The Sims 3: Extract CAS Items from FullBuilds
or: How to: Extract and use CAS items without having the EPs/SPs installed
This guide will probably be useful for you if, like me, you gather bits and pieces from various expansion packs and stuff packs without wanting the whole pack installed. It will also be useful if performance is a concern to you i.e. your computer can't handle many EPs/SPs at the same time but you still want the items without going through the hassle of installing an EP/SP to clone them, or hunting down BGC posts.
As an example, I will be extracting an Into the Future tunic for teens.
👉 an abridged version of this guide is available as a Tumblr post!
Table of contents (click!)
1. What you'll need
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S3OC (here is an excellent visual tutorial by Mspoodle1: CLICK)
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7zip or another archiving tool (I recommend this one since it can open a number of formats).
Also, this guide assumes that you know how to use S3PE at a basic level and how to use the search features (if not, see this).
2. Find your packages
For this step I downloaded the ITF archive from G4TW, then opened it with 7Zip. It looks like this:
Two folders are of interest here:
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GameData\Packages is where your FullBuild is, which contains textures, meshes, effects, code, XMLs etc.
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Thumbnails is where the CasThumbnails.package is, which contains the thumbnails to all CAS items in the EP.
Extract these two .package files somewhere with a lot of space (in this case, the FullBuild alone is over 1GB).
If you already have the Expansion/Stuff Pack installed but wish to uninstall it in the future while still keeping some items, then navigate to your install folder and copy these .packages from there. Example for Pets:
FullBuilds (this EP has two) are in: D:\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3 Pets\GameData\Shared\Packages
CasThumbnail is in: D:\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3 Pets\Thumbnails
Your filepath will be different if your game is installed via Origin or Steam.
3. Find your CAS item
Merge CasThumbnails and FullBuild_p21 (in this case) into one package (named FullBuildMerged), then open it with S3OC.
Since the thumbnails are stored somewhere else, S3OC won't see them if you open only FullBuild, thus the need to merge the packages.
PRO TIP: merging the two packages (or adding thumbnails manually to the FullBuild) will also display their names! Names of resources are stored in the _KEY resource, which CasThumbnails lacks, and which automatically updates anytime you add a new resource to a package.
What's the difference? Compare the name of a THUM resource extracted from CasThumbnails:
S3_626F60CE_A0000000_6B6C4F92B93BE2D7%%+THUM
with the name of the same THUM resource extracted from FullBuildMerged:
S3_626F60CE_A0000000_6B6C4F92B93BE2D7_tfBodyEP11Tunic%%+THUM
If you want to make things a bit easier, you can then extract all the thumbnails of this type: THUM 0x626F60CE 0xA0000000 to a folder, to get a better view of what all the items look like, instead of having to click on all of them in S3PE or S3OC.
THUM 0x626F60CE are the big, 256x256px thumbnails for CAS items, and 0xA0000000 is the same group # as the CASP and _XML resources of the items (that’s why you need this and not 0xA0000001, 0xA0000003 etc., which are for the other presets).
Small thumbnails are 0x626F60CC (32x32px) and medium thumbnails are 0x626F60CD (128x128px).
4. Extract the resources and create the new package
Open FullBuildMerged in S3OC and navigate to where your item is, then click on it and select "Clone or Fix..." on the right.
In the screen on the left, make sure to NOT select "Renumber/rename internally". Your only ticked options should be "Create clone package", "Include thumbnails" and "Enable compression". And, of course, any category changes you wish to make on the right.
Even though we added all the thumbnails — including the small (0x626F60CC) and medium (0x626F60CD) ones — to FullBuildMerged, S3OC only picked up the ones with the group ID 0xA0000000. If you want the others to show (as opposed to the game generating them), you will need to extract them from CasThumbnails and add them to your newly cloned package. This time, look for all THUM resources with the same instance ID as your CAS item (in this case, 0x6B6C4F92B93BE2D7).
This is different from what we did in Step 3, because at that point we only extracted the big thumbnails in order to quickly locate the items we want.
Add these thumbnails to the cloned package.
An important step is to change the group ID of the CASP resource from 0xA0000000 to 0x00000000. If you don't do this, your item won't show up in CAS at all. I can only speculate why, but it probably has to do with not having the EP installed. By doing this, the game will essentially treat the cloned package as any basegame-compatible custom content item.
And that's it! Now you can enjoy using this item without having the entire EP installed 😊
(In the picture below, I have Nraas Master Controller set to display CC first in CAS.)
5. Another method
Another way to do this is to search FullBuildMerged by the name of your clothing item (e.g. tfBodyEP11Tunic) and extract all the resources you find. One advantage is that you don't need to hunt down the smaller thumbnails. However, this method comes with two extra steps that complicate things needlessly, IMO.
The first disadvantage is that this method doesn't also pick up the textures, which, as we've already discussed, are shared with the adult version. So, you will have to run another search for "afBodyEP11Tunic" and pick up the _IMG textures from there.
The second disadvantage is that this method doesn't pick up a crucial resource, namely the VPXY resource that lists your LODs. If this resource doesn't exist in your new tfBodyEP11Tunic package, then the game won't be able to read the meshes, and you'll end up with just a floating head and feet in CAS. To locate the necessary VPXY resource, click on the CASP resource of tfBodyEP11Tunic and look for this part in the preview on the right (click for larger/clearer image):
The part highlighted in yellow is of interest, and particularly the instance ID underlined in red. That is the instance ID of the VPXY resource that you need to search for within FullBuildMerged, and then import to your new tfBodyEP11Tunic package.
Once you have imported in a newly created package: all your resources with the "tfBodyEP11Tunic" name; the textures; and the VPXY resource, then change the group ID of the CASP resource to 0x00000000, and you're done!
6. Notes and observations
Since this process doesn’t change instance numbers, you can use default replacements (like added maternity morphs or texture edits) without worrying about making them compatible. The only concern will be matching the group name of the replacement's CASP resource (if any) to the group name of your newly constructed packages.
Another result of that is the fact that you will only need one set of _IMG textures for both teen/adult versions, thereby saving space. However, if you want to modify one version while keeping the other intact (e.g. editing the textures of only the teen version), then you can either:
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create new _IMG textures with new instance IDs, add them to the teen package, and change all instances of the old textures to the new ones (very tedious - the only possible advantage of this method would be if you have default replacements for meshes);
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clone your newly constructed teen package with S3OC, selecting the "Renumber/rename internally" option this time, and replace the _IMG resources (which now have different IDs from the adult version) with your modified textures.