Janet Hetherington from Animation World chatted with MJ Chun, producer of The Sims 3. During her conversation, MJ brought up details on the Sims traits, their facial animations, the game’s music score and much, much more.
“We have an amazing team of talented, passionate, and patient artists and engineers as they worked together to make it the best-looking game as possible,” Chun suggests. “There was a lot of concept and modeling art work that went into making sure that the Sims were alive and based on reality, but not creepy.
“There were a lot of sketches and prototypes to hit the right visual target. Then all the pieces had to come together, and there were a lot of iterations.”
The Sims 3 team used different programs to achieve the facial and body visualizations. “We primarily use Maya to deliver on animations that are realistic but also humorous,” Chun offers, adding, “we also create a lot of internal tools for our artists, and for our animators, they had jazz.”
In addition to people in The Sims 3 game, there are ambient birds, insects and fish, but no pets.
While the customized Sims humans are unique, there is a structure upon which the game play is based. “Each family in Sunset Valley and in Riverview (the free downloadable town) has their own back stories for the players to discover,” Chun adds.
“The future of Sunset Valley is in the hands of the players, as The Sims 3 does not have a linear plot. Each decision and action of the player can change the town.”
The Sims game runs on an agent-based artificial life program. The presentation of the game’s artificial intelligence is advanced, and the Sims respond to outside conditions on their own — although often with the player’s intervention to keep them on the right track.
As for The Sims 3, Chun notes, “The Sims 3 engine is new and created by our internal team. The town is simulating in realtime. “
