@SimGuruEugi, what's the save-file size point that seems to start causing problems at the lower end? When we were seeing obvious file bloat causing problems in the Tech forums, they were massive files.
@SimGuruEugi , forgive me for bumping this question from @luthienrising but I, too, would like the answer to this question. The save files for TS4 look absolutely miniscule to me, after being accustomed to much larger save files from TS3. Not sure I'd recognize even the lower end of what may be too large, so a little guidance would be helpful, please and thank you.
I don't know if you can answer this or if this even goes under what you are doing (apologize if its not)
But, what made you guys decide that teens should have same height as adults but with slight different model? Was if difficult to have the same height as an adult but yet had to create a different model for the teens? I noticed the teens are more *small/slim* in buildings compared to adults, did that require a different model *skeleton*?
Other question. How complex is it to create a full fledged model? If you were to create, example a fully live working giraffe in the game, would that require huge complexity in terms of modelling, animations and with the new emotion system or would that be rather easy? Or does it depends on what it is you are making?
Teens tend to be able to do a lot of the same things as adults (or at least, you'd expect them to). That means that if the teens were shorter, yes, they would require a different skeleton (or rig). That means re-authoring animations, which is time consuming. Because of the interaction overlap, we'd be using up a lot of time in exchange for not much added content. So, early in the game's development we made the decision to give teens and adults the same rig.
I'm not a technical artist, but I know that creating a new rig is a very laborious process. A lot of people need to weigh in: the animators, the modelers, the artists that create outfits and skins, the art director... everybody has their say and something specific they are looking for. In addition to that, there are a lot of technical requirements: is the rig performant, can Sims carry things properly, do outfits clip, etc...
Sims that are slimmer or chubbier can still share the same rig, but there's a limit to how much you can deform their body before things start to look off. Again, it's a lot of back and forth and looking for issues in the game to make sure things look just right.
Ooooo I see. How long did it take you guys to create the teens from after the concept (aka where you started to model etc) to finish?
How many people do you have working on 1 model? Like how many were working on the teens? Or is that not how it works?
Thing you can safely skip the requirements about if the giraffe can carry things :P
@SimGuruEugi, what's the save-file size point that seems to start causing problems at the lower end? When we were seeing obvious file bloat causing problems in the Tech forums, they were massive files.
@SimGuruEugi , forgive me for bumping this question from @luthienrising but I, too, would like the answer to this question. The save files for TS4 look absolutely miniscule to me, after being accustomed to much larger save files from TS3. Not sure I'd recognize even the lower end of what may be too large, so a little guidance would be helpful, please and thank you.
Hope @SimGuruEugi doesn't mind me answering but save game bloating really depends on how long you've played your game. If it's > 50 MB, it's BIG. As an example, I'm in my 5th generation (on long) and my save is 10 MB.
If you see sudden jumps in the saves, say it goes from 3 MB to 20 MB in one play session, then bloating is going on. If it gets gradually bigger, than that's normal.
@crinrict , I'm sure he'll enjoy the help and I certainly don't mind you sharing the information. Thank you. My largest save right now is 7.25 MB and I think I'm in the 3rd generation, so most likely nothing is amiss.
LOL, even the 50 MB size looks small to me based on TS3 save file sizes. I'm sure I'll acclimate to the smaller sizes eventually.
To any SimGuru that maybe listening. I'm wondering if you all are aware that the green progression bar that appears above a sim's head is getting stuck their when ever they have maxed out skills. One of my sims has maxed out several skills in the last game session that I had played. And the green progression bar would get stuck over their head for a short time when my sim had exited a room or have reached the top of the stairs.
Letting @SimGuruNick know. Feel free to post about bugs here, too.
In my game, when I click on a metal or a crystal spawner from a distance. I get the command options for harvesting a plant or placing something that my sim has in their personal inventory in the world. This problem goes away when ever I click on those up close. This just started happening in my game recently.
To any SimGuru that maybe listening. I'm wondering if you all are aware that the green progression bar that appears above a sim's head is getting stuck their when ever they have maxed out skills. One of my sims has maxed out several skills in the last game session that I had played. And the green progression bar would get stuck over their head for a short time when my sim had exited a room or have reached the top of the stairs.
Letting @SimGuruNick know. Feel free to post about bugs here, too.
To any SimGuru that maybe listening. I'm wondering if you all are aware that the green progression bar that appears above a sim's head is getting stuck their when ever they have maxed out skills. One of my sims has maxed out several skills in the last game session that I had played. And the green progression bar would get stuck over their head for a short time when my sim had exited a room or have reached the top of the stairs.
Letting @SimGuruNick know. Feel free to post about bugs here, too.
To any SimGuru that maybe listening. I'm wondering if you all are aware that the green progression bar that appears above a sim's head is getting stuck their when ever they have maxed out skills. One of my sims has maxed out several skills in the last game session that I had played. And the green progression bar would get stuck over their head for a short time when my sim had exited a room or have reached the top of the stairs.
Letting @SimGuruNick know. Feel free to post about bugs here, too.
Hey @SimGuruEugi, or @SimGuruNick, I have signed into the forums for the first time in over a year just to ask this question. It's a sims tech question that is friendly and genuine - I promise. I was wondering if some of the differences we are experiencing in Sims 4 are tied to the way the game simulates life in this iteration and what is going on behind the loading screens. I was just wondering how much the game "remembers" and how much it has to "rebuild" every time we move around. Does that effect things like MOO cheats (and why we've had difficulty making them stick) and relationships (family members "forgetting" their relationship to each other or starting up new romances during rotation), and continuity issues like doctors treating patients in the hospital or business owners selling items and those interactions having no relationship to what is happening once they get home and see those same sims? What about having the same few sims spawn over and over outside our houses or following us venue to venue, or when we try to find sims we have had a relationship (and even children) with if we don't move them in with us? I know this bothers some of the people who have played sims in the past, but I was just wondering if it was a tech issue, choices that have been made for this iteration, or a combination of the two.
CC alone does not affect the save size. Usually, the main driving factor is the number of Sims (and consequently, the number of relationships between Sims).
@SimGuruEugi, what's the save-file size point that seems to start causing problems at the lower end? When we were seeing obvious file bloat causing problems in the Tech forums, they were massive files.
@SimGuruEugi , forgive me for bumping this question from @luthienrising but I, too, would like the answer to this question. The save files for TS4 look absolutely miniscule to me, after being accustomed to much larger save files from TS3. Not sure I'd recognize even the lower end of what may be too large, so a little guidance would be helpful, please and thank you.
They are small (especially if compared to Sims 3), and we like to keep them that way
Usually, we don't look at save files in terms of absolute size. Instead, we try to identify situations where things are getting saved improperly leading to larger than necessary save files. It is expected that a "large" game (one with many Sims/lots) has a larger save file.
CC alone does not affect the save size. Usually, the main driving factor is the number of Sims (and consequently, the number of relationships between Sims).
Huh interesting. So CC wasn't the blame for the Sims 3 performance issues then? I knew it. Is that why memories and relationships beyond three generations doesn't exist then, to keep save size small?
"I would imagine comparing play styles would make all the difference for TS3. It doesn't take that much to throw TS3 over the edge into jiggery, juddery meltdown. But if you never take it to that line, then TS3 would be a smooth experience. Quiet, but smooth. The trouble is, the game environment, the open world, the many lots, invites you to get productive and creative, to fill those houses with sims, furnishings and pets. And that's right when the game craps out on you. That and the never-ending resort bar workers spawning till they completely overrun the town. Cheers for fixing that horrendous glitch Maxis before you buggered off to TS4ville. Oh, that's right. you didn't!!!
Regarding the open world of TS3, given that Maxis were the only ones to ever do something of that nature at the time, we can't accurately tell if they done a poor job without having others to compare with. They may well have done the best that anyone could have done, despite the outcome. It may well be why other game devs are reluctant to join in the people simulator market so just leave it all to Maxis.
And when Maxis abandoned the open world scenario to take a step back and return to single lots and frequent loading screens, not only are other game devs saying, "yep that's why we don't do it." But all those creative folks who suffered the TS3 jiddery, juddery meltdowns were proven to be in the majority to those players who claim their game runs perfectly fine.
Otherwise TS4 would have been an even bigger, immersive open world scenario, on a par with the size of a GTA 5 city. And about two or three other game devs would have be in the mix by now. As it is, we don't even know if Maxis will continue the Sims franchise beyond 4. To be truthful, do they even deserve to? I don't know if I could ever be interested in another title by that bunch of hapless yahoos. The main reason for that, it's getting harder and harder to tell these last few years if they're even interested in new titles, or, more importantly, truly interested in the ones they're currently producing."
Post edited by Scobre on
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” –Helen Keller
My question would be why did this game need to cull relationships for performance sake when I didn't have this issue in TS2's closed world system? What was different about this game even with lower polys that this had to be done in this game and wasn't really necessary in TS2. In that game how many walls, buildings and decorations were the culprit of lag or loading times. Maybe memories if the Sim had lived for years in real time. But this game uses lower poly, due to art style, smaller worlds/districts hoods and has to cull relationships. I don't get why.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
My question would be why did this game need to cull relationships for performance sake when I didn't have this issue in TS2's closed world system? What was different about this game even with lower polys that this had to be done in this game and wasn't really necessary in TS2. In that game how many walls, buildings and decorations were the culprit of lag or loading times. Maybe memories if the Sim had lived for years in real time. But this game uses lower poly, due to art style, smaller worlds/districts hoods and has to cull relationships. I don't get why.
I wonder that too. I don't understand how things that were possible 10 years ago are not possible to do now. I can't stand culling personally. It is my least favorite feature to hit the series.
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” –Helen Keller
My question would be why did this game need to cull relationships for performance sake when I didn't have this issue in TS2's closed world system? What was different about this game even with lower polys that this had to be done in this game and wasn't really necessary in TS2. In that game how many walls, buildings and decorations were the culprit of lag or loading times. Maybe memories if the Sim had lived for years in real time. But this game uses lower poly, due to art style, smaller worlds/districts hoods and has to cull relationships. I don't get why.
I wonder that too. I don't understand how things that were possible 10 years ago are not possible to do now. I can't stand culling personally. It is my least favorite feature to hit the series.
Yes, he said a few quotes above relationships cause the save to get bigger so why could we have giant saves full of relationships in TS2 and not this game? I'm not happy about the relationship culling, either.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
Yes, he said a few quotes above relationships cause the save to get bigger so why could we have giant saves full of relationships in TS2 and not this game? I'm not happy about the relationship culling, either.
I'm just disappointed because this means that the incest between step/half relatives and great grandparents will still exist because there is no relationship tie in with some cases. I don't like that. Nice knowing the reason why anyway as tough as reading the answer is.
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” –Helen Keller
Very interested to find out if the interactions with babies will be modified. I tend to queue several interactions when it comes to babies. They are babies for such a short time. If Sims are able to carry around other things and move about the Sims' World, can't this work with babies? As it is now the Sims put them down, pick them up, put them down, pick them up for the next interaction. Thanks.
Kind regards,
Jen
Hi Jen,
I agree that when you chain interactions with the baby, the sim shouldn't put it down each time. I think this is a bug. I will take a look at what we can do to fix that.
You are asking how babies differ from other carryable objects. That is a really good question!
If you watch sims carrying non-baby objects, you will notice that there is a standard way in which they hold the object - it is in their hand, and they hold it in front of the body, a little away from their torso. This not entirely natural pose was chosen as a compromise between how people actually hold stuff, and our need to play other animations while the sim is holding the object. It allows the sim to make gestures, bend their body forward and backwards and so on without the object getting in the way, or the other hand going through the object, or the object disappearing inside the sim's body. This generally works well, but there still are animations where we cannot accommodate carrying something (for example if the sim is clapping, we need both hands free). For those animations we make the object temporarily disappear (we call this "holstering" the object).
The baby has several properties that make this standard solution not work well:
For one, we *really*do not want to holster the baby, we believe it would be very distressing and inappropriate to see the little ones pop out of existence and back in constantly. Not holstering means that for every case where we would usually holster an object, we have to create an alternative solution for doing that thing while holding the baby. Regrettably, all the alternatives are problematic. The best solution would be for each incompatible animation to find or create a different animation to play that works with the baby; but this is very time consuming, and not all cases can be fixed that way (holding a baby while eating cake for example). We could make the sim put down the baby, but this is disruptive, as she has to find a spot for the baby, and route there and back. We also can't use this solution too often, otherwise the baby will always end up on the floor after a few sim minutes of being carried. We could also simply disallow certain actions while a sim is carrying a baby - but this can creates strange and often hard to understand limitations on what sims can do, and so it is not really a desirable solution. There really isn't a catch all solution, so each of these cases needs to be dealt with individually in a way that makes sense for it.
The other big difference is the carry pose itself. You can hold a book in one hand at arm's length in front of your body, but holding a baby that way just won't work Babies need to be cradled close to the sim's body. The problem with this is that as soon as the adult sim's torso starts moving, the baby starts clipping with it. If the adult moves a lot, half the baby may disappear inside the adult at times. For the animations that have this problem, we would again either have to change the animation (making it less expressive for all situations), or make the sim put the baby down first, or disallow the interaction.
If you scrutinize the Sims 2 and Sims 3 baby carry poses, you can see the compromises we had to make there to make this work at all - the baby is precariously balanced on the sim's forearm and contact with the adult's body is kept to a minimum. Sims have very strong biceps! In spite of this, you can still find fairly severe clipping issues in both those games with the baby.
Another issue is that the baby is much bigger than the other carryable objects. The only other object that even comes close is the pizza box, and we severely restrict what sims can do while holding that. The reason is simple - the bigger the object a sim is holding, the worse the clipping issues that you run into. Socialization is particularly problematic - sims gesture a lot while talking, and when we did tests with carrying babies while socializing, we saw a lot of hands reaching into the baby or moving though it.
Finally, our normal pick up and put down mechanism doesn't work with the baby - with all other objects, we have the sim do a swiping gesture and the object jumps between their hand and the world. With living creatures, we don't want to do this, we think it would look uncaring and weird for the baby to pop to the floor. This means that we have to implement a whole different way of doing pick ups and put downs, with much more stringent placement and registration rules (and all the odd edge cases and routing issues that come with that).
All of this doesn't mean that it is technically impossible to carry babies, of course. But it is time consuming and difficult to do right. So, in short, having other carryable objects in the game provides a starting point, but it isn't the whole solution by a long shot.
That was long. :-o Hope this answers your question?
I don't mind if you restrict multitasking while holding the babies as long as it works. As for clipping while sims socialize, sims already do that in TS4 without babies which is beyond irritating but since there is no problem with this why is it a problem sim hands clipping to the inside of babies? It's starting to become a natural thing in this game and honestly I don't think I would mind that that much at this point.
Babies going inside of sims though, when they walk that is a no-no.
And I'm guessing this is the toddlers problem as well. It's sad though that with all this tech nowadays you can't even do somethings you did in TS2.
Also, you can't talk about toddlers, can you tell us why you can't talk about toddlers in specific?
To any SimGuru that maybe listening. I'm wondering if you all are aware that the green progression bar that appears above a sim's head is getting stuck their when ever they have maxed out skills. One of my sims has maxed out several skills in the last game session that I had played. And the green progression bar would get stuck over their head for a short time when my sim had exited a room or have reached the top of the stairs.
Letting @SimGuruNick know. Feel free to post about bugs here, too.
I have this issue too, can you already reproduce it? @SimGuruNick
Yep, I can repro this one.
Have you found the cause for the stuck Outdoor Retreat bug?
Also @SimGuruNick could you please look into the baking skill? The inspired emotion doesn't work with it since the release of GTW. I have reported this a thousand billion times.
Comments
@SimGuruEugi , forgive me for bumping this question from @luthienrising but I, too, would like the answer to this question. The save files for TS4 look absolutely miniscule to me, after being accustomed to much larger save files from TS3. Not sure I'd recognize even the lower end of what may be too large, so a little guidance would be helpful, please and thank you.
How many people do you have working on 1 model? Like how many were working on the teens? Or is that not how it works?
Thing you can safely skip the requirements about if the giraffe can carry things :P
Thank you for answering!
So exciting to read
Ideas on how to improve babies.
Hope @SimGuruEugi doesn't mind me answering but save game bloating really depends on how long you've played your game. If it's > 50 MB, it's BIG. As an example, I'm in my 5th generation (on long) and my save is 10 MB.
If you see sudden jumps in the saves, say it goes from 3 MB to 20 MB in one play session, then bloating is going on. If it gets gradually bigger, than that's normal.
Please do not send me PMs/post on my wall if you're looking for help. I can't attend to those. You can find me at AnswerHQ.
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LOL, even the 50 MB size looks small to me based on TS3 save file sizes. I'm sure I'll acclimate to the smaller sizes eventually.
My biggest save file is 7 MB on the same gen as you, but I got lots of CC and sims, so I am a bit confused.
Ideas on how to improve babies.
Thanks Eugi! And thank you for the report, @sunman502! That sounds like this issue, right? http://answers.ea.com/t5/The-Sims-4-Bug-Reports/OPEN-Skill-Point-Bar-Stuck/td-p/3546249
Thanks for the report @sunman502, we'll look into this.
I don't know how CC influences the size but I would assume bigger houses = bigger saves.
@SimGuruEugi probably knows more details on that.
Please do not send me PMs/post on my wall if you're looking for help. I can't attend to those. You can find me at AnswerHQ.
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AHQ Tutorial
I have this issue too, can you already reproduce it? @SimGuruNick
Yep, I can repro this one.
Jeey
Things Simmers Say That You Shouldn't Say In Public
CC alone does not affect the save size. Usually, the main driving factor is the number of Sims (and consequently, the number of relationships between Sims).
They are small (especially if compared to Sims 3), and we like to keep them that way
Usually, we don't look at save files in terms of absolute size. Instead, we try to identify situations where things are getting saved improperly leading to larger than necessary save files. It is expected that a "large" game (one with many Sims/lots) has a larger save file.
I found this post over at MTS which I found interesting too. I would love to hear your opinion on the performance aspects of it. Source: http://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=576718&page=2
Regarding the open world of TS3, given that Maxis were the only ones to ever do something of that nature at the time, we can't accurately tell if they done a poor job without having others to compare with. They may well have done the best that anyone could have done, despite the outcome. It may well be why other game devs are reluctant to join in the people simulator market so just leave it all to Maxis.
And when Maxis abandoned the open world scenario to take a step back and return to single lots and frequent loading screens, not only are other game devs saying, "yep that's why we don't do it." But all those creative folks who suffered the TS3 jiddery, juddery meltdowns were proven to be in the majority to those players who claim their game runs perfectly fine.
Otherwise TS4 would have been an even bigger, immersive open world scenario, on a par with the size of a GTA 5 city. And about two or three other game devs would have be in the mix by now. As it is, we don't even know if Maxis will continue the Sims franchise beyond 4. To be truthful, do they even deserve to? I don't know if I could ever be interested in another title by that bunch of hapless yahoos. The main reason for that, it's getting harder and harder to tell these last few years if they're even interested in new titles, or, more importantly, truly interested in the ones they're currently producing."
Yes, he said a few quotes above relationships cause the save to get bigger so why could we have giant saves full of relationships in TS2 and not this game? I'm not happy about the relationship culling, either.
I don't mind if you restrict multitasking while holding the babies as long as it works. As for clipping while sims socialize, sims already do that in TS4 without babies which is beyond irritating but since there is no problem with this why is it a problem sim hands clipping to the inside of babies? It's starting to become a natural thing in this game and honestly I don't think I would mind that that much at this point.
Babies going inside of sims though, when they walk that is a no-no.
And I'm guessing this is the toddlers problem as well. It's sad though that with all this tech nowadays you can't even do somethings you did in TS2.
Also, you can't talk about toddlers, can you tell us why you can't talk about toddlers in specific?
Have you found the cause for the stuck Outdoor Retreat bug?
Also @SimGuruNick could you please look into the baking skill? The inspired emotion doesn't work with it since the release of GTW. I have reported this a thousand billion times.
I guess it does.