Adding height to The Sims 4 or maybe it will be a Sims 5 edition [ Edited ]

[000Unavailable]

@SimmeringPassion ,

What a good point! Ha ha. We have good excuses for staying inside. 

I agree. I'm waiting for the day when we'll see a post that says something like, "Guess what, Simmers? It's finally here! And what is it, you may ask? The official height slider. Yes, that's right. Now Yamachan will be the real talk of the town if you make him 10 feet tall." Okay, maybe that last part was too much, but you know what I mean lol. As long as the makers don't think I'm making fun of them. Definitely not. It really would be an awesome post.

[SimmeringPassion]

@Vatzfu 

When i read them patch notes yesterday just to see what’s going on in the sight sims community I got so excited and i love the hair options they have given too!  Laptops broken so I anti play it yet but in my head I’m already playing it haha 

Definitely will keep my eyes peeled for them new height sliders too!

[SimmeringPassion]

@RandomBuzziness @Vatzfu 

Welcome to the height chat! Forgot to say!

Must have been the height mod I was using then! Unless I used too much of a percentage without realising haha which is very possible! Anyway hopefully they use the mod as an example though because it’s seems that some of the mod hairstyles i used to use with the baby hair feature is as a hairstyle now! So hopefully they use some of the mods as an example as well as the clothing too! The website has so many clothing’s that’s look so good it’s like my own little playground! I would be there for hours just downloading loads of stuff! And don’t get me started with the actual playing around with the different unlimited looks I would create with or without the mods OMG! 

[SimmeringPassion]

@000Unavailable 

Nope that all sounded legit i me and really made me laugh out loud (you know when it makes you laugh you have to put laugh out loud instead of lol 😝 🤪) 

That sounded like how it would sound if they’ve actually released it, you watch now when they do release it they’ll be using that exact sentence! 🤪

[000Unavailable]

@SimmeringPassion ,

I'm so thankful I made you laugh. Everyone could use a little laughter, especially nowadays! Just thinking about Yamachan being 10 feet tall makes me laugh so hard lol! It's kind of like when you right click on an object and it gives you the option to "Set as head" for a Sim. So then you can literally have a 10 foot refrigerator with a body walking around. Some of those cheats are just too funny.

So, this is for you. I can't remember the exact words the Sims say when they gain that specific sentiment, but it goes something like, "I'm so happy you don't think my llama jokes are lame." Maybe I'm way off, but it's definitely for you.

[PenguinFoop]

Don't hold your breath because it's not as simple as just making one sim taller or another sim smaller and bingo,  you're done!  Speaking as a self-taught 3D artist and self-taught coder, the problem is that in order to keep one sim from kissing another's knees (lol nice example OP) is that targets are generally created during the coding, adjusted during modeling and then positioned during the animating process.  For example in order to reach the lips of Sim A by Sim B, Sim B must tilt its head downward by angle s while Sim A tilts its head upward by angle r.  Then if Sim B decides to kiss Sim C, Sim B instead has to tilt its head upward by angle r and Sim C has to tilt its head downward by angle s where r and s are variables designated to angle of tilt for kissing.  That's just for the head.  Any physical interaction between sims would also have to be adjust so that if Sim B is trying to brush the cheek of Sim C for example, Sim B's hand isn't actually brushing the air above Sim C's head.  So now, instead of having one action animation that fits all sims of that age group, you have to have many animations for each sim of every height variation.  After all, trying to kiss someone that is a full foot shorter than you is a lot different than trying to kiss someone that is just an inch or so shorter.  Coding could be written perhaps to adjust these different angles but again coding is tricky.

Think about how one game would likely have upwards of a million lines of code (I've never programmed a game so can't be certain), however from my own limited programming experience I can tell you it takes a lot of code to perform some simple tasks.  Also coding is a lot more demanding than say writing a thesis.  In a thesis if you misspell a word or misplace a comma, you get points off for it.  If you misplace a comma or misspell a word in a massive code, the code breaks.  

So imagine trying to tell a computer to tell a skeleton to tell a body that there is someone in front of it that wants to kiss it.  Then telling that computer to tell that skeleton to tell that body where that someone's lips are.  Now the computer has to adjust how far the head and the back have to tilt and if perhaps one sim may have to raise itself up on its toes while the other sim bends its knees.  Typically from what I've learned by talking to people in the industry, animations are done then adopted by all characters so that these details are dealt with.  However, adding height variants suddenly takes away the possibility of creating a one size fits all animation loop and now coders have to manipulate the skeleton (called the rig) to meet each individual encounter.  That sounds to me like massive code re-writes.  

That's just for height.  A lot of what people (myself included) would love to see in the game simply can not be done after the initial coding is written without risking a full breakdown of the entire code.  Coding can be very strong and powerful but coding is always more fragile than glass.  The whole plane of glass is always just one crack away from shattering.

So that's my perspective based on my personal experience.  Perhaps in four years, after I've gotten my BAA in game development, I'll have a clearer understanding and find out I'm wrong but I don't see how.  

Anyway, I've always loved the idea of height variation but until I started playing with modeling, rigging and animating objects as well as picking back up on basic programming in office settings, I didn't realize just how much goes into a single line of code and just how fragile an entire game can be.  After all, how many times does a new update come out and suddenly people start reporting new breaks in seemingly unrelated areas?  That's the nature of glass, it splinters before it breaks.

[SimmeringPassion]

@000Unavailable,

I am always happy to have a “lame” laugh, because as far as I know it’s not a lame laugh but just a laugh, I love your humour and it really makes me laugh out loud!

Thank you for the refreshing sense of humour! Who doesn’t love a laugh! I know I can’t resist comedy no matter the form!

I love being a part of this community for everything it brings that’s including your humour!

I remember setting my sims head as a mailbox as my first experience of mods I remember my sim walking round as a mailbox headed sim, it was a very crazy time 🤪😏 I love your comments and everything it brings!

[SimmeringPassion]

@PenguinFoop 

I know what goes into coding for teaching myself coding as well! I appreciate your comments I love reading them! 😏 

I know height is all about the coding because I’ve been there myself! Omg have I been there!

I know I have seen the many problems that the simmer creators face and I feel for them! I know as a person interested in the same field I get their and your hearts! 

I have read everything you are saying and I appreciate your comment and welcome your comment and presence to the chat!

I love new comments, ideas and prospectives! I know everything you’re saying is the truth I have some level of understanding (not all but some) I know some of the struggle that goes into it (not all because I know I don’t know everything) but I feel their pain!😜🤪😝😏😂🤣😉😝🤪

[PenguinFoop]

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@SimmeringPassion wrote:

@PenguinFoop 

I know what goes into coding for teaching myself coding as well! I appreciate your comments I love reading them! 😏 

I know height is all about the coding because I’ve been there myself! Omg have I been there!

I know I have seen the many problems that the simmer creators face and I feel for them! I know as a person interested in the same field I get their and your hearts! 

I have read everything you are saying and I appreciate your comment and welcome your comment and presence to the chat!

I love new comments, ideas and prospectives! I know everything you’re saying is the truth I have some level of understanding (not all but some) I know some of the struggle that goes into it (not all because I know I don’t know everything) but I feel their pain!😜🤪😝😏😂🤣😉😝🤪

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Yeah, coding is a nightmare when it breaks but breathtaking when it doesn't.  Lol  Maybe we can chat in private some time.  I live a pretty isolated life so those I know don't have any idea or inclination toward this so it would be great to have someone that gets the struggle. 

[RandomBuzziness]

@SimmeringPassion @PenguinFoop The mod I use is the Height Slider by GODJUL1. This mod links the foot slider in CAS to directly change the height of a Sim, i.e. bigger feet means taller Sims, smaller feet means shorter Sims. I can't post a link in this forum the this mod can be found at the Mod the Sims website. The file-size isn't very large (2.78 kb) and using it does not seem to slow my game down at all & and my FPS rate is pretty much the same when I use this mod as in test saves where I don't. I like for the Sims in my game to come in all different shapes, sizes, and colors, and this mod definitely does affect every Sim in my game, including NPCs, randomly-generated townies, everyone except for pets.

I am no expert at all when it comes to coding, but much of the height-related compensation for tall Sims interacting with shorter Sims already seems to be either in the base game or in this mod itself. I'll use a modded version of the base game Goth family to provide some examples of what I am referring to:

In this example I have made Mortimer taller, not like freakishly tall but taller than average, while I have made Bella shorter than average by about the same amount (using the MC CAS module of MCCC to assign a number value to a foot size with a range of +100 to -100 and with 0 being the default size of an un-modded Sim, I have made Mortimer a +20 and Bella a -15).

For most interactions the animations look pretty good and there is definitely seems to be some kind of compensation for their different heights going on here. When they hug you can see there is a clear height difference but the interaction looks fairly natural. When they hold hands their hands appear to meet rather than the taller Sim having his hands much higher than the shorter Sim (like they were playing patty-cake or something). You can also see that Bella is reaching up to massage Mortimer's shoulders rather than having her hands somewhere further down on his back.

The animations look very normal when either of them interact with items around the house. A short Sim (Bella) interacts with the stove to cook some grilled cheese (yum!) and a tall Sim (Mortimer) washes his hands in the sink to get ready to eat those tasty grilled cheese sandwiches.

For their daughter Cassandra I made her even shorter (her foot size is a -20 using MC CAS). Since her mother is still a young adult I wanted Cassandra to appear to be a young-ish teen like maybe 15 years old or so. There is a significant height difference between her and her father. In a vanilla no-mod game they would be the same size, yet she definitely appears to be tilting her head up and looking upward to his face when they chat. She gets her dad the old electric hand buzzer trick (I can't believe he fell for that one!) and their hands are at the same level. Dad forgives her and gives her a loving hug and the animation looks fairly natural. Cassandra also interacts just fine with items around the house.

So anyway, this mod isn't perfect. When a tall Sim kisses a short Sim their lips don't quite line up. Even then it's much closer than it would be without at least some height compensation going on and it's not all that noticeable unless you are looking close. I haven't created any extremely tall or short Sims but if I did I expect the animations would look less and less natural as the size difference gets greater. The other odd thing with this mod is their Sim avatar portraits in the lower left corner of the UI are a bit off for either very tall or very short Sims, though this doesn't really affect game-play at all. I expect if EA ever added this feature to the game that their version would be more polished; however, until they do mods like this is all we'll ever have.

P.S. Just word of warning, I have not yet updated my game for the Dec. 7th game patch so I am not certain if this mod is still compatible.