Thanks for the feedback! Could you please say what options you checked and unchecked and what sharpening strength you used for the items that show lines? Thanks for linking me to at least one of those items - I always have problems downloading from TSR but I'll give it a try, unless you can link to something from another site?

As for your rewriting of parts of the tool, I have no problem if you want to upload it with credit to me, but I'm more comfortable sticking with my own code. I may include multi-threading in a future version, but this is such a simple, one-purpose tool that unresponsiveness doesn't bother me.

No, sorry. I actually just decided to give HQ another go late last week after deleting Sims 4 and all my CC in frustration a few months ago when I got tired of my attempts at converting manually succeeding only about half the time. (And also tired of S4S crashing the other half while importing.) That's when I stumbled on this tool so I've been in the process of slowly re-gathering CC to convert / use and, so far, that CC - and the other two I downloaded from that creator - are the only ones I've found that have that issue.

As far as the settings, it's all the defaults - Standard to HQ, 2048x4096 diffuse/shadow/skin, 1024x2048 specular, keep original size if larger, sharpen rle2 textures, default sharpen strength (50) and don't sharpen grayscale. I basically just open up the program, pick the package and let it go.

Thanks for the quick answer! I was going to say 'never mind' - after realizing TSR isn't going to work with an ad blocker I got a couple of that creator's items downloaded, ran them through, and got the same results at default settings. I saw that the shadow textures are made differently from the usual, with a very thin margin around the shadow part. I also tried resizing with GIMP and it got much worse, with black lines showing in CAS as well. Kind of puzzling why since there's no sign of lines in the images. So I'm going to see if I can get these shadows to convert successfully for the next version but don't consider it an issue with the tool.

Of course! Storm Raven Dress for example. It is from this post. The original texture is extremely subtle and is barely even visible in CAS. When converting this outfit with the HQ converter (whether sharpening is enabled or not) the specular becomes shiny as if it's replaced by something else while the specular texture still seems to be the same when checking it in Sims 4 Studio. Though, exported and importing it as PNG fixes it and is personally not too much of a hassle. It's just a curious find :p

Now I see another comment about the shadow lines not only appearing on the thumbnails but also in life-mode on some cc after all..? That's interesting. I guess I should test some more :o

Sure, no problem. I can live without that CC but just thought I'd point it out in case it started popping up with other conversions. Given that the tool already converts the majority of what I throw at it with little problem, it's more than good enough for what I need. :D

Thanks for the link! On examining the specular I realized it's made to be super shiny - it has a completely opaque mask and completely opaque alpha in the main texture, meaning maximum shine. IMO the question is why it's not shiny in the first place. Using S4S I tried export/import to png and as expected that killed the shine. Then I tried export/import to DDS and the shine remained. I vaguely remember seeing something somewhere about speculars imported as png not working, and after some searching I saw a comment on the S4S forums just posted today saying they've found a problem with the png to DDS conversion in 100% opaque alpha areas. (The discussion was about walls but I would think affects any specular.) So I exported to png, added a tiny bit of transparency to the main texture opaque areas, imported, and the shine was there again.

So I think this isn't an issue with HQ Converter.

About the shadow lines showing up again - so far it's happening only with one creator's clothing and I haven't yet figured out what's different about his shadow textures that's causing it.

Ohh I see! Thank you for the thorough explanation Learned something new today! I've found this specular ''fault'' on a few other cc pieces by other creators as well, so I guess those specular maps were all made in that way then. I believe importing a specular as PNG doesn't necessarily kill the shine, I think you just make them differently than when you make a specular in DDS format (different method of masking?). Either way, I'll pay more attention to how specular maps are actually meant to be made in that case. Thank you again for explaining!

I found the shadow issue on clothes by some other creators as well. However, these clothes are old cc (from 2015). One of them is the wedding dress by Karzalee (001StudioK) and the other one is the fancy short dress by Hayny. Both links have been removed/deleted so I can't even link them here I'm not sure if they'd allow it if I add the download here just for testing purposes. I noticed that these dresses have the shadows of the EA mesh they cloned it from. I don't know if that makes any difference though. And I noticed that when viewing these shadows in life mode that they become more visible the more you zoom out. If you are zoomed in close to the sim then the rough shadow lines disappear.

That's very interesting about the shadows. Possibly it's a mipmap thing? I feel we still don't completely understand how the shadows work. If you want to upload those old packages for me you could do it elsewhere and pm me a link.

I will do just that

Thanks so much for this! Great work, and incredibly useful.

Does anyone else have a problem with custom pet coats when using HQ mod? I am pretty certain it isn't because of something I converted using this tool. The game crashes when I try to edit coats, and any pets with an edited coat in game appear completely black. I tried everything I could think of.

@cmarnyc I am having an issue right now. I am trying to convert to HQ, and for some reason the application randomly closes on me. It's not a specific package either, I ran it last night and it did 200 packages, then shut down. I booted it up today, and it stopped after 10. I am confused.

Edit: Oh and I am using the recent 2.0 version you shared, and I am using the 64bit one.

Is there any error message? How much memory do you have? At this point I can only suggest you reboot your PC and see if that makes a difference.

I have 16 GB of Ram, no error message it just shuts down. I am trying it again and I've gotten 105 out of 662 so far done. I might do a reboot if it happens again to see if that helps.

Good. When a program quits without saying goodbye it could be almost anything including hardware, drivers, Windows, or of course the program itself, very hard to troubleshoot.

Well the weird part is, when I have Sims 4 open and the program running, it runs just fine. Last night and when I restarted it earlier today it wasn't open. Now that I have it open again, it's still going.

I have the files I want hq'ed separate from my mods folder so they wouldn't interfere. It's weird though. Why would it work when more memory is being used compared to less memory when the program is closed. I dunno.

Beats me too! The only thing I can think of is that it runs more slowly, but why that would help I have no idea.

I am now getting the issue with the black lines in CAS around a cc dress. I don't know how to fix it, has anyone figured it out yet?

It's this dress that I noticed so far:https://www.thesimsresource.com/dow...iva/id/1331344/

It started happening for me a couple of days ago, and LunaLechuza as well. With packages that converted successfully before but if converted again suddenly get blocky black lines in-game that disappear when you zoom in very close and get worse when you zoom out. It's the weirdest thing. Are you seeing it in CAS or in game? Out of curiosity, is your graphics card nVidea? I'm going to upload a new version that fixes the problem I've been seeing after a little more testing, but if you want to try it now here it is.

*New version uploaded, link removed*

(The dress you linked converted perfectly for me with this version.)

I saw it in CAS and in game. Thank you, hopefully this will help.

Edit: I am still having the issue. But it was converted to HQ with 2.0 and then I used the same file to convert it with the new version...maybe that's the issue.

Edit2: Ok I did it with a fresh download of the package and it worked just fine.

You should convert an unchanged copy of the package, if you re-convert a converted package that's not going to fix anything. But lines appearing in CAS could be a separate issue and I didn't get that. If you download a fresh package, convert it, and still get the lines, could you upload the converted package for me? You could pm me a link if you prefer.

EDIT: I took a closer look and those spots are in the texture itself, under patches where the alpha isn't fully transparent. They show up in my CAS too, but are not as visible as in yours. Not sure why they're so much more obvious in your game, possibly a different graphics card or whatever. I see them with the original package in a non-HQ game too but even more faintly.

Nah I fixed it, converted a fresh package and got it working just fine.

Good - see my edit above, but IMO the spots being so visible could be related to the shadow problem since that's caused by alpha channel complications and v2.0 was modifying the alpha in ways that I suppose could cause this. You might look at some point and see if you still see them faintly like I do.

I will check it out next time I go in game. I had the issue with the program closing randomly on me again. I got 34 files done out of 1,000 before it closed on me.

Edit: I see it too. It's faint but it's there.

Sorry about the random closing of the program, but without an error message and no other reports of this happening (so far) I can't do anything at this point. I'll think about it, maybe something will come to me.