I thought the same at first, too. But then I remembered the end titles of the last animation movie I saw. There was a whole team of some 10 people dedicated to the rendering and animation of hair alone. Sounds like a very time, tech and resources heavy affair.

Yes!! It's needs a "botox" slider/mod for the eyebrows! The distortion of the faces with some of the animations would make any Sim look horrific, even with CC hair and makeup. It's just awful.

Yeah, that's why no game has such hair. Even the games with high quality graphics don't use that type hair for the actual game play. That stuff is still just for animations or for promotional images.

I appreciate Mary Katharine's hair for being very detailed with lots of strands and color variance, but it looks like a cheap wig to me. Maybe it's an Uncanny Valley thing-- too realistic, but not quite. Too...shiny? Too many individual strands visible across the parts where the hair is pulled back? But 'cheap wig' is still human real life-ish, which also doesn't work for me for a Sims game. That Sim looked more realistic in the face than the movie character did, until you pop on that overly-detailed hair, and then she's much more like a mannequin.


Beats the rubberblock hair, I guess, but what wouldn't? I'd rather EA render hair like (some) CC makers. See also: that pic where someone popped some TS3 CC hair onto the TS4 Sims and they looked great.

Slenderman's tan cousin


I don't mind the sims' faces or skin or the shape of their bodies. It's the way the hair look that's bothering me so bad.

I am one of those people who was expecting *at least* TSM-level Sims for the Sims 4. The playdough hair and skin are obviously a big disappointment.

There is a LOT of room between TSM sims and the uncanny valley.

My only hope at this point is that we haven't seen very much yet of how the Sims will move and behave. I think cartoony sims with a richer set of animations and more complex interactions and behaviors and awareness might work, for me.

I've seen some small improvements, in what we've been shown so far, but not anything that compensates for the lack in other areas.

I'm remembering what happened with the Sims 3: we got used to having inert, legless, generic babies, ugly toddlers, and children with severely restricted options. I play mostly families. If they dummy down those lifestages even more in the Sims 4, I'm done.

I think we'll be fine as long as we get the TS2 hair makers to hop on board the Sims 4 train. I'm sensing a lot of TS2 - TS4 conversions in the near future.

The Sims 2 Maxis Match creators might like it. Take a look at Skelljay's Dina Caliente.

When I said hair makers I meant the people on sites like here who've made custom hair styles...probably shoulda pointed that out XD

People on this site do make Maxis match CC (e.g. Dustfinger, Fanseelamb).

Ah when you said Maxis Match, I thought you meant people that work for Maxis. Sorry.

Sorry, I meant to say players who create Maxis match items.

I totally agree that overly-strandy hair does not look good on sims4--there is too much contrast between the clayishness of the face and the detailed hair.
Sims3 with custom skin could get away with more realistic hair, though as everyone points out, MaryKatherine's hair would take a lot of resources.

I had hoped that EA might add hair animations to the Sims4, but the trailer seems to show the same amount of movement as Sims 3, which is not too much, basically just conforming to the head. Oh well.

so...uh..probably gonna sound dumb right now but....who the hell is MaryKatherine? Does she make good Sims 3 custom hair? Cuz I really need some.

I believe the first post that referenced her said she was a character from the Pixar movie Epic - poster was comparing to sims.

Aaaaand I do in fact feel a few IQs dumber for asking that. There wasn't a space in her name so I assumed it was a screenname. Ignore me :P

Are my eyes playing tricks on me or do these two pictures have a difference in crispness? I know the dining setting is from the house in the preview, but comparing the two, seems less cartoony? Photoshop?





Is it wishful thinking?

It may just be the lighting but I definitely like the first picture better.

Maybe the first one is a screenshot and the second one is concept art. But if the second one is a screenshot, I don't like the bloom effects.

The first shot looks so much better, IMO.

Thank you! The second is a screenshot from the previews that was released at gamescon. It wasn't in the video but it was a release, I don't think it is concept art.

I wonder if the first one was taken with the newer graphic program, 3.0? Looks loads better IMHO.

I think the first one is inside with different lighting. The second is outside. The inside and the sims look pretty good but it is the environment that really stresses the cartooniness. The inside, chairs, sofa, etc., do not look cartoony at all. In my opinion, the exterior does not match the interior.

I hope they tone down the exterior just a bit. I don't mind it not being super realistic but the contrast really bothers me, as well as the bloom. It just looks too "tropical after a rainstorm" for me.

No matter how hard I try to make it seem better, I still feel like I'm looking at an HD version of the gamecube Sims

May have a point about the lighting, Rian. I was looking for pictures to compare with from the preview video and there in not much difference between the first picture and those I found on SimsVIP.

Nevertheless, with The Sims 4 coming out, Delphy really should consider adding a "scary" button.

Going back to the original topic of what I think about the new Sims appearance and the picture referenced...it's very striking the difference between the bones in Sims 3 and Sims 4. This whole time, I've been thinking about the faces and hair (as I'm sure many of us have), but the bodies are interestingly different.

Humans beings are flexible to an extent. They're just not as stiff as the Sims in Sims 3; on the other hand, they're not as flexible as the Sims in Sims 4 appear to be. So, the question is: what do you prefer? Personally, I would like the Sims to be less rigid than they are in Sims 3--but that first pic of the male Sim in his swimsuit (boxers?), yeah...he's hyperflexible. But, in a weird way, it kinda goes with the art style. So, I think I'm gonna need to see more before I make a final judgement on that aspect.

I agree the overly rendered hair like the chick from Epic looks ridiculous on a Sims 4 Sim. On the other hand, I think the hair they come with could be more detailed without veering into that area. When I imagined Sims 4 hair before we ever got to see them and I heard the word "painterly" being thrown around, I was seriously picturing a modernized The Sims Medieval, so the blocky hair was a bit of a shock. I think the hair from TSM is more detailed, but without being in that overly rendered Epic category. I'm not at all experienced at making hair for the Sims, but I do wonder if there is something between Epic and this Sims 4 block hair that the amazing CC creators can create. When I look at the difference between the base game hair of Sims 2 and Sims 3 (which are both awful, IMO) and what the CC creators have accomplished and continue to accomplish, I feel like there's hope to get these Sims 4 Sims looking good. (I mean, most of us end up putting some sort of CC in and hair has always been a big thing for me.)

I love the idea of being able to shape the bodies like clay. While these broad-hipped male Sims don't usually have human counterparts (I mean, how many men do YOU know with birthing hips?), it does show that a wide variety of body types can be accomplished. And I like that. Because all humans carry weight differently and while I liked they made a greater variance in Sim body size/shape possible in Sims 3, it was kinda disappointing I couldn't--for instance--make a female Sim with an hourglass figure. Like, I couldn't make a self Sim without the help of CC sliders, because I'm an hourglass shape. And for people of that body type, when we gain weight, it isn't really in the belly. But what happened if you upped the body fat slider in TS3? Your Sim started to get a belly. So yeah. I like the customization of body types. Anything that reinforces in the human mind that attractiveness can be attained no matter what body type you're born with is a plus in my book. (Granted, we shouldn't need a game to do that for us, but you know what I'm talking about if you follow a teenage relative on Twitter and see her bemoaning the fact she doesn't have Ariana Grande's "thigh gap" and you're sitting here thinking "OMG, you're already beautiful and a size 2--what more do you want?")

As for the faces themselves, the facial proportions, etc, I'm with those who say The Sims 4--in terms of facial proportion--is more realistic, and I like that. To get a Sims 3 face to look remotely that realistic in terms of proportion, you need CC sliders and mods to increase slider range itself. But with TS4, it seems we already have a capacity to make a Sim with facial features that are a reasonable approximation of what's found in nature. And, to me, that is a huge step forward with this franchise. Like a normal jaw? Hell yeah! A nose that doesn't look like some sort of prosthesis? Yes, please.

Moving forward to what lewisb40 posted about the difference between indoors and outside, it is a bit of a stark difference to me too. And I think that might be kinda jarring as you're playing it. I'm not a huge fan of this bloom thing...but I will say what the outside in Sims 4 reminds me of: After in rains in Alabama on a late summer's day. At this time of year, if we haven't had a drought, the grass is so green, you'd think it was England or something. And there's a kinda real-life bloom when you look into the fields. The sky is bright...colors are somehow more saturated, and that bloom does exist. In fact, the other day, I went out and I thought to myself, "OMG, this so looks like TS4." But if you've seen that kind of beauty in real life, you'd know it'd come off phony when trying to approximate it in game. Honestly, it'd have a greater affect on me if they just toned it down a little, because then you wouldn't be thinking "Egads! The bloom!" And, of course, the contrast between inside and outside would be less jarring.