The Sims features many very interesting problems. One of the most interesting is how characters are constructed: entirely from data objects at runtime. In the past, this meant that the size of the characters was relatively static so animations could be played on any character without the need for a runtime IK solution and a series of other cascading technical solutions.
The new Sims games isn't like that. I was so confident that I could make it happen that I told them not to design the character creation with that constraint in mind. Brains across the organization lit up, and the art team went absolutely wild with their design writeups for character creation.
Now, this tool is not that. If you want to hear about that, check out my Runtime Animation Rig Scale and Offset project. What this tool does is allow an animator that is testing animation to make sure that their work looks okay on characters that have already been defined. Let's dig in a little.
Critical to the tool's functionality is that it can be used inside of our very customized, very cloud-based video game. Most of our content is being pulled down upon request from asset bundles, which means that, while we can technically define how characters should look, we have to have a system build them for us if we actually want to see them. Bob wears these sneakers, those jeans, and this shirt, has this body type and that beard. It's all numbers in a serialized text asset, not a 3D mesh with textures.
So I've co-opted that system into an editor tool that allows an animator to look at animations on characters in-game, rather than on our lovely (but default) template character rig in Maya.
The goal was to have the ability to do everything you could do to an animation in Maya, other than keyframe it, which is actually possible if you have the Animation window open alongside the tool.
Each character is discrete, but it is possible to control them all simultaneously.
Characters can be placed in any scene that functions in the actual application, meaning animations can be tested in context or in isolation, depending on the artist's needs.
Animations can be swapped out at will without exiting play mode, and the speed of playback and transition behavior of each character can be changed independently.
Finally, you may have noticed that there is another tab in the tool that is not covered in the video. First of all: Well spotted. Second, that is an additional feature that is dependent on the functionality we have just discussed. You can find that tool here: it's called the Sim Portrait Tool.
