Recycling animations.
There have been complaints at times about The Sims 4 recycling animations. This is common practice and not just in video games. Animation is expensive so many game, television, and movie studios will ...
Forum Discussion
"CAPTAIN_NXR7;c-17877070" wrote:
I understand this animation recycling business from a company’s point of view.
To be able to create a convincing, interactive animated asset from scratch requires a lot of time and skill. Because of this, animation is incredibly expensive even when systems like mo-cap are used.
But sure we all know this by now.
However...
The Sims is unique in its genre and as a simmer I also feel that generally speaking there isn’t enough variation in animation. More specifically animation for basic interactions driven by personality. Sims don’t feel unique because the animations are mostly the same. Perhaps not always when dealing with emotions, but most definitely for traits.
When I’m asking for “better personalities” it means I’m also asking for animations that reflect these personalities. Buff Moodlets don’t seem adequate enough because one can tell me a lot of things via pretty icons or notifications, but what I really care about as a simmer is how my sims react through body language, facial and verbal expressions.
A lazy or slob sim should be able to slouch on the couch at all times, whereas a neat or active sim would never do that unless their energy is extremely low. But there is no such thing as couch slouching, is there? even-though it’s the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of the lazy trait.
Here’s the culprit: The moment a sims needs to interact with an object or other sim, they seem to forget about their personality and they pretty much all go through the exact same motion. Animating different flavors of emotion for the same interaction is one thing and Sims 4 is pretty alright at this most of the time. I love the way angry sims slam the fridge door. But when it comes to personalities...the hot head is the lucky one because his actions happen to be driven by emotion.
Also, Sims get unique social interactions when in a certain mood, which is great, but often times they don’t act the way they feel. Visually there is no difference between neutral flirting or attempting to flirt when in a sad mood. What’s the point of this interaction if I can’t experience it with my sim? It feels unfinished.
For me personally it’s all in the details since I tend to follow my sims up close. My game is character driven so I don’t really care whether they use tablets (if it makes sense) or swing their shoes off. Those things don’t bother me too much, although occasionally they’re cutting unnecessary corners by using recycled animations on unique objects.
Some of the details seen in Sims 2 are truly wonderful and I would love to see that stuff return, but I doubt the current generation of simmers have the patience to wait through these detailed interactions.
They can’t even watch their sims eat for a couple of moments longer. It’s all go go go go.
Other times folks insist that animations are recycled when they’re not.
I do remember the entire saga regarding the Snowy escape rock climbing vs fitness wall -animation.
The Snowy Escape Rock climbing interaction is beautifully animated and pretty much entirely unique to that interaction. Yet people complained that these were the exact same animations used for that climbing wall that came with Fitness Stuff.
Get yer pretty peepers checked, folks.
Anyway...What I mostly care about is better theatre. Not cartoon per sé, just theatre that offers truly unique personalities. To be able to achieve this the animated assets library needs to be expanded.
I believe Maxis’ animators are good. The company just needs more of them. ??♂️
This I couldn’t agree more with if I tried. I get so sick of watching the same animations over and over as my sims socialise. It’s all the same no matter what the sims personality is. It needs far more variation.
