lah7 / sims2-4k-ui-mod Goto Github PK

View Code? Open in Web Editor NEW

27.0 7.0 0.0 152 KB

A work in progress script to upscale The Sims 2's UI for 4K displays

License: GNU General Public License v3.0

Python 100.00%

sims2 dbpf maxis

sims2-4k-ui-mod's Introduction

The Sims 2 4K UI Mod

A script to upscale The Sims 2's user interface for 4K (HiDPI) displays.

About

Through the use of graphic rules, it's easy to play The Sims 2 at high resolutions, but the buttons, text and interface become super tiny.

At time of writing, there are no 4K modifications out there to fix the UI. I discovered that the game's modularity (ui.package) allows us to double the UI geometry and graphics.

This "mod" is a script that upscales UI resources and graphics from your copy of the game. Other resolutions (like 1440p) could work too by tweaking the script.

Work in Progress...

The theory works, but there's a few minor visual glitches that make the game feel buggy or makes it difficult to play.

The patcher tool is currently being worked on. Hang tight!

If you're a player: Your best experience is playing in 1080p for now. If you don't mind visual glitches, feel free to try this script.

If you've like to get involved:

Investigate why some assets are misaligned or didn't scale

Tests

Unit tests are an optional check everything is in working order.

You'll need to copy a file from The Sims 2 University into the tests folder:

724723ddc5b020a55bdefc60a7cf1304    The Sims 2 University/TSData/Res/UI/ui.package

File not included. With this file, you can run:

python -m unittest discover ./tests/

This tests the package read, write and compression procedures are working correctly.

Script Usage

You can use this script to upscale any game version, expansion pack, even if you have existing UI modifications installed. This works by:

Increasing the font size in FontStyle.ini
Extract ui.package and then:
- Use imagemagick to upscale the graphics
- Double the geometry and size for UI elements
Generate a new ui.package (uncompressed, see #2)

1. Prerequisites

First things first, you'll need:

Python 3 (to run this script)
Imagemagick (to process images)
SimPE (to extract resources)

This script was designed on a Linux system, since The Sims 2 works under Wine! It should run on Windows, WSL2 and Mac too, providing you have the utilities installed and are accessible in your PATH (so you can run them without typing the full path to the executable)

Note: If you play an expansion pack, you'll need to run these steps once for the base game, then repeat them all for the expansion pack used to play the game, such as The Sims 2 Mansion and Garden Stuff (Sims2EP9.exe)

2. Extract with SimPE

Unfortunately, this step is manual as I hit a snag (#1) figuring out how to decompress files without needing SimPE.

In SimPE, open the game's TSData/Res/UI/ui.package (from the game's installation folder)
Select "jpg/tga/png Image" in the resource tree, select all and extract to the input folder.
Repeat step 2, but for "UI Data" too.
Repeat step 2, but for "Accelerator Key Definitions" too.

3. Copy FontStyle.ini

From the base game's installation folder, copy TSData\Res\UI\Fonts\FontStyle.ini into the input folder.

4. Run the script

python3 ./sims2-4k-ui-converter.py

This will process the files and produce a new ui.package.

For more parameters, add --help at the end. For example, you can choose the directory to use while processing (like a RAM Disk), otherwise, the default will use input, temp and output directories in this folder.

5. Copy into the game

Navigate to the game's UI folder, usually:
```
 C:\Program Files (x86)\EA Games\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\UI\
```
It is strongly recommended to backup the original ui.package for the game (like adding .bak to the end of the file)
Copy output/ui.package into this folder. As the script doesn't support compression yet (#2), this file is expected to be significantly larger.

Repeat these steps again for base game or expansion pack that you use to play the game.

License

The scripts in this repository are licensed under GPLv3.

Acknowledgements

If you wish to let the wider Sims community know, be sure to leave a link to this repository!

Thank you to these wiki pages for documenting the UI files and DBPF format:

sims2-4k-ui-mod's People

Contributors

Stargazers

Watchers

sims2-4k-ui-mod's Issues

Live Mode: Aspiration Rewards stretched

I have a feeling this one is just an image, not a 3D render. Buy/Build modes were not affected.

PiP: Gap inside the viewport

Can the new package files be placed in "Downloads" instead?

Until #3 is resolved, we don't know if we can place the new ui.package in the user's EA Games\The Sims 2\Downloads folder instead of the game's installation directory. It would make removal of the "mod" easier for later.

I'm not actually sure how the mod system works - if it needs anything special, or if only concerns custom content (new objects, clothes, etc) and not graphical modifications to the game itself.

At the moment, the game ignores the file if placed there and does not show up in the custom content dialog box.

Fill game loading screen background

These files contain the game's loading screen (after the splash):

PNG 00000000-499DB772-CCC9AF70
PNG 00000000-499DB772-CCC9AF80

Perhaps they could be processed again to fill the entire screen (2160p)

CAS: Increase size of Sim portraits in family tree

If possible, it might be worth increasing the dimensions of the Sim icons when setting up the family tree. On a 4K screen, they're still a bit small.

Live Mode: Furious overlay has black artifact

Might have something to do with transparency after the upscaled version is saved?

CAS: Create a Child - Misaligned icons for left side

Implement QFS compression for DBPF package

The end result are some pretty large ui.package files. After figuring out #1, it would be ideal to support the compression of the new ui.package file.

Cursor: Family following cursor is tiny

For example, when in the neighbourhood and click a family to move into a lot - it's still the small size.

At worst, this might potentially be hardcoded into the game.

CAS: Increase distance; "Enter Name" field glitched

I believe there is a mod already for this, but I'm curious how to expand the distance myself so we can see the Sim.

There's also a glitch in the text field.

Settings: Black square on icon

Live Mode: Icon for work not scaled

Settings: Ambiant Music slighter out of place

Not sure how that happened. Best check .uiScript

Game crashes after splash screen

Using the base game as a test, when the new ui.package is placed in C:\Program Files (x86)\EA Games\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\UI\Fonts\FontStyle.ini, the game:

Destroys the file (if it has write access) with 96 bytes of an empty DBPF header.
Crashes after the splash screen with a generic "the application must now terminate"

From what I can see, the DBPF is structurally correct, and SimPE opens it fine with the same group/instance IDs. The only thing that is absent is the "compressed directory listing". Does the game expect this? Maybe it'll work after implementing #2 or a placeholder listing?

CAS: Aries button stretched

Animated plumbob on Main Menu is cropped

UI: Small dialog box

Looks ugly, squashed and out of shape. At worst, are these not in any .uiScript?

Neighbourhood: Increase the size of Sim profiles in lot summary

Compared to 1x density, it's pretty small at 2x. It would be nice to increase the size, if possible. The description might want looking at too.

Is it working?

CAS: Black box after number 4

UI: Small pie menu

A pie menu with lots of options causes overlapping, which is even worse.

Settings: Graphic options appear to overflow

Likely the background graphic has lost its proportions, or the .uiScript needs inspection.

Live Mode: Icons for memories too small

Also note the misalignment on the left (#11)

DBPF module does not decompress properly

This is documented at the URLs:

I had trouble understanding where within the DBPF file (binary) to process this.

Currently, we must depend on SimPE to extract the files. It would be excellent to process the original ui.package without relying on SimPE and manual steps.

Cursor: Animated loading cursor still small

Static cursors (like the main arrow) are OK, but the animated "busy" cursor isn't processed yet.

At the moment, it shrinks to half the size (1x density), which doesn't look good.

Live Mode: "Needs" font size and sidebar misalignment

Not sure why the font title is still small, best check the .uiScript for that one.

The plumbob looks misaligned. Upon closer inspection, it's likely the background image is not accurate. The moods meter is also out of place slightly.

Game crashes opening Neighbourhood Story Editor

Phonebook: Can't see options

UI: Corrupt close button for notifications

Cannot run the script - crashes every time before it can output ui.package

Hello everyone,

Every time I try to run the script I get the following error:

https://i.imgur.com/2w4FvDA.png

It can output FontStyle.ini but not ui.package. What causes this error, and how can I fix it?

Process RIFF files (*.uiScript) to tweak the loading screens

The loading screens are stored in the base game's ui.package. They are some kind of RIFF file with the .uiScript extension.

$ file *
00000000-499DB772-8DA3ADE7.uiScript: RIFF (little-endian) data
00000000-499DB772-8DA3ADE8.uiScript: RIFF (little-endian) data
00000000-499DB772-8DA3ADE9.uiScript: RIFF (little-endian) data
00000000-499DB772-8DA3ADEA.uiScript: RIFF (little-endian) data
00000000-499DB772-8DA3ADEB.uiScript: RIFF (little-endian) data
00000000-499DB772-8DA3ADEC.uiScript: RIFF (little-endian) data
00000000-499DB772-8DA3ADED.uiScript: RIFF (little-endian) data

RIFF is a container, so if possible, we'll need to find out what format this data is, so we can extract and repack its contents.