Getting a character to the right height in HS2 Studio is easy on the female side and awkward on the male side, and either way a height change alone will bend the rest of the body out of shape unless you scale it back into proportion afterward. This guide covers resizing in Studio, working around the missing male height slider, and cleaning up the neck, chest, and hip shape once the height is set.
1. Resize a character in Studio
Select the character and press Shift+D to open the character editor. Adjust Scale Y to change height. Scale X and Z by roughly the same amount at the same time, or the body will stretch or squash instead of just getting taller or shorter. You can also do this from the overall Position/Scale panel in the bottom-left of the Studio window, which applies the same kind of scale to the whole character.
2. The missing male height slider
The female character maker has a dedicated height slider. The male maker does not, only the Body Scale slider on the first tab of the Body section, which is a blunter tool that doesn’t isolate height the way the female slider does.
The UnlockPlayerHeight plugin adds a real male height slider, but the version bundled in most repacks is outdated and does not include it. Download the newer v1.4.4 release from Mantas-2155X/UnlockPlayerHeight on GitHub to get the male slider. See installing a plugin if you haven’t set up a manually downloaded plugin before.
If you’d rather not install anything, raise or lower Body Scale Y directly in the male maker, or adjust the cf_N_height bone in ABMX for finer control than the scale slider gives you.
3. Keep the body proportional while scaling
Scaling height with Body Scale alone (the male workaround above) tends to stretch the legs unless you compensate. Set leg Scale Y to roughly 80 to 85%, then in ABMX scale the kosi_01 and spine_01 bones evenly on X, Y, and Z until the feet sit back on the ground. Scale the arms to match if they now look too long, then fine-tune with the overall Body Scale X/Y/Z until the proportions read correctly.
Avoid stretching individual leg bones on separate X/Y/Z axes to hit a height target. Non-uniform scaling like that breaks how the weight-painted mesh deforms, and the legs will balloon or warp at certain pose angles. Scale the whole leg from the top-level LegUp00 bone instead, using small offsets rather than extreme per-axis values.
4. Fine-tune proportions in ABMX
Once the overall height is set, ABMX (Advanced Bonemod X, default Ctrl+P) is where you fix the details a scale slider can’t reach. See using Advanced Bonemod (ABMX) for the general workflow if you’re new to it.
| Symptom | Fix |
|---|---|
| Character sinks into or floats above the floor after a resize | Open ABMX, tick “Modified” to find the changed bone, and correct the Y offset on the hips bone (cf_J_Hips), or nudge the overall height slider until they land on the floor. |
| Neck looks too long | Find head_s or neck_s (the exact name varies slightly by version) and lower its length value. |
| Cleavage juts out in a hard pyramid shape | Push the mune00 (main breast) bone in slightly and pull mune01 out to round the profile instead. |
| Hips look flat, or the pelvis reads as too thin | Adjust the kosi bone; the right value depends on the rest of the body’s proportions, so nudge it in small steps and compare. |
| Legs balloon or warp at certain pose angles | Scale from the top-level LegUp00 bone rather than stretching sub-bones on separate axes. |
There’s no numeric conversion between other games’ body sliders and HS2’s, since the underlying meshes and bone scales differ. When you’re matching a reference image, tuning by eye is normal; a screen overlay tool like OnTopReplica or PureRef pinned on top of Studio makes it much easier to line the reference up while you adjust bones.
5. Reposition parts a resize doesn’t move
If a hand or other part is locked onto the body with a node constraint (locked onto the chest for a held pose, for example), resizing the character won’t move it, since the constraint keeps it at its old fixed offset. Open the Node Constraint window, select the constraint, click its lock toggle to unlock it, move the part into the new position, then use “Use Current” for both position and rotation followed by “Update Selected” to save the adjustment before relocking it. See parenting with node constraints for the full workflow.
A height or body-scale change can also introduce clothing clipping that wasn’t there before, since outfits are fit to the original proportions. If clothing pokes through after a resize, editing clothing in Studio covers the fitting and adjustment tools.
6. Measure height accurately
Rather than eyeballing it, toggle “Show Height Measure Bar” in the bottom-right of the character creator (it’s added by HF Patch or a Better Repack, so a vanilla install may not have it). It places a measuring plane next to the character that you line up with the top of their head. For exact numeric height and body measurements, open the character in the standalone (non-Studio) Character Creator, which has a Measurements panel that updates live as you adjust Body tab sliders.
Inside a Studio scene, search the item list for “policelineup,” “lineup,” or “height” to find height-chart style props (one common set is labeled “Walls by LD”). Add one to the scene and stand the character next to it for a quick visual check. See Studio items and props for more on finding and placing items like this.
7. Save the change back to the card
A resize only applies to the loaded scene until you save it. Select the character and press Shift+D again to open the same panel, then use its save or overwrite option to bake the current height and proportions back onto the character card.
Once the body shape is right, moving on to fitting clothing or checking the face is usually next. Editing clothing in Studio and using Advanced Bonemod (ABMX) cover the follow-up work in more depth.