I run into a lot of people who want to share pics and video from their games, but can't figure out how to do it!  Now admittedly, there is a feature where you can hook up your game to your EA account, and upload the images and videos to your My Page thingie on the Sims 3 website.  But this is a pretty slow and clunky process, and it isn't very useful if you want to share stuff in email or on a blog of your own.

Taking Pictures

Before you start taking pictures, be sure you have the right size and quality.  By default the game will take tiny, crappy pictures for you!  It's trying to save your hard drive space.  But if you have The Sims 3 installed, I'm sure you have a big enough hard drive that you can afford the bigger pics!

Go to your game's Options menu, and configure the captured images to the biggest size, and the best quality possible.  Your viewers will thank you!

You can snap a shot at any time while you're playing the game, just by hitting the C key.  (C for Camera.)  Or you can click the little camera icon in the lower left-hand corner of your game's tool bar.  

As a rule, I always put the walls up before I take a picture.  It's less visually distracting for viewers, and it looks more real.  It's so much easier to tell what's going on when you're not looking at their bathroom, kitchen, and bedroom all at once!

Whenever possible I try to take pictures at my Sims' eye level.  This also puts the viewer into the scene, as it seems more realistic.

Taking Videos

Before you take video, you'll want to adjust the quality just as we did for the pictures.  Start out with the highest quality, and be sure that audio is turned on.  The game will warn you that your system might be slower if you shoot video on these settings.  That's fine!  If it really becomes a problem, you can always adjust the settings later.

The same caveats go for taking pictures.  In addition, I try to go around and turn off the TV and radio before I start shooting video.  The extra sounds can be really distracting.

Try to set up your shot so that you won't have to move the camera.  Every time you move the camera, your viewers get a little nauseous!  Try to keep camera movements to an absolute minimum. I've seen some great sequences ruined by the player's overactive camera fidgeting.

Where Are My Pictures?

You will find your images and video in the "My Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3" folder.  Your images are in the Screenshots folder, and your video is in the Recorded Videos folder.

You can upload your videos directly to YouTube.  For images, you will need an online image host so that other people can see them.  ImageShack is a perennial favorite, as are PhotoBucket and Flickr.