Re: Let's Discuss AlterLife in Terms of EA: Realism vs caricature simulation

@DonroaAkashu , yes, I agree about silly (which is why I said that I do at least like some of the silliness in the game). 😉 It can have a foolish connotation or a fun one. 😎

I love making Sims in CAS (in all version of the game except the Sims 1 since you just chose a head and there was nothing to do ).  And since I didn't like the Sims 3 gameplay compared to the Sims 2 gameplay, but loved the Sims 3 CASt wheel, I spent a lot of time in CAS in the Sims 3!!! 😅  I made somewhat nice looking Sims, but they always felt off to me.  No amount of manipulation could totally fix them.😔  While this was a problem for all Sims,  I didn't mind the female Sims so much, but the male Sims always looked on the feminine side, which is good if that is what you are going for, but if it isn't what you are trying to accomplish, then you will feel unsatisfied. The same can be said if you wanted to make a more masculine looking female Sim in the Sims 3.  The only Sims that came out looking somewhat as intended would be Sims that the player intended to be on the feminine side.  This also made all Sims look kind of too similar, which was another problem . 🙄 While I'm not the best at copying real life people in Sim form in my game, I'm pretty good at making attractive Sims, but I never liked how the TS3 Sims looked in general.  😕  The good thing was that I could at least give them any hair color or combination 🙌, even if it often looked way too shiny! 🤣

Oh, yes, I like the gender bender feature in TS4 very much, such a relief from the bipolar state in TS3! I am not good in CAS and I will never be since it does not have any interest to me; but I like to mix and match. The colour wheel made it easier to create nice hair colours in TS3 though, I agree! But I saw that they just added a new pinkish blond, just what I wanted. It's good the constant updates keeps us occupied... :P

@DonroaAkashu , yes I'm very happy that they added the new haircolors to TS4!  Before this it was impossible to make my Simself with anything even close to my real hair color! 😅  Yes, I love when they add new things in the updates (not to mention fix bugs as well!).  While the Sims 4 style is more cartoon like, it is still good to have a wide variety of of realistic hair and skin colors 🙌, not to mention a few hair colors that aren't so realistic! 🥳

Well, they are realistic in that they can be achieved in reality, but I have yet to give my sims the pure pink hair. I did make an alien descendant once, purple skinned and pointy teeth, that's a nice addition.. I'm not really sure what would count as realistic though, but if opposed to caricature, as in the original post, I prefer the goofy lines and full colour fields before the nitty gritty harsh and pale look in the screen shot; so depressing, and not like any reality I know. If I wanted to look at reality, I'd go outside, or sit inside doing whatever else than playing a game on a computer. Games can never be art, but it is slightly more interesting with a take on reality, than trying to copying it. I wouldn't call The Sims a caricature though, it lacks the high humour for it.

@DonroaAkashu yes, I have a friend who dies her hair any color or colors as long as they aren't natural hair colors!  So they are realistic, but not natural. 😅  I guess natural is the better term here!  😉

I have a household of sisters with each of the unnatural hair colors! 💗 It is on the Gallery.  And I've made a few Sims with dark blue hair and a Vampire with the pink hair (She's on the Gallery as well).  

I do think games can be art, but not really art in the Realism genre.  I think that is what you were meaning.  (Correct me if I'm wrong!)  😉

@The_Suit05 , I think you have a point about "the better something looks the more obvious the limitations become"! 💡 When you go for realism, you then have something that you can easily compare it to, so therefore expectations are higher. 😓 And no doubt the Sims 5 (if/when it is released) will be on a different engine and have different capabilities.😎  Also, people would probably be tired of the exact Sims 4 look by then and will want something fresh.  However, the developers would probably want to keep the requirements for playing the game down so that more people can play the game! 

@PugLove888 Well, one shouldn't be so hasty in the use of the word never; but I meant more along the lines of profit being the main drive for games, while art is tainted by individual conceptions of expression, religion and politics, to name a few interfering concepts responsible for its configuration! It could of course be used for profit but does not get defined by it as easily as game production does. 

@DonroaAkashu , I see what you mean.  Games aren't pure "art for art's sake" because games are part of certain businesses. This is true!  However, ideally a business should want their games to be both art and profitable!  Occasionally this happens! 🙌🥰

Yes, I really liked the animations in The Sims 3! I could just sit and look at them for long periods, they were really well made.

@DonroaAkashu , sadly my Sims 3 ran so slow it was like looking at a series of still photos. 😭 The only animations I was fully able to enjoy would have been in the first year or so.  I did enjoy a lot of the animations in The Sims 2, though! 💗

Yes, that game could be taxing to the computer, it seems a common experience. One reason for the animations being worth while looking at was the amount of small details, which, in a way, made them realistic enough to recall actual cooking for example. In that way the Sims 4, with its more exaggerated expressions, are more of a caricature, and I would have to change opinion again and state that realism in movement is more preferred!

@DonroaAkashu funny you mentioned cooking in Sims 3 ... I almost mentioned the cooking animations in the Sims 2 because they would actually get cooking equipment out of the cupboards! 😃

That sounds very cute, I love the cutting board bit of it.

@DonroaAkashu , not cutting boards... cupboards (said like cubberds) .  Another name for cabinets.  (Maybe this is only a term used in the U.S. -- I'm not sure).  But there might have been cutting boards as well, but I don't remember whether they had those or not. 

Another favorite Sims 2 animation was when toddlers would escape their cribs! 😨😅  

Oh, I just meant the sims 3 animation, I liked the cutting boards in it. It did not have any cupboards, but it does sound very realistic to reach for the food from them. And I wish I could play the sims 2 since I have yet to have had the pleasure; but I have 'signed' the petition on The Sims Forum to have it on Origin.

@DonroaAkashu , the Sims in TS2 are more on the cartoony side (I think TS4's style is between that of TS2 and TS3 as far as the Sims themselves go.)  From a distance TS2 Sims looked good, but up close they were a bit rough. But the gameplay was so much fun! I never got tired of playing it .  It is a much harder game.  You could also keep a proper photos album and create stories with captions and post them on your own page on the official forum!  But even if you were able to get the game, I don't think that option would still be available.  I really enjoyed that since I love telling stories!) 

I hope you can get it someday!  While you might not like it as much as I did (I was addicted! I literally had trouble stop playing!) I still think you would enjoy it, especially if you enjoy Sims Lore!  The game was set up for various scenarios to take place at the start if you played the Maxis made Sims like the Goths, the Calientes, The Dreamers, the Brokes, and the Curious Brothers.  

CAS had sliders but there were a lot of slider options.  The clothing for everyday was pretty good if you had a lot of Expansion and Stuff Packs, but the clothing for categories like Sleep, Swimwear, Formal, and Outdoors (cold weather) were rather sparse in comparison to TS3 and TS4. 

If you haven't seen gameplay footage of TS2 yet, you might want to check it out!  

Personally, I love the gameplay of TS2 the best , but I love the art style of TS4 the best!  TS3 I loved the color and pattern customization the best, and TS1 I loved the music the best! Each version has its own strengths! 🥰

Yes, I think I would like the game very much, from what I have seen of its humour it seems more grown up and relaxed than the american teen-guarded versions later on. All the iterations have something to speak for them though, in TS4 I especially appreciate how easy and fun it is to build. If I ever get my hands on TS2 I would definately play it; and the same goes for the simulation game starting this thread, or any other simulation game for solo-players.

I don't fully understand the attraction of the connection of the forums to the games, although it is very fun chatting here; so I don't think I would miss such a feature, and CAS doesn't interest me, so it need not be well developed.

@DonroaAkashu Yes TS4 by far has the best  Build Mode!!! (I'm not even much of a builder! 😅 )   But the mere fact that if you need to move your house over just one space or several , or even rotate your house is a game changer (and a massive time-saver!) 🙌  
The CAS in TS4 is the best (I love making Sims ... in TS3 that was sometimes all the game would let me do without crashing) .  I also love the multitasking that TS4 allows, and the ability to live click-and-drag certain objects to move them (If you ever play TS2, you will miss this feature just from the baby bottles alone! 😅 ). 

Well the Sims 2 site wasn't just forums but had pages (I guess like a My Space or Face Book page, but I never did either of those so I'm just guessing ).  I liked these because you could read other people's stories .  So you could easily see what other people did with, say, the Beaker household (Circe, Loki, and Nervous Subject -- one of my favorites, poor thing!) You might not be interested in this feature, but I loved it, and really missed it in TS3. But it wasn't the same as the Forums.  It was more like reading other's Fan Fiction with pictures!  But since you can't access these pages anymore, it is probably a good thing that they wouldn't interest you! 😉😂

I totally agree, there simply are no mistakes in building in TS4 since all can be altered afterwards, no need to start again, making it a continuous form of creating and so much fun. I have rebuilt almost all lots in all the worlds, and am almost done to finally start playing the game!

Yeah, I have seen the 'story' section in TS3 forums which makes me puzzled as to way it is appealing; but then I perhaps don't understand the pull of fan fiction either. The idea to have premade sims that reoccur in each iteration I also cannot relate to, but some of the characters in themselves are a little fun, I agree. Grim as a concept fascinates me and so I did like that sim, Nervous Subject, and his mother, in TS3, also the way she looked. I suffer CAS in TS4 since I cannot abide the look of the premades, words like * comes to mind - that hair! The plastic look! The silly proportions! Even I can do better! No, no more negativity, lest we be yelled at by some besserwisser! :P

The OP has not returned to their discussion, but I think words like realism and caricature would need to be defined to be understood and used in the way the are intended by the agitator, since I think the look of Olive Specter and the fluidity of the animations in The Sims 3 are very realistic, depending on what is meant; and the game is too much of a sandbox and with a goofy humour to be a caricature, needing more of a streamlined agenda to be understood as such. I think the difference between these two juxtapositioned games, when looking at the video in the original post, is the photographic likeness and the light, and also the jerky motions and less detailed movement. I don't find photos more real than matter, and I do think that the more fluid and random a motion is the more it suggest the illogical way humans move, with all sorts of unnecessary gestures added where they needn't be.

@DonroaAkashu , I did not like the story section of TS3 that much.  I was speaking only of the TS2 version, which I enjoyed immensely! 🥳 Perhaps you would like it better (or at least somewhat understand the appeal) if you had seen the TS2 version.  😉

I did not even know that the Sims 3 Store had Nervous Subject that could be bought!😅  I hated the Store , so I avoided it.  (I might have once known he was available in the Store many years ago, but I generally treated the Store items as very expensive "official" CC, so I didn't pay much attention to what you could get there.  It would just depress me. So if I ever knew this, I had forgotten!  Thanks for the info! 💗
I'm glad you bought Nervous and his mother (I assume she was the same mom as his birth mother in TS2, which would be Olive Specter), and I'm happy you enjoyed playing them! 😎  But I have no idea how similar he was to the original Nervous Subject.  The original TS2 version was born to Olive Specter (and presumably the Grim Reaper) but he wasn't raised by them, instead being raised by Circe and Loki Beaker.  I have a soft spot for Nervous because he was neglected by his mother, had an absentee father, and was taken in by mad scientists who seemed to have used him in cruel experiments.  😭  And to make matters worse he was a Family Sims (which means he had the Family Aspiration, which, along with the Knowledge Aspiration are my favorites from TS2!)  So I always tried to give him a happy life! 🥰 

Again, my TS3 game was excruciatingly slow, so I saw no fluidity of movements after the first year of playing.😭 So any fluid animations that I might have seen at the beginning of playing were overshadowed by what was to come a little later.  


I have to disagree with you about TS4 CAS. I don't quite understand what you mean by silly proportions... it isn't like they have super large feet with tiny hands and giant heads.  🤔  They are more on the cartoony side, but not ridiculously so.  I think TS4 Sims are the best looking , by far!😍   Funny you should mention that TS4 hair looks plastic to you, because that is exactly how I describe TS3 hair... it is just waaaaay too shiny! 🤣  Some people have called TS4 hair clay-like, but having worked with clay I don't agree with that either!  But beauty is in the eye of the beholder. 🤷‍♀️😉

As for unnecessary gestures, I think that depends on who the characters were modeled after. 😅 As a person who uses a lot of gestures in real life, I would probably not see these as unnecessary, but rather true to life! 🙌  But I can see how someone who is very reserved with their gestures might think a game with these might be over the top.  😉

Oh, I just need a small hint of a story to get me going, I have no idea what the background was for this household, except what was written in  the presentation for it; I just like Grim! And I loved the store, I bought almost everything, and had every world, before I had most of the packs. I wish TS4 would be structured the same way, selling the worlds separate, instead of part of a big expansion pack. 

In CAS I have learned to drag out the thighs to create a more realistic outer point of the body so the hips won't be so sharply defined and furthest out; and to drag down the bosom of the ladies to make it more realistic gravitationally, less like a barbie. I also drag up the volume of their bodies to make them more rounded, that is of course random how they start out. I elongate the face and move the features slightly downwards, and make the eyes smaller. I do this on every sim now, to make them look more real than a doll.

And yes, there are of course some people who talk and move like robots!

@DonroaAkashu , Well, even without knowing Nervous' background in the Sims 2, they at least included that he was supposed to be the son of Olive and Grim!   
The store was waaaay overpriced.  And there was too much to sort through,.  I wouldn't mind separate worlds we could buy, for the Sims 4. But the stuff packs were far more cheaper for the amount of items you got compared to the The Sims 3 Store!  I did use some of my Sims points and waited for deals, but it was never enough to get what I wanted. 

Thank you for explaining what you change to make the Sims more to your liking in CAS.  For women's bosoms, I usually do the opposite because I always want to give them a good bra so that they are supported and comfortable.  😂  So I raise their bosom with this in mind.  I usually give both male and female adults a little more weight than the middle setting.  I tend to make children and teens slimmer , especially teens to differentiate them from adults. The eyes vary depending on the Sim.  Some have smaller eyes, some have larger.  Faces I actually make fuller, since I prefer rounded faces on both females and males in real life, so I copy that in my Sims.  😄💗  There are some exceptions though! 

Yeah, it was the romance with Grima that was tickling! 
I agree that the store was overpriced. It also had a search system manipulating the user to buy rather than find, and this created issues when downloading a lot of items. There was a nice player posting on The Sims Forum who had a system for how to organize the download, but I just bought items one and one, and that seemed to work. 

Yeah, I think that would be good as well, to make the faces rounded in an attempt of realism; I just haven't figured out all the controls yet, and sort of click my way in darkness. Often I just randomize a sim until I find a frame moderately acceptable, and then change the features mentioned and send them out into the world. Very few I spend time on. Your bra made me laugh! I like them running around without it so to speak, and they look luscious in some of the shirts, especially the masculine tagged clothing! :P

@DonroaAkashu , well since you are a fan of Grim , I can see why you would have gotten Nervous and Olive from the Store! 😂
Speaking of the Sims 3 Store, I remember waiting for the next deal to pop up, and I kept waiting for something I liked that I could afford.  I realized it was time better spent playing the game! 😅

Sometimes I do that as well... randomize a Sim until I find one interesting, and then tweak a few features.  Other times I do more sculpting.  Depends on my mood! 🤪