Poor Body Textures Outside of CAS

[kiki]

My only complaint thus far graphics wise would probably be that no matter how hard you work your sim, they will never get abs; seriously, I was very disappointed.

Though I have noticed the occasional texture fuck up- when playing around with terrain I get mysterious flying water and of course the already establish texture issues when sims face water. Other than that, I think it looks great; and my PC has no where near the awesomeness which you described Kiki. How much did that laptop set you back?

$1500 USD at the post-xmas sales at Best Buy, plus I haggled for it. Retails non-sale for about $2100 USD.

[Killallah]

I have an extremely high end system, and with everything maxed and getting a solid 60fps, I can see a noticeable difference in the CAS and main game. They look better in CAS, I do not however think it is lighting, I would rather say its how they set their rendering engine up.

[Marhis]

They look better in CAS, I do not however think it is lighting, I would rather say its how they set their rendering engine up.

This. I think the same.
The lightning is better overall, but they're definitely rendered worse. I have every graphic setting on the highest possible end, and still they looked better in TS2. Anyway, we Mac users are plagued as usual by no smooth edges + no shadows, in addition; I'm sort of used to graphic suckiness in game ports.

[Roflganger]

While I agree that Sims look worse in game than in CAS, I have to agree with Kiki in that I think the lighting and general texturing is exceptional.  I find myself waiting for the morning light to start filtering through the windows, just because it looks so neat.  Unlike Kiki, I don't have a system that will make you jealous - my system is 2 years old, featuring 3gig of RAM and an Nvidia 7600GS, and the game runs effortlessly with all settings set to maximum (except for trees, I just don't care enough about trees to turn them up beyond medium). 

[geekily]

It would be amazing to see light changes, just no color changes.

Screw that. I want a camera hack. The camera movements are fucking shit and I despises them. 

Aw, I actually came here looking for a camera hack and this thread is what the search came up with. I guess that answers my question, then. :/

[Lerf]

I didn't want to pay $50 for the game, now I'm supposed to buy a $1500 system to get it to look right?

I don't think so.

[OpiumGirl]

I have an extremely high end system, and with everything maxed and getting a solid 60fps, I can see a noticeable difference in the CAS and main game. They look better in CAS, I do not however think it is lighting, I would rather say its how they set their rendering engine up.

I wouldn't say that's extremely high-end.  Maybe high-end, though. I get a solid 150 fps maxed out. 

[mibsywibsy]

I wouldn't say that's extremely high-end.  Maybe high-end, though. I get a solid 150 fps maxed out. 

A lot of really good LCD monitors won't go over 60FPS. My system is pretty damn high-end (quad processor, 8GB RAM, 2x GeForce GTX 295 videocards), but I never go over FPS because my monitor (equally high-end) doesn't support anything higher - ironically, generally the higher quality/res the LCD, the lower the refresh rate.

And with completely maxed settings, my game handles perfectly smoothly but still has really shitty-looking lighting in game (in CAS, it's fine). I think the in-game camera has a tendency to fuck up the saturation too much, especially at dusk/dawn.

[OpiumGirl]

I've never heard of that...I know that refresh-rate can limit your fps, as can v-sync.  It very well may be true. 60 fps is pretty common as a stopping point for things like refresh-rate and v-sync.
Alright then, pissing contest has come to an early end, I guess.
That's no fun at all.

[GnatGoSplat]

I've been complaining about the lighting since day 1.
I don't think the textures look bad, they look better than Sims 2... I think.  I'm running a 9800GT with all settings max.
The lighting makes sim skin turn a slight reddish hue in the shade (especially pale sims), and detail is reduced.  It turns their eyes inky black and blush looks like bruises.  In full sun, it makes white hot spots on their faces.  In general, it makes them look creepy.  I don't think better skin textures will help much unless something is done about the lighting.
My sims do look a lot better indoors with night lighting.
Their pie menu face always looks sooooooo much better.

[zolabee]

I'm glad I'm not the only one noticing the blush looks like bruising.  It looks so much better in CAS and I have it working on 2 separate super computers... one with 19" monitor the other with a 24".  Another thing that is noticeable is the splotchiness of the skin for close up shots.  I tried to take an infants picture and it's skin was not smooth at all - it was striped and splotched... I've never seen a striped baby... maybe a splotched one, but not striped.

[Rockermonkey]

Do you all have the sim detail on very high? On high makeup smudges and pixelates. On very high I've noticed no issues outside of CAS, except when outside. Then I just get splotches again.

[VacantBlue]

Do you all have the sim detail on very high? On high makeup smudges and pixelates. On very high I've noticed no issues outside of CAS, except when outside. Then I just get splotches again.

I have everything on high.  The scenery is stunning, the Sims are blah.  They simply don't look as good as they do in CAS.  As mentioned by zolabee the blush looks like bruising and the skin is splotchy when up close.  I don't think that I've noticed smeared makeup at all.  Also, like GnatGoSplat mentioned, the pie menu picture always looks much better than the Sim.

I have 4 GB 800Mhz RAM using XP & dual 8800 GT 512MB video cards.  I've run the game in SLI mode and in single GPU mode and it does not seem to make a difference at all in the gameplay or the graphics.  My gameplay is very smooth.  No noticeable lag at all.

[Botswana]

I thought the Sims looked much better in CAS than in the Sims 2 when I first played it, and I was excited. There was so much detail, especially on the body and the face. But then I loaded the game and...

 

They looked like mutant iguanas that had crawled out of the pits of fucking hell. I noticed my morbidly obese sim looked fine, but my skinny guy looked awful. It was even worse because he didn't have a fat face. And the sims profile pictures look like lifeless mannequins. While I do like the Sims 3 over the Sims 2 overall (integrated neighborhood, CAST, fast loading times), the Sims look terrible aesthetically. Their smiles make them look retarded, and their facial expressions are over exaggerated. I could make good looking sims in the Sims 2 easy, even without CC, and when they smiled, it actually looked natural, not creepy like in this game.

I'm quite disappointed with that. The Sims look terrible. The males got the real shaft in this game. No good clothes or hair and it's impossible to make a good looking male sim. They all look way too feminine. Luckily, the MTS3 facial slider mod has helped quite a bit with this, but the sims still look god awful in-game. 

[jolrei]

...it's impossible to make a good looking male sim.

ur doin it rong!

There have been some good male sims made here at MATY, if popular opinion here means anything.

[nanacake]

There have been some good male sims made here at MATY, if popular opinion here means anything.

Is that some self promotion 

The graphics look great in my game, if I don't move the camera at all.  Baby with stripe in his head would love to get that fixed. Babies in general remind me of Baby Jesus (asdfjkl;). I've been buying cakes to age them up right away just because of those two things. As for sliders, awesomemod can make anti-pudding men, why is anyone even using anything less?

[GnatGoSplat]

...it's impossible to make a good looking male sim.

ur doin it rong!

There have been some good male sims made here at MATY, if popular opinion here means anything.

Agreed, the male sims are the only ones that look halfway decent in Sims 3.  Well, at least where pre-made ones are concerned and honestly, I can't say I've seen anyone's custom-made female sim that was a "must have".

[Roflganger]

A question: those default skintones by HP, do they make any difference? Thank you

HP's defaults look ten times worse than the game skins, in my opinion.  Everything she feels she has fixed is a massive decline for me.

[tizerist]

I get it too.
I think that the character models are more angular in-game than in CAS. Not much, but jawlines can become sharper and squarer.
CAS used to crash my game before I updated drivers, so the higher resolution CAS models would appear to be quite strenuous on the video card...

As for the HP skins, well, I didn't notice much difference apart from the nipples.

[Drakron]

There are some.

http://i648.photobucket.com/albums/uu209/faceplug/HP-EA_comparison.jpg

Take the lips were HP are more natural and the skin is also with imperfections.

[VacantBlue]

There are some.

http://i648.photobucket.com/albums/uu209/faceplug/HP-EA_comparison.jpg

Take the lips were HP are more natural and the skin is also with imperfections.

Egad!  I don't need more imperfections.  The skin on my Sims already looks splotchy up close. 

I need a smoother skin texture with better shadowing to give more definition to the Sim. 

[GnatGoSplat]

There are some.

http://i648.photobucket.com/albums/uu209/faceplug/HP-EA_comparison.jpg

Take the lips were HP are more natural and the skin is also with imperfections.

How about in-game comparison shots?  Most people post CAS shots, but as we all know, the sim hardly ever looks like that.

[Roflganger]

There are pictures in the "Share Pix" thread that are ingame (there is an example of weird lighting issues as well as a picture of a woman in a tub that just perfectly demonstrates everything I find wrong with her skins).

[Doc Doofus]

"Happy birthday to me...  BUT I WANT BRAINS, NOT CAKE!"

That's with HP's skins installed, although children get the unmodified EA skins.  They're all just awful.  It's a graphics lighting issue, and I'm not sure any new default skin can fix that.  (Where is Gunmod when we need him most!)

I'm anxious to get new tools so I can make my own default skins with heavier contour shading.

This lighting problem really is a huge bummer.  I know it prevents me from experiencing the relaxed sense of immersion I felt with Sims 1 and Sims 2 because these Sims are just so ghastly looking.  There is no point in zooming in for a close-up of their expression, because all you can see is a blobby zombie face jiggling like room-temperature flan.  And, by the way, notice how HARD IT IS to zoom in?  That's a different issue.  It's difficult to get the camera just right to get an actual good look at anything.  Which may be a blessing, I guess.

[Captain Swooptie]

And, by the way, notice how HARD IT IS to zoom in?  That's a different issue.  It's difficult to get the camera just right to get an actual good look at anything.  Which may be a blessing, I guess.

This mod makes the free camera much more manageable: http://www.digitalperversion.net/gardenofshadows/index.php?topic=12179.msg344565#msg344565