Hi guys, please be patient with me since I haven't done any modding before outside of XML tuning!

So, I've seen this mod on here, and while it's now obsolete (at least on 1.69, the skills from WA, Ambitions, and LN all now give out skill certificates with proper icons) I've tested and found that the driver's certificate from Generations, and the laser-rhythm-a-con skill certificate from ITF use the icon for scuba diving, while riding not only has the wrong icon, but its skill certificate doesn't even have any text! Plus alchemy, and the UL and other ITF skills don't give any skill certificates at all! I was thinking of perhaps making a successor mod of sorts... but I'm confused by what to do. I'd like to start by fixing the certificates for driving, riding, and laser-rhythm-a-con, both icons and text strings. Unfortunately, Fernweather did not state which resources they edited to fix the thumbnails, and I'm not sure how I'd go about fixing the riding strings- is the certificate blank because it's associated with a blank text string? Or is it because it just doesn't have any text strings associated with it? And if it doesn't have any text strings associated with it, how would I properly hook up a new text string to the certificate? I'm starting to possibly think it may be best to just fix driving and laser-stupid-name-a-con (seriously EA couldn't you have just called it a laser harp?) and preventing sims from getting riding certificates, since from what I can tell, riding used to not give out a certificate (which is probably why it's certificate is completely broken.)

You can get an idea of what was required by opening Fernweather's packages.
They added a new _IMG texture for each missing skill and also modified the mesh data for certificateReward- the master object that uses material states to swap between appearances.
You can pull the original certificateReward with S3OC (with renumber unticked) to compare them- a little more tedious because the object has been updated since, but not impossible.

NRaas UntranslatedKey may help you find out what is wrong with the string. Just install and see if the text returns the raw string or remains blank.

Hmmm... I did a bodyshop texture edit on TS2 once when I was a kid, for the lulz, but I was using my mom's copy of photoshop, and I don't know the first thing about meshing. This might be a bit tricky.

On the other hand, I tried UntranslatedKey, and used DebugEnabler on a test sim to instantly get the certificate for Riding. And good news, the strings weren't blank! (I think... I'm still new to this)

Receiving the certificate brought up the string "Gameplay/Excel/Skills/SkillList:CertificateRewardMessageRiding" (without quotes), and viewing brought up the string "Gameplay/Excel/Skills/SkillList:CertificateRewardInscriptionRiding". So it IS connected to something, its just that that something is a blank text? Hell, while I was at it, I remembered another instance of seeing a blank textbox, which is if you boost the laser harp skill (I'm not calling it by its stupid frigging name) by having had xylophone skill as a toddler. That in turn returned the string "Gameplay/Skills/LaserHarp:SkillLearnedBoostFromXylophoneText" Maybe I'll add something for that too?

There is a free image editor called GIMP that supports the file type TS3 uses (dds). All that's required is adding the icons of your choice to the texture for the certificate- it would be a fair bit trickier to add them when they don't exist yet!
The changes to the mesh are to the data in the MLOD and MODL resources, not to the geometry itself- they can be done in S3PE's Grid edit. It may just be a little intimidating if you aren't too familiar with S3PE yet, but there's no rush

The string keys are good news!
You can use those to add STBL, either entirely in S3PE or with the help of Buzzler's STBLize.
Here's an example using the strings you found:

Put that into a text editor like Notepad or Notepad++, plus any other keys you want to localise, and save it in .xml format.
Drag and drop the .xml onto STBLize.exe and it will generate a .stbl file.
File > New in S3PE, then go to Tools > FNV Hash. Choose a unique name to hash an ID from, something like Username_MissingStringFix or whatever you prefer- as long as it's unique enough to not already be in use.
Click Calculate and copy the FNV64 result.
Then go to Resource > Add... and choose STBL for the type, 0 for the group, and paste the ID for the instance. Strings also need the first two digits of their ID to be the locale code- for English it's 00. Replace whatever the first two digits are so that it begins 0x00.
Write in the Name, then press OK.
Lastly, right click > Replace the new STBL and choose the file generated by STBLize. It will fill in the ID and text for each string for you. Then you can save and install
You can later duplicate it and use the codes for the other languages if you want to include those, too.

Will this mod be able to fix the driving license icon showing scuba diving?

I also want to know that.

Uhhh, yes. That is, if I ever decide to get around to it. ADHD is a bitch! There's also the problem of deciding the proper icon for the driver's license- since driving is a hidden skill, it doesn't have an icon for me to easily pick out and use. Probably a car, but my inner perfectionist thinks it should be one from the game- it would feel a bit lazy and out of place to just pick the first clipart of a car on google images :P

Well guys, I've managed actually get another burst of motivation, and finished the text part, which I imagine to be the easier part- well, I managed to fix the text for the riding certificate, but the laser harp xylophone boost text didn't work- maybe since they're in different parts of the file structure? But yeah, this is the first time I've made a mod from scratch!

Edit after some testing- Yeah, the fix for learning laser harp from the xylophone just does NOT want to work. Not if I put it in a separate STBL, or even if I put it in a different mod! But whatever, that was always just a sideshow to the skill certificates, including fixing the riding certificate texts, so it doesn't matter too much.

That's awesome!
Try changing the Group for the laser harp STBL to 0xA0000000 - A0 is the identifier for Into the Future.

When I get some time, I'll look into fixing the drivers certificate and write down the method so you can add the other two yourself- as it's quite intimidating to look at if you're new to S3PE! I'll also make the textures if you'd like, but if you want to learn that part too I'll just make the driver certificate one

Unfortunately, even changing the group didn't make the new text show up- oh well, like I said, it was just sort of a side project, so it doesn't matter that much if I can't get it to work.

Thank you for offering to do the driver's certificate- I'm flattered that you're offering to do that! But I'll do the other two textures myself, just to have a crack at learning to do it for myself.