#ts4k

[ensign-sims]

12/31/2025 Update

I've spent a good chunk of my winter break working on this and I am so close to being done but I will not reach my goal of beta testing by the new year :(

Three major things I need to finish:

Upscale shadow maps using HQConverter method

Export normal maps and make sure upscaling works properly

Figure out how to actually bundle the app and publish it, lol

I went down a rabbithole of DDS compression which ate up a lot of my time. Someone suggested I check out the BCGone model (1X) for removing compression artifacts before upscaling, and I think it makes a big difference:

The issue is that BCGone does not have an ncnn-vulkan implementation, and must use PyTorch. Sooo, I deconstructed some of ChaiNNer's codebase and started working on a python version of the upscaling pipeline.

There has also been talk of trying to figure out how to programmatically convert RLE2 textures into LRLE; LRLE are uncompressed and can be loaded directly from PNGs instead of being converted to DDS then imported.

But all that stuff is post 1.0 release. Gotta pace myself and just get the basics done.

Anyways, I'll try to keep working on this little by little and hopefully have something out end of January? If you're interested in beta testing, please reach out. I have no idea if the app will work on Linux or MacOS, or how the upscaling handles on laptops. Feedback will definitely be helpful!

Happy new year all, and happy simming :)

[ensign-sims]

(Please full-size to see the actual difference in quality! Tumblr compression sucks)

Looking for collaborators!!!

Here's a project I've been noodling on for some time now -- using ERSGANs to upscale Sims textures! I'm quite excited about the results so far. It's bittersweet to post about this though. I was hoping to collaborate with CmarNYC's on updating the HQConverter to use new techniques for upscaling. Without CmarNYC's HQ Converter, the current HQ mod would not even have been possible. Her contributions to the Sims community were so helpful and ubiquitous and she will be remembered. So right now the TS4k Upscale mod is a semi-manual process, of exporting textures using Sims 4 Studio, then upscaling those using chaiNNer, and importing those upscaled textures back into the package. So these screenshots are just a proof-of-concept. The program I'm imagining would be a blend of S4pi or S4TK, and using pytorch to upscale extracted images.

I can handle the Python portion, but I unfortunately do not know C# or JS. Admittedly I started this project last year and looked into the HQConverter source and S4pi and and then got overwhelmed. So... if anybody who is a little more savvy with C#/S4pi (or JS/S4TK) want to collaborate on creating the program together, please let me know. I would love to make this project a reality some day!

CC Shown: Llumisims Vanilla Noodles Body Overlay , Twisted-cat Lemonade Skin Overlay

CmarNYC's HQConverter

ERSGAN paper

chaiNNer

[ensign-sims]

Thanks everyone for your interest in the TS4k Upscale mod! I'm still looking for a collaborator, so if you know C# please reach out to me ♡

@obscurus-sims had some great questions so I decided to take the HQ Lady out into play mode to demonstrate the differences. Check out the read more for the specifics!

Where this new method of upscaling shines is in face/body details, as well as clothing that have complicated normal maps, such as the pants.

In terms of file size, items that just have the diffuse map seem to be a bit smaller:

CC Items with normal maps are of a larger size -- but that's because the old HQConverter did not upscale normal maps. Normal maps are usually 1024x1024. In the TS4k upscaled version, they're 2048x2048. Hence the larger file size.

One last note is about compression. I don't know a ton about how TS4 compresses things, but something happens somewhere after what I see in photoshop, and what I see in game. The TS4k Upscale won't fix the artifacts you see because of compression. This is best demonstrated on dark clothing.

So to clarify, the TS4k Upscale mod would only work on upscaling textures (.png and .dds images). The limitations of compression in-game would unfortunately still exist.

[diamond-in-the-rough-draft]

I’m not crazy about The Sims 4: kits as a whole (aside from that cute kitchen thing. Totally adorable *and* functional while off grid? yay!) 

Despite that I got the dusty one along with the kitchen thing. I like making my sims do chores sometimes, so I thought the dust thing would be an interesting addition. It goes from sparkling clean to a warren of dust bunnies way too quickly. 

If they could just work out the timing it would be a bit less annoying at least. Also the only way so far to get the butler to use it was to gift one to them. Not sure about the maid, as the one I have seems to just bag up the dust piles that appear after one day. 

I mean yeah you can have a baby in three days, but it also takes like 30 mins to eat cereal. The timing is a bit weird as of yet. (Writing this recently after release.)