SC4 Scale

[derek_pearce]

Hiya all

have you ever wondered how the scale works in SC4 and the Bat well here is a quick easy to use reference of all SC4 scaling.

Simcity 4 (Basic Scaling )

One Tile is 16 m × 16 m = 256 m².

One Small City is 64 × 64 tiles = 1024 m × 1024 m ( or roughly 1 km × 1 km = 1 km² )

One Med City is 128 × 128 tiles = 2048 m × 2048 m ( or roughly 2 km × 2 km = 4 km² )

One Large City is 256 × 256 tiles = 4096 m × 4096 m ( or roughly 4 km × 4 km = 16 km² )

B.A.T Scaling (for acurate scale buildings )

Now that we know a SC4 square in game is 16 long and 16 wide we can use this info to make acurate scale buildings so here is a breakdown.

Most houses and this is standard sizes ill use mine as an example the roof is  8 1/2 feet tall  but others may be as big as 10 feet of even 13 feet tall so if we soome in on a SC4 B.A.T square here is the scale in an image format,Please feel free to help or correct me at anytime for i may be wrong or at least a little off because my math skills arnt the greatest and im a newb to the bat and the whole scaling thing anyways heres the image

B.A.T Scale Image

Special Thanks to the SCUBS and Ripplejet for it was his original post that this was written from thanks a bunch Pal

[Rayden]

You'd better review all those meters/feet measures. An average 18 years old adult it's definately not 2 1/2 meters tall, unless he is an extremely tall basketball player. 2 1/2 meters it's around 8 feet. Adult's average if I'm not mistaken it's around 6 to 6,5 feet maximum.

[derek_pearce]

  i knew i was off ll review it very soon as soon as i take another math class lol

[sarungman]

but rayden, in this case (in this game), a sim who has 2.5m height is acceptable. because some of BATs or Buildings in SC4 (especially custom content) have different/bigger scale of measurement. I have made a BAT which has a door 2.5 m tall (normal size, actually my room's door has 2m height), but if i compare my door with a sim prop in LE, my door has only 2/3 height to the sim prop......

i think a height range for an adult sim height (in SC4) is 2-2.5 m..... and forget about the reality, it's too late ........


sorry for my bad english......

[Glenni]

wrong scale. you need  some  fixing to do in this FAQ

A sim is 3,5 to 4 meters


and a floor is deffinately NOT 8 meters unless a atrium and/or large lobby , it's 4 to 5

Step in a stair:   0,1 to 0,2  is the most common

A sim head: can be 0,5 to 0,7

a door knob:  0,1 sometimes even 0,2

Door: 3,5 to 3,7 can be larger depending on archtectural style and the specific building.

[sarungman]

WHAT!!?? 3.5? it's very tall! 3m is enough! but for the floor.... are you sure it is 4m tall? uh.... my BATs have to be resize again ......

[Frankie]

I seriously doubt an average person is 2 1/2 meters..that's crazy. A roof is not 8 1/2 meters tall, it's different for every type of building. However, scaling in BAT and SC4 can be a bit..complicated. Remember a meter is ~39 inches. ( A little over 3 ft.). When I BAT (and I know some others follow this technique). I generally make the model, then scale it up 10%, or compensate for that when I am doing the modeling. Your FAQ needs a little work...

[Glenni]

WHAT!!?? 3.5? it's very tall! 3m is enough! but for the floor.... are you sure it is 4m tall? uh.... my BATs have to be resize again ......

It is,  though world isn't it?

[sarungman]

@Glenni

nope...., i apply 3m high to all my BAT's floor...... terrible.... very terrible......

[Glenni]

3 ain't so bad, that is acceptable but if you have 2m floor it will just look stupid, just like myself

[Colyn]

The Maxis scale is all over the place especially in the low level smaller stuff.

We work on heights of 4 to 5m for homes ... tower blocks we make the first floor or sometimes the first two floors around 5 to 6 meters high and then scale the rest at around 4 meters.

The best test is to do a draft export and place it in the LE with a Sim next to it.

Most custom towers suffers from "squatting" when in the game because of the Sim sizes and most custom low level buildings gets over sized.

Simgoober and JMeyers set some sort of standard that we at the BSC follow to keep our stuff looking ok in the game.

[Rayden]

The little few things I did with the bat, I've tried the IRL measures and endend up on re-scaling on 10 to 15% taller and 5% wider/deep, sometimes a little more.

[Shadow Assassin]

Yes, the Maxis models have different scales. The biggest determinator, however, is the overall height of the building. Indeed, the same building can have two or more different ceiling heights but that's pretty much normal for most RL buildings.

[flame1396]

Think from a technical point.

The sims are all animated... the animation despite being too big is already extremely small... smaller would be very difficult to do

[spartanB292]

umm, also, if it helps all you imperial system users, there are 3.15 feet per meter

[Zaphod]

4 for a floor, 3 for a door
..and it rhymes...

thats what I though. I dont BAT except for myself though

[Hayden_Grady]

Okay iv reviewed what everyone has posted and came up with this list of measurments feel free to correct me

Universal Building Architect tool Scale Listing SNPL

Double doors are 2 x 3.5 meters tall by 0.5 meters wide
Doors usually are 3.5 meters tall by 0.5 meters wide
Commercial floors are usually 5 meters tall
Lobbies usually are 6 meters
Residential floors usually are 4 meters
Windows vary by model
Industrial Factory floors, or any floor in industrial area are usually 6 meters
Cars are usually 2. Meters tall, length varies and 4 meters wide
Widths of walls are usually 0.25 meters
Sims are usually 4, or 3,5 tall 1 wide

A SimCity square is 16m X 16m or 16 meters squared

[zero7]

Scale is absolutely screwed in SC4.  You can see it best by comparing a car to the sim who's supposed to be driving it.

Cars are pretty much properly scaled compared to a city tile, but normal roads are too wide and lanes on the motorway are too narrow  (obvious when you think that an avenue and highway are both 2 tiles wide).

Sims are stupidly scaled compared to everything else in the game.  Why Maxis didn't just make everything to a scale that worked for sim animations  I'll never understand.  The sim vs building scale is the one thing that the 3D city builders can't fail to address ...

Building scales are all over the place.  The problem is that back when SC4 was released, Maxis thought it was a really great idea to make (some) smaller buildings larger and to stretch everything upwards to 'compensate for the game angle'.  On top of which every group of developers working on buildings seems to have had a different idea of what the scale actually was (something that has allowed BATs to also avoid having to use a set scale). That may have been OK when SC4 came out, but that was before you could look at real cities at near SC4 angle in Microsoft Live's birds eye view.

Everytime I look at that I just want to scrap every building in the game and start again with consistent scale.  As far as I'm concerned Microsoft Live's birds eye view is what you are aiming for in creating an SC4 city.  Who cares that the ground floor looks compressed - at that angle it really does - that's perspective for you!

But [rant over] I use anything between 3.5 and 6m to cover the range from domestic to normal commercial spaces. High ceiling shops and commercial ground floors get 7 and lobbies get sized in relation to other floors in the buildng.  A typical single door on one of my buildings is 3m x 1.2m.