So yes, I've owned Sims 4 since release but until recently avoided having children, raising kids has never been something I've enjoyed in the Sims unless I can send them away to boarding school lol.
Recently I decided to create two "dynasty families" with babies, grandparents and everything in between and I couldn't help notice the children looked identical unless you zoom in and compare screenshots and all share the same generic thin body shape.
Now maybe I'm wrong, but it seems Maxis literally used same body mesh/aka appearance for ALL children - meaning kids look exactly the same until you age them up into ENTIRELY different looking sims with completely different features. Thats what REAAALLY gets me to be honest.
NOW I do notice that Sim children DO retain very slight changes between their faces from their adult selves mostly their nose, eyes and lips shape - however I don't understand why are they so toned down as to be barely distinguishable? They should appear pronounced to make individuals stand apart, as they are so similar otherwise.
Like toddlers and swimming pools, I think its time for them to go back and update sims babies as well and redo the meshes for children so they better pronounce their facial features and add more body shapes to better represent.
Maybe this could be a quality of life improvement, updated with the base game when they release a generations like expansion pack? hint hint~
To prove my point here are two sets of pictures.
The first image shows a child generated by parents on the left. The child on the right is me clicking on "add new sim", adding glasses, hat and same top - meaning he is otherwise randomly generated. Yet these two kids appear nearly identical!
The second image is the drastic immersion breaking difference as they age up with my literally clicking "teen" icon and thats what he suddenly looks like now.
edit: Just for fun I added a third pic of the two unrelated children in the UI and how they literally look like twins except i changed the hat color lol - like literal twins.
On the plus side I still have no interest in raising kids in the Sims, at least not until boarding schools are added - so this is less of an issue for me anyway but am I wrong in calling this out? Am I the only one that noticed this? After all this time I can't be...
Edit, to note this is NOT a criticism of the game to be critical, but rather an observation of a gameplay element that could be updated now by tweaking facial meshes to make details more pronounced and adding more body shapes so kids so I can make the kid from Up! (i loved that movie)
I guess this should be moved to the feedback forum, sorry*
Comments
I would say that kids need an overhaul, but the truth is that the entire game needs and overhaul, or needs to be left in the past while they start working on TS5.
Can't speak for TS3, but in TS2 I have adult sims with multiple kids, same set of parents, and the kids are distinctly different even as toddlers. Am not much of a family player so maybe am just lucky. Do agree that kids likely get the short end of the development stick.
I agree that the kid model is a bit too simplified, Maxis have created some kids that look kinda different because they edited them a lot, like Christie Sigworth (pre-made sim from strangerville) and Gabe Gonzales (Snowy Escape sim from Maxis gallery) but that often leads to them looking really ugly when they age up.
I don't see them updating this in the near future though...
This has been something that's annoyed me since 2015.
Part of me thinks it's an "anti-deletion" measure. If all your children look the same, then you won't delete them in CAS every time you get an uggo--you'll have raised them into teens and formed a sentimental attachment to them by the time you realize they look like Sloth from The Goonies.
> I'm glad somebody's finally saying it.
> This has been something that's annoyed me since 2015.
>
> Part of me thinks it's an "anti-deletion" measure. If all your children look the same, then you won't delete them in CAS every time you get an uggo--you'll have raised them into teens and formed a sentimental attachment to them by the time you realize they look like Sloth from The Goonies.
Totally agree, made me laugh.
Conditioned to see the same Todd/Kid repeatedly even if mum and dad are worlds away [you know what I mean]. There's only so many hairs and clothes