what? dunno

I don't seem to find the textures at all D:

any idea of what to do?

(I feel stupid for not being able to do this)

what is the img files inside the package?

Can be textures, Icons.....
IF you open up a little more I can surely help more, but somehow I feel you are trying to keep it a secret.
What exactly do you want to edit.
Give me an practical example.
Or else it's like shooting in the dark and a lost of time.

It was a bunch of dds files... the sims4 logo and some textures just as normalmaps kinda .___.
I want them as normal textures

It was a bunch of dds files... the sims4 logo and some textures just as normalmaps kinda .___.
I want them as normal textures tho .__.

CmarNYC made a tool here

awesome!
but I still need to find the images first? right? or what?

Yes, you need to find and extract them yourself. Use the latest s4pe to open UI.package and look through the _IMG files. They'll look strange but you should be able to find the ones you want, and remember the ones my tool handles come in pairs with the same instance and two different group IDs.

Some of the images are normal DDS files and look normal. If you look in the upper right corner of the preview panel, after the checkboxes for the panels and the size you'll see the compression - uncompressed and DDSn are normal DDS files, do not come in pairs, and you can extract and edit them in Photoshop or GIMP with the proper plugin or Paint.net with no plugin needed. If it says ATI2, those are the custom image file pairs my tool is meant to work with.

this don't seem to work with transparency... right? how sould I handle that?

How do you mean - what isn't working? The combined images have an alpha channel and therefor transparency. However, it may depend on whether there's a background to show through and whether the game uses transparency in that particular context. If you'd be more specific about what you're trying to change I might be able to give more of an answer.

all images got a black background... but if that how it is sopposed to be then I guess that the game reads the black as transparet..? ...right..?... .___.



>check attachments<
I want the UI in those images and as you see the textures are slight transparent.

If I understand what you mean - in s4pe transparency looks black in the preview of one of the pair of textures, the one with group ID ending in A. The alpha is encoded in that texture. In the other it looks like a flat yellow green in the images I've looked at but won't necessarily be that color. You need to convert them into one bitmap to work with the transparency.

Still not clear what your problem/question is. Have you tried and transparency didn't work?

The .bmp has a black background too. It did in my tests. I just thought that was how it was meant to be.

What editor did you use? Did you check the alpha? In my tests there was the image in the upper left and an area on the right and bottom that's transparent. If you view the image rather than opening it in an editor, the transparent part may appear black.

I tried PaintShopPro 7 and Paint.Net for the .bmp. In both cases the .bmp picture had a solid black background.

For the DDSs I tried both, but of course only expected them to open in Paint.Net, which is the only app I have which can use DDS. They would not open in Paint.Net, providing the following error log:

System.FormatException: File is not a supported DDS format

at PaintDotNet.Data.Dds.DdsFile.Load(Stream input) in D:\src\pdn\src\PaintDotNet\Data\Dds\DdsFile.cs:line 469

at PaintDotNet.Data.Dds.DdsFileType.OnLoad(Stream input) in D:\src\pdn\src\PaintDotNet\Data\Dds\DdsFileType.cs:line 225

at PaintDotNet.FileType.Load(Stream input) in D:\src\pdn\src\Data\FileType.cs:line 496

at PaintDotNet.Functional.Func.Eval[T1,TRet](Func`2 f, T1 arg1) in D:\src\pdn\src\Base\Functional\Func.cs:line 158

However, that's not to say they won't do just fine in the game!

Are you able to combine to and from a .png rather than .bmp? Transparency is easier for the user to manipulate in an editor using .png cos you can actually see transparency rather than imagining the black as transparent.

just to add on to it, I used photoshop with the same problem...

Cmar, what editor do you usually use to edit the DDS or view the bmp with transparency? Maybe we just need to get the right editor?

I use GIMP and the transparent part shows as a checkerboard. But then I tried Photoshop Express and Paint.net and it was black. Weird! But png seems to show up with the checkerboard in all three so I took your advice and updated the tool to use png. (The .NET bitmap type handles all the standard formats so that part's easy.) You can download the new version if the black background is a problem.

Paint.net doesn't support the ATI compression in those UI DDS images. GIMP with the DDS plugin can open them. I don't know about Photoshop, I don't have the full version and don't use it much, but I think DevX said he could open them in PS.

that helpt alot! thx you very much!

Just piping up to say that Photoshop can indeed open these type of files with the nVidia DDS plugins installed.
Also, it is possible to extract the images from the UI.package with s4studio BUT you cannot tell what you are extracting until after the event. The preview images that s4studio present are just 50% grey until you get them into your picture editor.

For now at least s4pe is more useful for this purpose since it gives a real preview. The images are in YCoCg color space but are still recognizable.

Do I need an additional wrapper or something for that functionality? I just downloaded and installed the latest s4pe but when I open the ui.package all I get are error codes in the preview pane unless the image is a standard DXT.

No, it's built into the latest DDSPanel.dll which comes with the download.

Are you sure you're using v0.4.6 - possibly you have a shortcut pointing to an older version? The version display should be working, btw. Could you post a screen grab of the error?

Ah, no, I'm using version 0.3c. It does keep telling me that there is a newer version but then it only takes me to the download page for 0.3c and I don't know where to find the newer version.

ETA: I've found a newer version but it's only 0.4.4 Beta