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Rain Effect in TS4 Seasons x Rain Effect in TS4 Get Famous
Lukkas_Leonhart
Posts: 44 Member
Hello everyone! 
I decided to create this topic because it is a subject that is very important to me.
I've always been a fan of Seasons (my favorite expansion since TS2). I think it's the most important expansion pack and elevates the gameplay to another level.
My great passion is the rain. Ahhh
rainy days are so relaxing! I really love the rain created by the team in TS3. Despite being different engines, I believed that when the weather came to TS4 it would be as impressive as TS3.
But the rain in TS4 is disappointing!
Raindrops have no animation when falling on the ground and this is very frustrating. My biggest disappointment was in Get Famous when I used the "Plumbob Pictures Home Special Effects Machine" object and tested the rain effect.
The drops hit the ground and have animation! Seriously? Why did not they do the same with the "real" rain of the game?
Hopefully in the future the team will correct this somehow as it is really frustrating to see how some of the seasons' details have been neglected.
I decided to create this topic because it is a subject that is very important to me.
I've always been a fan of Seasons (my favorite expansion since TS2). I think it's the most important expansion pack and elevates the gameplay to another level.
My great passion is the rain. Ahhh
rainy days are so relaxing! I really love the rain created by the team in TS3. Despite being different engines, I believed that when the weather came to TS4 it would be as impressive as TS3.But the rain in TS4 is disappointing!
Raindrops have no animation when falling on the ground and this is very frustrating. My biggest disappointment was in Get Famous when I used the "Plumbob Pictures Home Special Effects Machine" object and tested the rain effect.The drops hit the ground and have animation! Seriously? Why did not they do the same with the "real" rain of the game?
Hopefully in the future the team will correct this somehow as it is really frustrating to see how some of the seasons' details have been neglected.
Post edited by Lukkas_Leonhart on
29
Comments
But, I totally agree, the animation you show is truly an upgrade with the machine. Perchance, one day we'll be surprised by a patch and voilà it will be fixed. Hey, we can dream, can't we?
http://www.getfreeebooks.com/star-trek-original-series-fan-fiction-trilogy/
The Winters family Tree --- My Mods
Rain and snow are just a screen effect like in TS2, and unlike TS3. In TS3 roof trims would have water drops on them, umbrellas have rain fx on the back to make them more believable when raining, sims would multitask and use umbrellas while jogging in the rain, etc.
They gave TS3 so much detail with new fx and graphics when they made Seasons it really was a next level experience when it came out. In TS4 though they seem to not have put in as much detail for the weather. There's no snow layers, the raindrops aren't as detailed and objects don't react as well to rain, there's no tanning in the summer and so on. It's not as full of detail as one would hope sadly. Maybe it's because it wants to cater to low end computers, or overall game performance, Idk.
Thought that wouldn't matter depending on the settings in your graphics like for example you can't see the leaves falling down from the trees and onto the ground if your settings are too low or even the detailed lighting system. If they were able to add that detail for the ground (I know they add it to pools and bodies of water when it rains) I would assume you'd be able to see it with a higher setting.
@Sigzy05 Thought the droplets looked pretty oversized and out of place when rain dripped off the sims or
Better than having none
Or maybe do a setting just like they have for snow so people could choose to see the raindrop affects or not.
Not saying I entirely agree with their decision, just saying that performance is the most likely reason for it. The single-biggest complaint toward TS3 for everyone who isn't totally in love with it (and even for many who are) is performance. For better or worse, most of the places where TS4 seems to fall short of TS3 are places where TS4 was built to have better performance.
The Winters family Tree --- My Mods
Ah, yeah that's true. Different story with the overall game itself.
I did notice that with the rain effects, BUT I didn't really even notice the water effects until like a third attempt at the singing in the rain set. I tend to miss some minor effects. I didn't even realize Sims 2 had an effect with rain running down along the actual roofs after all these years.
For what I am able to notice or others point out I think there's still a lot of small details in other places as well.
(looks just like that GF effect)
How it looks like:
The umbrellas look totally dried in the rain
This is the first time I have seen a screen shot of rain in TS4. This reminds me of the FX in Railroad Tycoon2 many years ago, that FX was something to see back then..how many years? and here it is in TS4 in 2018,
In fact I've kinda like, forgotten about the seasons entirely at this point. It's all background noise til winter or a rather hot summer. And that's fine to me. Pets sort of ended up like that, too. They are just, in the house. Doing pet things. Not much else unless I choose to focus on their training or a breeding program or something.
http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/924539/features-that-needs-depth-and-ways-to-improve
It really feels like they went back to closed worlds in TS4 because they had no other option.
Theoretically, you would think the time spent not working on an open world would result in the best FX, Sim AI, attention to detail, features, etc., but in so many cases, things have turned out worse compared to TS3, and even TS2, which shared the closed world set up (yet offered far more creative control and player freedom with it).
The evidence is really the tiny, tiny maps Maxis gives us. How we could go from the player freedom of TS3, designing worlds from the ground up and every single aspect of them, to pre-designed worlds with lots you can sometimes count on one hand, is crazy.
When it comes to world building everthing is made by hand, and not as easy as they are. Based on the worlds we are getting, creating a world is time consuming, conpared in The Sims 3 where they had a create a world tool. I remember SimGuruGrant said in a tweet that manipulating terrain outside of lots in Sims 4 is different than using the terrain tool inside of lots. This is why I think Create a World is needed. It does not only helps the creativity of players but also helps the way they build the world. It is hard to do but the investment is worth it. We know how easy to use the tools in Sims 4, and if the CAW was just like that, then the devs will be able to build worlds faster, create more neighborhoods, and even spent some of the time creating additional gameplay features. Right now it seems from the Simmer point of view based on their statements, building a world is hard, and I think this is the answer.
http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/924539/features-that-needs-depth-and-ways-to-improve
The whole game feels more basic and simple, and watered down. I will say though, I do enjoy the rain. But I don't understand is, if they could make the rain effects machine with fat droplets, why not just do it for all rain? I don't think that would effect low end pcs or laptops. And honestly, I don't know why they are catering a game to low spec machines. It's hurting other players who have pcs that have the power to play on higher settings. Like someone else said, they could have at least given us an option to increase FX effects with a more powerful pc. What really bothers me though is the lack of depth to the snow.
Is there a source stating they do not have a world tool? Just curious, because they have to, just not designed for public use. In fact, worlds in TS4 could not possibly be harder to make than in TS3. In TS3, you had to take into account roads and routing which was a huge PITA. In TS4, most of the world consists of decorations, lots and common areas. So you have a crew that does the decorating bit, designing the aesthetics (said designers have nothing to do with gameplay), and then the actual builders that make the world function (lot placement, pathing, etc) via their own internal world building tool.
If the developers truly want to state that world building is hard...well, that's just a blatant excuse IMO.