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In Game Photography Question
SimpLyAngeLic
Posts: 153 Member
I posted a question in the WA section of the forum a couple of years ago, and no one seemed to have an answer for me.
http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/540727.page < Link to that post for reference.
I have googled until I can't see anymore, and I would really like to know if this is possible. I want to be able to save the photographs my sims take with their cameras and phones without having to hang them on the wall and screenshot them, does ANYONE know if this is possible?
Any ideas at all would be wonderful.
http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/540727.page < Link to that post for reference.
I have googled until I can't see anymore, and I would really like to know if this is possible. I want to be able to save the photographs my sims take with their cameras and phones without having to hang them on the wall and screenshot them, does ANYONE know if this is possible?
Any ideas at all would be wonderful.
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Apparently your not the only one wondering this. Someone else was thinking about the Digital Picture Frames.
http://nraas.wikispaces.com/share/view/65587314?replyId=68643256
"Love will Fight, Love will Win and Love will Survive."
This is possible, but a touch complicated and requires external tools. Maybe there's a really simple method out there, but this is the only way I know to get the actual image file. It's actually easier than it looks, once you get the hang of it. I can write a better tutorial with screenshots if people want it, but for now, here's the basic technique.
You'll need:
1. s3pe - http://www.den.simlogical.com/denforum/index.php?board=19.0 (this is a PC program, but I believe you can run it on a mac using Mono)
2. A program to convert DDS image files, such as Gimp(with a DDS plugin - Mac or PC) or Aorta (great for Mac users), or if you have Photoshop, you can use NVidia Texture Tools (PC only).
How To:
1. Go to your Documents/The Sims 3/Saves folder and open your game's save folder.
2. Find the file "TravelDB.package" and open it with s3pe
--Note: If you're worried about accidentally screwing up your files, then copy "TravelDB.package" and paste it to another folder, and then open the copy in s3pe
3. In s3pe, click on the header labeled "Tag" to sort by tag, and then look at the listings with a _IMG tag
4. You will need to click on each listing with the _IMG tag to view the preview thumbnails and find the one you want, or you can just select them all. Don't be surprised if you have many duplicates of the same image. (You can also access greeting card photos, prom photos, and memory photos here)
--Note: If you want to narrow down the selection just to photography photos, sort by "Group" and brows through everything with a group number of 0x0269D005. This is the number used for photography images.
5. Right-click on the image you want to share, and choose export>to file
6. Save the file where you can easily locate it. It will have a .dds extension.
7. Use whatever DDS converting program you have to convert the DDS to a more practical image format such as jpg or png. If you have Gimp (with DDS plugin), just open the file in Gimp, and then you can "save as" or "export" as a different format. I can give more detailed instructions for Gimp and Aorta, but I'd have to switch disc partitions, and I have an appointment to go to in a little bit, so I can't do it until later tonight.
If you do all that, you'll have share-able files of your sim's photography. Just to warn you, the image files aren't very big (usually 256x256px, or 256x512px), so they won't have a huge amount of detail.
Maybe you could make a "photography exhibit" lot with tons of your pictures on the walls that you can download and put into game? Probably have to start it off as a residential lot, but it's doable, I'm sure.
I know it's possible to make photos into objects, if that's more what you're after; there's a TSR artist who's been doing exactly this for a while now, but the name of the artist escapes me at present. I'm sure it won't be hard, and maybe the artist can tell you how s/he is doing it.
Finally an answer! Thank you so much! I gave up checking that thread after a few days of no replies. That sounds uber complicated, but I might just give it a shot. I really appreciate the time you took to explain this to me. I'm familiar with gimp, so I'll just download that. I'll be saving your instructions to a notepad for later use.
I just want basically a record of the pictures I take, cause I've gotten some pretty awesome angles, and I wanted to be able to export them from the game, so that I can make a sort of scrapbook, and I'd like to have the pictures themselves and not a screenshot of the picture LOL, I can never get the camera perfectly straight in order to get a decent enough screen shot, it's always off just enough to make a difference. I'm kind of a perfectionist like that. Especially since when I'm in the camera interface, I can position the camera perfectly, but outside of it, it's all screwy. My main this is I like to have my sims pose for photographs, and then have a plumbot or another sim who's an expert in photography take the pictures. So it's mostly it's those I want to export, so I can share them with people who want to see, and of course if I ever decided to write a story or something, I could upload those to a blog.
No problem! I only wish I knew of a simpler method, but it really does get to be sort of routine after you do it a few times. One thing I forgot to mention is that, since these files are stored as square images, you'll probably need to resize them in Gimp so they don't look stretched or squished. Click on "image" in the top menu bar, choose "scale image," click on the little lock icon next to the numbers (which will allow you to change the aspect ratio of the image), and change the pixel size as needed.
It would be nice, even if they had given us the option to share those photos on our players walls, then I could take them off of there, but since they didn't, as least now I know there's a way to do it. Even if it's time consuming, it's worth it to try and see if I can do it. Thank you again for the response, you've been so helpful! I only hope that when or if we get a photography skill in 4, they will give us a way to share and save them.
That makes sense. Sounds like you got your answer regarding making the photo an object, but for sharing with blogging and whatnot, would just a screenshot work for that? You wouldn't be sharing the file at that point, just the photo itself, and a screenshot can capture that and most editing programs/apps use similar filters as well. Plus it's worlds easier than making a new object file. Glad you got what you needed