Which is the best software we have for browsing/seeing the in-game animations? Is SimPose the current best?

I'm trying to find one that can read and play all the animations from the game without me needing to extract the animation files to load them up in the software. Just something that lets me run through the in-game animations and see what each one looks like.

*Crickets chirping.*

I'm using SimShow to preview animations, still need extract files to preview them 😂

Unless got anyone make a hack object like Sims2 animation box which can preview all animations in game with just few clicks

Thanks Stephanie. 🤗

I think Edith may have some options like that, but I'm not sure if the version of Edith that we have on archive.org works with the actual retail game, or if it only works with the pre-release versions of the game. 🤔

For now, I've loaded all the animations into SimPose. But it's so cumbersome to preview them in SimPose -- you have to search for and select each one separately, and it takes multiple clicks just to get a single animation to show. 😓 I was hoping to be able to run through them quickly to find the animation I'm looking for.

SimShow got faster and easier than SimPose to preview animations, the only additional program you need is BCF2CMX to convert bcf to cmx files, then you can copy into SimShow and preview them, I use to have all animations with cmx extracted into my SimShow folder, too bad I didn't kept them 😂

The only downside is the SimShow preview pane too small and cannot maximize. There is an older SimShow with larger preview pane, but I haven't try it, I just downloaded it and Edith last month, seem very interesting, maybe will take a look after I finished my mods for complete collection.

I could only find the older version of SimShow, I think, on archive.org. But I think that version lacks support for child sims (and their animations). If you have a newer version of SimShow, it would be great to upload that somewhere, as I think it's disappeared from the web entirely.

This is the only version of it I could find:

https://archive.org/details/sim-show

Luckily I still keep the original setup file, just uploaded, will make it appear at my page soon https://sims.stephanietoo.com/programs/SimShow.zip

This version also not fully support for child body meshes, have to untick the filter to view proper mcchd and fcchd meshes, and no child standing animation by default, I created a cmx for child stand but using adult stand cfp, seem works.

Thanks so much, Stephanie! 🤗

Okay, I've uploaded SimShow also to the Internet Archive, so that we never lose it again:

https://archive.org/details/simshow

I first tried to use Kelahn's BCF2CMX converter to convert the animation BCFs into CMX files, and it crashed my system. I thought Kelahn's programming of the utility was bad, only to come across this old note on this Simania page:

Source: http://w.simania.nl/simania/ssp/simahck5.htm


So the only way to get all the default in-game animations into SimShow is to open each and every one in Simpose, and re-save them as a CMX *sigh*. Back to square one for me.

I guess this is the tedious work you had to do the first time -- to re-save each and every BCF animation file from the game as a CMX, using Simpose.

The good news is that child animations do indeed work, now, in this SimShow.

Thanks for uploading the program into your Internet Archive, I have favorited it. Last time I used BCF2CMX was long time ago, which my PC still windows XP, maybe not work on modern OS 😅

I tested/used it on Windows 98, but I don't see any reason why it would not work on newer Windows machines. It actually works fine, but not for animation BCF/CMX files -- only for skin BCF/CMX files! If you load an animation BCF into BCF2CMX, then the software crashes terribly (I had to restart my system). Only Simpose is able to convert animation BCF files into animation CMX files, apparently.

So I think you actually used BCF2CMX to convert skin files, and Simpose to convert animation files. 🤔😉

It's fine so long as we're all aware that BCF2CMX is not for animation BCFs/CMXs.

There's no way, unfortunately, however, to batch convert animation BCFs to CMXs. You really have to open each and every file and re-save it manually -- which is a pain if you're working with hundreds of files. 😓 But if you do that, then SimShow allows you to cycle through the animations easily -- just using the arrow keys on your keyboard. 👍

Yes, I'm only use to convert skin files, I'm sorry, too bad I can't remember how I made all those animation cmx files 😅

It must have been Simpose. According to the old documentation/notes I've found, that's the only tool/software we have that can load animation BCFs and save/convert them to other formats.

I'm pretty sure Edith can preview animations, too. But I'm not sure that the version of Edith we have (1.01) is compatible with the retail version of the game:

https://archive.org/details/edith-internal-release

Apparently it supports the base (pre-Livin'-Large) game. 🤔

May be worth checking out...

You can try to copy your extracted animations into your Edith GameData folders, I think it can support all animations from expansion packs.

Just now I tried a silly thing by copy Debug.exe and Sims.exe from Edith into my Complete Collection folder, the game can start then crash before enter neighbourhood screen, at least I tried

Another tries:

I copied TablesCoffeeDeluxe2.far into Edith\GameData\Objects, it works, Edith can read .far files, of course those coffee tables disappear after enter live mode
Then I copied those exe files from Edith into retail version Base Game folder, works!

Just back up the original Sims.exe then copy Debug.exe and Sims.exe from Edith folder into The Sims folder, now you can have your base game with Edith features

This is my suspicion. Since the animation format didn't change throughout the whole run of the retail game and all its expansion packs, if Edith supports the base game, it should support all animations. 👍



Wow! 😯 I did not expect it to support all the features of the base game and its assets. I expected it to crash if it tries to load all the base game's FARs and files. This is phenomenal! 😀



Amazing! ❤️ The perfect live developer environment for any Sims modder. Thanks for sharing. 🤗

Just a cautionary note that before you do this and run the Edith version of the game, you should probably back up your UserData folder(s), just in case. Especially if you have active saved games (characters/houses) in there. We don't know how Edith handles save files.

Or just have a separate copy/installation of the base game for Edith. That's probably the most practical and safest route.

Noted with thanks

Back up is the most important step for modder, I can believe no one will put their game in risk when modding, especially my above experiments, it may cause the whole game unplayable, end up will be a painful lesson if no back up 😂

I'm not only have multiple UserData backups, I have also multiple full game backups, both base game and complete collection installed on same PC, so I have 2 set of registries, just rename the registry and game folder when I want to switch to another game.

In this pic I posted in another thread, you can notice I have 2 The Sims folders (also multiple other folders), both of them are complete collection, they are sharing the same registry, just with different CC installed, the base game folder just outside the screen capture, there's another same backups stored in Maxis Original, contains fresh installed games without any CC, and also registry files for all different game versions


In the same game also contain multiple Sims.exe with multiple UIGraphics folders for different resolutions, so many multiple things but Sims1 doesn't take too much disk space compared with later games, I have also multiple Sims3 folders in my Documents, also, multiple hard disks to store all my backups