By Tom Green
From start to finish, The Sims 4 job was an absolute blast. As creative director/director, I found our biggest obstacle to overcome was in pitching when we had to determine the best way to express the characters’ vast array of emotions. As the characters in The Sims 4 have the widest range of emotions compared to any previous Sims game, we were conflicted whether to utilize motion capture or traditional third character animation. Through further development of the pitch, we came to the conclusion that traditional third character animation was the way to go because it allowed us to exaggerate the Sims’ playful emotions more than motion capture would have allowed.
Initial story boards drawn by Scott Benefiel and designs by Lucy Kim
Initial story boards drawn by Scott Benefiel and designs by Steph Corda
Initial story boards drawn by Scott Benefiel
My initial frames created for the Sims 4 pitch that were passed on for more a simplified approach
Icon sheet a created for the pitch that was simplified down to what is seen in the vignettes
Tip: SimCookie