Hey. I've seen many tutorials on the web about using SimPE to permanently modify a sim's height. What have y'all done with that, if anything?

I use it for 'gradual aging' to the point where I have divided the child age stage into three stages:

1. Kinder (4-6 yrs old)
The Kinder is a young child. This kid would be in early elementary school and would have similar room decor tastes to a toddler. I would keep their toddler toys around for a while longer in this stage. They cannot read on their own yet unless they are really gifted. They need a LOT more parental supervision and can never be left alone. To get the kid as a Kinder, I lower their height. They are fairly chubby due to the squishing of their mesh, but I view this as a little baby fat and a more transitional toddler --> child body.

2. Child (7-10 years old)
The Child is a regular Maxis child. They can do more independent things, like have lemonade stands, paint on easels, and read on their own. They still have childish tastes, but not toddlerish tastes in decoration, entertainment, etc. No height modifications are necessary for this stage.

3. Preteen (11-13 years old)
The Preteen is a middle-schooler. They are fairly competent to leave home alone for short periods of time. Their tastes in decor are more like those of teens. They don't do age-inappropriate things like makeout or woohoo (or anything a child cannot normally do, really), but will start taking interest in the opposite sex and perform interactions like 'Classic Dance' and 'Kiss Kiss Darling' to represent childhood crushes. I make the maxis child a bit taller for this age stage.

So, I can't articulate my plans for each 'custom' age stage, but this is how I use the height editing in SimPE. Do y'all use it for anything different? Have any ideas to expand on these age stages? I'm curious.

I've never changed a sims height. If it could be done in game easily and stick I would, but I can't be bothered to load up SimPE for that.

If I am feeling like it I do it right from babyhood. More likely if the parents aren't poor and it's the first child. I will dress the baby in newborn clothes like a sleeper and next day dress them in jeans and t-shirt, or something a bit older than newborn clothes.

I split toddlerhood into 2 sections but again it depends on the house how much I do. Large families or very busy houses I do less.
1-3 years (days 1-4)
Depending on the parents income/ intelligence they may use a baby gate.
Toddler can be given bottles or fed in a highchair.
Toddler will be dressed in younger clothes like a romper.
Any toddler who cannot walk may not have access to stairs. A parent must take them up and down stairs.

3-5 years (days 5-8)
Baby gate is taken away.
Toddler will be dressed in older clothes.
Toddler will have all skills unless they come from a low motivation family. In which case they may have none.
Toddler may use stairs and go outside to play by themselves if the yard is fenced. Toddlers from low motivation families do whatever from day 1.
Toddler will have a sippy cup or use a booster seat at the table.

Childhood 5-13 I don't have many set down rules for children.
5-81/2 (7 days)
Wears younger clothes
May not use the oven but may make cereal and sandwiches and yogurt and fruit.
Will be helped with homework.

81/2-13 (7 days)
Wears older clothes
May use the oven if they have 6 or more cooking points.
Be expected to do homework by themselves
May go to community lots with older siblings

Teens 13-18
I haven't really set down anything for teens except they may not drive or date until they are 16

Adults coming up to old age will often get a change of hair style and added wrinkles. A few men will get a more receding type of short hair style since they will be going bald. I tend to base this on how thick their regular hair style was if they will end up bald or not.

Elder
Young elders will get coloured hair and eyebrows and adult shaped clothes
Older elders will be grey hair and eyebrows and elder shapes clothes

http://chickadeelee.livejournal.com/27149.html

Thought this blog post might be relevant.

That's where I get the height proportions for my sims.

I actually have a bunch of wrinkles for older sims. Like, entire pages in my blush and costume makeup folders.

I don't change heights for gameplay, but I do it for storytelling.

Newborn to 1-2 months - sometimes just a small deco baby, because I think the babies are a bit big. Regular babies for interactions that look weird for deco babies.

0-12 months - baby stage

1-1.5 years - sometimes baby stage, sometimes a slightly hight-reduced toddler.

2-3 is toddler, no height change.
4 is sometimes toddler with a bit of extra height.

4-6 is often child with reduced height, and 'childish' clothes and hairstyles.

7-11 is child with normal height, clothes varying with age, to make them look younger or older.

11-13/14 - sometimes regular child, sometimes child with increased height, depending on what looks best for animations and such.

14/15-18/19 - teenager

I try to avoid the 'middle' life stages if I can, because I'm not too fond of the stretchskeleton cheat.

I'll change the height on some Sims because in my mind ... they should be taller. But always slightly. Very tall or short Sims look odd kissing other Sims.

I've considered it, but laziness currently wins out. I'm not up to the hassle of remembering whose height needs changing before I load a game and I wouldn't stop a game to do so. Since I don't set up shots for storytelling purposes, I just mentally tag people as taller or shorter. If it were easier to permanently alter heights in game and the animations automatically adjusted for it, I probably would. I don't do too much for expanded ages. Usually, it's just a few adjustments in clothing or hairstyle, though I do have the unlocked Maxis wrinkles that allow for three different levels of face wrinkles.

I've never done the height cheats before; It's partially because it seems like a hassle and partially because I'm afraid of screwing something up. I have developed a rather informal system for ages though

The baby stage is equivalent to being between birth and a year old. No significant changes in game

The toddler stage is between 1-3 years old. I simulate aging here using the teaching of toddler skills; the learn skills in the order I'd think a real-life baby would master them; walking first, then talking, then potty training.

The child stage is between 4-12 years old. I split down the line. The first half is early childhood; the child wears clothes you'd expect of a little kid, I allow them to do more childish interactions like asking to be read to or playing with certain kinds of toys. Once they reach the second half of childhood, they begin wearing different clothes, and I begin their skill-building and building up interests so I know what aspiration to pick for them once they reach teenage years. They also begin building relationships with other kids to determine future friendships and romances. The split isn't hard and fast, though and I usually only enforce it when I have an older and young sibling who are both still children, for the sake of differentiating them.

The teen stage is equivalent to 13-17 years old. Same as the child sage, I split it in half so to speak. For the first half of teen years, they're still seen, for the sake of the story, as dependent, and so they're not allowed to have cars or jobs; they can't ask to Go Out (but they can Sneak Out), they can't apply to college yet and they, while they can have romantic relationships, it can't go past a certain point. Also, story-wise, I imagine their parents are still influencing their clothing choice, so their outfits reflect this. Upon reaching the 2nd half of teenage years, I consider them independent and so all restrictions are down.

The YA stage is equivalent to late teens and early 20s. No change

The adult stage is late 20s to early 60s. Not any real changes, though once a sim reaches what I consider middle age, their appearance might change. I may give them life, greying but not grey hair, or change their outfit if it seems too young for them

The elder stage, I consider to be late 60s to death. No change.

This thread inspired me and I recently added this factor into gameplay. I don't use it strictly, though. But I have extended lifespans for kids and toddlers (2/8/16/16), so in the first quarter of their age stage, I reduce their height to 0.85 (toddlers), 0.9 (kids) and 0.85 (teens), and the last quarter of the age stage is 1.15 for all. It has a pretty good effect, for me, in simulating little pudgy just-mobile babies, little kids, and dumpy just-turned teens, and the awkward, stretched out looking stages - preschooler and preteen. The last teen portion also overlaps nicely with my cut off for sending teens to uni, so it's only the non-uni teens who get stretched then

I don't ascribe different behaviours to the different stages, but I might change their clothes or hairstyle when they are in those stages.

Click for pics


I have some other "stage" rules which I roughly follow. Toddlers have 8 days, so I take their outgoing and active scores and add two: This is the "days left" at which they are allowed to START learning to talk or walk respectively. Whatever this number is minus two, means that on that "days left" I will make it a priority - whenever the toddler isn't eating or sleeping, an adult or teen MUST be teaching that skill. Even if it's the middle of the night. In practice, this means that very active or outgoing kids are super demanding and have their parents' attention at all times until they get that independence, and others aren't even interested in trying until 2 days before they age up! The potty training rule is half neat score plus three is when they are eligible to start potty training and there is no end date, because I'm not interested in potty training boot camp. If the kid hasn't yet learnt to talk, I don't let myself look at their want or need panels. I have the mod which restricts stairs to walking toddlers only. I like that the stages add to this - a "big" toddler looks much steadier on their feet and a "small" toddler looks absolutely adorable crawling around and much more baby like. With the rare ones who walk early, that's adorable, too. And because of the placement of the arms, little ones cling on more when carried and bigger ones seem to sit up straighter. I think I'll be more motivated to use more babyish clothing with the littler ones and more "scaled down adult" clothing on the bigger ones. Normally I don't change toddler's clothes at all because it's so annoying to do so.

Teens are restricted for me in which jobs they can do and I have (or - had ) a whole document about what age each job and stage was allowed.

God how I wish there was a mod to add 1 tick to height for child and teen every day at 6pm when they age a day with starting number like the pics in the post above mine.

I segment out my elders if anything. I always find it jarring when the go from looking 30-something to 70-something.

The stages would be considered:
Adult-Old, Elder-Young to Elder-Mid, and Elder-Old

So when an adult is 10-1 days from their elder birthday I apply light CC wrinkles. There's a nice set I have that adds light, medium, or dark separate mouth, eye, under-eye, and forehead crease, and it makes the adult sim look a little bit older.

When they are finally an elder, I adjust their hair style back to something with the color they had when they were adult and darken the separate wrinkles, as well as add glasses because their eye sight isn't what it used to be. About midway through their adult age bar they go grey, and get full face light wrinkle treatment. Then later close to the end they get dark full face wrinkles.

This is so awesome it makes me cry that I can not have it as a mod.

height from left to right .87, 1.0 and 1.2 of normal. Normal is 1.0

The girl on the left is just 1 day as a child and the girl in the middle is 4 days as child and the boy on the right is 1 day away from teen-hood.

Uhmm, no.
A Kind is a child.
Kinder (plural) are children.

I think Amandie might be basing that off of the word "kindergartener", since they are in-between toddlers and elementary school-aged children. Not off of the literal word "kinder."

Just my two cents.

I've always loved the concept of this, but as others have said, the fact its not permanent makes me less inclined to put in the effort. It'd be effort in itself just remembering who needs changing, by how much, and when.

If only someone could hack around the age transitioning problem so you're given the choice of keeping the custom height or ditching it.

@Snufflepaws it's not permanent when done ingame, but it is if you do it in SimPE like the tutorial linked above. I haven't tested aging sims up with the SimPE height changes though. If a preteen was becoming a teen I would likely want to set their height back to normal after that age-up anyway.