Male sims are too short!

[lauralynn]

I've noticed that the male sims in the sims 3 tend to be the same hight or shorter than the female sims. Call me old fashioned but I like it when the guy is a wee bit taller, I guess it just looks more "natural". I also noticed that the male's heads also tend to be smaller than a female's head and it's the same thing - they should be bigger.

So I'm wondering, is there a way to make all the men in the game either a bit taller/bigger than they are now or a way to make the female's shorter/smaller?

Thanks!

[ImperialModder]

There is currently no mod or cheat that I know of that can change height.

"I also noticed that the male's heads also tend to be smaller than a female's head and it's the same thing - they should be bigger."
You can actually change this already in Sims 3. :)

[Vattenlilja]

I'm pretty sure that Delphy (someone correct me if I'm way off) has said somewhere around the forums that he is working on sliders for height. Not sure if he's actively working on them now though.

[HystericalParoxysm]

He's got some kinks to work out in them but they're definitely coming. With the same issue that TS2 had with stretchskeleton - some animations may not look perfect for all heights.

[Aviator.R]

He's got some kinks to work out in them but they're definitely coming. With the same issue that TS2 had with stretchskeleton - some animations may not look perfect for all heights.

Who cares? Me not, sure as hell. :rofl:

It's disappointing to see that in 2009 (Two-Thousand-And-Nine) developers still delivers games that pretends to give you "amazing character (Or sims) customization possibilities and endless combinations" and then lack of any kind of in-depth body customization. But that's EA, so i guess it's quite expectable.

[teacc]

It's the same in TS2 and TS3, they indeed look shorter than female sims. I always wondered if it was because females had more hair (hence gaining some micro-inches) ?
Anyway it's really great that height sliders are coming ! I actually find myself more excited about the prospect of new mods and creations than I am about playing the game...

[tomomi1922]

I do agree that EA should have made male sims a little taller than female sims at the first place. Just half, or even a quarter, of a head taller would do. And yes, female hairs do have volume in TS3 and they do add inches onto the height. I did compare height (although there is no reason I needed to) and did find out that their eye levels are the same, even height are the same in comparable short hair styles.

The only real difference between male and female sims are they body and limbs are different in sizes. Given the same slider positions, male's limps and body are always larger than female's. One time I have a female shoe mod that the creator accidentally made available to male as well. The male sims wearing those shoes would have mismatching ankles, as if their feet are suddenly smaller from the rest of the legs, like ... deer's feet.

[interpolarity]

yeah, I was really disappointed when I saw there were no height sliders... i mean, there are weight sliders...

[lauralynn]

That's great! I'm so exited now! I agree the hair makes a huge difference in height! All my girls look like amazon women. :) hahahahaha

[gta3champion]

I have always had a problem with this even in TS2 and TS1. If they can make console games (Xbox, Playstation) where you create characters (I'm thinking of wrestling and UFC type games but I'm sure there are others) and can adjust height and weight and so many fine minute characteristics, why can't they make Sims that way?

[lauralynn]

Maybe they are planning to add it or things like it into an expansion pack... It wouldn't suprise me if they held back very cool little tweaks that will take another 40$ to unlock.

[summersong86]

So I wasn't just imagining it...the guys heads ARE smaller. That would explain why I thought the Sims3 guys were overall easier to create attractive or that default townie males were cute, but all the females in the game look like lollipops and a nightmare to form in CAS without that balloon head look. I HATE the Charlie Brown round headed look the females are stuck with. As far as sim height goes, well short males in real life are attractive and I've known plenty who preferred taller women and got them. But still the majority of couples feature a taller male, shorter woman combo, so crafting a favorite celebrity couple under the current conditions is challenging. Will and Jada Pinkett Smith being the same height is certainly a bummer, for example. Delphy's just a genius with the sliders so eventually we will get the customizing options we were robbed of. I was so surprised that console Sims2 had more options for body customization than Sims3 does. Absolutely disappointing. The only thing I'm worried is that EA will keep coming out with patches that render all the mods unusable. Unless I missed something, I'm stuck now with a patched game that doesn't work with Rick & Delphy's slider hack. The boob slider is certainly welcome but I'm waiting awhile to see how things shake out with the next EP before I add any more specialized sliders to my game. But I will get them all eventually. The town is too uniform and the people are just too generic otherwise. I have a hard time telling some of the townies apart!

[humblebumble]

I'm so excited about the height sliders. I've been waiting for them since Sims 1. Hope Delphy works out the kinks!!

[SuicidiaParasidia]

the womens huge fhacking heads bother me. xD just wish theyd be a little bit smaller... woe....

only the men really seem to be in proportion. D: but i do wish they had varied heights for both genders.

[Jasumi]

I really fail to see why EA could not have (at the very least), three different height presets--short, medium, and tall. Of course, this would require them to create new animations for short and tall, but isn't that the same in principle to creating new anims for each age group?

Really, it's things like this which causes me to loose my faith in EA's Sims. I can only imagine what nonsense France will look like when the trailer is released....

[lauralynn]

When they were first talking about the Sims 3 and I saw that there's a muscle and weight slider hack I imagined the possibilities of a default height slider. They showed some screenshots to get us exited. When I saw this pick:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_5wEQMZwD_KU/SgC341dOVoI/AAAAAAAADdI/gWYGsZryqww/s1600-h/w15.jpg

I immediately thought of the possibilities all these sliders would open up. The first thing I wanted to create was a school yard bully who was all around bigger and stronger than the other kids (and who looked like he failed grade 4 six times) but without the height difference he didn't translate well.

Their whole slogan was that this town was going to play out like a real town (everyone ages at the same rate). They also said that you will be able to make "people you really know" well that is completely out of reach if everyone is 5'8'' and 100-200 pounds.

[Claeric]

There are good reasons to not have height.

For one, each individual height increment would have to have its own adjusted animations to ensure everything was right. THat's significantly more animations and work and loading and such for little gain.

[tomomi1922]

I really fail to see why EA could not have (at the very least), three different height presets--short, medium, and tall. Of course, this would require them to create new animations for short and tall, but isn't that the same in principle to creating new anims for each age group?

Really, it's things like this which causes me to loose my faith in EA's Sims. I can only imagine what nonsense France will look like when the trailer is released....

That is my thought too. Upon reading what EA officially said about not including heights due to extra animation works. Fine then, just make 3-4 preset heights. Its not like there is a whole lot more work, they do have a whole team of programmers there anyway.

There are good reasons to not have height.

For one, each individual height increment would have to have its own adjusted animations to ensure everything was right. THat's significantly more animations and work and loading and such for little gain.


EA is a big company (and we expect more from them), they make millions, they have a lot of employees, and last but not least, for TS3, they advertise that we can "create anyone" with promises of endless possibilities.

And look what we got? Everyone the same height, only 2 generic sliders, female lacking breast slider is ridiculous. I am not about asking to create all women with DD size breasts, but how often do we a community where women only have size A? I just don't want extremely skinny supermodels walking the street.

Speaking of hard work, Delphy alone, without pay, without EA SDK, made the breast sliders. And he is going to release the height sliders some time in the future. I refuse to believe Delphy has the whole EA design team beaten.

[Claeric]

You seem to have completely ignored what I said.

The issue is not that it's too hard, or that it is incompetent. What is it with you people and immediately resorting to slandering EA instead of actually reading to what you're being told?

The issue is not difficulty. THe issue is that

-HEIGHT would cause ANIMATION ISSUES. Unless they went through and redid every. Single. Animation. For every gender, for every age group, for every individual height difference, animations would not work right. Kissing would be way off, sims would bump into each other, their heads would touch headboards, they may not fit properly in their car, they'd all have different seating positions with their legs farther up, they'd have to make SO MANY animation changes that it's completely not worth it.
-Breasts cause clipping with hugging, etc. They are the way they are because they fit with all the animations.

The sliders delphy is making, while complex, are not exactly complicated. These things are not missing because of complexity- they are missing because they would screw with how things look, and it would take editing of a ton of animations for each and every height and breast size.

And I can assure you delphy will not program a way for the game to detect height and breast size and load new, fixed animations accordingly. It is not worth the effort. THat is why they did not do it. It has nothing to do with incompetence. It has nothing to do with programming ability. It is because they would have to alter a significant amount of meshes in 6 ways(toddler - elder) for who knows how many heights. Even 10 animations for 6 ages adjusted for only 10 heights is 600 animations that have to be done. And we know damn well there would be more than 10 animations and heights to be dealt with.

[simbalena]

You seem to have completely ignored what I said.

The issue is not that it's too hard, or that it is incompetent. What is it with you people and immediately resorting to slandering EA instead of actually reading to what you're being told?

With that nasty attitude I think you'll find a lot more people will completely ignore what you say :rolleyes:

[Claeric]

I'm sorry that I find it ridiculous how often people refuse to listen to reason in favor of just whining about EA, I guess?

They have a good reason for not including height or breast sizes, but the immediate response is "NO YOU ARE WRONG THEY ARE TERRIBLE"? Come on. :\

[Nvenya]

This is about what's cost effective, not what's possible. Customers dislike EA because they prioritize money over their customers. Yes, it's a business, but as a customer paying for their product I'm not overly sympathetic.

tomomi1922 addressed your question, Claeric. Her response was to Jasumi in regards to preset heights which brings us back to whether it's cost effective. It's not for them. Bashing EA is simply because of unfulfilled expectations.

[Claeric]

Unfulfilled expectations from people who cannot be bothered to think about things before whining about them...anyone who thought for a minute about height sliders would realize the issue pretty easily. Anyone who expected them? Clearly didn't think about it.

[Nvenya]

Expectation is synonymous with hope and doesn't have to be realistic. I don't see any problems with them wishing for height sliders or more height options. Eventually height sliders will be an option in games, just not at this time.

Nothing you say will stop people from expressing their dissatisfaction if their hopes aren't fulfilled, rational or not.

[Claeric]

There's nothing wrong with wishing for them.

But to immediately go to slandering EA and whining about EA is ridiculous. They aren't in the game for a good reason. They have no right to get so pissed about EA when they've done nothing wrong just because they didn't pander to their outlandish expectations.

[teacc]

anyone who thought for a minute about height sliders would realize the issue pretty easily.
Well clearly not everyone is as smart and talented as you are, it must be tough for you :)
That said, I found your second post interesting because I was focused on inter-sim animations, and totally forgot about sim-objects interactions haha. Different heights would indeed require a lot of work, but I still like the idea of three default heights *dreams away*.

[lostinshalott]

There's nothing wrong with wishing for them.

But to immediately go to slandering EA and whining about EA is ridiculous. They aren't in the game for a good reason. They have no right to get so pissed about EA when they've done nothing wrong just because they didn't pander to their outlandish expectations.

*chokes* so basically who are we suppose to blame for the lack of decent sliders? ourselves? I'm sorry but the fault lies with EA and whining? no one was whining they were simply stating a way EA could have implemented height. The reason is not good enough "oh it would take too long" if they'd have put height in, in the first place they wouldn't have had to change anything. I feel you are trying to dictate what people should and should not say and that is not right, not every one is going to see the game YOUR way and YOU maybe happy with the game and LOVE EA a lot but not every one does.

[FadedLB]

Sorry to derail the peer-hatred train here, but..

I heard somewhere that Delphy is not only making height sliders, but hip/butt sliders as well. Did I misread something?

[Vattenlilja]

@FadedLB: I've "heard" that too. Guess we'll just have to wait and see! *jumps up and down in anticipation* :D

[SuicidiaParasidia]

Sorry to derail the peer-hatred train here, but..

I heard somewhere that Delphy is not only making height sliders, but hip/butt sliders as well. Did I misread something?

i think the point is that it shouldnt be delphys problem--it shouldve already come with the game. they shouldnt be leaving such issues to the modding community when those with JOBS [ jobs revolving around it ] are supposed to be covering it already.

[gta3champion]

There are good reasons to not have height.

For one, each individual height increment would have to have its own adjusted animations to ensure everything was right. THat's significantly more animations and work and loading and such for little gain.

So your argument is that EA would have had to WORK to give the PAYING customer what they WANTED. How dare us demand anything for our money! We should be willing to dish out mega bucks for a game and appreciate what we get and expect nothing more. I play wrestling/fighting games on consoles and make one fighter 8 feet tall and another 4 feet tall and their animations work. Oh wait...that company felt compelled to actually WORK for a living instead of saying to the customer, "this is all I felt like doing so live with it!"

What world are you from???? :wtf:

[Claeric]

They would have had to do significant mroe effort than it would have been worth.

I am just gonna go ahead and assume you're all under 15, because you're extremely immature about this. Newsflash: Companies only do what they can within reason.

Height sliders are easily possible.

PROPER height sliders are not. If you want to go ahead and redo every single physical interaction with other sims and objects for every single age for every single height AND for every single breast size AND for every single breast size/height combo, go ahead.

But yknow what? You won't. Because it's not. Worth. The time. Or effort.

I'm done with this. You're just whining about EA. It's reasonable to avoid making the sliders but you refuse to listen because EA is the devil. For EA being the devil you sure do talk about their biggest franchise a lot.

Go ahead and ask delphy- I'm pretty sure he'd agree that fixing the animations would simply not be worth the effort.

[Misty_2004]

I play wrestling/fighting games on consoles and make one fighter 8 feet tall and another 4 feet tall and their animations work.
I would imagine in that type of game height variations would be a lot more important than in a Sims game. That's not to say height variations in Sims shouldn't be viewed as important, they just aren't such a huge element of the gameplay. I would also love to have varied heights to my Sims, and animations that matched up. Through my life I've had to fight against OCPD though, and have managed to get it reasonably reigned in by focusing it on very minor things instead of larger ones. One of those minor things that drive me insane is mis-matched animations from Sims being the wrong heights for the animations. I used to have InTeen for my TS2 game so my teen Sims could start developing relationships during that time instead of waiting until they were adults. The taller Sim kissing the shorter one's forehead, while the shorter one was kissing the taller one's neck was completely nerve-racking. :lol:

[Claeric]

I believe wrestling games us a different style of animating entirely.

They probably have set heights, and if not, there are probably set increments for animations to follow. They're animated using humans and those little white ball suit things, whereas The Sims is animated using real interactions and then copying them.

And with some things, I imagine animations could be tied to "Bones"- this means that when you do, say, a move that lifts someone by the waist, it may not be animated specifically- just a bit. Then the game automatically knows to move the arms to the waist on the other person. I don't know much about it,s o I'm just speculating here.

These animations are much faster and don't require as much polish, but with the sims, imagine a taller sim with a kissing animation that says their lips and the other guy's lips are "bones"- and to touch them. Their neck would scrunch, they'd look completely out of place. They'd have to be done specially to either make them tilt their head down or crouch down a bit- adn even different variations for personalities and different traits.

Such tiny tiny tiny things would take a lot more effort, and that effort woulc have to be done so many times. I hadn't even mentioned it before bu tit's not just "Taller and shorter" animations- they'd also have to do them for each combination.

Meaning a 0 on the slider sim and a 0 on the slider sim are default animations. THey'd have to do a 1 on 0 animation, a 2 on 0 animation, a 3 on 0 animation, a -1 on 0 animation, a -2, -3, -4, -5. And then, when that was all done, they'd have to do a 1 on 1. 2 on 1. 3 on 1.

And even after all THAT, they'd have to do "Interacter" and "Interactee"- the animation for your sim is different depending on who started the animation..meaning there are TWO animations for EACH interaction- the kisser and the kissee, for example. And THEN, there are REJECTION animations for each interaction. So that's 3 animations for one interaction that has to be adjusted for 10 possible heights and every combination of those possible heights.

So for even 10 alternate height ranges, that's a ton of new animations for ONE interaction...for ONE age...just for different heights.

I wish I remembered the useless algebra to do the math so I could express just how many animations they'd have to do.

1 > 0
2 > 0
3 > 0
4 > 0
5 > 0
-1 > 0
-2 > 0
-3 > 0
-4 > 0
-5 > 0
1 > 1
2 > 1
3 > 1
4 > 1
5 > 1
-1 > 1
-2 > 1
-3 > 1
-4 > 1
-5 > 1

And so on, and so on, AND for the other side of the animation.

Are you starting to see how many they'd have to do for one single animation for one single age group?

[Nvenya]

I don't think people really need to understand that, it's not their job. People are going to want it regardless of how difficult or costly it is to implement. This is how technology moves forward. Just imagine how much was not possible in games ten years ago.

EA is a convenient target for dissatisfied customers.

[Jasumi]

I believe wrestling games us a different style of animating entirely.

They probably have set heights, and if not, there are probably set increments for animations to follow. They're animated using humans and those little white ball suit things, whereas The Sims is animated using real interactions and then copying them.

And with some things, I imagine animations could be tied to "Bones"- this means that when you do, say, a move that lifts someone by the waist, it may not be animated specifically- just a bit. Then the game automatically knows to move the arms to the waist on the other person. I don't know much about it,s o I'm just speculating here.

Are you referring to a physics system? This level of rendering is beyond what most simmer's computers could process.


These animations are much faster and don't require as much polish, but with the sims, imagine a taller sim with a kissing animation that says their lips and the other guy's lips are "bones"- and to touch them. Their neck would scrunch, they'd look completely out of place. They'd have to be done specially to either make them tilt their head down or crouch down a bit- adn even different variations for personalities and different traits.

Such tiny tiny tiny things would take a lot more effort, and that effort woulc have to be done so many times. I hadn't even mentioned it before bu tit's not just "Taller and shorter" animations- they'd also have to do them for each combination.

Meaning a 0 on the slider sim and a 0 on the slider sim are default animations. THey'd have to do a 1 on 0 animation, a 2 on 0 animation, a 3 on 0 animation, a -1 on 0 animation, a -2, -3, -4, -5. And then, when that was all done, they'd have to do a 1 on 1. 2 on 1. 3 on 1.

And even after all THAT, they'd have to do "Interacter" and "Interactee"- the animation for your sim is different depending on who started the animation..meaning there are TWO animations for EACH interaction- the kisser and the kissee, for example. And THEN, there are REJECTION animations for each interaction. So that's 3 animations for one interaction that has to be adjusted for 10 possible heights and every combination of those possible heights.

So for even 10 alternate height ranges, that's a ton of new animations for ONE interaction...for ONE age...just for different heights.

I wish I remembered the useless algebra to do the math so I could express just how many animations they'd have to do.

1 > 0
2 > 0
3 > 0
4 > 0
5 > 0
-1 > 0
-2 > 0
-3 > 0
-4 > 0
-5 > 0
1 > 1
2 > 1
3 > 1
4 > 1
5 > 1
-1 > 1
-2 > 1
-3 > 1
-4 > 1
-5 > 1

And so on, and so on, AND for the other side of the animation.

Are you starting to see how many they'd have to do for one single animation for one single age group?

While this has obviously been taken in consideration, this is simply called buyer satisfaction. Of course, EA would have to create two new sets of animations if one were to go a more rudimentary route, however, there is a more effective method, that being a "snapping process" that you highlighted with bone animations. If executed properly, there will be no scrunching effects, only a novice would produce such. A good example of "vertex snapping" would be the Pets EP from sims 2 which required pets of different sizes to interact successfully.

[PepsiColaMaster]

I've noticed that the male sims in the sims 3 tend to be the same hight or shorter than the female sims. Call me old fashioned but I like it when the guy is a wee bit taller, I guess it just looks more "natural". I also noticed that the male's heads also tend to be smaller than a female's head and it's the same thing - they should be bigger.

So I'm wondering, is there a way to make all the men in the game either a bit taller/bigger than they are now or a way to make the female's shorter/smaller?

Thanks!

Taller sims eh Good Idea send it to EA and see what they do :rofl:

[lauralynn]

A height slider would be fantastic but I gather that it is impossible at this time due to the complications with animations and the amount of animations and what not, but why could they not have made the guys "6 inches tall" on screen and the girls like 5 and 1/2 inches tall by default? If they would have taken this into consideration before they developed the game they would only have to make the one set of animations. They wouldn't have to do anything more than what they already did for the game and it would look "more natural" in the traditional sense.

I think there would be more happy customers that way.