TUTORIAL: Changing the Height of Sims with SimPE

[Matt's Workshop]

Thank you!:grin:

[relax]

Thankeeeeee!!!!!

[Auronette]

I tried using this method to scale a dog down a little bit, but every time I tried, his tongue stuck out like it was anchored to the full height.  Is there any known way to work around this?

Thanks in advance for any replies.

[Netra]

Great Tutorial!:)

[MsMacDugle]

Getting ahead of myself here...but let's say I make a dwarf kinda dude. Will new clothes fit him or do I need to shrink them somehow also?
 
Edit - OK...I made the dude in bodyshop...dwarfed him in simpe and as soon as i changed his clothes..he grew...so I guess that answers THAT question.
 
So...can his clothes be shrunk somehow so he can change them?
 
Aaaaannd...evidently you have to have the guy already in the neighborhood like your tut instead of creating in bs, shrinking in simpe and then trying to bring him ingame. As soon as his little feet hit the floor in CAS he grew to normal size....But it was fun making him in bs!!
 
Edit again....ok...so here's the peg-leg dwarf...YES he can buy clothes and stay small...but he loses the peg-leg since that's a special mesh. Now if only I could figure out the reflective cube thingie....

Love it so what is the height factor that you used....He seems to be the perfect height for my other dwarven clan members.....Better than trying to use the cheats.
 
thank you , thank you, thank you Beosoboxboy... I've been wanting to know how I could do this.

[The Mule]

I think on that guy I used .66 or .5    can't remember exactly which..

[MsMacDugle]

This requires SimPE (q.v. http://sims.ambertation.de/) and a bit of patience.
 
You will discover the name of the Sim's character file by:
 
1. Start SimPE
2. Tools >> Neighbourhood >> Neighbourhood Browser
3. Select the Neighbourhood from the pictures
4. Tools >> Neighbourhood >> Sim Browser
5. Scroll to find your Sims, look for the file name in the File Name column
6. Write down the file name & Sim name
 
Close SimPE
 
OK let's assume you were looking for Joe Sim in Pleasantview
 
You followed the instructions I just gave and found his character file was N001_User00015.package
 
The thing about the names are simple:
 
Begins with.................................Neighbourhood folder
N001_ .......................................Pleasantview
N002_ .......................................Strangetown
N003_ .......................................Veronaville
N004_ .......................................User made
N005_ .......................................User made
N006_ .......................................User made
etc
 
Pleasantview is located here:
 
My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighbourhoods\N001
 
notice how N001 is the name of the folder?
 
The Characters are located here:
 
My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighbourhoods\N001\Characters
 
Browse to the character folder for your neighbourhood, double click N001_User00015.package.
 
Once you locate the character file for the Sim you want to change, you need to open it with SimPE, look for the AgeData, and alter the stretch (dtSingle) value
 

 
Make sure you get the right AgeData for your Sim.
 
Look at the age (dtUInteger):
 
0x00000004 = teen -- usually stretch (dtSingle) = 0.94
0x00000008 = adult -- stretch (dtSingle) = 1.00
0x00000010 = elder -- stretch (dtSingle) = 1.00
 
NOTA BENE: In some versions of Windows comma (,) is the decimal point, if this is what you normally use, then 0,94 - 1,00 - 1,00 etc
 
Remember to COMMIT your changes & save.
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The value 1.0 is supposed to reflect an average height, so roughly 5'10" or 1,78 metres.
 
The value 0.94 is supposed to reflect an average height of 5'5" or 1,67 m.
 
If you wanted professional basketball player sim, a good value would be stretch 1.2
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It depends on the stretch value - some are worse than others. Maxis defined the animations for sims of pre-defined heights.
 
In all most of them are off by "livable" amounts that film-makers can over-come with camera angles. But if you show little or no restraint, you can have a 0,5 m adult hug a 6,0 m adult with ease... just expect it to look weird.
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Gné? but you have SimPE, maybe you didn't let it set itself as the default programme to open these file types during install?
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Gné? but you have SimPE, maybe you didn't let it set itself as the default programme to open these file types during install?
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Sina, of you install Crossover Office (may not work on Mac) or maybe Darwine (very beta WinE for Darwin) you might be able to run SimPE
 
If not now, certainly some time in the future

• Thank you for creating such a wonderful tutorial.
• But, what if I want to change the height while in bodyshop? Since my system doesn't support the game very well anymore.  Yes, I'm gonna upgrade eventually. But for now I use mostly my bodyshop.

Again thank you, I will use this once for all the ones that I have in game already created.  It sure will beat having to boot up the cheat everytime.

[MsMacDugle]

I think on that guy I used .66 or .5 can't remember exactly which..

thank you, thank you, thank you as my title bar says.

[The Mule]

MsMacDugal....it doesn't work unless you change the height in SimPE AFTER they're in a neighborhood. It won't work in Bodyshop...one of my previous posts explained every step I went through, and that was one of them. I created him in bodyshop, exported him, changed height in SimPe, and as soon as he hit the floor in CAS, he grew....

[BeosBoxBoy]

In theory, there may be a way to change the height ratio in Body Shop - BUT! it would be a sort of one size for all mod - so, for instance, if you wants a male dwarf - you would perforce have all adult males as dwarves so long as the mod was in place.  However - I have not been successful in locating any file to manipulate the height.

So the best I can figure is to only change the height of actual Sims on lots in the neighbourhoods.

[FallenAngel86]

I had 2 questions

I was wondering what happens when the child becomes a teen. would the teen be stretch too or normal teen height?

And i was wondering if there was a way to automaticly change the height as the child ages into an older child. For example  Let say u have 2 kids age 9 and 5. one would be the height of a 9yo the other the height of a 5yo. When the oldest becomes a teen, would it be possible for the second child to grow automaticly as well and not look like a 5yo anymore?

[The Mule]

1) Test it to find out....

2) Automatically? no....

I don't think the size change is "permanent" in any case. I'm guessing, but I think moving the sim off the lot might change their height back to normal. And I mean MOVE, not visit a community lot.  

I did test a few things...if you read back in the thread...I created a sim in bodyshop and shrunk him with simpe. When I selected him from CAS ingame - he went to normal size the minute he hit CAS floor...Exporting him with simpe would have the same effect. He'll look small in the choose screen, until I pick him. He has to be edited on the lot, which is why I think it's tied to the lot somehow...

[BeosBoxBoy]

the age stages have fixed values that are inserted by the game at transition.

changing the height of a sim as they age cannot be automated, Mxis/EA had this in mind in an early stage of development, but it was proven to be less than desirable so they went with a life stages method.  It would have been nice if they had taken the middle approach and kept the growth and also the life stages.  But they ripped out a great deal of the early beta programme because it presented to difficult or too burthensome.  The "middle age" life stage for instance was chucked, and the elder as we see it in game today was meant to be some special "ancient as the hills" elder.  The middle form was scrapped but relics of it are still to be found in the hidden and un-used game files, like baldness, freckles, and wrinkles.

Anyway, changing a stretch value endures only so long as the game does not cause new information to be written to the character file.  The Mule is sort of right here about it being linked to the lot in some way; the game makes one last adjustment to the character file when it is exported from CAS in-game and sets the stretch to a Maxis-determined preset value.

I have moved sims across lots back and forth, between sub-neighbourhoods (uni, downtown, shopping), etc; I never had a sim revert to a Maxis default height except at age-transitions. YMMV.

[FallenAngel86]

hopefully that be fix in sims3

[PegasusDiana]

Can we do this for also altering the height backwards? Like say I wanted to make a troll or goblin? If I made a custom skin ok that's a ways away. But I want to do that, could I alter the height permantely for that sim backwards?