TS3 to TS4 Texture Extraction?

If you've used one of the basegame walls, you've not really created a new wall, you've just changed the colors. The game doesn't really see that as a "new wall", it just sees that as a color change, and doesn't bother adding in the full pattern (which takes up space), so it probably just adds in the reference for the pattern used, and the color codes, which is just a few lines. Hence the XML. 

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I think you can only really convert them if you have a DDS or texture file of some sort. 

There is a package converter program that converts S3pack to package. I think there was some issue with it in regards to patterns, but if you only intend to extract files and not use them in your game, it could be worth the try. I think I've successfully managed to get patterns from some s3packs like that, but I'm not sure if that's worked for all kinds of pattern files, as I've only tried for a few. I've used S3PE to extract the files, if there have been any to extract. 

I have absolutely been able to extract patterns from TS3 for use in Photoshop as long as there has been an image file or a DDS to work with. I think I went through and converted the whole arsenal of TS3 EP patterns to recolorable TIFF files a few years back (if I got through them all - there were a lot of them). If you know which pattern you used, I can see if I find the file (if I find the folder - it's somewhere...) and can send it to you. 

Following parts of that same tutorial but instead extracting the channels from the pattern (usually the RGB mask in Base Properties shown below with the "edit" button), and saving as a DDS image, then copy off the alpha channels into solid color alpha layers in Photoshop (Gimp?), and you get an editable (and tileable) pattern that you don't have to edit with TSRW any more than it takes to extract it. That's what I did, anyway. 

If you want the exact (or approximate) colors you'll need to take a screenshot and pick up the colors from the side or the picture (the overlays on the pattern are a bit weird sometimes, so occasionally you want both. The color numbering is not particularly trustworthy outside of TSRW it seems). 

I had some trouble with a few of the patterns (some had multiple overlays, like the one below with the yellow extra overlay channel), but there are a couple ways around it (I extracted those too and added them as overlays, which worked fine).

It's a little bit finnicky, but not too difficult, so if you need a step-by-step I can write one up (but I have no idea how to do it in Gimp, so Photoshop only - the method is probably similar, but the shortcuts are different). 

I think this may even work on non-ingame patterns, as long as they show up in an object in TSRW, but I'm not 100% sure on that. Mixed results... It definitely works on default patterns, though there are a few iffy patterns that have a tendency to crash TSRW. 





It's nicer with something you can easily edit. I don't know how many times TSRW crashed on me while I was working on this, but at least now I don't have to worry about that... 

I added the pattern above here: simfileshare.net/download/1898845/
plus the DDS files I extracted, so you can kind of see what I did if you look at the channels, and how I copied them over into the alphas for the layers. You'll probably need to dissect the files in Photoshop or something like it, because Gimp will not be able to understand the TIFF file (and converting it to a PSD Gimp understands and can use is too much work - Gimp doesn't like TIFF files and not color selection layers either, and I'm not even sure it properly understands mask layers when imported from Photoshop).

Happy to help, and happy you figured it out

I've been poking around in TS2/3/4 files for a while now (started back in 2007 or 2008, I think?) so I have picked up some tricks here and there. I still can't make a single TS3 CC file (I tried once, but gave it up after about half an hour), but extracting stuff from them usually isn't a problem.


Let me know if you need any more help with the patterns. Some of them can be a bit tricky to figure out, especially those with 4 channels or extra textures (which is kind of why I added the one above - it shows some of the tricks I used to make these show up). 

playful I am jealous lol. I tried Milkshape a few times and every time I am so pissed after trying to do anything it it, when I can do pretty much everything in Blender. I haven't succeeded in Milkshape at all.

I started out with 3DS Max (10+ years or so ago), so that's the program I've had to "unlearn" to figure out Blender, and I've also been tinkering with Milkshape all these years on the side. Still, at least I have some general meshing program knowledge (UVmapping, meshing, etc.) and those are transferable to other programs if you just figure out the new tools to get to those goals. Once upon a time I did make a few animation movies too (not saying they were particularly good, but a little goes a long way in the sense of posing and storytelling and the like, so it's a matter of digging up all that old knowledge and see if it applies to Blender).

As for TS2, it is my personal favorite for storytelling because of some of the tools available - but I think that depends on what you're comfortable with and used to. I've done storytelling with TS2 since 2007 (somewhat calm beginning with the CC, then it escalated into needing my own site for all the downloads about a year or two later...), then I tested out posing and CC-making with TS4 for a couple or so weeks, "just" making some clothing recolors, but ending up with poses and accessories and what have you (because that's kind of what happens when I start... You should see the "my files" portion of my TS2 Downloads folder - that thing is scary!). I've done practically nothing with TS3, only tested out a few poses once - but I've seen a lot of great pictures from TS3 so a lot of people have clearly figured it out. I just never got my TS3 game to the point where it was stable enough to throw enough CC at it to be any fun for the kind of storytelling I'm interested in (plus I need the ability to make a variety of CC, and that bit was a chore at the time).