Recycling animations.

nothing wrong with recycling animations sometimes where it makes sense

heck i kinda wish they recycled some animations to give me certain gameplay things

but also the animations shouldn't be made vague in order to recycle them.

and surely they should stop making every activity into " use machine " cause i mean sure it cuts lot of animations but its freaking boring to stare at your sim using this or that machine all day long

I'm not a fan of recycled animations in certain circumstances.

Like when they enabled toddlers to play in the sea - I guess it fits in a way, but it would have been much better with something totally new. Same with shower woohoo... they couldn't even be bothered to disguise properly the fact that the sims vanish.

And there is far too much skipping of animations altogether, like sims being taken into cas before they open their drawer or wardrobe door. Little details like that would make it so much more fun to watch.

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. ??‍♂️

What bothers me more about some animations is when you have two sims sitting side-by-side acting with identical movements. It's like something out of the Stepford Wives. Seriously, it gives me the willies!

"Onverser;c-17876792" wrote:
I've never understood the big deal about animations being reused. I've played the game for years and haven't noticed it in play unless people specifically point it out and it doesn't remotely affect or make my gaming experience worse. We all know how restricted they are by EA so if that's what they gotta do to get more content in I have no issue ?

It depends on how you play. I love snapping pics during play sessions, but over the years, I just notice a lot of pictures are always the same. Not just social interactions, which are meaningless because so many just have the same animations, but because their facial expressions are always the same. A sad sim will still smile through a social and then go back to frowning. Same for angry and every other emotion. I'd like some variance.

And another thing that annoys me is that we also keep getting individual animations for sims. They barely interact together. Like in TS2, kids could dance on their parents feet, be spun around by a parent, they could play hand clapping games, they could play tag. Teens could rub their feet on a carpet and go shock someone. Everyone could play punch you, punch me, tickle, and so many more things I'm forgetting. Those are all things I do with my real life family and I'd like to see some of that togetherness and bonding reflected in the game. Little kid me didn't stand in a group talking to my friends. We played games. Lots of different games. And TS4 sims don't do that unless they're at a playground and even then, the objects are still being used individually instead of together. For me that makes the simulation feel very broken. Because life doesn't look like this. Life is interacting with people we love. Touching. Holding. Joking. All those have ways to be close with a quick hug, a slap on the back, a noogie on the head. Siblings should interact together without toys and not just talking. The game is seriously lacking for certain types of players.

"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.

"DaWaterRat;c-17876558" wrote:

"Wolfium;c-17876518" wrote:
In disney it's less noticeable because it is movies you watch once/twice and some details are changed. The Sims is sandbox game that you can play for a long time, and it will be stale fast if lots of animations are reused. I noticed some animations in sims 4 are reused, like every complain is same, be it about weather or love life, and some of them don't make sense like same animation for melancholy thoughts and fake bad news.

You only watch movies you like once? I have Aristocats and Robin Hood memorized from repeat watching, and I absolutely noticed this in the days before the Internet too.

Not to mention the many animated TV shows that would reuse animation cells against different backgrounds. Warner Brothers, Hanna Barbara, various Japanese animation studios... they all do it.

Yes, twice at most. Maybe again after a long time. About those two movies, I watched them once.

"AmeliaTodd;c-17876604" wrote:
> @Wolfium said:
> Shoes animation doesn't exist.

From the game changers video i saw that it does this little whirling at the bottom of the legs, it was enough for me to remove all the shoe signs from my game.

Yes, the whirling. There's no animation for removing/putting on shoes.

"CAPTAIN_NXR7;c-17877070" wrote:
I understand this animation recycling business from a company’s point of view.
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.

Was thinking of the romantic interaction where the sim wiggles their fingers and proceeds to kiss at the receiving sim. Like you said nothing varies based on emotion, or even trait. The only thing that would distinguish between a happy sim flirting vs a sad sim is the tone of their voice (maybe expression?). And I guess the naming of the interaction. While I do appreciate the work the VAs put into making emotions believable, animations add that much more imo.

It would be so refreshing to see variance to animation in areas like this. EA cannot even pretend not to have access to resources to make this so. Among who know how may reasons, time seems to be stopping them from going above and beyond the basics. The focus is so plainly on making a profit first. But this again has me stumped because we all know there are various teams working on the game at the same time. Would it be so difficult to have a team of animators go back on the game and refine, like an editor who goes back to a piece of literature to make refinements. Perhaps not, as something like is not cost effective enough for EA. Ugh.