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How to repair CC files that were broken after the patch.
Linamints
Posts: 952 Member
Hello! I know that a lot of CC came through the patch just fine, but some files did not and will cause the game to crash when booting it up (For me, the problem file was my absolute favorite hair). This tutorial should hopefully help anyone fix their CC files, even if they don't make or edit CC.
Be aware however, that this will create a completely new file. What this means is that when you boot up your game next these items will be removed from your sims, and you will have to go into CAS to add them back.
You will need two things:
Sims 4 studio (http://sims4studio.com/thread/562/sims-studio-jackpot-open-beta)
Your broken CC file.
Notepad (Optional)
Gimp or other image editing program (Optional)
1. After you have downloaded and installed the studio, run it and click on the "My Projects" button in the upper right hand corner and find your broken CC file.
When it opens you will see a blue box that displays a model wearing your CC item on the left, and on the right there are several things you'll need to use.
2. To get this started, I strongly recommend you copy the color code of the boxes in "Swatch thumbnails" (arrow 1). You do this by clicking the box under "Swatch thumbnail colors" and highlighting the number and hitting ctrl + C. It'll go much faster later if you copy all of the swatch colors in order and paste them into a notepad file.
3. Next, go to the texture section (arrow 2) of each color, and hit the green export button to save the individual colors. You don't have to do this for colors you know you don't like or won't use, it won't make any difference later.
The final step for this tab is to hit the green export button on the thumbnail icon (arrow 3).
4. Next, you're going to need to export the mesh for your CC item. To do this switch to the "Meshes" tab and hit the green export button. You will need to do this for each individual mesh. Click the drop down arrow and save ech file (I strongly advise you label them as they are named, LOD 0-3 as they will need to be imported in order later).
After you have all of that, go to the warehouse tab.
You will see a long list of items, and in particular we're going to need 2-3 files. The first file is "DST Image". It is usually located near the top. Click it, and in the bottom right there will be a green export button. Click it.
Next, we need the "RLE" image that are for the shading. These are located at the bottom of the list. Now an important thing to keep in mind is that you do not need all of the RLE images. Textures are listed with the same "type" as the shading images, but we've already exported these.
The RLE 2 image that we need should be the very last one in the list, and it will be flat gray and white.
Some CC items are missing this image, and will pull from the EA item that we use as our base instead. This is an easy enough fix that I'll go into later. You will need this file and the "RLES" file underneath.
6.Once you've exported everything you need, go to file and hit main menu.
Once there, under the CAS button make sure that create 3D is selected, and then hit the CAS button.
Once you do this you will see a lot of items appear, use the drop down boxes at the top to get a close item to what you are fixing. For me, this is a long hair for females with the teen through elder body types. So I am going to set the filter to Gender: Female Age: Adult Part type: Hair
Find the hair that is closest to what you're looking for, and hit next.
7. You should now see the familiar blue box and the menu for swatches and textures. I prefer to import the mesh before adding the textures, but to each their own and it's really up to you which order you want to do this in. Either way, the model on the left will look weird until both things are imported.
Go to the "Meshes" tab and import the LOD 0-3 files that you exported from before. The model should change to reflect the new mesh. After the meshes are all imported, go back to the "Swatch and Texture" tab, and begin importing your textures and color swatches.
If you made a list of your swatch color from before, click the swatch box again and paste the number in place of the default color code. Finish this section by importing the catalog image. If you are making your item available for both genders, just import the same file into both the male and female boxes.
*NOTE* For clothing CC it may not fit right on men and clip through the body and vice versa, I have not tested if EA made changes to how clothing is applied.
8. The next thing you need to do is go to the warehouse tab again. Import all of the RLE images over the image used for EA item. If, like my hair you are missing the RLE2 image with the shading, I prefer to just replace these with a blank image.
8.5. To do this open your exported RLE2 image in an image editor like gimp (This is also a great time to add new colors to a hair if you've been wanting some).
Make sure the layers window is open. I can't remember anymore if this is open by default, but if not go to the top of the window and go to Windows>Dockable Dialogs>Layers to open the layers window.
Click the "new layer" button that is circled in the screenshot to open a new empty layer, then select the original layer and hit the little trash can icon.
To save go to File>Overwrite (filename). After, just import the image over the EA default.
If this is a clay hair or non hair item, just hit save and drop it into your game folder (make sure to delete the original).
9. The last step I'll be covering here only applies to hair or clothing that has transparent parts on it. There are two types of hair, "Clay" hair that is what the default game hairs looks like and do not have any transparency and "Glass" hairs that add more realism by having transparent ends.
If you have a glass type hair, you are going to need to change the shaders that the meshes use. Go to Tools>Modding> Glass shader (CAS)
After this is done just save and play!
Be aware however, that this will create a completely new file. What this means is that when you boot up your game next these items will be removed from your sims, and you will have to go into CAS to add them back.
You will need two things:
Sims 4 studio (http://sims4studio.com/thread/562/sims-studio-jackpot-open-beta)
Your broken CC file.
Notepad (Optional)
Gimp or other image editing program (Optional)
1. After you have downloaded and installed the studio, run it and click on the "My Projects" button in the upper right hand corner and find your broken CC file.
When it opens you will see a blue box that displays a model wearing your CC item on the left, and on the right there are several things you'll need to use.
2. To get this started, I strongly recommend you copy the color code of the boxes in "Swatch thumbnails" (arrow 1). You do this by clicking the box under "Swatch thumbnail colors" and highlighting the number and hitting ctrl + C. It'll go much faster later if you copy all of the swatch colors in order and paste them into a notepad file.
3. Next, go to the texture section (arrow 2) of each color, and hit the green export button to save the individual colors. You don't have to do this for colors you know you don't like or won't use, it won't make any difference later.
The final step for this tab is to hit the green export button on the thumbnail icon (arrow 3).
4. Next, you're going to need to export the mesh for your CC item. To do this switch to the "Meshes" tab and hit the green export button. You will need to do this for each individual mesh. Click the drop down arrow and save ech file (I strongly advise you label them as they are named, LOD 0-3 as they will need to be imported in order later).
After you have all of that, go to the warehouse tab.
You will see a long list of items, and in particular we're going to need 2-3 files. The first file is "DST Image". It is usually located near the top. Click it, and in the bottom right there will be a green export button. Click it.
Next, we need the "RLE" image that are for the shading. These are located at the bottom of the list. Now an important thing to keep in mind is that you do not need all of the RLE images. Textures are listed with the same "type" as the shading images, but we've already exported these.
The RLE 2 image that we need should be the very last one in the list, and it will be flat gray and white.
Some CC items are missing this image, and will pull from the EA item that we use as our base instead. This is an easy enough fix that I'll go into later. You will need this file and the "RLES" file underneath.
6.Once you've exported everything you need, go to file and hit main menu.
Once there, under the CAS button make sure that create 3D is selected, and then hit the CAS button.
Once you do this you will see a lot of items appear, use the drop down boxes at the top to get a close item to what you are fixing. For me, this is a long hair for females with the teen through elder body types. So I am going to set the filter to Gender: Female Age: Adult Part type: Hair
Find the hair that is closest to what you're looking for, and hit next.
7. You should now see the familiar blue box and the menu for swatches and textures. I prefer to import the mesh before adding the textures, but to each their own and it's really up to you which order you want to do this in. Either way, the model on the left will look weird until both things are imported.
Go to the "Meshes" tab and import the LOD 0-3 files that you exported from before. The model should change to reflect the new mesh. After the meshes are all imported, go back to the "Swatch and Texture" tab, and begin importing your textures and color swatches.
If you made a list of your swatch color from before, click the swatch box again and paste the number in place of the default color code. Finish this section by importing the catalog image. If you are making your item available for both genders, just import the same file into both the male and female boxes.
*NOTE* For clothing CC it may not fit right on men and clip through the body and vice versa, I have not tested if EA made changes to how clothing is applied.
8. The next thing you need to do is go to the warehouse tab again. Import all of the RLE images over the image used for EA item. If, like my hair you are missing the RLE2 image with the shading, I prefer to just replace these with a blank image.
8.5. To do this open your exported RLE2 image in an image editor like gimp (This is also a great time to add new colors to a hair if you've been wanting some).
Make sure the layers window is open. I can't remember anymore if this is open by default, but if not go to the top of the window and go to Windows>Dockable Dialogs>Layers to open the layers window.
Click the "new layer" button that is circled in the screenshot to open a new empty layer, then select the original layer and hit the little trash can icon.
To save go to File>Overwrite (filename). After, just import the image over the EA default.
If this is a clay hair or non hair item, just hit save and drop it into your game folder (make sure to delete the original).
9. The last step I'll be covering here only applies to hair or clothing that has transparent parts on it. There are two types of hair, "Clay" hair that is what the default game hairs looks like and do not have any transparency and "Glass" hairs that add more realism by having transparent ends.
If you have a glass type hair, you are going to need to change the shaders that the meshes use. Go to Tools>Modding> Glass shader (CAS)
After this is done just save and play!
"Parenting is just like gardening, except if you let your garden die you don't go to prison." - Anna Blast
7
Comments
> This sounds way too complicated for me. Why cant there just be a fix button?
The tutorial you replied to yesterday was posted in [b]June of 2016[/b]. So, aside from the fact that you probably won't find much CC that is broken in whatever way some CC was broken four and a half years ago, since most of it was either made long afterward or had already been fixed, there also probably IS a fix button.