I have found an item that was made for Sims 2 and a conversion of said item to Sims 4. I'd like to try to make a Sims 3 version. The TOU of the original creator allows conversions. The original artist made it for Sims 2 as a decorative hearth they suggested using with an "invisible fireplace". The person who converted it to Sims 4 cloned it off a fireplace. The idea of the item being decorative so I could decide to add items to use it either as a medieval hearth with a fire or as modern cottage core with a wood burner in the hearth appeals to me. There are decor items like fires and chimneys to add and achieve either result.

But I'm looking through this forum and I'm getting cold feet. Is object conversion really as intimidating as it looks? Is it easier going from 2 to 3 or from 4 to 3?

Object conversion is pretty much the same as making an object regularly- once the textures and meshes are exported, where they came from makes little difference.
It would mostly rely on whether you have any previous familiarity with the programs used for each game- SimPE and Sims4Studio. I'd say start from the game you know the tools of, and in the case you are brand new to both I'd say that the formats and programs for Sims 4 are more modern and easier to learn.

Whatever the functionality is in the other games won't impact the conversion process, as you'll basically just have the loose pieces free to use on whatever base you prefer- deco item or actual fireplace.
No harm in giving it a shot and coming back here with any issues you may encounter along the way

Agreeing to everything above said. Whichever game you're converting from buy objects are the easiest most especially in the decorative category because it goes as simple as importing resources from your reference ts2/ts4 object to your ts3 base object. What will complicate the process are some specific details such as making the object recolorable, as you have to work on masks and multipliers, setting meshes to groups so you could apply the necessary shaders, and many more as you go down the path of creation. Most xto3 converters I know of start wih decor objects as their first creations, so I'd recommend starting with converting decor objects first and you'll get the hang of it as you convert more..

Well, I’ve watched three YouTube tutorials so far and one of them didn’t befuddle me completely, so I guess I’ll keep doing my homework. I’ll be sure to run back here screaming for help when I muck it up. 😄

The conversions have always seemed surprising to me! Even the simplest ones like wallpaper for houses.

However, there is something that I have not yet been able to find, conversions from the worlds of S4 to S2 and S3. I would love to be able to play the modern neighborhoods in previous installments.

That would be because converting those would border on magic, given that they're in wildly unrelated formats These would need to be made from scratch in the game of choosing, which is a far sight more of a gigantic project than being able to reuse textures and meshes 1:1.

It wouldn't take long to recreate any of the Sims 4 neighbourhoods in Sims 2 or 3, they don't have many lots! Imagine trying to recreate a Sims 3 world, with 100+ lots, in Sims 4...!

Okay, I've gone to Sims4Studio, extracted the mesh and textures to blender, saved it as on obj and then I go to TSRW and it only shows me Sims 4 objects. (I have all four Sims installed on this PC. It was the pandemic. I was bored) If I am trying to convert from Sims 4 to Sims 3, don't I need to put the mesh on a Sims 3 object?

I feel like I still haven't found the right tutorial. This is the promised part where I come back begging for help when I muck something up.

I wouldn't envy having to guesstimate how the neighbourhoods fit together, given the source material don't actually exist in the same worldspace though
Converting all the shells and props into rabbitholes for TS3 though..... now that's an idea I could get behind.

The most recent TSRW should show TS3 objects too, as long as the install location is listed under Edit > Preferences.
Many also use a slightly older edition of TSRW for certain TS3 projects, if you find they aren't playing well in the new one.The link is here. It predates TS4 support so you don't have to worry about the two being conflated at all in that one.

Once you have that sorted, you don't even have to be leashed to a conversion tutorial anymore. You'll have the basic components (.obj and texture) to follow any object tutorial, which widens the pool of knowledge a little bit

Yes, it’s a bit silly to see it this way since it’s all just pretty pixels in the end, but Sims 3 worlds feel more real and Sims 4 worlds feel like the false facades of two dimensional stage sets because what you see in map view doesn’t always match up to live views. Sim 3 Sims interact more with the world too. They don’t buy books and groceries on line and they go to classes to learn skills so they need their rabbit holes

After way more time than I thought it should take me, I have a hearth. I somehow did not manage to add all the recolors, I have lost the slots on the mantel so I had to argue with an OMSP to get the vase up there, and I have absolutely no stinking idea how to make it castable. I shall not speak of the file name that did not save, or the topiary that is apparently no longer in my game despite the boxes I swear I checked, but we all know this is not a plant despite what my game says.

I can't help but think that after all this time there should be a clear written set of instructions out there somewhere that I can refer to step by step at my own speed, but my websearch has not uncovered it. At this point I could take a hi-liter to the parts where I screwed up. I don't need another YouTube tutorial with someone saying "just click here" and not explaining what that click does or why they're clicking. Despite my limited success, I am feeling frustrated.

edited to add, the woodburner is not part of the hearth and is courtesy of MOO, but Bob the Builder was able to light a fire in it.

You've made more progress than you think! Before you are familiar with all of the tools at your disposal, things will be a little messy to create- but you got there in the end.
I'm too attached to some of my very first unfinished projects to delete them, but they're also so messy to look at with more experienced eyes that I'd never know where to begin working on them again


You aren't alone in that sentiment- this is all mainly why I started writing my own tutorials. It is of course important to remain grateful that this is a community and all expertise freely shared is very generous- and to be fair, creation itself and teaching someone to create are two separate skills- but the Sims community especially does fall into doing things by habit and losing the reasoning to the sands of time. Especially when the process is not very intuitive, it makes it a lot harder for beginners to overcome the 'don't know what I don't know' stage when the information doesn't get clarified.

I'd love to write an object tutorial of my own, but I don't use TSRW and that program is pretty firmly imbedded in info already out there. It's a big hurdle to both teach a method and convince users that something unfamiliar is good. It's also daunting if I'm the only active user doing something a certain way- then pretty much all issues circle back to me to solve

If it's any consolation, it's pretty standard to go back and mess with your creation trying to iron out the quirks. Solving issues, starting from scratch, working on other things before coming back to an old project- it all contributes to getting comfortable with the work. Even if it may be a little tedious when you just want the creation ready to use ingame (my historical save cries out, stalled for several years now because I keep deciding I want to make things for it from scratch-)
Feel free to list the things that aren't working how you wanted and those familiar with object creation here will be able to pitch in with what they know / links to the relevant information

If you don't use TSRW, what do you use instead? I couldn't find a way to import my obj file, so I ended up importing the Sims 4 package and working with that. TSRW gave me some errors that I couldn't get around.

I really am grateful for everything the community does for its members. Sometimes people just need things explained to them differently to get it to "click" in their noggin and the YouTube videos simply did not click in mine.

Update: I got rid of the plant texture and managed to add the other recolors from Sims 4 instead of repeating the first one twice. Also managed to change the name of the file. Now I need to import the medium mesh so that doesn't change back to a pot plant and figure out how to add slots and make it castable.

I have never converted objects 4 to 3, but have done a few garments. Basically, I will open a package in s4pe, export the geoms and use s4castools to convert to object, which I can import to Blender and work with.

Separately, I have done a few TS3 objects. Often, a .obj can be imported directly to TSRW, if groups are set correctly. But, really not sure of how objects are the same way in s4studio?

There are some plugins for importing meshes between S3PE and Milkshape from back when the latter was a common meshing program. It's now quite outdated and quite defunct for most purposes.
But because those plugins still work, it makes an excellent middleman. The actual mesh work can be done in a more powerful program like Blender and Milkshape can swap the resulting .obj into the mlod/modl resources of a cloned object (from S3OC).
Confusing, but freeing!

Both methods have their pros and cons, and sometimes there are blind spots in the documentation.
If you have a link to the object you are converting, I can take a look at it and let you know if anything stands out from what I would do to convert it personally.

The Sims 4 file I am converting it from or my questionable Sims 3 version?

https://sims4studio.com/thread/3676...fireplace%2C%22

Above is the link to the object I am converting from. I'd have to figure out how to share the file I'm converting to.

Okay, what have I done now? I persuaded the medium mesh to import. The first try was black regardless of texture. So I exported the mesh again and went back and imported this one which has skid marks. What causes skid marks?


Never mind, I figured it out. Now I need to figure out how to get it to go flush to the wall...

If you open an EA fireplace as a project, you should be able to see what placement + build/buy flags it is using. Replicating those on yours may get it to snap in the way you want, unless the mesh itself needs to be shifted back to fit the TS3 footprint.

And thank you for the link, yes!

Funny thing about that, when I go into TSRW to look for a fireplace to clone, none come up. I tried importing a couple of CC fireplaces, but they won't let me import my mesh over them.

This weekend has left me feeling rather inept, to be honest. I don't see a lot of CC conversion in my future, but I sure appreciate the effort that goes into it.

This is one you might need @CardinalSims favorite, s3oc. TSRW does not seem to find all resources for some objects. You can make a package of a fireplace in s3oc, and then open it in TSRW, if that tool is more comfortable for you, as it is for me.

Well, I managed to get a package for a fireplace using Sims 3 Object Cloner. (and didn't I feel silly looking for it when I had no idea what the acronym stood for) Putting the mesh on a cloned fireplace resulted in the object not showing up in my game.

Wheee! Back to more fun.

THAT's the attitude! WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! Not showing in game could be a few things, but first check that TSRW does not have "hidden" checked, and if cloned from a fireplace, it should be in build mode, if you weren't sure where it might be.

Don't see "hidden" checked. Don't see it in Build mode. I have spent the last hour following along to a tutorial on my tablet while I wrestled with Blender on my PC and I am DONE. Blender wouldn't "bake" my mesh and when I did export an OBJ file, TSRW wouldn't let me import it because "index was outside the bounds of the array".

{Exasperated sigh}

I am going to put this infernal machine to sleep, do up the dishes soaking in the sink and then go knit on my lilac stole while I watch Tom Hiddleston and Brie Larson try to outsmart King Kong. Maybe I'll try this again later.

Yea, sometimes you just need to put things on the shelf, clear your head, and return to it later. I have gone back to things, MONTHS later... often after stumbling across new information about whatever I was trying to do.

Not sure about baking a mesh? I've heard of baking a multiplier, but I do those in GIMP. TSRW can be a pain with object import. I had an object project where I litterally had to create a new work file every time I wanted to change the mesh.

And Kong should win a battle of wits... at least against Brie Larson!