I thought it might be a good idea to have a place to share tips on creating good patterns. Other forums have some good tutorials, which cover the basics, but nothing in-depth. Share problems you've had and how you've fixed them, good ideas, etc.
Myself, I've had a lot of different problems, mostly with programs. I use CAP if I just want to create a non-recolourable pattern, because I've found something incredibly pretty/cute that I can't replicate with photoshop. CAP patterns can't be extracted from their sims3pack file and placed in your mods/packages folder, though, because CAP doesn't assign them new instance IDs.
I now use TSRW to make recolourable patterns. I started out using Delphy's Pattern Packager, but there was a problem with patterns when they were exported as sims3packs. It makes .package files just fine though.
Making patterns is a lot about knowing how to make quality small images in your image editing software. It can be very hard to get a smooth pattern when you only have 256x56 pixels. I mostly use photoshop CS3, but also have Gimp and Paint.net installed. It's very complicated to make a curvy line in photoshop for example (it might be easier in more up-to-date versions) so I make them in paint.net and then copy them across.
Most tutorials recommend using a vector program - I've decided to skip this learning step for now - instead, I use the shape tool a lot - the shapes work kind of like vectors. You can download extra custom shapes. There are a lot of nice free ones at deviantart.com, and at shapes4free.com.
Two-tone patterns are the easiest to make - you can covert it to black and white, and then paste it into the red channel, paste it again into the green channel, invert it, and then invert the blue channel (so it's plain black). You may need to adjust the brightness/contrast if the colours are not different enough.
Drawing shapes directly onto the channels makes them look chunky and pixely, but if you do it on the layers, the shades of grey can also mess up your pattern - especially if there are areas where channels meet and overlap. Finding a balance can be difficult. The smoothest patterns I have made were done working only in black and white with no overlap, and then erasing certain areas from the channels were I didn't need it.
Anyways, I'm only a beginner at making patterns, so this might be helpful for a beginner - but I'd love to hear from some of our veteran pattern-makers!
