I've done some reading on how to change Sim's heights in SimPE, mostly because I wanna implement pre-teens into my game. But I've seen a decent number of people say it has messed up their game, or made it to where they can't change their sim's outfit anymore after the height change. I'd like to know if this is true? Is permanent height change worth it, or will it mess up my game?

Lazy Duchess has a height mod now where you can just assign heights in-game and don't have to muck around in SimPE at all.

The people you spoke to must have messed up something else in their neighbourhood files, because I manually change the heights of many of my sims and I've never had any issues.

You don't need SimPE just use the mod https://lazyduchess.tumblr.com/post.../ts2-height-mod

How do you make it to where it doesn't make women and elderly people shorter by default?

You just have to edit the config file and set all of the offsets to 1.0.

Thank you.

I've been experimenting with this mod, and while I find it interesting, there are certain things that have to be taken into account. I wound up drastically reducing the Unique Height Multiplier because I was getting giants and midgets and very little in between. (I'm not sure I reduced it enough, but will try it for a while.)

I also wound up going around all the neighborhoods checking up on the randomly assigned heights - and changing most of them. Sometimes I didn't even bother to check, but just ran a reassignment anyway.

The height information is stored in a special token file that is added to the Sim's character file. SimPE cannot read it, so the only way to change it is to run the Height Cheater. (This probably means the Height Cheater mod is incompatible with the SimPE assigned heights alteration.)

I would like to have some idea just what the differential between shortest (0) and tallest (200) height figures are - yes I know it "depends on the Unique Height Multiplier", but there's an abstruse calculation involved that I just can't get my head around. My personal preference would be to have a range from 5'3" to 6'5" (men) and 4'9" to 6'1" (women), with average heights 5'10" and 5'6" respectively. I am not sure I have achieved this, and have no way to check it.

I change heights manually by editing the character files directly. I was doing this before the Lazy Duchess' mod.

This is my "cheat file" that I use to refresh my memory if I haven't done it for awhile....
===================================================
To do this go to File-> Open
The folder your sims is kept in is under my documents/EA Games/The Sims 2/Neighborhoods/NXXX/Characters
NXXX in this case is the number that refers to your neighborhood. For instance the first neighborhood that comes with the game is called N001.
The character files will have names like N001_User00000.package
Don't know which one is which? that's ok... it's a trial and error process but once you know which is which you wont forget.
Open one of them.
To figure out which sim you've opened click on the 'jpg/tga/png IMAGE' under the resource tree then select the first of the files listed there. It should be a pic of the character. If this is not the right one, load a different character until you find the one you want to mod.
Ok so now we have the right sim.


Click the 'Age Data' link under the resource tree, then on the Age Data file itself in the right hand window.
Below where you saw the pic will be a whole bunch of lines of text in the CPF editor.
Scroll to the bottom. Second from the bottom should be a line marked: stretch (dtSingle) = 1
Click it.
On the right side of the CPF editor the Name field should now say: stretch, the Type field should say: dtSingle and the Value should say: 1.
Change the value to whatever you determined the correct ratio to be for your sims height.
Click Commit.
Save your work under the File/Save menu.
===================================================

And these are the modifiers that I use.

Height Modifier
inch ft/in modifier
54 4'6"........ 0.7500
55 4'7"........ 0.7639
56 4'8"........ 0.7778
57 4'9"........ 0.7917
58 4'10"...... 0.8056
59 4'11"...... 0.8194
60 5'0"......... 0.8333
61 5'1"......... 0.8472
62 5'2"......... 0.8611
63 5'3"......... 0.8750
64 5'4"......... 0.8889
65 5'5"......... 0.9028
66 5'6"......... 0.9167
67 5'7"......... 0.9306
68 5'8"......... 0.9444
69 5'9"......... 0.9583
70 5'10"....... 0.9722
71 5'11"....... 0.9861
72 6'0"......... 1.0000
73 6'1"......... 1.0139
74 6'2"......... 1.0278
75 6'3"......... 1.0417
76 6'4"......... 1.0556
77 6'5"......... 1.0694
78 6'6"......... 1.0833

You (generic you) can use one system or the other, but I don't think you can use both.

I also need to find out if deleting the Height Mod files gets rid of the height token - if not, I have a backup from just before I did the installation.

6'0" is still an uncommon "average" height outside of Scandinavia and a few other places. 5'9' or 5'10" is more common (some places, e.g. South America, East Asia, average way shorter). My guesstimate of 5'6" for women appears to be on the high side but I don't want too great a discrepancy or the animations get funky.

Neither system fits a bell curve, you have to apply that yourself by not having too many Sims at or near the extremes (this is easier with the manual system, much much harder with LD's Height Mod).

Actually, I've found the default config for that mod to be a good match for standard US heights. If you align an offset of 1.0 with the average adult male height of 5'9", the range of possible heights is between ~4'10" and ~6'5", which is a good range for all human heights. All you have to do to find out the actual inches is multiply 69 inches times the stretchskelton, and that should give you the real inches of the sim, and the stretchskeleton value is just the base value for that sim's age/gender + the height modifier (default 0.11) times (offset - 100)/100. Based on the data from my sims spreadsheet, heights seem to be assigned randomly, extremely tall and extremely short people are not favored over others. Maybe you wanted more of a bell curve? But I don't think the mod is assigning heights in an unreasonable way.

The height offset is just stored in the "Gardening skill" field on persondata, it's entirely possible to see it in SimPE using the extended browser.

I don't know of any mod that doesn't get its tokens deleted when it's uninstalled.

There's no token associated with the height mod. If you uninstall it, the sims will still have whatever number it put in gardening skill still there, but it won't do anything since gardening skill isn't used by the game.

Pros and cons of LD Height Mod:

Pros:
* Everything is done automatically, results are customizable and modifiable.
* If you decide to change the Unique Height Multiplier, all previously set heights are automatically recalculated.

Cons:
* (If you use the randomize option) results are completely random - you don't get a bell curve.
* Figuring out who has been set to what height involves a lot of peeping with the Height Cheater and/or a lot of guesswork.
* If you don't like the automatic results, you have to re-buy the Height Cheater and choose a number manually.

Pros and cons of SimPE manual height setting:

Pros:
* You get to set your own parameters, and you know what they are.
* Height changes are set, and easily readable, in the AGED section of the Character File.
* You can manually work a bell curve by whatever method suits you (d6 gives you some randomness if you want it).
* You don't have to change any Sim's height that you don't want to.

Cons:
* Everything has to be done manually, and it takes a lot of time.
* There is a very slight, but not zero, risk of messing up the character file. (Keep backups!)

Like I said, settings from Lazy Duchess's mod can be easily read and set in SimPE via the extended browser, and you can in fact set it exactly as you like, you just have to do a little bit of math to figure out what number you want.

Discovered that you can change the LD height assignment in the Extended Browser (once you know exactly which field to look for). All the same, it's not advisable to go above 150 or below 50 (this reads as plus or minus 50), or the Sim gets increasingly distorted (long and thin, or short and squat). There is no fix for this.

Unless you've changed the default settings of the mod, this is not the case. I have male sims at 197 and a female sim at 0 and there's nothing odd about their proportions, they are just very tall/short compared to other sims.

Somebody's trying to start another argument. I'm not playing that game.

We seem to be getting into areas of extreme subjectivity. De gustibus and all that.

You are in here giving inaccurate information about the mod, and I'm just correcting that information so that other people know what the mod does. Here is a picture of a male sim at 182 with a female sim at 62, this is the most different-sized paring in my neighborhood. The interaction animation is funny-looking, but I think everyone knows that that can happen when you change sims' heights. You can see that neither sim looks like a weird freak of nature, they're just very different heights.



Here is a picture of a female sim at 0 with another female sim whose height offset is close to the 100 average. Again, you can see that she does not look squashed or distorted, although you have to love the animation of the taller sim going up on her toes so that she can phase her shoulder through her wife's face.



If you do still want sims to not go outside the range of 50-150, just divide the height multiplier by 2 and now the stretchskeleton associated with 0 will be what was previously associated with 50, and the stretchskeleton associated with 200 will be what was previously associated with 150.

I need to know why the first couple are being chased by bees while hugging. XD

I admit, the lack of matching up animations are why I don't use varying heights. But fixing all the anims would be a real PITA.

You can make an unusually slim or an intermediate fat person by stretching a teen to full height. But I never mix different heights. They would need an entire new set of animations for most socials.

It's because right after I installed the height mod and entered all of my sims' data into my spreadsheet, I saw that they had the biggest height difference in the neighborhood and immediately wanted to see how cursed it looked when they interacted, so I went to their lot in order to get a picture. They're both nature enthusiasts, so they spend a lot of their time getting chased by bees, and indeed, Emma was being chased by bees when I loaded their lot. I didn't want to wait around for the chased by bees interaction to end to get my picture, so I just forced and error and reset her, at which point I could direct her to do things again, but the bees remained. I then quit without saving, so I didn't have to worry about cleaning up the bees when I played them in the future.

They aren't hugging, by the way, they're actually kissing, but their mouths are in completely different places.

Absolutely the reactions here are extremely subjective. And that's all I intend to say about it.