hello everyone! сan someone please explain to me how to distinguish one body type from another? ik that body type depends on clothing but the problem is that when i choose outfits in cas all 3 body types (fit/fat/skinny) look the same to me lol. thx in advance

As far as I know, the textures for all three body shapes are the same. The difference is just the model that is used, and how the texture wraps around that model. Is that what you mean, looking at the files/textures?

The textures/files are also named "fit", "fat", and "skn" for the three body models the game uses. Looking at the files, that's how you tell. The final one is "chd" for the child model (same model used for boys and girls -- they only have one body model).

In terms of how it works in-game, each clothing/skin comprises of a texture (BMP), a texture to model reference file (CMX), and at least one model file (SKN). So you are correct that each clothing carries with it a model file (body type) -- but this model file can actually be anything, any shape. The game only has the above eight known categories recognised, however (3 for female adult, 3 for male adult, and 1 each for female and male child). Custom types will be rolled into the "fit" body type.

To give you an example:

b001fcChdlgt_70sskirt

"b001" is a unique ID for the body/model file (SKN).

"fcChd" stands for female child. This is the body type for categorising it in-game. Another example would be "faFit" for female adult fit body type.

"lgt" stands for light skin type (the other two being "drk" and "med").

And then the stuff after the underscore (_) is a unique ID for the texture file, the clothing itself. You can have multiple textures/clothes assigned to the same body/model file (SKN).

If you just mean how to visually distinguish them in-game, then by default the skinny types are really skinny and flat (don't have any curves), the "fit" ones are shaped with curves, and the "fat" ones are bigger in built, and generally have a more middle-age adult look to them.

The only exception to this is the green formal-looking dress for female adult characters. That one appears as skinny, but I think it has been miscategorised, because if you choose it, your character will be the "fit" body type, not skinny.

Yeah they aren't labelled in CAS so you just have to get an eye for which is which. Remember that in the vanilla game there are VERY few skinny and fat clothes. Men have sort of a spare tire gut in the fat morph, women are more "curvy." The skinny size has stick-like arms and legs for guys and women have a flat chest. That's about it. As you say, they are all pretty similar.

The other way to do it is to open up the game and pick a sim that you know is one of the "alternate" body sizes, take them to the wardrobe, have them change clothes and see what's available to them. Betty and Bob Newbie are fat and Tiffany Burb is skinny, so they can show you all the clothes available for those combinations. I don't think Maxis gave us a premade skinny man, though.

For your custom skins, and some default skins, you can also check the GameData/Skins folder and track them down. Their filename will tell you exactly what body type classification they are. That's another way to be sure.

Gunther and Cornelia Goth are both premade skinny man and woman, I like Gunther cloth so much but too bad it only available for skinny type, plus those non fit type got very limited choice in buyable clothes without any modification, I used to copy those cmx and bmp which I like then rename them to fit type

Ah yes, how could I forget the Goth Seniors... (probably because I never play them )

Corylea recently alerted me to the existence of this project to make all Maxis meshes available in all body types: http://www.thaliatook.com/MS/jws/jws.html Really nice and needed, imo

Wow, Thanks for sharing! finally I have all those nice maxis outfits in fit shape

thank you all for the responses, i've got it figured out. also, if you find it difficult to discern what body type a sim has in cas, you can use the sims creator program (https://archive.org/details/TheSimsCreator). it displays all the skins available in the game (both male and female) making them much clearer and allowing you to zoom in, which helps understand what body type he\she has