How To: Auto Height for Shoes
Haiii! As promised, here is the tutorial to make it so your custom shoes no longer require a shoe slider!
Thank you to the bestie who took the time to pick through Madlen's package file to figure out how it worked. And of course, thank you to Madlen who did the majority of the work figuring out how to make this possible in the first place!
♥ Tut below cut ♥
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Set Up Your Blend File:
We're going to add a plane that will act as the mesh for the SlotRay which will allow for you to adjust the height of your shoes!
Open your blend file that contains the shoes your wish to adjust. In the 3D View, press Shift + S and in the menu, select “Cursor to Center” In the 3D View, press Shift + A and in the menu, hover over “Mesh” then add a plane.
Now size this plane down as small as you can get it. You don’t want this plane visible in game.
Double check to make sure the plane has not moved from the center!! Your sim won't be centered in game if it has! If you see that it's moved:
Press "Shift + S" and click "Cursor to Center".
Then Select your plane and press "Ctrl + Shift + Alt + C", click "Origin to 3D Cursor".
Press "Ctrl + Shift + Alt + C" again and click "Geometry to Origin".
Navigate to the “Object data” tab and under “UV Maps” add a new one then name it “uv_0”.
Next, navigate to the “Scene” tab and under “S4Studio CAS Tools” set the cut number.
Depending on how many cuts your shoes have, you’ll want to adjust this number. For example, if your shoe has 3 cuts (0000, 0001, 0002) then this plane would have a cut number of 0003. Since my boots only have one cut, I will put the number as 0001. Now select your shoes and enter Edit mode. Select a face/vertice/edge on the very bottom of your shoes. Look to the panel on the left side of the screen (if it’s not open, press “N”). Under “Transform”, note down the number next to “Z” After that, save your blend file under another name so you can distinguish which is which. I’ll name mine “Boots_3_Height Cut”
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Add a New Cut to your Package File:
We're going to add an additional cut in your package file for the new plane!
Open Sims 4 Studio, make a new package file for your shoes and import them. Go to the Warehouse tab and select your LOD 0, it will be the geometry with the largest file size. Sometimes you have to close then reopen the package to see the geometry. Duplicate this geometry and in the box that pops up, change the last character of the “Group”. It can be any number or letter as long as it’s not the same as the duplicated geometry. On the duplicated geometry, note down the Group, Instance & Type values. Find the “Region Map” and next to “Entries” click “Edit Items”. Add a new entry and in the “Layer” box, type the number you used for your cut. Since I used the cut number 0001, I will type 1. Keep the “Region Type” as “Base” and move to “Models” then click “Edit Items”. Add a new Model entry and paste the Group, Instance & Type values you noted down before. Save and close each box. Find your “CAS Part”, this is your swatch.
If you have additional swatches, it is a good idea to remove them and add them back once you are finished with this process.
Scroll down until you find the “Lods”.
Click “Level: 0” and next to "LOD Models", click “Edit Items”. Add a new entry and paste the Group, Instance & Type values again. Save & close each window and return to the Warehouse.
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Adjusting SlotRays:
We are now going to edit the SlotRays for the new cut which will adjust the height of the sim for your shoes!
Return to the new duplicated Geometry and in the “Data” tab, find the “SlotRay Intersections” and click “Edit Items”. Add a new entry and find the “OffsetFromIntersectionsOs” box.
You'll want to change ONLY the middle coordinate number. That will be the height of the sim.
You want to take the “Z” coordinate that you noted down from blender and replace middle coordinate number.  If the number you wrote down is negative (i.e -0.01234) make it positive (i.e 0.01234).
In the “SlotHash” box, change the value from “00000000” to “FEAE6981”. This is the hash for the b__ROOT__ bone in the Sim's Rig.
Save and close the dialogs then return to the warehouse. Next, reimport your mesh and save your package file. You can now test your shoes in game!
Please keep in mind:
You have to do this for every LOD of your mesh
You can freely replace the mesh of your shoes and adjust the height since the cut with the plane has the SlotRay data
Animations may be off since EA hasn't made the game to support taller sims
CAS windows may move slightly if your sim is using poses/animations where they are leaning to the side. This won't affect gameplay
I recommend using Helgatisha's Stand Still in CAS mod to make sure your sim is absolutely centered
Hope this helped :)
All modders should see this. Auto height shoes! No more floating sims because of sliders! Now excuse me while I go and update all my shoes. Much love to you, your friend, and Madlen for cracking this. ❤💜❤💜 ❤💜❤💜
