The art style of the Sims 4 is a great improvement from the previous titles in the franchise, and this time around, the designers did an impeccable job on the iconography. From buff icons to trait icons to career and chat icons, there’s a huge variety to select from. If you’re making a mod of your own, and you want to edit an in-game icon to suit it, or you’re just really DYING to make a T-shirt with the woohoo symbol on it, it’s really easy (if a little time consuming) to extract these icons from the game’s files.
What you will need:
Sims 4 Studio installed on your computer
A copy of the Sims 4 on hard disk
Step 1: Open up Sims 4 Studio.
Step 2: Cruise Game Files.
In the toolbar at the very top, click Tools > Game File Cruiser.
Step 3: Filter by DST Images
In the top left hand corner, you’ll see a huge list of checkboxes with various file types. We’re looking for icons, specifically, so we’ll check the DST Image box.
Step 4: Filter by Pack
Think about the icon you’re looking for? Did it come from an Expansion Pack or a Game Pack? The Base Game? Determining that and using that information to filter will help you sift through these images more effectively.
Once you’ve narrowed that down, enter the pack number in the filter input below the file type selector. Here’s a handy guide to how pack numbers link to the expansion names, in case you need it.
I’m looking for one from City Living, so I’ll type in \EP03\ and press Filter.
If you check the last column in your search results, you should see the items have now filtered to only include those for the pack you selected.
Step 5: Sort By File Size
Sort by filesize by clicking the Filesize header.
Buff icons are typically around 1.7kB (although there are a couple of full-color icons sometimes sprinkled in there). Full color icons for careers and thought bubbles and such are often around 16.1kB.
You can typically stop when you get to files that are 21.5kB or larger -- those are very unlikely to be what you’re looking for.
Step 6: Sift
From here, you’ll unfortunately have to sift through the files manually until you find the one you’re looking for. I tried to include enough information here, though, to help you narrow it down a bit.
Step 7: Export as PNG
Once you’ve found the icon you’re looking for, you can click Export. Or, if you have found multiple icons you’d like to extract, you can use Ctrl + Click to select them in the results pane, and then click Batch Export.
Find a place on your computer to save, and voila! You’ve got an icon you can do what you please with.
(Though please be wary of using them in commercial contexts; intellectual property laws protect these works, so make sure that what you’re doing with them falls under Fair Use or personal use. I’m not a lawyer, but here’s an interesting article on this you can use to better make that determination for yourself. https://www.hanleybradylaw.com/2014/09/fair-use-in-video-games-part-1-fair-use-basics/)
