from Sims 4 Studio. Just some guy.

So we're going to use one of our own Sims!

NOTE: Some people do find it easier posing the nude default rig Sim. There is a drawback to using custom rigs that I forgot to mention before, and that is what looks good on your Sim might not suit others so well. There's no such thing as a one-size-fits-all pose, but some things might not look good on your other Sims. For example, one of my Sims has fairly angry looking eyebrows. So when I made angry poses using him as the base they looked good, when I used it on other Sims with less specific eyebrow shapes, those Sims just looked mildly irritated. For the sake of learning though we're going to use SimRipper.

1. Open the SimRipper.

The SimRipper window when you first open it.

2. Press 'Select' at the top and select the save game in your Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 4 > saves folder. (The one at the top is usually the latest one. If not, right click > Sort by > Date Modified.

3. Once you open your save, every Sim in that save will come up in the sidebar on the left. You can sort by last or first name. Find the Sim that you want to use and then click. Then wait patiently for your Sim to appear.

Our Sim in all their glory!

Things you might want to change:

Occult: Allows you to change the form with occults (like if you want to download your vampire's dark form.)
Outfit: Allows you to select one of the in-game outfits. Be patient, they take some time to load.
Pregnant: Changes the Sim to show as pregnant, with the stage decided by how far you move the slider across. This is useful for if you want to make pregnancy poses.

4. For now, just select what outfit you want. Then-

Where it says Texture Size, change it to HQ.
Change the drop-down above 'Blender joint Size' to 'Solid and glass meshes and textures'. This means if your Sim has glasses on, you can just delete the glass layer in Blender, so you can pose the eyes.
Then, the button at the top that says 'DAE', save your model as a .dae file.

I suggest saving all of your posing material in a separate folder, so make a folder just for this tutorial.

2. Importing the custom rig into Blender

Now it's time to open Blender. Click the Blank Adult Rig and open it up in Blender.

IMPORTANT NOTES regarding Controls and Theme colours

Blender is much, much easier to navigate and use with a mouse as I have recently found out. Here are the mouse controls for Blender.
If you don't use a mouse, don't worry! Go to File > User Preferences. Then go to 'Input'. On the left you'll see a tick-box saying 'Emulate 3 button mouse.' Click it. You'll need it if you don't have a mouse.
There's more on Emulating a 3 Button Mouse here. If you don't have a NumPad (the horizontal numbers on the right-hand side of most keyboards) you can also Emulate NumPad, meaning you can use your normal numbers on the keyboard in place of the NumPad.
The controls for moving the 3d viewpoint around with the emulated 3 button mouse are as follows:
(For clarification, LEFT KEY and RIGHT KEY refer to the two 'mouse button' keys on the bottom of a laptop trackpad or similar.

Holding ALT and using the LEFT KEY will rotate the 3d view around.
Pressing 5 on the NumPad (the number keys on the right-hand side of your keyboard) will switch between Perspective and Ortho view mode. The other buttons on the Numpad you'll need are: 7- Top view. 1- Front view. 9- Left view. 3- Right view.
Hold CTRL and ALT and move the LEFT KEY to zoom in and out.
Hold down CTRL and on the right-hand Numpad, the 4,8,6 and 2 keys will pan the screen left, up, right and down respectively.

If you want to change the colours in Blender...

There are preset colour themes you can choose from, or you can change every colour of the theme to whichever you prefer. Pick something that's easy for you to see.

Plenty of options to change various colours. If you look on the left, you might also want to change the User Interface and Text Style colours.

One thing you MIGHT have trouble seeing depending on your Sim is the rig and the active 'joint pose' (the little circle that represents the points on the rig.) Go to 3D view on the side and scroll down until you find 'joint Pose' and 'joint Solid'.

I SUGGEST KEEPING the active joint pose light blue, as I refer to this throughout the tutorial.

You may also want to change the background colour. Whilst 3D View is still selected on the theme, go down to 'Theme Background Colour.' You might want a lighter background colour to help you see the 'floor' line for posing.

Once you've picked a theme, then you can go back to the 3D view. I usually use Dark Mode, but for the sake of clarity for this tutorial I'll use a grey layout.

Opening the blank rig in Blender.

This is what you're met with when you open the Blank Adult Rig.
First thing's first- importing your custom rig into Blender.

Look at the box in the top-right corner, the Outliner box. All those parts with upside-down orange triangles are the parts of the mesh that form the 'human shell' of the rig armature.
Right-click and delete all of them so you're left with the wireframe.

The Outliner window has all the elements of the 'scene', including the rig and the body mesh.

DON'T DELETE THE RIG, whatever you do!

Once you've deleted all 3 bottoms, both heads, feet, teeth and top, go to File > Import > Collada (default) (.dae). Then import your .dae file.

NOTE: There's a weird chance that your .dae file might import incorrectly. I don't know why this happens, but it occasionally happens to me. If it does, repeat the step to downloading the .dae file and download a fresh one.

We want to DELETE the rig.001. KEEP THE one that just says 'rig'!

If all went right, your Sim will appear in a T-pose in the 3d viewer.

Go back to the Outliner box. You'll see a new Lamp appear, with a curve and an arrow pointing down. I would say to delete this curve-shaped lamp, it makes things too bright. Then, delete the new rig (Delete the rig.001, NOT the one just called 'rig').

Another object will appear with your Sim's name next to it. It usually seems to appear above the lamps. It'll have a upside-down orange triangle icon. Click it.

Now, go to the box below the Outliner and select the little wrench icon. Now we're going to bind this 3d model of your Sim to the rig, meaning your Sim will move along with the rig.

Do not click 'apply' here!

If there's one that says (Sim's name)_glass and your Sim is wearing glasses (or some other part of their outfit that uses glass or glass shaders), delete the one with _Glass on it. If your Sim's wearing glasses you'll need to delete it anyway so you can pose the eyes.

Select the remaining mesh, which just has your Sim's name.
Find the wrench icon as pictured above (should be in the bottom right corner box).
Where it says 'Object' and there's a little box, click the little box. A drop-down will come up. You'll see 'rig' in the dropdown.
Click it so it says 'rig' in the box like above. DO NOT CLICK 'APPLY!'

I forgot to mention earlier- if you move your mouse to the edges of the 3d view, outlier etc, you'llsee your cursor turn into a sort of 'double arrow' shape and you can change the size of each window. You might want to move the Outliner outwards so a bit so it's wider and you can see the Search box.

Now to test and see if your Sim moves along with the rig.

Click a random joint on the Rig.
You might need to zoom in closer so you can see the little round points on the rig (which I'll be referring to as the joins throughout the tutorial) and right-click it. It will turn blue.
The name of the joint will come up in the bottom-left corner of the 3d view.
Now, press the R key and move on your trackpad/mouse. If the Sim moves as well as the rig, amazing! Press ESC to cancel or CTRL + Z to Undo.

Now, SAVE your .blend file, and SAVE a backup as well.

3. Posing the armature / rig- Basics

Now we move on to creating our actual pose- the fun part!

Make sure your Outlier box looks like THIS below before posing.

Select rig, then select Pose. Both should be highlighted. If you are selecting joints and they're coming up blue, then you're all good.
If your rig is coming up with orange dots when you select the joints, it means you've selected the RIG but not the POSE underneath. So make sure POSE and RIG is highlighted.

Make sure both the 'rig' and 'pose' are highlighted!

Now, we're going to mark our keyframe. We need this for the pose to be imported into Sims 4 Studio, let alone work at all. If the Timeline at the bottom isn't visible, hold your mouse just above the row of numbers and left-click and drag up, so you can see the row of bars above the row of numbers. Your timeline will look like this.

The green line on the timeline is your cursor.

Now, the way I was taught to do this was to set the End Frame at 80 and the Keyframe at 79. You may see this in some of my screenshots as a result. Turns out, a lot of other pose tutorials and my friend shanisims who helped me, told me this isn't necessary. So don't touch the keyframes. Leave the Start at 0, and the end at 1 as it it when you open the Blank Adult Rig.

Every now and again while posing, press the A key.
If you did it righ,t the whole pose will light up in blue.
Then with your cursor inside the 3D view window and with the pose selected, press the I key.
A drop-down will appear near your cursor. Then click LocRot on the drop-down list.
If you move the green cursor on the Timeline, you'll see a little yellow mark on the keyframe. What this does, it locks your pose in place.
After you LocRot, Save your .blend file.
Every now and again I like to LocRot the entire pose to the same keyframe (should be 0) and then Save the .blend file for paranoia's sake, so I'll remind you to do the same.

Before we start posing, some general controls and tips to start you off. (I know, I said we were about to start posing, but hang on.)

THE BASICS OF POSING

These are all the general basics to making poses as well as a few helpful tips.

Selecting a joint involves right-clicking it until it turns blue.
When right-clicking a joint, try not to drag it with the right or left key, otherwise you'll distort the limb...or, depending on how many joints you have select, possibly you may distort the entire 3D mesh and end up with some abomination looking like a Final Fantasy 7 midboss as a result. If that happens, just click the Left key to stop the drag, then press CTRL + Z.)

Once you get used to posemaking, you can get away with a little bit of this (sometimes I'll slightly pull legs or arms out in a way that's not too noticeable to fit a certain type of pose.)
Here is a list of all the joints on an adult Sim's 'skeleton'.
This is designed moreso for people making CC clothes, but it's nice to have a list. If you don't know what the joint controls, then best bet is to not touch it. Some joints are hard to pinpoint by looking- the Outlier has a Search bar for those. We'll come to that later.

Be sure not to move any joints that are labelled as 'CAS'.
The b_ROOT_bind is the 'root' of your Sim and moves the Sim's entire body around.
If you select this point, 3 arrows will come up- red green and blue. These are the X,Y and Z axis. You can click these arrows to move the Sim across the axis. You can also use G to move it around more freely, but this can easily lead to distortion.

Click R once to rotate a body part in one direction. Click R again to have more freedom of rotation. Go careful with this though, because you don't want too-distorted limbs. (You may need to move the 3d view around to get the simple one-click rotation to 'move' in the right direction.)

As well as selecting one joint on a rig with your right-click, you can select multiple at a time in a few ways:
- Press B and drag the selection box over the joint you want to select all at once.
- If you have a joint selected, right-click another joint to select both at once. (Right-click again to deselect it.)
- Press the A key to select every joint.

The clipboards above the timeline will come in useful throughout all your posing.

If you want to copy/paste selected joints onto the rig, then use the clipboards above the timeline. Left one copies, and the one in the middle pastes. I always copy the whole rig now and again whilst posing in case I screw it up and need to 'reset' it. This is also useful if you're 'frankenposing' from an exported EA animation or editing someone else's pose, though frankenposing isn't something we'll discuss in detail now.
If you need to reset a joint on the rig (or multiple) select all points and then click ALT + R and it'll reset all the joints back to their normal position. (Note that this will only reset rotation, and not anything you've moved with the G key or the axis.
The 'Transform' sidebar right next to the Outlier is shown below...if you see where it says Rotation, you can lock a joint so it can only rotate in certain directions on certain axes. The ONLY joints I do this with are the outer 2 joints of the fingers, and the jaw.

- I lock the W,X and Y axis on all of them to prevent any wonkiness. Some people also do it to the knuckles, but I don't because generally the 'bases' of your fingers have more movement whereas the middle and end of the finger do not.
(If you're using the Blank Adult Rig from the folder linked in the 'YOU WILL NEED' section, the fingers and jaw are already axis-locked so you don't need to do this.

You can use G and the axis to move joints around as well, but this WILL cause distortion and you often don't need to do this at all to the limb joints unless you're moving the 'root-bind' or you're height-adjusting a pose, which won't be covered in this tutorial.
HOWEVER, when you're editing expressions and so long as you're viewing the face head-on in Ortho mode (discussed more later), using the G point to move facial points about a bit is fine, so long as you don't go too wild.

See that orange dot by your Sim's feet? DO NOT MOVE IT! That's the main root of your pose and it must stay there.
See the line under your Sim's feet? That represents the in-game floor. Anything that goes below that line will go through the floor in-game so keep it above that line unless for some reason, you have to go below the floor.
Press CTRL + Z to Undo.
If you ever click away from your current keyframe and accidentally remove pose progress as a result, just click CTRL + Z until your pose comes back. Try not to click away from keyframe 0.

Okay, NOW to start posing!

Find a reference image.
I don't always use reference images, but I do for unfamiliar poses and complex poses. Always use a ref if you need to! A lot of creators (and by extension, artists) will often say they never use reference images! But if it's your first time, you'll have much better results. I remember in my being in art community days, people seem to think references are 'cheating' and so never EVER use them... and the results often show. So find a reference pic for the sort of pose that you'd like to make.

Now, open PureRef. Paste your reference picture in and resize it to whatever size is best for you. CTRL + Shift + A will enable the PureRef window to always be on top, which is great whilst you're posing. CTRL + Shift + A again will disable it, so feel free to disable / enable as needed. Move the edges of the window so the window is the right size.

Right-click and drag the PureRef window to move it around the screen.

(You can also Save PureRef files with your reference images on to open again later).

4. Posing the armature / rig: Step by Step

Okay, NOW we're going to do some actual posing... Honest!
Make sure you've got your reference in PureRef, Enabled on Top.

1. Press 7 on the right-hand NumPad so the view is moved to the very top. It should say 'User Ortho' in the top-right corner of the 3d view.

- Select the b_ROOT_bind on the Outlier with the left mouse key. The joint should come up light blue on the rig.
- Then click R, BUT ONLY ONCE, and turn the Sim so they are facing to the left slightly.
- Now press 1 on the right-hand NumPad to reset the view back to normal.

It should look something like this:

To add a little 'fluidness' to our pose we're also going to move the legs a bit. One of my issues with many poses is stiffness, which we don't want.

2. Use the 3 key on the right-hand NumPad so the Sim is facing entirely to the left-hand side of the screen. If not, keep pressing the 6 key on the NumPad until they are.
- Go to the Search box on the Outlier box. Type 'thigh'. Select the 'b_L_Thigh_' joint. (Make sure you select the joint and not the Vertex Group at the top.)
(You can also select this off the rig itself, but my Sim has dark trousers on and I couldn't be bothered to keep clicking until I got the right joint.) XD

You can use the Search bar to find any joint on the rig, so use this if one is hard to click.

Now click R and lift the leg a little bit. Now, click ) or search) for the b_L_Calf_ and press R and move that forward a little. Lastly, click or search for the b_L_Foot and move that so it's 'flat'. You should get something close to the example on the right.

After moving the thigh.

After moving the calf and foot.

Now select the b_ROOT_bind again, and click the blue arrow. Lower it until the higher-up foot is flat against the 'floor' of Blender.

Now press the 4 key until your Sim is completely facing the right, and in this order:
- select the b_R_Thigh, press R once, and move it backwards a little.
- select the b_R_Calf, press R once, and move it backwards a little.
- select the b_R_Foot, press R once and rotate it so it's level with the other foot.

As you can see, it's not quite level, so keep rotating those above points listed above (the left and right thigh, calf and foot) until it is. (If you want, you can use the Toe joint and rotate that to have the Sim stand on a slight tip-toe on one foot.) I moved the foot back and the toe so it was flat against the ground. One shoe is very slightly into the floor, but not by enough that'd be an issue in-game.

Once you're satisfied, go to the Timeline. Make sure the current frame is set to 0 (that's the number that's in the box with the left and right arrows to the side), move your cursor into the 3d view, then press I, then click LocRot, then Save your .blend file.

If you accidentally set more than one keyframe, move the green cursor along to the yellow-line (the keyframe) you want to remove, and then move your cursor into the 3D view. Press Alt+I. It'll say 'Delete keyframe?' then click OK.

3. Use the NumPad keys to turn your Sim until you're facing the 'front' of the pose (remember, the 'front' of this pose will look something like this since our Sim is turned to the left slightly.)

With the 3d view controls provided earlier, zoom in and pan the 3d view up so we can see the torso clearly.

We're going to twist the torso a little so it's turning forwards. This is a bit easier since the joints are easy to reach. The joint you see in blue is Spine0. The middle is Spine1, the top next to the chest is Spine2. The woman in the reference picture is leaning to the side, so we're going to make the Sim do just that.

Using the R key (pressing it only once with each joint) lean the Spine0, Spine1 and Spine2 slightly to the right. Your result should resemble below. Then, A key.

Make sure your keyframe is 0, press I key in the 3D view, click LocRot in the drop-down, then Save your .blend again.

Now the trickier part...the arms, so I've provided a .gif to show you what to do.

- If you right-click the elbow and it comes up with an Elbow joint, right-click it again until it says Forearm. I'll describe what I've done here shown on the .gif:

See the two side joints just above Spine2? They're the Clavicles. Moving the clavicles adds a little character so I lifted the one on the right a little. I also lifted the left down whilst making the .gif. This looked awful and I changed it after.
I click R once on the right shoulder to move the arm down.
I click R once on the right forearm (Not elbow joint!) to move the arm up. I then click R again to free-rotate it slightly. (Don't do this too much or you'll distort the limbs.)
I then move the same joints on the left arm.

I then use my 3d view to see what it looks like from the side. As you can see, the lowered clavicle looks bad. I should have lowered the shoulder. Also the left arm is too far from the body.
( The shoulder joints are called UpperArm.)

Sorry I broke your shoulder, Clem...

I use ALT + R to reset the clavicle.
I rotate the shoulder down so the arm is closer to the body, then click R to free-rotate it a little.

Rotating the shoulder out a little, as well as the forearm and wrist to prevent too much 'twistiness' on the elbows.

The 'elbow' joint right next to the Forearm joint can also be moved if you want them to look less 'crumpled', this guide will explain how to move the Elbow joint and it's really simple to do. Sometimes it's a visible difference, sometimes not.

Then rotate the 3d view back to the 'front' - looks much better. But there's still a problem- the 'twisty elbow' on the left arm. That's because I didn't rotate the shoulder inwards, which I should have done. I just rotated the forearm too much...the thing I told you not to do, believe it or not...

When rotating the elbow / wrist, always rotate the shoulder joint a little first, then the forearm, then the wrist. Or you end up with twisty elbow / twisty wrist. I find the elbows always look a bit distorted, but lessening the distortion always helps.

Now the fingers. Rotate your 3d view freely until it's more or less on top of one of the hands.
Then we 'curl' all of the fingers in except for the top Index finger.
Rotate the knuckles first (these are Mid/Ring/Pinky0).
Then rotate the Mid/Ring/Pinky1, and then the same for the 2, the very tip of the finger.
You may need to move the 3d view around to rotate and adjust any wonkiness caused by moving the knuckles. If you accidentally move the Index finger, select the Index finger joints and then click Alt + R.

Rotate the end of the thumb up a little, and then rotate the forearms so the arms are pointing up a little.

Then, rotate the Hand joints b_L_Hand and b_R_Hand down ever so slightly. Your pose should look a bit like this:

Now we move on to...Expressions. Again, it's not something a lot of pose creators often change much unless it's a storytelling pose. My big guide to expressions is here with links to .blend files for each of them. I definitely recommend reading it, and I also recommend playing around with the expressions in those .blend files and seeing what you come up with.

First! Make sure Keyframe is on 0, then press the A key, move cursor into the 3D view, click I, LocRot, Save again!

So first, we're going to select / search for the Head joint. When you find it in the Outlier, Rotate it so it's facing downwards a little, like our reference photo. (You may need to do this a few times to get the position right, by free-rotating, stopping, and free-rotating again.

Now we're going to change the Eyes position. Make sure that you are in Ortho mode (check the top left corner says User Ortho) and that your 3d view is set at the very front of your pose (remember our Sim is turned left slightly!) otherwise your Sim's eyes won't face forward.

The two little circles in the middle near the top controls the sort of 'origins' of the rotation.

IMPORTANT: Before you move the eyes, see those two little circles next to the red and white one? Click that and set it to 'Individual Origins' if it isn't set to it already. Otherwise the eyes won't move properly. The above setting is 'Individual Origins', the two white circles with blue squares inside.

Now in the Outlier box, search 'Eye'.
- left-click the joints for b_L_Eye and b_R_Eye so they are both selected. Then click R twice and free-rotate the eyes so they are facing forward.

The difference between Perspective and Ortho mode is outlined here. Ortho mode is MUCH EASIER for editing expressions. Never edit expressions in Perspective mode. Ortho mode is 'flatter' for a simpler explanation therefore good for posing expressions.

NOTE: If you move the eyes and the eyes come out of the socket slightly (like above) don't worry, this won't come up in-game.

Hopefully your Sim's expression looks something like this. Now, move the 3d view whilst in Ortho Mode so that you have your Sim's facial shape fully in view, like so:

You need the 3d view view so that your sim's actual head is completely facing forward, not at an angle, like above. We're going to be moving the facial points around, and if you do that at an angle you can end up with some wonkiness like jutting-out eyelids and eyebrows.

A bad example of that is from my very first pose pack, the old version of 'Dark Magic'. I lowered the eyebrows in Perspective Mode, and as you can see they're pulled outwards which was completely unintentional. Apparently dark magic makes the eyebrows protrude further and further forward. : P

I'm going to go through in steps how I create the expression. Make sure to look at the .gif to see every step in action. I am aiming for the same 'dead inside' smile as is on our stock model for now.

UPDATE: 20/11/23: I realise that my usage of the G key has led to a lot of expression abnormalities in my poses, so in hindsight, try to use the arrow axes more to move facial features instead of the G key to help prevent distortion.

First off, I select the Jaw joint, and I press R twice to rotate it down a little, so the top and bottom teeth are still touching.
Then, using the G key, I move the b_R_Mouth and the b_L_Mouth out a little and up to form the smile corners.
I then pull both of the UpLip joints up a little, and both of the LoLip ones down a little to form the awkward 'I don't want to be here' toothy 'smile'.
I then go to the Outlier box and search 'Lid'. You want to left-click b_L_UpLid and then left-click b_R_UpLid, so they are both select at the same time. Then either:
- press R twice to lift the eyelids up a little, going careful not to move them to the sides too much.
- use the blue axis to move the eyelids up (what I did in the tutorial).
I'll be honest, I'm not sure which of these methods is better, but I find rotating causes less possible distortion, so maybe do that instead of use the axis for the eyelids.
I then turn the 3d view so we can see the face from the side, and then using G, I carefully pull both UpLip points and both LoLip points back a bit so they're not sticking out. Do a toothy grin to yourself now (and hope no one is watching) and you'll feel how your lips pull back a little.

To preview your pose without the rig on it, the quickest way to do this is:

If you see the little bar to the right of the 3D view (where it has the rotation and the locks), if you scroll down on it you'll see a little drop-down that says 'Display'.
Click it to bring up the drop-down menu. You'll see a checkbox that says 'Only Render', Click it to see it as just the 3d model posed.
when you're in Only Render mode, if you want to get rid of the axis arrows, just click one of the Lamps in the Outlier and that ought to do it. (Just be sure to click RIG and then POSE again before you start adding finishing touches to the pose.)

I unticked the 'Only Render' box to bring the pose rig back to the screen. I moved the eyes a little again so they're facing forwards a bit more. It looks pretty good so far! But I've decided I want to add a little more liveliness to the pose. So we're also going to move the eyebrows!

One of my most important tips for posing the face is to pay attention to multiple parts of the face, as opposed to just the lip corners and the eyebrows. (There's more about this in the big expressions guide I linked earlier.)

I've also improved the toothy smile. I raised the mouth corners again. I also moved the middle lip joints as well. I moved b_UpLip up, and b_LoLip down to make the smile more toothy. For the eyebrows, I selected both of the inner brow joints and moved them up using the blue axis arrow. Here's the result!

'Wicked. Now can you stop shoving me around in this grey box?'

Looks pretty good! Now, go to Keyframe 0 on the timeline again, press the A key, then put your cursor in the 3D view, then click I, then LocRot. Then Save your blend. We're going to call this finished.
Whilst still in Pose Mode, press A key and then CTRL + C to Copy the entire pose in case there's an issue in the next step.

Press the Play button on the timeline. It should be completely still. If it isn't you've added one too many keyframes, so go back to earlier in the tutorial where I tell you how to delete a keyframe if you make one too many. The only keyframe you need is on 0.

Now to put this in a Pose Pack.

5. Inserting the pose into a Pose Pack

First, we want a nice preview picture for our pose. IT NEEDS TO BE 64 X 64. You can either PrintScreen to do this and then crop it in your image editor, or you can use a screen cropping / snipping tool. I'll be using Windows's Snipping Tool for this. Get a clear shot of the main feature of your pose (here it's the waist upward) and then import it into your image editor.

I just Copied it from the Snipping Tool, then put it in GIMP by going to File > Create > From Clipboard.

If you PrintScreened or took a large screenshot, use the Square Select tool to select a rough square with the Sim in it. Then go to Image > Crop to Selection.

Now, go to Image > Scale Image.

MAKE SURE the little chain link next to 'px' is as it is shown above. If it is separated, click it so it isn't.
Resize one of the numbers to 64.
- If the other number then ends up smaller than 64, then change that smaller number to 64 instead, and then after that, click back into the other box.( I'm making this as easy as I can for people with little experience in image-editing programs, hence why we're doing it this way. Once you've done that, click Scale.)

Now, you see the percentage numbers at the bottom of the window? That's your Zoom level. Click it and zoom in up to 800%. Now, use the Square Select tool and select a 64 X 64 box. (Keep an eye on the numbers at the bottom that will tell you the size of your selection as you are dragging the box.)

Keep an eye on the dimensions at the bottom as you drag the box!

Once you're done, go to Image > Crop to Selection. Then, go to Image > Scale Image, but we're only doing this just to check the image dimensions and nothing else.
- BOTH numbers should be 64 X 64. If they aren't, cancel Scale Image and press CTRL + Z to Undo the crop.

If they're both 64, great! Cancel Scale Image. Go to File > Export...and Export the file with .png at the end of the filename. A box will come up saying 'Export Image as PNG.' Don't change anything and just click Export.

Now we open Sims 4 Studio!

Where it says 'Animation' at the top, make sure the black dot is in Clip Pack. Then click 'Animation'. Save the .package file in your Mods folder under a file name you'll remember.

Make sure your Name and Pose description are clear, otherwise you'll confuse the people that use your poses.

Here's some tips on how to make your pose packs clear and easy to use.

- Name your Pose Pack something clear, with your Simblr name / creator name and a name for the pose pack.
- In the Description, write a description for your pose. This should normally tell you what the pose pack is, but since this is a tutorial I'm keeping it simple.
- The Icon will be the one that represents the entire pose pack itself. Just Import the .png you made for the pose. MAKE SURE it's the 64 X 64 pic!

Now click the Clips tab. You will see your pose is immediately represented by the pack icon. To have an individual icon for the pose itself, Import a 64 X 64 .png into the box on the right.

Next to where it says 'Adult Female' , it will say 'Blank Clip'. The 'Adult Female' drop-down menu doesn't matter, because that's to do with EXporting a rig, and not the IMported rig.
Now, click Import and select your .blend file.
(If a pop-up comes up telling you there's no keyframe, go back into Blender and ...you guessed it. Current Frame 0, cursor in 3D view, press I, LocRot, Save!
If it comes up with the .blend name, it's worked! So, now Save the package.

For future reference, the 'Add' button on the right is for adding multiple poses for the pose pack. You can add a different preview pic to each one. You can also change the order of the poses in the pack by dragging the boxes around on the Clips tab.

If your .blend file's name has come up next to the drop-down menu, great stuff, it's imported!

Now let's test it in-game with the Pose Player of your choice! If you've never used a Pose Player before, download Andrew's Pose Player from the link in the 'YOU WILL NEED' section. (This guide assumes you know how to download and use mods in general).

- Select a Sim in-game. On the wheel around the Sim, select 'Pose by Pack'. All of the pose packs in your Mods folder will appear. Find yours, click it, and then click the specific pose inside the pose pack. Once you've done that, click the Exit cross twice.

This is why you name your pose pack something clear...If you're a storyteller / screenshotter-type, you can easily get lost when navigating through hundreds of pose packs.

Then your Sim will (almost straight away) do the pose!

If worked, great stuff! You made your first pose! It looks pretty good, but I do notice one thing that could be better: The knuckles on the hand on the right are too flat, I think.

You can also export EA clips using Sims 4 Studio and then edit animations and copy-paste poses from EA animations to use as a base for poses you might need for a story or something. A list of all animations in the game can be found here.

NOTE: If you want to play around with some of my own pose packs, you are welcome to, SO LONG AS YOU FOLLOW THESE RULES:

- you MUST give me credit for the original pose / pose pack in your download post and in the Pose Pack description box.

- you can share them with other people and post them online and reupload to MediaFire, SimFileShare etc. but DO NOT CHARGE FOR ANY POSE PACK YOU MAKE WHERE AN EDIT OF MY POSE/S ARE INCLUDED. No Early Access, No Boosty, No AdFly.

- DO NOT edit my poses to display any pose or gesture etc. that is strongly associated with real-life hate groups, and do not edit any of my poses in a way that places a child or toddler Sim in any kind of sexual situation or context. By extension no poses that put any minor and an adult Sim in any kind of sexual situation.

You can download this pose to play around with here on MediaFire or here on SimFileShare!

(If your sim is T-posing, you likely forgot to import the .blend on the Clips page earlier, so go back and do that.)

Now you have the freedom to make any pose you might need for your Sims, story, etc, and the freedom to make personal edits of poses you already have- maybe you want to change some expressions, or edit your model poses so they fit your body presets you use properly. The possibilies are endless!

6. Tips, Common Issues and Fixes

I've already said most of these tips throughout this tutorial, but I am reiterating some of them here for clarity.

Tips

Always keep backup .blends in case something goes wrong.
Every now and again, save your pose to the keyframe 0 which I mention how to do throughout this guide. This locks your pose in so it saves correctly. If you don't you may end up with one of the issues presented below.
If you're stuck for ideas, References for poses can be found in all sorts of places- film stills, model photos, video game character art, get creative!

Common Issues and Fixes

POSE COMING UP AS T-POSE IN-GAME
- This is usually because you forgot to import the .blend in Sims 4 Studio. On the Clips tab, make sure you have Imported the .blend. The .blend's file name will come up. If it says 'Blank Clip' then you forgot to import the .blend.
POSE PACK PREVIEW IMAGES DON'T APPEAR
- This is usually because the image you used isn't exactly 64 X 64, or it's because you forgot to put the preview image in.
THE POSE DOESN'T SAVE WHEN YOU SAVE THE .BLEND FILE
- When this happens to me, it's because I didn't save the pose to the keyframe. So, once you do any bit of major work on your pose, make sure you are using the A key and LocRot to save your pose to keyframe 0.

If in doubt if it'll save properly, press A key until the whole pose is blue and then CTRL + C. That way, if your pose doesn't save, you can just Paste it back in with CTRL + V.
POSE IS ANIMATED WHEN IT SHOULDN'T BE
- You've likely set 2 or more keyframes by mistake. The only keyframe you want is keyframe 0.
Place the green cursor on the timeline over the yellow line (keyframe) you want to delete, then move your cursor into the 3D view. Then click Alt + I. A box will come up saying 'Delete keyframe?' Press Okay. Then press Play on the bottom of the timeline to check the pose is static.
LIMB IS DISTORTED
- Try not to use the G key on the actual limbs (doing it a tiny bit is fine, but not too much or too far) and keep it to editing facial expressions in Ortho mode. Also go careful not to left-click-drag or right-click-drag a joint whilst right-clicking it to activate it or you can drag and distort a limb. If either of these things happen, just press CTRL + Z.
THE joint YOU ARE EDITING JUST DISAPPEARED
- You likely hit the H key instead of the G key. Don't worry, just CTRL + Z!
YOUR POSE PACK PICTURES COME UP AS A GREY LLAMA
It means your pose pack images weren't exactly 64 x 64 pixels size.

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