What You Will Need

1. Imaging Program
   • Gimp - Gimp DDS Plugin
   • Paint.Net
   • PhotoShop - PhotoShop DDS Plugin
   • PaintShopPro
2. S3PE

S3PE

What this tutorial will do
Show you how to replace images for Sim Painted Paintings

What this tutorial will not do
Teach you how to use S3PE or Imaging Programs

Step by Step Instructions
The DDS files for the paintings are stored in FullBuild2.package in the base game installation directory - C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\GameData\Shared\Packages

1 - Double click on FullBuild2 or right click > Open and wait for S3PE to open the file


2 - Click on Names to sort


There are 158 default paintings

• 53 Small - Size: 256x128
• 57 Medium - Size: 256x256
• 48 Large - Size: 512x512

There are also trait variations for each default painting, default + trait variations = 1,580 paintings


3 - You can export one file at a time or use CTRL + Left Click to select multiple files

4 - Right click on the painting and select Export > To File


5 - Export the DDS file(s) you wish to replace to a folder on your desktop, The folder can be named whatever you want. Once you have all the DDS files you want to replace, move on to the next step.

6 - Open one of the DDS files in your image program, I'm using PhotoShop. When the file opens in PhotoShop it will ask you to verify settings: Use "Load using default sizes" and make sure "Load MIP Maps" is unchecked.


7 - Once the file is loaded in your Image Program, notice the painting does not take up the whole area. You must make your new image fit over the original painting.


8 - Find an image that you want to use as a replacement. This could be a screenshot from the game, your own artwork, a real life picture of you, or whatever you want. Open it in your image program.

9 - Use the Selection Tool to select your new image or with the Selection Tool selected click on CTRL + A

10 - From the Top Menu, click on Edit > Copy or use CTRL + C


11 - Switch to the painting image and from the Menu, select Edit > Paste or CTRL + V.

12 - Chances are your new image will be larger than the painting, so you will need to resize your image to fit over the painting. In some cases, once you have resized, you will also need to crop the new image to fit over the painting.


13 - Once you have your new painting placed over the original properly, merge all layers or flatten the image.

14 - Now you are ready to save your new painting, From the Menu, click on File > Save or CTRL + S. You should now see the screen below. Save with the following settings compression: DXT5 or DXT1 depending on the file. You can find the compression the original uses by looking at the DDS in a hex editor or by clicking the auto hex box in Project S3PI when extracting. format: default and check generate mipmaps.


You will need to do this for each of the DDS files you wish to replace. Once you have finished replacing all the DDS files, you'll need to get them into a package.

15 - Open S3PE 16 - From the Menu, click on File > New or CTRL + N

17 - From the Menu, click on Resource > Import > From File or CTRL + SHIFT + M


18 - Select the DDS file(s) that you just finished replacing and click on the "Open" button

19 - You will see the window below, just click on the "OK" button


20 - From the Menu, click on File > Save or CTRL + S, give the package a name

21 - Place the new package in your Mods\Packages folder and test your new paintings.

That's pretty much all there is to it. Once you actually do this, it will be rather simple and not nearly as long as it looks here in the tutorial. It's your choice how many or how few of the paintings you wish to replace, afterall it's your game.

If you wish to ADD more paintings instead of replacing them, then see the Adding More Paintings to Sim Painted Paintings Tutorial

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Is there a way to add to the number of paintings, instead of replacing them?

Thanks for the tutorial!

The Windows Texture Viewer will show you many important things about the image you're altering, including which format it's in; it's a free utility from Nvidia.

Here's a screenshot of a DDS file opened with WTV; you can see that this particular file is in DXT5 format:

I had not thought of this and not sure why you would want to, but yes you can. at level 10 there are 3 paintings, I added a 4th to see if it would show up.

I just like to throw more things in the mix, and I'm always wary of replacing things because I might have something in my Sim's house that they made ages ago but now is a completely different painting.

I'm not terribly familiar with Sims 3 Modding, is there a simple way of doing this?

Depends on what you term as "easy". You will need to open gameplaydata and export the paintingskillsdb.xml to a new package. You can add paintings by following EA's template in numbering. Once you done that, you need to export one of the painting dds files from fullbuild2. Open the dds in a graphic program as shown above and replace the painting. Finally, you need to rename the dds file to match what you put in your new package. Copy the name from the xml package and put it in FNV64 Hash, this will be the instance for your new dds file. Replace the old instance with the new instance in the name of the dds you exported. Repeat for as many as you wish to add, when you are done with that you need to create a new package and import all the dds files. Put the package into your mods\packages folder and test.

Hi~
I'm a totally n00b when it comes to things like this.
I also would like to add more paintings to my game (as well as replacing them) and for the replacing part I understand quite well, but when following this text for adding, starting from 'Copy the name from the xml package and..', I get a bit confused. Is there any way you can explain this more in detail so I can understand better? Thank you ~~

If you wish to ADD more paintings instead of replacing them, then see the Adding More Paintings to Sim Painted Paintings Tutorial