How many square feet is a grid?

[Yimmit]

Nil, thanks for the link to the spreadsheet. And just yesterday I printed a floor plan to play with. I'll give it a go this evening and see if it speeds up the process.

I hate building and usually do it free-hand and all my houses end up looking exactly alike.

[baratron]

I've always worked on the basis that a square in The Sims or Sims 2 is 60-80 cm each side. I live in a house that is full of Ikea furniture, which tends to come in multiples of 80 cm widths, and I can make my house easily on that assumption. A standard one-tile bookcase is 80cm wide, and a standard chest of drawers (equivalent to a 2-tile chest of drawers in Sims 2) is a little over a metre. The "loveseat" we have (2 person sofa) is 120cm wide and would occupy 2 squares in Sims 2, while our 3-seater sofa is 160cm wide and would occupy 3 squares. I have to say that I've never seen a 3 seater sofa that's as big as 3m wide!

As Inge said, if each square was 1m, then sim beds would be 2.5m long! We just ordered a new bed, and the standard metric sizes for bed lengths are 190 (approximately 6' 3") and 200cm (approximately 6' 6"). A standard single bed is 90cm wide (3'), though we know the sims must have extra-narrow beds because they seem barely any wider than a single, skinny sim. Also sims' standard doubles are two squares wide - and a standard double bed is a pathetic 140 cm (4' 6")! 

Standard kitchen appliances (fridges, washing machines, dishwashers and cookers) and kitchen units in the UK are 60cm wide. Although Sims 2 uses American-style wider fridges, most of the other appliances seem to be the normal size. These things all occupy a single tile.

Also, if each square was 1m - what of the widescreen TV? That would have a screen of approximately 160cm wide. Except that TVs aren't measured along the bottom edge, but instead along the hypotenuse. Standard widescreen TVs have a ratio of 16:9, and by Pythagoras' Theorem, that would give a width of over 180cm - close to 6 feet! The widest widescreen TV that I've ever seen on the market was 60 inches or 5' wide - and that is a brand new freak of nature item. Even a 48" widescreen TV is insanely big. "Home cinema" widescreen TVs are usually around 40". In contrast, if the squares are 60cm each, that would make the lower edge of the TV no more than 1m, making the quoted width ~115cm or 45" - still enormous, but at least realistic!

And regarding the door argument, standard internal doors in the UK are 78" x 30" at most, external doors are either 1981mm x 838mm or 2032mm x 813mm - making a maximum of 80" x 33" for the door including its frame, with most doors considerably less. I just looked these values up on http://www.diy.com .

[wes_h]

I base my 1 meter on the sim height and the wall height.
Standard heght for doors in the US is 7 ft, or 84".
I doubt for every article that either of our ideas are correct, and I would bet that many items are not scaled realistically, but rather to fit the whims of the artists.

[notovny]

On this side of the pond, 60" Plasma televisions have been available since 2001, though admittedly, in 2001 you'd have paid through the nose for them. Apparently, if you're willing to go with an off-brand, they're available for under $3,000 now.

Hmm. Running some numbers. The lower-priced basegame flat panel is named the "Soma 44" PancakeTech Television". Base of the screen works out trignometrically to 38 inches, and using the Antiquity Fence by Swift, LTD and boolprop SnapObjectstoGrid false as a ruler, is a little under a 1  1/3 sqaures. Assuming 1 1/3 squares exactly hits a square width of 28.8 inches. Assuming 1 1/4 squares exactly  hits a square width of 30.7 inches.  A useful value based on this would be 30 inches (Roughly 75 cm)to the square, as that's 2 1/2 feet.

This is kind of spoiled by the Trottco 27" TV, whose 4:3-proportion 21.6 inch-wide screen is half a square wide, and  bespeaks a 43-inch (110 cm) square.

As far as I know, those are the only two basegame objects that give a real-world dimension. There's the SwingarmCo 27" TV that debuted with NL, which appears to have a slightly larger screen than the Trottco, and the Lifestories-Converted Plasma 50 Quad Television (50", but appears to be a projection television, rather than the flat-panel plasma it claims to be) Didn't run the numbers on those, as the former is hard to measure accurately, and the latter is only quasi-canon.

[Li'l Brudder]

Ugh.  I need a break.

When you said "On this side of the pond" I was mentally preparing for a trig problem. 

[Inge]

I want to defend my 3ft or 1m values by saying those kitchen units are double units, going by the fact they have double doors, and the beds don't start right at the top of the tile they are on, they are moved down, so they only actually cover the distance of two tiles.  If the tiles were only 60-80cms, the beds would only be 4 or 5ft long.   Also stairways would be too narrow.  The stoves have 6-burner tops, meaning they are at least the 90cm type.  The armchairs are only one tile wide. They would be too narrow to sit in if the tiles were 60-80 cm

[wes_h]

Seems we have had this discussion at regular intervals over the last three years, and have settled nothing fro certain.
But I am in agreement with Inge, although that proves nothing. It is a game, after all, and not a CAD program, so I presume the artists (not engineers) took some liberties with measurements when they built the game content.

[Inge]

Talking of CAD programs I would really love it if Sims3 *was* completely realistic in scale.  It would make it so much more interesting to make objects and houses.  Nice if the grid was smaller therefore.

[eevilcat]

I want to defend my 3ft or 1m values by saying those kitchen units are double units, going by the fact they have double doors, and the beds don't start right at the top of the tile they are on, they are moved down, so they only actually cover the distance of two tiles.  If the tiles were only 60-80cms, the beds would only be 4 or 5ft long.   Also stairways would be too narrow.  The stoves have 6-burner tops, meaning they are at least the 90cm type.  The armchairs are only one tile wide. They would be too narrow to sit in if the tiles were 60-80 cm

Agreed, 1m is the tile size they measure up to when you import game meshes into milkshape. What matters in game is that objects "look right" i.e. they are in correct proportion to one another and to the sims interacting with them. The bed meshes are approximately 2.5 tiles long which equates to 2.5 metres or 8 feet which isn't too far off the real world bed length of 6 to 7 feet. Single beds are 1 tile or just over 3 feet wide and double beds 2 tiles or just over 6 feet wide, so more like a queen size. That said, the bed footprints occupy 1x3 (single) or 2x3 (double) tiles as objects are placed on the same grid used for building. It's close enough that they look realistic in game. You do have to sacrifice a little bit of reality once you map objects onto a grid and use grid-based object footprints but it's the relative proportions that matter.

You need to take into account the size of the objects to placed in the different rooms when using real world houseplans to build in game. In the real world we can squeeze through small gaps between furniture but sims may need that extra tile otherwise they'll get stuck e.g. the minimum proportions for a double bedroom are 4x4 (or approximately 12x12 feet) allowing sims access to both sides of the bed.

[dizzy]

You also need to factor in the fact that sims measure everything in "flards" rather than feet or meters. 

[gethane]

You also need to factor in the fact that sims measure everything in "flards" rather than feet or meters. 

best post! I lol'd for real. 

[Inge]

Necromancy rulz!  I am now in a position to declare definitively that one grid square is exactly 3 ft.   The columns that hold up the decks are called "deckSupportNineFoot".  Rooms are 3 tiles high, and the tiles are the same size as the floor tiles.

[wes_h]

I could never argue against such an authoritative source.
Still, the little details like the Maya default scale being 1.0 units = 1 Meter make me wonder.

[Inge]

Well it's probably a metre anyway.  The programmers probably said to the modellers "What the heck is a metre?" and the modeller said to the programmer "About three feet".   And so everyone responsible for naming resources from then on called a square three feet.    So I internally regard it as a metre, but not, never, four feet.