Hey guys!

I know I've asked this somewhere in the past, but I can't remember where and I'd just get confused, so let's start over.

I want to bring the photos from my original hood back into the new copy of it, but it's not cooperating. I had my Sims take a photo with the BV camera, and this is what came out
-> nsnapshot_01e2fbd1_e21dd87f.jpg

From what I recall, the first sequence of numbers and stuff is the lot-identifier, telling the game which lot to display the photos in. I used a renaming program to change the lot sequence to the one in this picture, but they aren't showing up.

So, has anyone done this and knows what I have to do to make them show up?

I have no real solution, only a workaround:

In the new 'hood take as many pictures with the sims´ camera as you had in the old. Doesn´t matter what is in the photo, can be just as well pics of the grass.
Now exit the game, open the original files and copy-paste their content into the pics you just took. In theory you should be able to bring even your pictures for The Sims 1 to the new game - or anything you can think of.

You need both the snapshot AND the thumbnail for it to be useable in the new neighbourhood. They will have the same number. From your example:

snapshot_01e2fbd1_e21dd87f.jpg

You will also need the file called thumbnail_01e2fbd1_e21dd87f.jpg

The coding doesn't mean anything AFAIK - you can use any picture in any family album - it's just a way for the game to identify the picture and its related thumbnail.

Snapshots for vacation locations are slightly different (denoted by a letter in front of the word snapshot) but you still need the thumbnail. If you want to put snapshots from a holiday in a photo album though, you will need to sort out the coding which assigns them to a specific family.

Thanks maxon. Now that you say it, I can't imagine why I didn't think of that. Obviously it needs the thumbnail, or it can't display itself.

I'm going to have such a fun time finding the thumbnails for the 160 pictures I want to bring along xD But hey, worth it in the end.

Well, you still have the unique picture ID. (The "e21dd87f" part.) Those don't repeat, or almost never do.

The household coding does matter if you want to order pictures to hang on the wall or put on a shelf, which is a BV feature. A family can only order pictures with their own household ID, and it has to be an "nsnapshot," not a regular "snapshot" file. Fortunately, you can fix this easily with a little renaming (for the original household), copy-and-rename (for a secondary household), or Enki's copy-and-paste-in-a-photo-editing-program trick (if the second method doesn't work or you don't like it for whatever reason).

EDIT: Unless the household coding requirement got changed in FT, AL, or M&G. Certainly my statements were true in my BV-as-highest-EP game.

I've just been looking at it in SimPE - the first set of code (letters and numbers) of the snapshot name is the Album GUID which you will find in SimPE in the Family Information - go to Family Information in your neighbourhood in SimPE and then click on the family, you will see the Album GUID in one of the boxes. I'm guessing the letter prefix of the snapshot name will tell the game it's a holiday snapshot because it's a different letter depending on where the holiday was. It's t for Twikki and f for Far East (not sure what it is for mountain but m?).

The second set of code varies so I guess it's that that identifies a specific picture.

I usually sort that folder by date created or date modified. Because both the files were created at the same moment (when you took the picture), they will be listed together. If I fiddle with a picture (which I'm known to do), I always load up the thumbnail and save it again at the same time so they still list together.

PS - I'd test the coding for you but it's late, I have work tomorrow and I'm off to bed. If you test it, let us know the results.

I figured out a sorta-system to get through it quickly, and located the 160 files I needed. Renamed them with a program, and voila, now it all shows up. Thanks maxon, all it needed was the thumbnails. I knew all that about the different kinds of photos and the differences in name depending on what camera and where they were taken, I just missed the thumbnail bit. But now my Sims can re-order all of their photos to hang on the walls <3

So to clarify, all that was needed was to grab the snapshot and the thumbnail, and change the first sequence of random numbers/letters to the correct sequence for the lot one wants it to show up in.

EDIT: A note on using SimPE to check album guid. One has to actually take a photo in the household for a guid to be assigned. Probably kind of obvious, but still worth knowing.

It occured to me that even easier would be to just take a photo in the house of your choice and go and look at the picture file name - the album GUID is going to be used with that photo too. Avoiding firing up SimPE is always a good thing. I've realised now I can rename some picture files and put them in an album - wedding photies for example. The 'n' of your filename I'm guessing is when you use the camera in the regular neighbourhood.

That's how I normally do it. Take a photo, check the folder. I used SimPE as I hadn't taken photos yet in the lots, hoping I could avoid firing up my game, but as I found out there has to be photos taken in the lot for there to be a guid assigned.

n is for regular neighbourhood, t is for twikki, f is for far east, m is for three lakes.

It's funny I didn't really register about that little prefix myself - it's the sort of thing I usually do know about and I've fiddled with photos a lot one way or another. Still I think I might make a wedding album now for Marianne's wedding. It was quite a while back but I have a lot of pictures of it. Plus the honeymoon where I took pictures but not with the camera thing. I can just rename the ones I want to use. There's Henry and Horace's wedding too - that was another big social event in Little Carping.