Calling all The Sims 4 modders and wannabe modders: the future of modding is here. The Sims 4 Mod Workshop is a set of tools that cuts hours off the time it takes to make an XML mod, including, but not limited to, the Cloner tool which allows quick searching and cloning of the game’s XML and SIMDATA files.

*SIMDATA is the official name for DATA files, used by SimGurus.

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Version 2 Updates

• A whole, brand new design and interface.
• Instead of plain, ordinary list boxes, results lists are now stored in sortable tables.
• You can now choose to have results show in-game (STBL) text.
• You can now clone multiple levels deep for any resource type, not just traits, buffs and emotions. The Sims 4 Mod Workshop will automatically scan for references to other resources in the XML code. References in the other cloned files will automatically update same as always, but now the tool can replace references in DATA files as well.
• You can select multiple resources to clone at once. Please be warned though that this is performance intensive.
• You can now clone, replace and change STBL (text) strings. No more using external programs to add text strings to your mod!

(Some of the information and screenshots shown below are for the old version and therefore outdated. I'll update the post when I get around to it.)

Setting Up

To use most features of The Sims 4 Mod Workshop, you will need to extract the XML and SIMDATA files.

Use Sims4XmlExtractor to extract the XML files. Create subfolders for instance types is required for the program to work on the files. The naming pattern should be S4PE naming.

Next, you will need to extract the SIMDATA (DATA) files. These are located in the game’s SimulationFullBuild0.package file, which can usually be located at:

» C:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\The Sims 4\Data\Simulation

SIMDATA files are not required to be in specific directories. The easiest way to make them usable is to just extract every file from S4PE and place them in one folder. However, the program can read up to one folder deep, so if you’ve already sorted them into subfolders previously, they will probably still work.

Next, create a folder to store your mod files in.



Once you’re done, open the program and set the folders. The folders will appear first thing when you open the program.

(Note: “XML Folder” should be set to the base XML folder, not any of its subfolders.)

UPDATE: The new version of The Sims 4 Mod Workshop can clone STBL strings. However, to use this feature, you will need to reference a .stbl file, which can usually be extracted from:

» C:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\The Sims 4\Data\Client

The name of the file will vary depending on what language you have the game installed in. For English users, the name is Strings_ENG_US. Set the "STBL File" option to the extract .stbl file.

Cloning Tool

The main and biggest feature of TS4MW is the cloning tool. It allows you to quickly search and clone files from the XML folder.

The tool will automatically changes the technical name and decimal instance in the XML file, and renames it so it can easily be placed back into S4PE with an updated instance ID.

The tool also looks for a SIMDATA file with the same instance ID as the original XML and, if one exists, it will copy and rename that as well.



There is even a special feature for buffs, traits and emotions where you can clone multiple parts at once. You can clone both a trait and its associated buff at the same time, or a buff and its commodity, or even a trait, buff and commodity.





Mod Manager Tool

The Mod Manager tool allows for easy management of the result folder. You can view XML files by their technical name, and quickly open them in your default text editor at the click of a button.



Also, if there is an associated SIMDATA file, you can quickly open that in your default SIMDATA editor (for example, velocitygrass’ Data Editor) as well.



If you no longer need a certain piece of content, you can quickly delete both the XML and SIMDATA file from TS4MW. I was careful to ensure that TS4MW will not permanently delete the file - it will be sent to the Recycle Bin.

Reference Tool

The Reference tool allows you to view certain information about an XML file, as well as read its content. It is handy for looking up information about a piece of content, such as decimal instance IDs.



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Hey Zerbu! This is great! A feature that would be nice to see is the reading of the .tdesc files, so that you can cross-reference them more easily with the tuning files. Then if you could create new instances based off the .tdescs instead of cloning already existing items. Similar to the Tuning Tool which is currently a bit buggy and (I think) is abandoned. If that's possible, this will definitely make the tuning process a lot easier!

Thanks in advance

Ah yes, that would be great!

It's worth checking if the licence for that other tool allows its code to be derived from partly or wholly to add features to this, rather than waste time working out how to add the tdesc feature. Though I guess courtesy to also check the author's plans for it.

I have posted at EA forums to ask SimGuru if the tdescs are still up to date, in respect of the patches we have had since.

Yes, it would be worth checking the licence for morgade's tool, that would save a lot of time on Zerbu's part.

I re-downloaded the tdescs today and they do not appear to be any different, so I would assume that they are (hopefully) updating them soon.

SimguruEugi has made available the latest TDescs at http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/dis...entation#latest

While I like the idea of being able to edit XML while cross-referencing .tdesc files, it's not really what I have in mind right now. However, if there's enough need for it then I'll consider it for the future. If someone else were to make a similar tool, though (that is working fully and not abandoned) then it will be very easy to access it from TS4MW as all it takes is to click the "Edit XML" button. I might add an option to allow the user to manually set which programs files open in, as some people might edit XML for purposes other than The Sims 4 modding and therefore wouldn't want to set a modding tool as the default for handling XML files.

Anyway, I've recently released a new version of the program. This new version can multi-level clone any resource type, and can clone (and update the references to) STBL strings, and place them in the new built-in STBL tool. It can even update references in DATA files. This is my first time handling the game's custom formats.

I cant figure out how to use this and I have no SimulationFullBuild0.package file anyhow.

That means you don't have the game installed and in that case you probably don't need to use this anyway.

Not sure how I missed this until today, this looks like it should be extremely useful. One thing I noted is that you should probably get your SIMDATA extracts from the delta build and not the full build, some of them may be updated and new ones have been added.

Thanks!

When I try to search in some types, I get this error message: "The path is not of a legal form". One type that produces this result is the "interactions" type, whereas the "Achievement" type does not produces this error and searches normally. Is this fixable?

@Zerbu

Hi
For some unknown reason, after last game patch, I re-extracted and replaced all DATA files, but the tool isn't pointing them.
Maybe the tool is fine and S4pe is playing tricks?

Any one else with this symptom?

Thanks for the tool, it's very useful.

Edit: Got it to work again.

Hello,

When you say I need to unpack all SIMDATA files in SimulationFullBuild0.package, do you mean all the files that have a data TAG or just all the files?
I tried extracting all the files but S4PE would take forever just to select all of them.

Thanks,
HiddenKnowledge

It can take some time, depends on PC specs. Remember there's over 6.600 data files on base game only.
Just be a little patient and eventually all files will be exported.
Use the filters

I'm just trying to start modding, and for some reason, my mod workshop can't pick up any files in the browser, even though I followed the directions. Not sure what to do.

Edit: Apparently the xml grabber puts things in subfolders for each expansion, and this could only go down one folder.

No, completely different trait system