Decorgal’s Blog » Blog Archive » No I don’t have Sims 3 yet

Yep, you read right. I don’t have Sims 3 yet so please stop emailing me questions. If you’re wondering why I didn’t buy it yet or plan to anytime soon it’s simple. I really don’t play the game anymore and use it to make machinima. Yes the new camera and lighting tools are kick-ass awesome in Sims 3 but without hacks and cc, I don’t see the point. It took me 2 days to make that silly 1 minute featured movie on the Sims 3 site and that’s because I had to sit around for hours waiting to capture a specific animation. It’s not worth it to me, especially when we have animation customization ability in Sims 2 now. If you ask many other seasoned machinima directors, they’ll tell you the same. It looks as though the community is working hard and fast at cracking the game though so as soon as we get the ability to hack, I’ll be buying the game. Anyway, I don’t know how much of this information is out there but we did get a handout on how to use the camera tool so here is the most relevant info (this guide is for the experienced Sims 2 camera user):

The keys to move the camera around such as W, S, D, A, E, Q are the same as Sims 2. The new tool is the dutch camera which allows you to tilt from left to right, letting you create those funky Twilight Zone style angles:
SHIFT- D: tilts camera to the right
SHIFT- E: tilts camera to the left

There’s also the ability to zoom using the keys:
Z: zooms in
X: zooms out

You can also rotate the camera around a fixed point 360 degrees by using the left and right arrow keys- a cool feature we didn’t have in the Sims 2 (the keys I’m not absolutely sure on since I didn’t take notes).

The keys used to saving camera positions are almost the same as in Sims 2 except 4 isn’t included. The save camera keys are from 5-9.

Now on to the good stuff that’s probably not in the booklet included with the game that you’re too lazy to read. Find the camera file. I don’t know where it is, they didn’t have it in the game when we were at the camp and we had to add and link to it later. At that time it was called videocamera.ini but it might be called something else now. If you know where it is in Sims 2, I have no doubt you’ll easily find it in Sims 3. I messed with a lot of the numbers a bit when I was at camp but didn’t take thorough notes. The descriptions are pretty self explanatory so don’t be afraid to play around with the numbers to test the camera (make sure you keep a backup copy!).

Controlling camera speed can be easily varied by changing the Move numbers. You can adjust these numbers from and to an infinite range. But just to give you some guidelines, you’ll want to use .1 or higher for very slow moving close-up shots and 50 to higher to faster moving wide-angle shots.

Move = # – changes the camera speed for horizontal movement
MoveVertical = # – changes the camera speed for vertical movement

The most important and coolest feature though is the LerpDuration. What this number will do is control the amount of time you go from one saved camera position to another. For example:

LerpDuration = 10 – this means that it will take 10 seconds from the camera to move from one saved position to another. How cool is that?

Other things you’ll notice is the camera moves from one save position to another very smoothly without as much lag (which, if I remember correctly, you can actually edit in that file). Same as Sims 2, you’ll be able to save the camera file while the game is open and have it take effect without restarting.

Lastly, for those of you who have the game, we machinima directors asked for certain features that were missing in the game. I don’t remember the whole list (it was like 10 things) but please let me know if they included the following:
-some sort of set hour cheat
-fluidity of animations like if you string 2 animations together, they don’t go into default stand mode for a split second between animations. Same with when you make them change direction while walking.
-ability to grab Sims when you are in the neighborhood with the move objects cheat
-ability to get rid of sleeping zzz’s, musical notes/halo effects on instruments, progress bar
-some sort of way to extract and queue animations (yes, it was a stretch but I asked them for that but have little hope)

Yeah I agree with you, Judy.
No Sims 3 for me untill some one get’s a chance to hack it, wich won’t be me because I’m retarted when it comes down to computer. I’ll just pray for a miracle. But hounestly, I really don’t like the way the sims in Sims 3 look. They’re just plain ugly. I have high standarts.

that is as shining a Sims 3 endorsement if I have ever heard one! :)

Yes! I am not the only one

The game is just a disappointment, I have read the new features and to me it’s just a Sims 2.5 , it’s all improvements from the Sims 2, excluding the neighborhood system. Hopefully, hopefully, Sims 2 machinima will not die out quickly. *fingers crossed*

Thanks very much for the camera tips. Just a quick hack/mod search on Sims3 shows that the process is well on it’s way even though the game was only released 2 days ago (in the USA).

I so agree with you Judy. I have to addmit I got the game. But I didn’t pay for it a friend of mine gave it to me. I tried it out and There are some thing I like and dislikes from the game. I do like the way the sims look but for some reason the made is kinda of werid to me. It just looks not very clean. But a pro is that I love that you can mess with hair color and clothes and all that. But as for feeling. With no CC and hacks it’s just not there. I still prefer sims 2 to film perhaps some cc and hacks will be out soon.

Im not a machinama creator or anything, but all these comments are starting to scare me about the sims 3! I havn’t installed it yet, but will it be fine for a person who doesn’t create machinama or will it be “missing something” and “disappointing” ?

ANR21, I am sure the game will be for you ;)

The reason movie makers are so picky is because we are used to trying to have an advanced way of playing to make machinima, so to us small things can upset us, just because we’re so used to having a modified sims, rather than a default one. I think you’d be fine if you’re just planning to play the game.

Well, I did purchase the Sims 3. For the most part, I love it. But the whole story progression is suckish. See, I left one family to activate another family, came back in 3 sims days and the original family has aged 10 days or more. WTF?!? And the check box to turn story progression off doesn’t work properly. I’m just waiting for a decent fix/patch.

Great article Judy, the duration thing is very pro, John, I don’t think the Sims 2 will die out that quickly, especially if quality films are produced from it. I have ordered the game and will be taking advantage of the scenery for chroma keying, however the full use of it…nah.

you are right decorgal .. TS3 is not rich for movie making right now .. may be in the future, but right now I can’t imagine making a movie without all those hacks and CC that we have in TS2

Movie makers definitely don’t see the game the same way as game players so game players should never use our opinions to judge the game.

I don’t think it’s fair to characterize the Sims team at EA as chimps. I’ve met most of them and they are very passionate and dedicated to the game. I understand your frustrations though- I share many of them but you have to keep in mind that the movie making feature is not important to them because it’s only a secondary feature. Their main concern is the game play aspect since movie makers are such a small population in comparison. I’m just glad they gave us the tools we did get for movie making, largely in part thanks to Todd who is a movie maker and works there and shares the same frustrations. He fought hard for these tools and I appreciate him and the Sims team for listening. Honestly, if you’re that unhappy with Sims for machinima, you should move onto some other platform.

For those of you worried about Sims movie making dying out- I don’t think it’s a concern for me. The question you have to ask is, are you interested in SIMS movies or are you interested in machinima that may use the Sims or other platforms. I fall into the latter group and frankly aren’t going to use Sims 3 just because it’s new. I don’t want to see Sims 3 movies just because that’s new too. I’m interested in creating and viewing GOOD machinima, Sims or otherwise and it’s more about using platforms that meet my needs than anything else. Sims 2 fills those needs at this point, Sims 3 doesn’t and probably won’t for a while. Besides, if 500 people made a lot of bad Sims 3 movies and only 10 people made great Sims 2 movies, to which group would you rather belong? I, for one, would undoubtedly choose the second and if that makes me passé or part of a dying breed then so be it.

Err… you might want to cut down on your sugar intake. Sorry I didn’t read your comment carefully enough. Then let me revise, I don’t agree that the head person is a chimp. And, uhm, I’ve played Sims 3. I know what the gameplay is like. I’m not really looking for advice on whether or not I should get it. ;)

BTW, my username is Decorgal, not DecorGal.

Hello! I don’t blame you not wanting to deal with a new game and no hacks for movie making. Screw that! Been there, done that, and not doing it again. Not that it wasn’t worth it before when we were learning the game, but now, even though Sims3 is new, its not worth re-doing that. However, I do have the game and the gameplay is interesting the say the least. Overall thumbs up for me. (Where are the freakin’ apartments though?) I do look forward to some really smart people out there working on hacks so you guys can make some good sims3 stuff. It’s not hard to think of good stuff to make, but the task behind it without proper hacks squashes those thoughts fairly quickly. It would be nice if EA did release a movie making expansion or addon that gave people access to the animations and custom animations and well…whatever tools you guys have to work with in Sims 2.

Anyway, see you around :)

Hey. I found the camera files, and I was trying to edit it, but it wont let me. I can change the file, but I can’t save it… Well not in the original location. Is there somewhere where I should save the new videocamera file, or is there a way to save it in the original location?

Tobias, if you are in vista you may have to change the security permissions to edit them – or at least that is what I did to make it work. Right click on the file and click properties. Select the security tab and then click edit. Select your user name from the box on the top. Then on the bottom portion of the screen, select the check box allowing you full control. Hit OK and you should be able to edit the file.

Raaaah, those camera controls are yummy! Especially the Twilight zone tilting part, I’ve always wanted to do that in sims 2!
Re effects: since I don’t have the game, I’m only basing my answer on the number of no “visual effects” hacks already available at MTS, but I’m guessing no…

I actually went and brought the game, since I stopped playing the game several years ago for what it was meant to be played, so I’m actually playing the game rather than doing movies with it and I may leave The Sims 2 for movie making now. Overall the game is truly remarkable, I think its definitely worth it for those who are just looking to play the game rather than make movies, certainly this game is not ready or hacked enough yet to the extent to make great movies with voiceovers and etc… And from what I’ve heard, the code is a lot harder to crack in this game, and it is not as malleable as The Sims 2 was unfortunately… But in the meantime, it certainly serves as great to play though, if only EA would release the SDK for the game… Untill then, patience is a virtue! :)

I must also add that the game actually serves really well for Chroma Keying as Trendy mentioned, and I actually plan to use it for Chroma Keying, the beach looks extraordinary, and the neighborhood itself serves as a really unique Chroma Keying Tool, so for now, good chroma keyers can make good use of this game for its scenery..

I did think about buying it just for the gameplay until I played it at EA. I found the gameplay nearly identical to Sims 2 and with all the recycled socials, didn’t see much anything new or find it interesting. I have to agree with John that this is more like Sims 2.5 than 3. I think I’d be more into it if they had really upped the graphics like you see in some video games. That’s what I was really hoping for.

RSS feed for comments on this post.