The Sims (2000) — Technical Documentation

Comprehensive technical reference for The Sims file formats, resource structures, and modding workflows.

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📖 Documentation Structure

| Part | Title | Content | | ----------------------------------------------- | ----------------------- | ---------------------------------------- | | I. Foundations | Architecture & Concepts | Overview, conventions, getting started | | II. Containers | File Formats | FAR archives, IFF structure, preferences | | III. Object System | Objects & Behaviors | OBJD, BHAV, VM, interactions | | IV. Graphics & Animation | Rendering | Sprites, meshes, animation system | | V. Game Content | Data Structures | Characters, careers, strings | | VI. Tools & Workflows | Practical Guides | IFFSnooper tutorials |

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🎯 Quick Navigation

By Task

| I want to... | Go to... | | --------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Understand the architecture | Part I Ch.2 | | Parse a FAR archive | Part II Ch.1 | | Parse an IFF file | Part II Ch.2 | | Understand object structure | Part III Ch.1 | | Learn BHAV bytecode | Part III Ch.3 | | Work with sprites | Part IV Ch.2 | | Parse meshes | Part IV Ch.5 | | Understand animations | Part IV Ch.4 | | Edit characters | Part V Ch.1 | | Edit careers | Part V Ch.2 | | Use IFFSnooper | Part VI |

By Format

| Format | Location | | --------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | FAR | Part II Ch.1 | | IFF | Part II Ch.2 | | OBJD | Part III Ch.1 | | BHAV | Part III Ch.3 | | BCON/TRCN | Part III Ch.4 | | TTAB | Part III Ch.6 | | SLOT | Part III Ch.8 | | DGRP | Part IV Ch.1 | | SPR#/SPR2 | Part IV Ch.2 | | PALT | Part IV Ch.3 | | CMX/BCF | Part IV Ch.4 | | SKN/BMF | Part IV Ch.5 | | CFP | Part IV Ch.6 | | CARR | Part V Ch.2 | | STR# | Part V Ch.3 | | FCNS | Part V Ch.4 |

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📊 Overview

Game: The Sims (Maxis/EA, 2000)
Primary Container: IFF (Interchange File Format)
Archive Format: FAR (File ARchive)
Byte Order: Big-endian headers, little-endian content

Key Concepts

• Objects are defined by OBJD resources and use BHAV bytecode for behaviors
• Graphics use isometric sprites (SPR2) positioned by DGRP resources
• Characters are defined by CMX/BCF (skeletons/animations) and SKN/BMF (meshes)
• Careers are encoded in CARR resources with bit-packed variable-width fields

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📝 Conventions

| Convention | Meaning | | ----------- | --------------------------- | | 0x prefix | Hexadecimal | | BE | Big-endian | | LE | Little-endian | | Fields | Listed offset → size → name |

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🔗 External Resources

• IFFSnooper — Peter Gould's research tool
• 7DS Archive — Community documentation (archived)
• Niotso/FreeSO — Open source reimplementation

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Documentation v1.1 — February 2026. Original sources credited within individual chapters.