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Ms. Byte (Deceased)
Original Poster
#1 Old 18th Apr 2020 at 4:16 PM Last edited by CmarNYC : 27th Jun 2021 at 8:10 PM.
Default TS4 File Packager in development, version 1.1 uploaded 6/27/2021
This is sort of a request - a tool to batch import and export images to RLE2, RLES, LRLE, etc. format in a package. It's very crude and simple and tested only with a small number of files at this point.

- Imports and exports RLE and DST image resources in a package to/from DDS
- Can import/export RLES with or without a mask
- As of V1.1 imports and exports LRLE to/from PNG
- In V1.0 there's no status display or threading, so if you process a large number of images it may look like nothing's happening. When it's done you'll get a popup with the number of files processed.

Extract and run TS4FilePackager.exe. Feedback welcome! If you have a file it chokes on, please upload it.

Version 1.1, 6/27/2021
LRLE support added,
Progress bar added

Version 1.0, 4/19/2020
Extraction added,
Handling of specular masks added,
Now 64-bit.
Attached files:
File Type: zip  TS4FilePackager_1_0_0_0.zip (224.4 KB, 86 downloads)
File Type: zip  TS4FilePackager_1_1_0_0.zip (228.3 KB, 44 downloads)

Please do not PM me with mod, tutorial, or general modding questions or problems; post them in the thread for the mod or tutorial or post them in the appropriate forum.

Visit my blogs for other Sims content:
Online Sims - general mods for Sims 3
Offline Sims - adult mods for Sims 3 and Sims 4
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Ms. Byte (Deceased)
Original Poster
#2 Old 19th Apr 2020 at 10:32 PM
Updated to version 1.0.0.0. All functions are now added unless I get sensible requests. Needs more testing, especially on larger numbers of files.

Please do not PM me with mod, tutorial, or general modding questions or problems; post them in the thread for the mod or tutorial or post them in the appropriate forum.

Visit my blogs for other Sims content:
Online Sims - general mods for Sims 3
Offline Sims - adult mods for Sims 3 and Sims 4
Test Subject
#3 Old 27th Jun 2021 at 2:38 PM
Quote: Originally posted by CmarNYC
Updated to version 1.0.0.0. All functions are now added unless I get sensible requests. Needs more testing, especially on larger numbers of files.


I've got a sensible request in mind
First of all thank you for even creating this I remember suggesting the idea for this tool and you created it in a matter of 2 days I believe
I would've never been able to finish my higher texture size HD mod without this ♥ (By the way the tool can import 80 8K 16K files at a time which is incredible, it really saves me a lotta time!)

I've been playing on an ancient patch version in which my 8K 16K HD mod still worked but I've been wanting to finally update it to work with the newest patch... Well, the catch is that pesky new LRLE format which I've been manually exporting/importing and that has been a rough ride I did manage to resize all the other newer HD mod packages manually which took forever but I'm reaching out after seeing the copious amounts of base game makeup LRLE (around 1400)

I've seen your LRLE Converter but that one seems to only convert one at a time

TLDR: Please add an LRLE image exporter / package export option, I'm desperate after upscaling a ton of them and importing them back manually one by one

Well now I'm off to start manually exporting, resizing and eventually importing the LRLE files back. Wish me a whole lot of endurance and nerve, I'm gonna need it for sure lol
Ms. Byte (Deceased)
Original Poster
#4 Old 27th Jun 2021 at 3:48 PM
Quote: Originally posted by korini
I've got a sensible request in mind
First of all thank you for even creating this I remember suggesting the idea for this tool and you created it in a matter of 2 days I believe
I would've never been able to finish my higher texture size HD mod without this ♥ (By the way the tool can import 80 8K 16K files at a time which is incredible, it really saves me a lotta time!)

I've been playing on an ancient patch version in which my 8K 16K HD mod still worked but I've been wanting to finally update it to work with the newest patch... Well, the catch is that pesky new LRLE format which I've been manually exporting/importing and that has been a rough ride I did manage to resize all the other newer HD mod packages manually which took forever but I'm reaching out after seeing the copious amounts of base game makeup LRLE (around 1400)

I've seen your LRLE Converter but that one seems to only convert one at a time

TLDR: Please add an LRLE image exporter / package export option, I'm desperate after upscaling a ton of them and importing them back manually one by one

Well now I'm off to start manually exporting, resizing and eventually importing the LRLE files back. Wish me a whole lot of endurance and nerve, I'm gonna need it for sure lol


I had completely forgotten about this tool, lol. Adding support for LRLE shouldn't be hard - give me a day or two.

Please do not PM me with mod, tutorial, or general modding questions or problems; post them in the thread for the mod or tutorial or post them in the appropriate forum.

Visit my blogs for other Sims content:
Online Sims - general mods for Sims 3
Offline Sims - adult mods for Sims 3 and Sims 4
Test Subject
#5 Old 27th Jun 2021 at 5:58 PM
Quote: Originally posted by CmarNYC
I had completely forgotten about this tool, lol. Adding support for LRLE shouldn't be hard - give me a day or two.


Omg I love you :lovestruc
My gratitude is immeasurable right now, you seriously give the Sims community so much! You deserve all the respect and praise that's coming your way! I'd like to tip you, would you by any chance happen to have a PayPal account or something even though I can only muster up like 5 bucks because poverty's a darn pest

I've gotta reiterate, as I said previously, thank you seriously we're blessed to have you here! You don't get enough appreciation for all the incredible tools and help you've provided without asking for any compensation ♥ Talk about a kindness like none other I'm seriously acting like a fangirl right now send me an autograph or something

And yeah it kind of makes sense you forgot about this tool, I unfortunately get the feeling that most folks don't see much of a everyday usecase for this tool, but that doesn't diminish it's existence at all. It works it's magic for bulk importing/exporting and your efforts are greatly appreciated by the people that do use it, that's for sure! ♥ I gotta be candid, I certainly wouldn't have continued to play TS4 if it wouldn't be for the mere existence of this tool because those texture sizes simply don't do it any justice.

This wall of text really radiates that 'Trying to reach the word count on my essay' energy I gotta learn to keep it short and concise but here I am babbling away
Ms. Byte (Deceased)
Original Poster
#6 Old 27th Jun 2021 at 8:05 PM
Quote: Originally posted by korini
Omg I love you :lovestruc
My gratitude is immeasurable right now, you seriously give the Sims community so much! You deserve all the respect and praise that's coming your way! I'd like to tip you, would you by any chance happen to have a PayPal account or something even though I can only muster up like 5 bucks because poverty's a darn pest

I've gotta reiterate, as I said previously, thank you seriously we're blessed to have you here! You don't get enough appreciation for all the incredible tools and help you've provided without asking for any compensation ♥ Talk about a kindness like none other I'm seriously acting like a fangirl right now send me an autograph or something

And yeah it kind of makes sense you forgot about this tool, I unfortunately get the feeling that most folks don't see much of a everyday usecase for this tool, but that doesn't diminish it's existence at all. It works it's magic for bulk importing/exporting and your efforts are greatly appreciated by the people that do use it, that's for sure! ♥ I gotta be candid, I certainly wouldn't have continued to play TS4 if it wouldn't be for the mere existence of this tool because those texture sizes simply don't do it any justice.

This wall of text really radiates that 'Trying to reach the word count on my essay' energy I gotta learn to keep it short and concise but here I am babbling away


LOL, no problem, I love it! Thank you!

Hit the usual bizarre problems, mostly with MS Visual Studio, but adding LRLE was easy like I thought. LRLE imports/exports to PNG - it's not a DDS-based format so I didn't put in DDS conversions for it, but I could if needed. I added a couple more things like a progress bar and ability to export the specular masks as DDS or PNG. Would the ability to export all the textures as PNG as well as DDS be of help too? That would be very easy to add.

Please test version 1.1 - for now I'll leave version 1.0 up as well.

Thanks very much for the offer, but I'm fortunate enough not to need money. A thank you like that is plenty of payment! :D

Please do not PM me with mod, tutorial, or general modding questions or problems; post them in the thread for the mod or tutorial or post them in the appropriate forum.

Visit my blogs for other Sims content:
Online Sims - general mods for Sims 3
Offline Sims - adult mods for Sims 3 and Sims 4
Test Subject
#7 Old 28th Jun 2021 at 1:40 PM
Quote: Originally posted by CmarNYC
LOL, no problem, I love it! Thank you!

Hit the usual bizarre problems, mostly with MS Visual Studio, but adding LRLE was easy like I thought. LRLE imports/exports to PNG - it's not a DDS-based format so I didn't put in DDS conversions for it, but I could if needed. I added a couple more things like a progress bar and ability to export the specular masks as DDS or PNG. Would the ability to export all the textures as PNG as well as DDS be of help too? That would be very easy to add.

Please test version 1.1 - for now I'll leave version 1.0 up as well.

Thanks very much for the offer, but I'm fortunate enough not to need money. A thank you like that is plenty of payment! :D


Omg I was so excited to give it a try and let's just say you did it again! It works marvelously well but I was expecting nothing less of you!

I was questioning where the progress bar is while I was trying out the Import option when I realized that you're talking about a export progress bar! Well, the progress bar doesn't advance during the LRLE export even though I haven't tried out if it works with RLE2 or RLES yet. I think the progress bar is a really nice touch but the obscene amount of files (739) I exported probably bogged down the tool, but it exported all of them anyway so no worries, only the progress bar got stuck. It probably works if there's a more reasonable amount of files to export

The import process went smoothly, even though I feel like it took longer than the equivalent import of RLE2 files but that's to be expected with a newer file format which doesn't have any compression, I believe? Or PNG's suffer from less compression in comparison to the DDS/RLE2 format which is why they decided to exclusively use it for CAS textures, I guess. I'm pretty uneducated on this particular topic though, so please correct me if I'm wrong!

It ultimately is able to import 69 LRLE's with a file size of 8K x 16K at a time so it make's sense that it takes a while to process them It takes around an hour to finish but doing it manually would be way more tedious while I can just focus on other things now during that time

The resulting package size is really good in comparison to the RLE2 packages which tend to be a lot larger in size. It makes sense since the upscaled DDS files always seem obscenely big.. especially at a texture size of 8K x 16K. Uncompressed DDS are still the largest though, coming in at 700MB for one file! Darn it, I'm glad that the resulting packages aren't that big Even though the imported LRLE textures only contained the upscaled base game makeup so that might be why they seem smaller since the make up takes up such a small amount of the total texture size

I always appreciate it when a tool offers a lot and this certainly takes the cake in that regard! Thank you once again! ♥

'Would the ability to export all the textures as PNG as well as DDS be of help too?' - If it's easy to add like you say, knock yourself out! Some people might prefer one format over the other so that's a great idea!
Ms. Byte (Deceased)
Original Poster
#8 Old 28th Jun 2021 at 3:53 PM Last edited by CmarNYC : 28th Jun 2021 at 9:47 PM.
Whoops, I was going to turn on package compression for the imported packages but forgot. Crap, I always do that, you'd think I'd learn. If you use s4pe you can compress them manually - select all the resources, right-click, and click Compressed. (That's off the top of my head, might not be quite right.) Package compression is lossless so you want to use it if package size is important. I'll make a new version with compression turned on and that choice of DDS or PNG.

It's not surprising that LRLE takes longer than RLE2. While the compression calculations are similar and should be similar in speed, for RLE2 the mipmaps already exist in the DDS, while LRLE mipmaps have to be created.

Hmm, the import progress bar worked for me. Could be what you said, that processing so many files prevents the bar from updating, or maybe it's something dependent on the system it's running on. I'll take another stab at it.

Please do not PM me with mod, tutorial, or general modding questions or problems; post them in the thread for the mod or tutorial or post them in the appropriate forum.

Visit my blogs for other Sims content:
Online Sims - general mods for Sims 3
Offline Sims - adult mods for Sims 3 and Sims 4
Test Subject
#9 Old 28th Jun 2021 at 10:34 PM
Quote: Originally posted by CmarNYC
Whoops, I was going to turn on package compression for the imported packages but forgot. If you use s4pe you can compress them manually - select all the resources, right-click, and click Compressed. (That's off the top of my head, might not be quite right.) Package compression is lossless so you want to use it if package size is important. I'll make a new version with compression turned on and that choice of DDS or PNG.

It's not surprising that LRLE takes longer than RLE2. While the compression calculations are similar and should be similar in speed, for RLE2 the mipmaps already exist in the DDS, while LRLE mipmaps have to be created.

Hmm, the import progress bar worked for me. Could be what you said, that processing so many files prevents the bar from updating, or maybe it's something dependent on the system it's running on. I'll take another stab at it.


Oh I didn't know that compression in s4pe results in no quality loss, I was expecting some quality loss since it lowers file sizes. I wasn't even thinking about losless compression I'll certainly start to enable compression on all of them

Since the tool is under such a heavy load during the import/export process (particularly so in my case) Windows claims that it's not responding even though it's clearly working. Since I always export/import a large amount of files in terms of both quantity and size and the tool uses like 12 GBs of memory (which is like 95% of my total memory according to the task manager) there might not be much that can be done to alleviate the issue but most people probably import either 2048 x 4096 or 1024 x 2048 textures so they most likely won't run into any of these issues

But the fact that it can import 67 8K x 16K LRLE files is really impressive , especially if one compares it to S4 Studio. S4S crashes when you even dare to open a package with a single 8K x 16K LRLE / RLE2 / Uncompressed DDS. S4pe can even manage to open 2 GB packages and reliably save them. I really respect the folks that work on S4Studio but I feel like memory management has never been it's strong suit :P
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