CMX WRITING
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1

Introduction to the .cmx File
The .cmx file, to me, is the most agravating part of the customizing process. If you mess up even one character, either your creation won't show up at all, or your game/SimShow will crash.

What the .cmx file does, is tell the game which .skn files to display together, kind of like glue for a model.

For the example in this tutorial, I will use a character of many parts, Aurra Sing. Here are the contents of her file in the thumbnail:

Basically, what we are concerned with are the files that begin with "xskin" and the 2 files that have the little paper and balloon shaped Icons in front of it, "b504fafit_aurra" and "c504fa_aurra" .cmx files. But, unless you have a Corel graphics pack, your icons probably won't look like that. The easiest way to find the .cmx files is to use the "view details" option in the view menu.

The "b504fafit_aurra" .cmx file tells the computer to display "xskin-b504fafit_aurra-L-LEG-BLASTERS2.skn", "xskin-b504fafit_aurra-PELVIS-BODY.skn", "xskin-b504fafit_aurra-R-LEG-BLASTERS1.skn", and "xskin-b504fafit_aurra-SPINE2-BIGGUN.skn" all together and where on the body they go.

And that .cmx file looks like this, when you look at it with a text program like notepad:

// Character File. Copyright 1997, Maxis Inc.
version 300
0
1
b504fafit_aurra
0
0
4
SPINE2
xskin-b504fafit_aurra-SPINE2-BIGGUN
0
0
R_LEG
xskin-b504fafit_aurra-R-LEG-BLASTERS1
0
0
L_LEG
xskin-b504fafit_aurra-L-LEG-BLASTERS2
0
0
PELVIS
xskin-b504fafit_aurra-PELVIS-BODY
0
0
0

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