Paint from Reference

[Twinmum]

I thought this would be a great way to paint landscapes and such from around town, however it seems you can only take a picture of something to paint near the easle. I thought my sim would be able to take a photo while she was out and then use this photo to paint from reference, but either you can't do this or I'm missing something. Can anyone enlighten me?

[Joria]

Haven't tried buying and using a camera but, like you, found it had to be something close by.  I'll test it out today.

[Playalot]

I haven't been able to take a picture of anything else, like you say, apart from in the immediate area of the easel using the 'paint from ref' interaction. I don't think it works any other way. Be great if it did though.

[grimsoul]

About the only way to get paintings from around town is to place easels around town to use for the reference point. Like editing the two parks and using the cheat bb.enablefreebuild you can edit other sims lots and place easels in their yards then visit the lot and paint from there. The cheat will let you edit a lot on the alien world to so you can place a easel and paint landscapes from there if you want.

[Joria]

About the only way to get paintings from around town is to place easels around town to use for the reference point. Like editing the two parks and using the cheat bb.enablefreebuild you can edit other sims lots and place easels in their yards then visit the lot and paint from there. The cheat will let you edit a lot on the alien world to so you can place a easel and paint landscapes from there if you want.

Can you carry an easel with you in your inventory?  That way you could just plop it down anywhere without having to do a cheat.

[Playalot]

Yeah... the cheat works fine but of course if you're doing a challenge etc you can't use the cheat. So you're stuck to home or the museum. Still, it's still a cool function anyway. @Joria  You can't drag an easel into your inventory unfortunately. 

[grimsoul]

I had an idea a little while ago and been playing around with it and all tho it's not a perfect solution, if you use the camera to take a picture of the place or person you want a painting of then put that picture on the wall opposite of your easel and use the paint from reference and zoom in on the picture you placed on the wall you can get a painting of it.
I've only tried this a few times so far and sometimes the painting looks grainy and sometimes it's not bad, but I did say it's not a perfect solution. I haven't tried playing around with the different filters for the picture to see what difference that might make to the looks of the painting.
Just a idea I had that was showing some promise and thought I would window out of the game and mention it.