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Top Secret Researcher
#26 Old 28th Feb 2013 at 5:14 PM
Quote: Originally posted by zigersimmer
Thems fightin' words, pardner.
*cues Ennio Morricone music*
Yer spurs are too blunt. *spits*

How odd about Sims 2 hair being animated from the base game without any patch or expansions, uh. If I have the patience one day I'll reinstall it to check it out. Maybe what I remember is in fact when CC hairs makers finally discovered how to animate their hairs.
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One Minute Ninja'd
#27 Old 28th Feb 2013 at 11:57 PM Last edited by eskie227 : 28th Feb 2013 at 11:59 PM. Reason: source cited
This is an excerpt regarding hair modeling from another game that just ran in a story in Maximum PC, a pretty decent news source:

Quote:
AMD TressFX HairTomb Raider features the world's first real-time hair rendering technology. AMD, in partnership with Square Enix studio Crystal Dynamics, is determined to end the era of "totally unrealistic hair" in video games. Yes, we're serious. As AMD explains, we've all been duped in the 3D era by short haircuts, updos, and even non-removable helmets, all of which are attempts to disguise the problem of unrealistic hair. Oh, the outrage! Fear not, fellow gamers, AMD's "TressFX Hair" technology signals an end to those hideous hair days. All jesting aside, the result of AMD's efforts is more realistic looking hair. It's achieved by utilizing DirectCompute to perform real-time physics simulations for TressFX Hair. It's already featured on Lara Croft in the 2013 release of Tomb Raider. "This physics system treats each strand of hair as a chain with dozens of links, permitting for forces like gravity, wind and movement of the head to move and curl Lara's hair in a realistic fashion," AMD explains in a blog post. "Further, collision detection is performed to ensure that strands do not pass through one another, or other solid surfaces such as Lara’s head, clothing and body. Finally, hair styles are simulated by gradually pulling the strands back towards their original shape after they have moved in response to an external force."


source http://www.maximumpc.com/article/ne...d_hair_days2013

So it can be done. Apparently not easily, but it can be done. Now, who wants to give odds on EA working that into the TS3 rendering engine at this point in time?
Field Researcher
#28 Old 1st Mar 2013 at 12:11 AM
Quote: Originally posted by eskie227
This is an excerpt regarding hair modeling from another game that just ran in a story in Maximum PC, a pretty decent news source:



source http://www.maximumpc.com/article/ne...d_hair_days2013

So it can be done. Apparently not easily, but it can be done. Now, who wants to give odds on EA working that into the TS3 rendering engine at this point in time?


Personally I wouldn't even lay odds on it showing up in TS FIVE, let alone TS3 (or even 4)
Rogue Redeemer
retired moderator
#29 Old 2nd Mar 2013 at 9:08 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Sojourner
Personally I wouldn't even lay odds on it showing up in TS FIVE, let alone TS3 (or even 4)


Exactly, considering that TS3 sims are hardly cutting edge anyway when it comes to game character quality, textures, realism and animations. TS3 is far from meeting modern standards for all those things. Sure the face sculpting and CASTing are great, but honestly they are designed for making goofy and over-the-top pudding faces, which makes making realistic sims a true struggle even with tons of CC...

It would be a perfect selling point for TS4 though! We've seen open worlds, endless customization and new game play challenges like adventures & performing, etc. So making fancy quality realistic sims with smooth animations, height sliders, moving hair and so on would definitely create fresh interest.
Field Researcher
#30 Old 2nd Mar 2013 at 9:22 AM
It is way too late in the development cycle to be adding physics now, unless they're pushing the release date back at least 2 years. I hope we'll see big improvements in graphics for TS4, but I strongly doubt physics will be part of the package, let alone life-like hair. TS3 hairs are absolutely execrable.

Not that it will make any difference to me, if it's going to be mandatory on-line to play. I won't be upgrading if that's the situation. In fact I may DOWNgrade to TS2 instead.
One Minute Ninja'd
#31 Old 2nd Mar 2013 at 9:26 AM Last edited by eskie227 : 2nd Mar 2013 at 9:28 AM. Reason: Ninja'd. What Sojourner said.
Quote: Originally posted by Arisuka

It would be a perfect selling point for TS4 though! We've seen open worlds, endless customization and new game play challenges like adventures & performing, etc. So making fancy quality realistic sims with smooth animations, height sliders, moving hair and so on would definitely create fresh interest.


I would love to see everything you describe in the next version of the Sims. Unfortunately, unless SimCity turns out to be a total bust, I think the big tech "innovation" we'll see with TS4 will be a server based game, with the ability to play in our "neighbors" hoods, bringing about an end to the single player experience. Which will be a real shame, as the very basis for a solid sandbox simulation is the single player experience, where you can experiment with different approaches, and see what the outcome is without your "friends" watching over your shoulder.

Oh, and it might very well be "optimized" to run on tablets as the primary hardware platform, rather than a PC/Mac (not that it can run well on a Mac anyway).

But yes, I would grab it the day of release if they brought TS4 out with better, more fluid animations and improved rendering during live game play, even if I had to live with just a base game while waiting for the EP release onslaught that will follow.

Quote: Originally posted by Sojourner

Not that it will make any difference to me, if it's going to be mandatory on-line to play. I won't be upgrading if that's the situation.


You beat me to it.
Test Subject
#32 Old 19th Dec 2014 at 4:25 AM
I'm laughing because of our expectations of TS4. Now that it's out...we were stupid to think it would be better. I've never played TS2 but now I'm scouring the internet for it because TS4 is that sad.

P.S. I can't find it on origin, or anywhere else except amazon for 30$ for the base game. NOT HAPPENING! If anyone knows where to get it cheap (it's really old...it should be cheap) please let me know.
One Minute Ninja'd
#33 Old 19th Dec 2014 at 9:00 AM
Thank you for necroing this thread and reminding me how I once looked forward to the possibility that TS4 would be an actual improvement over what came before.

As to the second part of your post, you could have gotten the complete Sims 2 ultimate Collection right from EA for free right before the TS4 launch, but now you're stick paying whatever the marketplace will value it at. Which, given the reception for TS4 to date, means it's more expensive now than say, six months ago. The old supply vs. demand thing, if you took Eco in school. Oh, and EA is no longer either giving it away, or selling it, so forget Origin as a source.
Alchemist
#34 Old 19th Dec 2014 at 10:57 AM
It does not have to be that expensive to animate the hair, I mean, it worked in The Sims 2 and they did not spend $100 million bucks per hairstyle.

Remember when they said that hair would grow in The Sims 4? Ah, EA always promising to much. New rule: 20% of what EA promises will happen.
Mad Poster
#35 Old 19th Dec 2014 at 11:28 AM
TS2 has 4 bones for hair animation, so it's not much. Would probably have been very doable in TS3 as well, but perhaps it was 'too much work' or 'too difficult' for the new group of animators. My guess is that they took yet another lazy turn. Perhaps they thought adding bones for face animation was more than enough, and decided to leave out the hair.

Hair animation is difficult if you want it to act natural, particularly for games. However, the way they did it for TS2 was really one of the easiest ways, and (I imagine) not much more difficult than animating the body. Might be that they added in some kind of slowing down effect on the hair, to make it move somewhat independently from the rest of the body.

As for promising hair animation in TS4, I suspect that was grabbing for straws. TS2 hair is much more advanced in any way than the plastic hair TS4 had to offer.

20% of the promises? Try 1%...
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