Custom photos in game/Fix for black photos
Introduction
From time to time, the photos taken in the game turn black because of bugs. Unfortunately, once the bug causing the issue gets fixed, the photos won’t reappear. There are ways to fix them but that depends on the individual case.
The following instructions cover the case where the actual textures of the photos are no longer available in the save.
As a nice side effect, this also allows you to bring any image into the game as photo.
To be able to restore black images, the image must still exist in your screenshots folder. Some of the images in the folder are of a slightly different quality and are not the right size, but in most cases this works very well. More on this in the instructions. Unfortunately, this guide does not work for console, as Sims 4 Studio (S4Studio) is required to do it.
Working with S4Studio requires precise work and a certain amount of basic computer knowledge. Because of this I recommend that only advanced users take this route. It is also very important to make backups of your savegames before you start editing.
I accept no responsibility if a savegame no longer works after editing.
This guide was written with S4Studio V3.2.4.1.
Steps
First check whether your image is still available in the Documents>Electronic Arts>The Sims 4 folder or select any image you would like to have in the game. It is best to create a folder with the images, as you will first need to crop them to the correct size and edit them to your liking.
If you can’t find an image or the quality is questionable (as in my case, with the many images that are far too bright), there is unfortunately no way to restore the image.
Open the image with the graphics program of your choice and crop the picture in the correct ratio and then reduce the size of the image. Save the whole thing.
Photos in the game have the following dimensions
Photos
- Small: 108×144 px
- Medium: 432×576 px
- Large: 576×768 px
Paintings by reference
- Small: 384×384 px
- Medium: 768×768 px
- Large: 576×1024 px
Depending on how many photos you have in your house, it is worth adding all the photos you want to edit to the inventory of a specific Sim.
It doesn’t matter whether the photos are in the inventory or on the wall. You just need to be able to find them again.
Prepare your savegame in that way.
Make sure the game is closed and copy your entire user folder to a safe place.
Open your savegame with S4Studio. You can find all basics in this post: Clean Saves with S4Studio – Basics
Navigate to the objects list of your lot (Zone Object Data) or to the object list of the Sims inventory (Sims). More details on how to do this can also be found in the article linked above.
Filter the object list by photo or canvas to see all your current photos/paintings by reference in the house or inventory object list. Also filter the right hand side by texture.
Choose each entry and note down the texture_id in a separate program.
If you come across an entry with only 0, then you found one with a missing reference.
Since I haven’t come across this case yet and couldn’t test, I don’t want to go into details for this case here.
Close the object windows and return to the main window.
Enter every number you noted above in the filter field and check if there’s a related Save Game Custom Texture. You found the black photo if you can’t find an entry.
Add a new entry for this missing reference.
To do so, click on Add and fill out the following info in the window that appears:
- Type: Save Game Custom Texture
- Group: 00800000
- Instance: The texture_id that had no associated entry.
You have now created a new empty entry with the correct instance that is associated with the photo.
Assign the image you want to that resource by right-clicking on the entry and choosing Import.
Navigate to your image on your hard drive and select it to be imported.
The image is now replaced. The size is still wrong but will be corrected next time you load the save in S4Studio.
Save your changes maybe even again under a new name.
Repeat for every picture you want replaced.
Start the game and admire your work.
You can bring any picture into your save this way.
Background info on photos and pictures
Photos and paintings are saved as textures with your save game. They are not only separately saved to your screenshots folder but also exist as Save Game Custom Texture in your save game. The texture is assigned to the picture object.
In the following cases you will see a black photo or white painting by reference:
- Texture doesn’t exist anymore and the game doesn’t know what to display
- The reference to the texture is missing from the picture object.
Saving all textures of photos and paintings to the save game can lead to boating if you have a lot of pictures. Combined with other things like many Sims, lots with many objects and lots of residential rental lots can lead to save game corruption. It’s advisable to delete not needed photos from inventories.
Remarks
- Photos don’t have to be black to be replaced. You can just overwrite any texture with another. Skip the step to create a new entry if you just want to replace and use Import on the existing textures you want to replace.
- It should also be possible to copy certain texture on other photos/painting. Use Duplicate on an existing resource for that and edit the instance on the right hand side under Data to another photo/painting object. Make sure that you only have one texture per object as I think it can lead to issues if you have more. I did not test this case.
- Uploading lots with photos/paintings by reference to the gallery flags them as containing cc.
- It’s difficult to say which picture is which. Make sure the size fits. In the worst case you’ll need to reshuffle the photos in the game.
- Picture frames that contain multiple photos are saved as parent object and each photo in the frame has it’s own entry, that you can edit the same way.
