Hey everyone, I apologize if this is somewhat obvious. I've made two new paintings using the standard S3OC retexture method, and I've followed the instructions to a T, but I've ended up with a thumbnail problem. Even though everything looks right inside the package itself, for some reason it doesn't seem to load the thumbnail correctly. Take a look at the attachments.

Any ideas as to how to fix this before attempting an official upload? I'd like to make a full on set of paintings and such, but without this problem.

FYI: I've cleared my caches and the usual fare, so I'm pretty clear on it being an issue within the package and not the game.

it seems a bit pixely
can you sharpen the image?????????

Moved to TS3 Meshing since your seeking help and not feedback. I am pretty sure this issue has been addresed, you might want to look/search through this forum.

I can't tell why your thumbnails are coming out like that.

But it is possible to just create your own new thumbnail for your paintings.

Here in this thread is how to do that:

http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=374763

I hope this helps even though it isn't directly on point.

Delete ObjectThumbnails.package in: Users\xxx\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Thumbnails

Thanks, but I already tried deleting the cache files, including that one. I will try next to delete the actual thumbnail files in the object packages themselves and see if that makes a difference.

Lol...sorry...I assumed you had already tried that.

Edited to add: In the interests of helping others who will view this thread, two ways of getting a thumbnail, both generated by the game and creating your own, are discussed in the link I posted above.

Ok, well I deleted the thumbnail files inside the the packages and they came up ingame exactly the same, even after deleting the caches again. Any clue as to what's going on here? I noticed that some other custom objects I've downloaded from other folks have the same problem, some of which are by some pretty well-established creators.

Is the issue with the blurry texture or the off-center position of the paintings in the thumbnails? Were the frames resized or moved in Milkshape or the texture in different resolutions from the original?

Which paintings did you clone these from, btw? Are they the ones in the screenshots, too? So, we can get a better idea how the cloned paintings should look like?

I downloaded both and deleted the thumbs from the smaller one...the one with the metal thingy. The thumbnail from it shows up fine in my game.





Meanwhile I left the other alone and got the same skew on the thumbnail that you show above. Are you sure you deleted the thumbnails and then saved the packages with the thumbnails deleted? I can't guess why else this would show up correctly in my game but not in yours.

Yeah, I'm absolutely sure. Just checked again. The only thing I can think of is that I'm running on a Mac and something with the emulation is causing it. *sigh*

As far as the blurriness is concerned, the Property of Ones is cloned from Grandma Wholesome's Folk Art, which is also pretty blurry as it's got a pretty low resolution in the default texture (which I matched, and also it's meant to be a cross-stitch, so some parts may appear pixelated when it's actually supposed to be pretty squared off to resemble the artform), and I guess I didn't think the Waterhouse painting was that blurry, but it's also set to the same resolution as the Film Noir picture it's cloned from. I didn't touch anything in Milkshape, I did everything the easy way, just using S3OC and GIMP, putting the texture over into a frame already set up for me by the hard workers over at EA. I also used the default thumbnail image and just overlaid the new image and imported into s3oc, which is where the problems started. Is there some way to use a higher resolution in a replacement image than the default object uses?

The Waterhouse looks fine in my game. The other is a little less sharp but as you say it's a cross-stitch so it should be a little less sharp.

The mtlsrc settings that govern the sharpness on both your paintings are maxed out for the size of the IMG DDS...I checked them. You could try using the Sharpen tool on the original image before pasting it over the DDS I've done that on some of my paintings and it seemed to help.

On my machine, in my Documents/Electronic Arts/The Sims 3/ folder is a WorldCaches folder. It is filled with pretty textures, nice composited textures that the game made from putting all of the object layers together fro final rendering.

That is probably where the ugly old textures are hiding, and why they continue to show up on your machine in the new thumbnails and none of that happened on OM's machine.

When you are developing things, and changing textures, we always reuse the TGI, and the game will continue to use these caches until you delete them or remake you object with a different ID.

There are caches in there for your particular world (e.g. Riverview) and one for Sims and one for Objects. I always delete at least the Objects one, usually both.

And I never save when I test. Well, I don't save until I am done with anything, or else I save as a test neighborhood that does not have a heavy investment in custom buildings and such.

Another pesky set of caches?...who knew? These things are like locusts...honestly. It's strange how this pair affects some items but, clearly, does not affect others.

Edited to add: I saved Rosa's Waterhouse painting in a house before deleting the thumbnails. I then checked to make sure I would get the same thumbnail error and I did. I then removed the thumbnails and saved. Replaced the other version in my Mods folder. Then I removed the thumbnail cache thing, the world cache pair, and the four that are loose in the folder. I looked at the painting in the game and the thumbnail is still borked. Is there some other cache that needs to be emptied? Or should the painting just be run through the S3OC again?

Edited to add again: I also wanted to mention that I can't see this painting in my base game version. I can only see it in my WA version of the game. Is this typical even if the item in question was cloned from a base game item?

Oh no! It's not even showing up? Well I only have the base game, so who knows what could be happening! Because I'm on a mac I actually can't delete the world cache because it somehow destroys the game it's associated with. I also never save when I test, which adds a further mystery to the thumbnails continuing to be wonky. I will run them both through S3OC again and see if THAT corrects it, but what I'm taking away from all this is that I should not create the thumbnails for objects and just let the game do it. Is that really the case?

You used the newest versions of the tools to make the painting though right? I had to update my S3OC to try fixing the object...my other version wouldn't work on this painting.

When you say, "I should not create the thumbnails for objects and just let the game do it"...what do you mean...what did you do to create thumbnails for this painting besides just delete the thumbnails in s3pe?

Fixing the object in S3OC worked and your painting showed up in my WA version with the right thumbnail. I have to admit, I also renamed it to keep it separate from the other version which I wanted to try something else on.

After removing the first version from the game I tried the second...the one I had fixed in S3OC and that version had a nice thumbnail.

I then removed the fixed version and placed the other version...the version with just removed thumbnails back in the Mods folder and this time the thumbnail looked right.

So there were two ways I got around the bad thumbnail being cached somewhere: 1. rename and fix with S3OC (I now wish I hadn't renamed so I would know if just fixing was enough) 2. removed unfixed object from mods folder, restarted game without object, closed game, put object back in mods folder and started game.

Both of those things worked and fixed the thumbnail. I have no idea why this object isn't showing up in my base game and I am still wondering where the thing was caching after I removed the thumbnails prior to fixing etc. I just don't know enough about how this all works to speculate on those issues.

Edited to add: This painting thumbnail issue was a total flog and I'm sorry this was probably one of your first introductions to meshing in Sims 3. I know if these had been my paintings I would have been over here having a complete fall-apart...somehow it's easier to think through things when it's someone else's problem...lol. Anyway, I hope you don't let this annoying occurrence dissuade you from continuing forward with meshing things.

Yeah, I followed the tutorial which mentioned creating a png to import into S3OC as the new thumbnail, and not knowing that the game would generate its own, I just superimposed my pic onto the one and imported.

Well...for number one...rofl!

two...if you're posting for help please read all the help you get...the link I posted above states how to add your own thumbnail and if you had read it you would know that you had not done it correctly.

two and one half...if you're posting for help about something specific like a thumbnail please provide complete information about what you did to that specific thing.

three...those of us who looked at the pic of your painting and it's three thumbnails in the game should have recognized there was something off about two of them being right while one was clearly wrong...I, personally, won't make that mistake again although I'm sure I'm bound to make others.

four...is your thumbnail right now? After all this thrashing about I certainly hope it is girl.

five...deleting the thumbnails and the caches still should have worked without so much agony...I don't get why the usual process didn't work on this painting. It shouldn't have required removing the object from the mods folder or altering the instance numbers. Clueless about that over here.

Hugs and again...rofl.

Were you using the newest version of the tools to make this? I'm still trying to figure out why it didn't show up in my base game.

All the tools are the newest, I only downloaded them all a few days ago. As far as creating the thumbnails is concerned, I seriously did follow the tutorial to the T, and that's all I did, you'll find it's the basic Xanathon one on retexturing a painting, including creating the 128x128 png to import into S3OC as the thumbnail. It's listed directly under Sims 3 tutorials on MTS, so if it's wrong, it seriously needs an update! The thumbnails are finally working since I cloned again in s3oc, but at least I know what to expect next time. Sheesh!

Well, I should have asked what tutorial you were following and read the thing. I apologize for two and a half in my post above. And I still think just adding a single thumb like the tutorial told you to shouldn't have made it so difficult to get rid of a bad thumbnail in the game.

I'm glad your thumbnail is finally working!

"Sheesh" can be the way you end up feeling when meshing in Sims 3. The game can be tricky to create for. I hope you stick with it though...it does get easier and less frustrating the more accustomed to it you get...although I'm sure I'll be taking those words back the next time I run into problems myself while making an object.

Thanks for posting the tools you used. Now I'm worried that things I create using them won't show up unless people have WA installed. I can see some time spent over in the Help section in my near-future.

Edited to add: As far as your question goes, "what I'm taking away from all this is that I should not create the thumbnails for objects and just let the game do it. Is that really the case? "...

Most of the time you'll find that the game generates nice thumbnails for your objects. Every so often though you might make something which is too tall, too not-centered, or whatever and the thumbnail doesn't show the whole object or shows it at an angle you don't care for.

In these cases creating your own thumbnails is easy to do if you follow the directions in the link I posted above. I've never had any problem creating my own thumbnails and, certainly, I've never seen anyone be unable to get rid of a user-created thumb like what happened to you with this pair of paintings.

This situation, where you've emptied the 4 loose caches and the thumbnails after importing an object which you've removed the thumbs from is new to me and again, I'm sorry it happened to you so early in your meshing experience.