do you want to be able to switch between viewing your grunge and lolita cc in CAS? maybe you made a fairy and you want to limit their closet to your cottagecore and plant themed cc? or maybe you just really want to track down that specific victorian era dress you downloaded...
i figured out an easy way to view cc in CAS by ANY themes or styles you choose and i wanted to share bc i haven’t heard of anyone else who does this! i have 40gb of CAS cc of all styles and this helps me find the cc i need for any style of sim.
the simple explanation is below the cut and requires a basic understanding of how to change tags for an item in sims4studio, as well as viewing items in CAS by tag. if you don’t know how to do either of these, i am linking an in-depth beginner’s tutorial here and i’m always open for questions :3
ps this doesn’t work for certain categories (skin details, tattoos, body hair, scars)
basically, in sims4studio, instead of tagging individual swatches by their actual color, i use the color tags to sort items based on theme(s). each color corresponds to a theme or style, or even multiple styles.
the colors available in CAS are red, orange, white, black, blue, yellow, pink, brown, green, purple, and gray. i have a sticky note on my computer that lists the colors and the themes/styles i organize by and i actually assign multiple themes to some colors. for example, i color tag space-themed cc as purple, or emo and vampy cc as black and apply to all swatches for that item. in CAS, when i want to view space cc, i check purple and custom content and i can see all my space cc. even better, swatches can be tagged as multiple colors and you can view multiple color categories in CAS at once. the result is a quick and easy customizable CAS closet
some categories you can organize by: historical, goth, y2k, fairy, fantasy, grunge, island, kfashion, basics, lolita, modest, western/cowboy, etc. literally whatever categories help you the most!
Tutorial for Simplifying Changing Warehouse Info For Multiple Swatches Simplified: Sims 4 Studio
Hi everyone!
I have some exciting news - to me anyway, and I hope for you 😁
I recently had my tutorial approved on the Sims 4 Studio website!
This is for creators who use Sims 4 Studio, and anyone else who may wish to alter existing .package files.
Changing Warehouse Info For Multiple Swatches Simplified | Sims 4 Studio
Intro:
WHY I MADE THIS TUTORIAL
The purpose of this tutorial is to help creators and simmers alike simplify and speed up how to change information in the Warehouse tab in Sims 4 Studio for multiple swatches, especially if you have more than one section that needs adjusting, like Composition Method and Sort Layer for CAS items.
So, let’s say you’ve created an entire package with 15 swatches and have saved your package. Then you realize, OMG I forgot to change something in Warehouse mode and now have to go in and change each swatch separately. (cue dramatic music)
I don’t recommend this for only a few swatches, though, because, while helpful, this is not a one shot process, but it will save time for those packages with several swatches that require fixing/changing in the Warehouse tab.
Changing Warehouse Info For Multiple Swatches Simplified | Sims 4 Studio
I’m minded not everyone may know about the batch export and import cheats in Sims 4 Studio. They make it a lot, lot easier to get your files in and out of the program (which is especially welcome when making walls and/or anything with a lot of swatches).
Here’s how it works:
Step 1: Open S4S and ready your package by creating your swatches (the easiest way to do this is to load a colour palette you’ve already prepared using Tools > Color Palette but you can do it manually if you need to)
Step 2: Once you have your swatches in place, press CTRL+SHIFT+C (the same command to open the cheats window in TS4) and type studio.exportall
S4S will create a folder in the same location as your package that has all the various texture files associated with your package in PNG format.
Go into that folder and delete everything that isn’t a main diffuse texture (all the files highlighted in the picture below are the ones you want to delete). You’ll be left with the same amount of identical diffuse textures as there are swatches in your package.
Step 3: Create your recolours/textures and save them with the file names of the corresponding diffuse textures/swatches you have in the folder S4S made. (You have to save them as PNG.)
Step 4: This is why it’s important to save the files in the same folder and with the names S4S created. Go back to S4S and in the cheats window (CTRL+SHIFT+C) type studio.importall and watch as it imports all of those nice new textures for you. It will likely throw an error at the end, but you can safely ignore it and close the error window (close it with the little red x in the top right corner).
(At first you won’t see any change. You have to click on a new swatch to see it’s imported them all.)
You’re done! You now have 48 (or a far more sensible number of) nice new textures and can save your package and check it in game.
This works for all objects and walls and floors. I haven’t tried it on cas objects because I don’t make them.
Sometimes when importing wall textures if you’ve been using S4S for a while its memory can get a little overloaded and it won’t import them all. If this happens you can either close the program and start again, which will clear the memory, or you can just keep typing the batch import cheat and eventually it will import them all. It just needs a little coaxing.
And for walls and floors S4S will automatically create the thumbnails for you. You still have to generate them yourself for all other objects by viewing them in game (or add your own in S4S).
This makes creating recolours in particular quick and easy. The most time consuming part is doing the recolouring itself. Gone are the days of individually importing hundreds of textures.
How to Change the UV Placement Scale for Flooring Textures in The Sims 2 and The Sims 4
Probably something nobody asked for, but I found myself needing to know this information for a project. So, I figured it might help someone and I’ll need to refer to this tutorial once I release my upcoming flooring conversion so you all will be free to edit the scaling for my floors to your liking.
The Sims 2 Instructions:
Find the file you’d like to change the scaling for and open it in SimPE
Once open, select the TXMT file and find the line floorMaterialScaleU
Here you will change the Value under property to whatever scaling you want. Most of the time the scale will be 1, sometimes 2 or 5, but we’re free to do what we want. The numbers represent tiles, so if you want your floor texture to scale across 4x4 tiles instead of 1x1, you will write a 4 here. Repeat the same step for the line floorMaterialScaleV
Hit the Commit button
Save the file
The Sims 4 Instructions:
Find the file you’d like to change the scaling for and open it in Sims4Studio
Once open, select the Warehouse tab and click the Material Definition
To the right, find the MaterialBlock property and open Edit Items for a new window
Select the line DiffuseUVScale and look at the Value lines to the right
Here you will change the [0] and [1] value to whatever scaling you want. Most of the time the scale will be 1 or 0.5, but we’re free to do what we want. If you want your floor texture to scale across 4x4 tiles instead of 1x1, you will write a 0.25 here. 1x1 tiles = 1, 2x2 tiles = 0.5, 4x4 = 0.25, 5x5 = 0.20, 8x8 = 0.125, etc. Make sure both [0] and [1] values are edited
Hit save, then cancel to close this Edit Items window
Save again
I’ve been unable to get UV scaling to work for The Sims 3 unfortunately.
Making a Normal Map from Scratch in GIMP - Part 2 of 2
If you haven't read part 1, then go ahead and find it here:
So you're making a recolor, and when you try it out in the game it has weird outlines for pockets and whatnot. What gives?? The Normal Map (
All caught up? Good. Your image should be all bluey and look something like this:
5.) Select Colors > Components > Decompose (Alt+C, Alt+O, Alt+D should be the shortcuts).
Change the Color Model to RGBA. Make sure "Decompose to layers" is selected, then hit "Ok".
6.) GIMP will open up a new tab with your converted image. You will have 4 layers in the Layers panel, labelled "red, green, blue, alpha".
It will also be all grey instead of blue now.
This part is a bit tricky. We need to copy/paste the Red Layer into Alpha, then copy/paste the Green Layer into Red and Blue. I'll break it down.
Select the Red Layer in the Layers panel. Hit Ctrl+A to Select All. Hit Ctrl+C to Copy.
Select the Alpha Layer in the Layers panel. Hit Ctrl+A to Select All (probably not necessary, but this eases my anxiety). Hit Ctrl+V to Paste. Hit Ctrl+H to Anchor the pasted image.
Select the Green Layer in the Layers panel. Hit Ctrl+A to Select All. Hit Ctrl+C to Copy.
Select the Red Layer in the Layers panel. Hit Ctrl+V, then Ctrl+H.
Select the Blue Layer in the Layers panel. Ctrl+V, Ctrl+H.
Now from the top bar, select Colors > Components > Recompose!
7.) GIMP should now take you back to your original image. It will be transparent-greyed like the image below! This is good!
Now, Normal Maps are (for some reason) a different size than Diffuse Maps. I had to learn this one the hard way. They are usually 1024x1024 instead of 2048x1024.
From the top bar, go to Image > Canvas Size. Under "Canvas Size", you should have Width and Height. Make sure that the little Chain next to them IS NOT linked. If it is, click it to unlink.
Width should already be 1024. Manually change the Height to 1024.
Below in "Offset", click "Center". In the little preview image, drag your image (darker box outline) up all the way. It's kind of hard to see, but the outline of your Normal Map should be up at the top now (instead of in the Diffuse torso space, which is halfway down the image).
Hit Resize. Now, just to be safe, hit Layer > Layer to Image Size. GIMP is weird about Layers sometimes and you'll occasionally find trouble in Sims 4 Studio if you skip this step.
7.) If you've made recolors using GIMP before, you probably know the drill now. File > Export As...
CHANGE THE NAME! I usually just tack NM or something onto the original file name. Make sure it is saved as .DDS!
Compression has to be set to BC3/DXT5.
Set "Mipmaps" to "Generate Mipmaps". Hit Ok and you now have your Normal Map file!
8.) If your CC was custom or a recolor of an EA item, go ahead and just open it again in S4S. Select "Normal" and Import your new Normal Map! Note that swatches all share the same Normal Map, and if you change it in any swatch it will copy it to all the other swatches.
I don't know how to work around this, but if your work is a recolor of another user's mesh... You have to basically remake your .package again to edit it. Every time I edit a recolor without the mesh included, S4S seems to add the mesh! >.< So I need to remake the CC from scratch or else violate the OC's ToU. If anyone has a work-around for this, PLEASE tell me!
Anyway, there ya go! You now have a Normal Map for your recolor!
What's in a Clone? Cloning When you select Create CAS Standalone or Create 3D Mesh in S4S you are cloning one of the game CAS pieces. B...
Continuing my tutorial series, here’s one of cloning! This covers LODs, region maps, cut layers, shaders and ways to pick the right clone for your project!
Place the Portrait Polaroid.package in the Sims 4 Studio Mods folder (Documents/Sims 4 Studio/Mods). After that open the Sims 4 Studio and choose the option “Standalone Recolor” under the “Objects” menu and click on the blue “Object” button:
1. In the “Content” menu choose the "Custom” option
2. Now you’ll be able to see the Polaroid package there, select it by clicking over it
3. After selecting the package click “Next”
A pop-up will show up, chose the folder you want your recolor to be saved in and the name of your recolor and click “Save”. The file type should remain as it is “Type: Sims 4 Package (*.package)”
Now minimize the Sims 4 Studio and open the Portrait Polaroid PSD.psd file with Photoshop. Now simply change the picture with your own and chose the color of the pin by selecting the one you want and hiding the other ones.
CLICK TO SEE IT BIGGER.
After you’re done, save it as .PNG:
Now go back to Sims 4 Studio, in the “Catalog” tab [1] you can change the name of your recolor and also the price [2] if you want:
1. The Texture tab is the one you’ll use to add your recolor
2. In the Texture tab use the "Import" button to select your recolor (.png)
3. You can add as many swatches as you want, just click the "Add Swatch" button and then use the "Import" button again to add another recolor
4. After you're done just Save it and click “OK” when the "Your package has been saved" pop-up shows up and you're done!
This tutorial was made with my Portrait Polariods in mind but the same principle can be used for any other object recolor.
