Paint From Reference Anywhere

This adds the ability for all three of the base game cameras to stage a Paint From Reference painting. These cameras, the Barely Better, Appreciably Average and Crystal Clear Digital Camera, are available for purchase in Activities and Skills / Creative from build-buy mode and have been available in the base game since the November 7, 2017 game patch.

A blank canvas will be created in the Sim’s inventory after taking the photo and this canvas can then be placed on any standard easel and resumed to complete the painting. No easel is required on the lot where the photos are taken, so your Sim can just travel home once they’ve prepared the canvases they need and start painting in the comfort or squalor of their own home.

Usage Details and Notes

The screenshots in the mod description demonstrate the process of using this new feature, but here are some notes of community interest.

• The camera quality, or Sim’s photography skill, do not affect the outcome of the painting. So unless your Sim is interested in doing photography as well, simply purchase the cheapest camera available (Barely Better Digital, 85 simoleons).
• The Sim’s painting skill affects the outcome of the painting normally, and a minimum painting skill is required in order to use the Paint From Reference.
• The final painting is compatible with the Set Filters on Paintings by Reference mod.
• Any downloaded custom content cameras or easels should work fine with this mod as long as they utilize the standard object tuning from the base game. If they are tuned differently then they should continue to work as they did but will not benefit from this mod.
• This mod does not alter or change the ability for Sim’s to use an easel to Paint From Reference in the ordinary fashion.
• Known Bugs (nothing Major, but Noteworthy!):
  • If you cancel the photo capture with the “X” in the upper corner of the camera view then the canvas will still be created, however it will be truly blank. You can place that blank canvas on an easel, but the Sim will simply paint white on white. There’s no accounting for artistic taste though, so that blank painting could still end up being a masterpiece worth thousands (or suitable for proudly framing and displaying)!
  • There appears to be a bug in the user interface for the game which causes the photo data to sometimes come out of sync with the photos and paintings in the game. A user of the Set Filters mod noticed a similar issue when using that mod, so I believe the issue is within the base game itself, particularly as that mod does not alter the actual photo taking process at all. What I have noticed in my testing of this mod is that sometimes after cancelling a photo as mentioned in the previous bug, outdated image data can be applied to the next image taken. In this mod I’ve only seen it change the thumbnail which can appear on the canvas in the Sim’s inventory, but the actual painting has always seemed to be correct. Your results may vary though, and so it is best to never use that “X” to cancel a paint by reference process. It is better to take the photo and then through the canvas away without painting it.
• The script used in the mod is written to be very resilient. It’s not future proof, but it should be future safe — allowing your game to continue running until you can update or remove the mod.
  • If an error is noticed by the mod during startup it will log an exception and not add the Paint From Reference to the digital cameras, but the game should continue to load and paint from reference continue to work at easels.
  • If an error is noticed by the mod while taking a photo, it will log an exception and restore the overriden script from the game. The game will continue to run, and photography and paint from reference at an easel will again function normally.

Installation Instructions and Compatibility

To install, unzip the two files contained in the download file into your game’s mod folder. It can be placed in a sub-folder if desired. It uses a script, so the mod cannot be installed more than one sub-folder deep.

This mod was written and tested on Windows for The Sims 4 version 1.37.35.1010 (Dec 12, 2017). It should be compatible with any of the stuff or game packs and other mods.

The script alters some of the base game’s behavior for initiating the photo creation process. This was neccessary as the code expected the blank canvas in the painting recipe to be in the world. With the canvas in the Sim’s inventory it could not find the canvas, and so that function has been patched to add a search of the Sim’s inventory to look for it at the appropriate time.

This mod uses the ts4script file format for the script portion of the mod and cannot be installed automatically with a mod manager (until a mod manager is updated to support these files). To install the mod manually, extract both the package and ts4script files from the download into your mods folder.

Script mods must be enabled in your game options for this mod to work properly.

Additional Credits
As always, thanks to:

• Kuree and all the others at Sims4Group who have put together the S4PE tool
• Scripthoge for writing the script “injector” routines