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The Ideal Family Tree (Genealogy) Interface for TS4
halimali1980
Posts: 8,246 Member
I love looking at family Trees (Genealogy) in Sims game because they represent all your hard work and long game play whether you are playing a legacy, rotationally or just a single family.
The current genealogy interface we have is similar to the previous games but why it should be similar when the game got a more sleek interface itself?
The current family tree we have in Sims 4 suffer from several problems (Besides how culling breaks it). I want to discuss the interface of the family tree. As you can see from the ingame family tree of Katrina Caliente.
The Problems:
1- When you click on the family tree you get this small square. Why? why the square is not bigger to show more icons and make all that space on the screen useful? Yes you can drag the tree inside the square to see all the sim icons specially if the tree is big horizontally, but it would be really nice to have a bigger space.
2- Sim icons are very small. The game has better icons for the sims already. There are the icons of the new calls from Get Together which are much much nicer if used for the family tree.
3- Dead sims are showing all as ghosts and it is so annoying. Their icons can hardly be recognized. They all look same and to me personally their icons or empty white boxes are similar. Why we can't have black and white icons of the sims so we can recognize them? I hated this since it was made in TS3. TS2 has better icons for dead sims. Below is an example how it will look when all dead sims are showing ghost icons.
My Ideal Family Tree Interface:
As you can see from the picture where Katrina is selected:
1- The new square covers the maximum of screen space. This will allow and makes it easier to have more sims icons and information available without the need to drag.
2- Dragging should still be there in case there is a very large family with many kids (horizontally) but in addition to this as you can see there is zoom in (+) and zoom out (-) options on the upper left side. This will help to look at the bigger picture fast.
3- Sims icons are much bigger and much nicer than what we have now. I have used the new calls icons which are very gorgeous. The game has them for all the sims so it would be nice to have them for the family tree instead of the current icons.
4- Katrina's mother is dead as you can see. Her icon is in black and white. No ghost icons.
5- In addition to all the above I would love if our active sims get the option where they can ask NPCs of their family tree. Something like "Show me your family tree" and the family tree of that NPC will pop up. This would be a great addition to the game.
6- All hover over sim information should be retained in the new family tree interface.
I love beautiful interfaces and would be really happy if the developers/gurus give an interface update to the family tree.
What do you think?
Note: you might need to click on the full screen pics to see them in their actual sizes.
The current genealogy interface we have is similar to the previous games but why it should be similar when the game got a more sleek interface itself?
The current family tree we have in Sims 4 suffer from several problems (Besides how culling breaks it). I want to discuss the interface of the family tree. As you can see from the ingame family tree of Katrina Caliente.
The Problems:
1- When you click on the family tree you get this small square. Why? why the square is not bigger to show more icons and make all that space on the screen useful? Yes you can drag the tree inside the square to see all the sim icons specially if the tree is big horizontally, but it would be really nice to have a bigger space.
2- Sim icons are very small. The game has better icons for the sims already. There are the icons of the new calls from Get Together which are much much nicer if used for the family tree.
3- Dead sims are showing all as ghosts and it is so annoying. Their icons can hardly be recognized. They all look same and to me personally their icons or empty white boxes are similar. Why we can't have black and white icons of the sims so we can recognize them? I hated this since it was made in TS3. TS2 has better icons for dead sims. Below is an example how it will look when all dead sims are showing ghost icons.
My Ideal Family Tree Interface:
As you can see from the picture where Katrina is selected:
1- The new square covers the maximum of screen space. This will allow and makes it easier to have more sims icons and information available without the need to drag.
2- Dragging should still be there in case there is a very large family with many kids (horizontally) but in addition to this as you can see there is zoom in (+) and zoom out (-) options on the upper left side. This will help to look at the bigger picture fast.
3- Sims icons are much bigger and much nicer than what we have now. I have used the new calls icons which are very gorgeous. The game has them for all the sims so it would be nice to have them for the family tree instead of the current icons.
4- Katrina's mother is dead as you can see. Her icon is in black and white. No ghost icons.
5- In addition to all the above I would love if our active sims get the option where they can ask NPCs of their family tree. Something like "Show me your family tree" and the family tree of that NPC will pop up. This would be a great addition to the game.
6- All hover over sim information should be retained in the new family tree interface.
I love beautiful interfaces and would be really happy if the developers/gurus give an interface update to the family tree.
What do you think?
Note: you might need to click on the full screen pics to see them in their actual sizes.
Everything I post is an opinion here and I think every post of others is as well.
34
Comments
and I agree with everything you said
Agreed 100%!
I agree that the icons should be more noticeable and that they'd all look the same from one another when they're ghosts in the thumbnail. Nice interface! I just hope there was a way to let the in game family trees retain information even when sims are gone, though. It would be nice to not get so many calls from ghosts about a newborn baby when they've been dead for so long
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What if instead of black and white, when Sims were deceased, their icons just sort of went partially sepia? So you can still have a faded bit of color in order to quickly identify features, but you know they're dead?
Another option for dead Sims is for their icon frame to indicate death somehow. A grey frame for dead, white frame for still living.
Family trees need to be completely disassociated in the code from game population in order to remove culling from the tree. It should be its own set of data.
WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?
Great work :D
Thank you. I hope EA and Maxis take note of this.
They have the tools already.
These are really great ideas. @halimali1980, while I do agree with you the family tree could stand to be improved, I agree with @colbyfromage that the icons should be squares and not circles. Also, I think the problem with making deceased Sims black and white is it could be hard to tell if they were deceased or if they were still living as a ghost in the neighborhood.
Thank you,
I used the circular icons because those icons are from Get Together calls. I could not make them square. All I want EA to do is to use the beautiful portraits as they are big, If they can make the same portraits into squares that would be a plus.
Regarding the dead and ghosts there can be many options they can use, I am suggesting black and white icon for the dead because ghosts icons makes dead sims cannot be recognized. Not all dead sims are ghosts and you cannot say who is the sim you are looking at. Their faces are not clear.
for dead sims they can use black and white portrait, for ghosts they can use black and white portrait with a small ghost icon on the side of the portrait to know the sim is a ghost.