How We Sim our Sims
Hey everyone! I’m Jeremy Dale and I’m an Animator here at Maxis. It’s my job to make all the little Sims feel at home. Or at least act like they’re feeling at home. Or maybe if they don’t like their home, make them act like they don’t like their home. Okay, the important thing is I make sure that what the Sims are doing makes sense and is relevant.
There is a tremendous amount of data being transmitted under the hood with the GlassBox engine. My job is to put a human face on these transactions, and make them entertaining. From the lowly surveyors that you saw preparing for construction in Lead Designer Stone Librande’s gameplay strategy video, to the chaos of a foiled bank robbery shootout, I utilize our vignette system to expose the simulation to the player using Sims rather than pie charts.
As you may have read in Engineer Robert Perry’s previous blog post about physics, “what you see is what we Sim” is one of the core driving philosophies on SimCity In my case, it’s more “when you see your Sims, you’re seeing your Sims’ simulation.” It’s not enough to make a city feel alive. It has to be alive. If you see a Sim wearing scrubs walking down the street, that’s not some random “extra,” that’s a nurse heading home from a shift at the hospital.
When Sims are at home, what do they do? What do Sims do when they’re shopping at a boutique? How can I best leverage an opportunity to show what it looks like when workers at a warehouse are on break? To answer these questions, I need to look at the data in the simulation and find out how many kids are present at a residence, how many workers are in a commercial building, or how many executives a manufacturing operation might support. In this way, I can surprise an observant player with a fact-at-a-glance while wandering around the city as I have surprised myself when I saw an injured Sim standing in front of his home, hoping an ambulance might arrive to speed him away to recovery. As any good mayor would, I quickly built a clinic nearby, and he was quickly retrieved and cared for.
You might see some shabby looking characters huddled around the entrance of a park, which will prompt you to check the deeper data on hand to see the extent of your homeless population. Seeing a mob of Sims outside city hall might cause you to inspect your tax rates. If there are large groups of Sims gathered around bus stops for an extended period of time, you will know that you should add more busses to your transportation network.
Exposing the simulation with Sims; that’s just part of what I do on the team. There’s still a lot to do, and I’m going to pack in as much narrative as I can before we’re done.
Comments
Sweet. Cant wait to see more
Sweet. Cant wait to see more gameplay video's of this in action.
Yes, we need more gameplay
Yes, we need more gameplay video's..... Wait a minute, no, ¡we need the game!
So detailed! You guys really
So detailed! You guys really put much in this game, and I'm thrilled to see it all when March arrives!
Looks cool.
Looks cool.
This game is certainly
This game is certainly relying on actions of cause and effect to get us to "see" what's going on in the city. Although I'm pretty sure someone will come up with some better explanations than mine..
I mean, cars park in driveways and parking lots, not just "move" and "disappear" when they reach their stops. Garbage piles up on a lot and doesn't just magically "appear" in the street. Everything that this game shows us actually happens in a programing sense....
How do they react, when they
How do they react, when they find out, that you just broke down their home or company?
This game has really touched
This game has really touched on the details that Sim City fans want to see. Beautiful work Jeremy.
I have already told all my
I have already told all my clan members (CKA) about this great new Sim City. We all look forward to playing the game on multiplayer when it comes out... Or in Beta (hint hint).
Oh this blog makes me so prod
Oh this blog makes me so prod to even be associated with the game as no more than a regular player!
btw, we sure could use a new
btw, we sure could use a new video in the next update.
This ladies and gentlemen is
This ladies and gentlemen is going to be sweet. Haters of this game can shove it.
so innovative and
so innovative and revolutionary, you can feel the passion from the sim city team, we really should have videos and small demonstrations that these articles talk about!
it kills me to read!! so
it kills me to read!! so teasing, my imagination is playing it right now! :D
Words just wouldn't do
Words just wouldn't do justice to how anxious I am for this game. I still to this day play SimCity4 and after so many years of no sequel news you start to lose hope. After a lot of years, I had completely written off hopes of ever getting another SimCity but was still quite content playing SimCity4. When news of this game broke I was one beat away from a heart attack... now I sit hitting refresh on my browser and concentrating real hard in hopes that the release date will change to tomorrow. Your killing me... I can't wait any longer... (*throws money at monitor*) ... gimme, gimme, gimme!!
More on topic: Love what your doing Jeremy, I was very scared that my baby was going to be destroyed but you guys are doing an amazing job. You captured the essence of what SimCity is and expanded it to a more visual and interactive view. I will probably still miss my graphs and charts and hours of analyzing but in the next breathe ... I can't wait to waste hours following people around and scanning the city for actual visual issues and problems.
Keep up the good work!
Fantastic information. Really
Fantastic information. Really looking forward to play this game.
Greetings SimCityNet,
http://www.simcitynet.nl
I am not a hater of Simcity,
I am not a hater of Simcity, but the cutting of terraforming and 2x2 km "cities" makes me not happy. if just the godmode of sc4 just was cut, and you still were avaible to terraform (for money) i would be happy. I will probably not buy the game.
true.. the city size is the
true.. the city size is the only thing preventing me from not pre ordering the game.. otherwise the game is awesome!
I'll wait till some mods for increasing city sizes come out and then will I buy the game.
can`t wait to play the game.
can`t wait to play the game. nice blog :)
looking forward to the game..
looking forward to the game...Some of my fondest memories as a child were playing SimCity in the 80s..cant wait!!!
it need to have poor middle
it need to have poor middle class and rich taxes to be able to adjust etch tax bracket with the industrial residential comical taxes
This sounds like they are
This sounds like they are completely expanding the sim city experience to more real-world city problems.
This game looks totally
This game looks totally insane :) can't wait till it comes out!!!
I was hoping for the multi
I was hoping for the multi play region
Sounds too good to be true!
Sounds too good to be true! Can't wait now!!!
This game sounds so awesome!!
This game sounds so awesome!! This is the first game I wanna buy on day 1 of it's release!
2013 IS GONNA BE EPIC!
The games looks so good
The games looks so good february seems so far away... I hope I will not have to buy the top of art PC to be able to play...
Now the question:
Say you want to manage your town the hard way like a dictatorship... is there a way to send troops on the people? Is there a way to prevent people from going in or out of your town even if a road exist? is it possible have a curfew?
a city wide curfew is an
a city wide curfew is an awesome idea!!
But now I'll feel bad when I
But now I'll feel bad when I inevitably get round to destroying their homes in the glorious name of landfills!
IS there a way to send the
IS there a way to send the troops against your citizen if you want to manage your city the hard way?
I suggest that the sims
I suggest that the sims walking on the sidewalks/streets should sometimes be seen riding smaller vehicles like scooters,bikes,moped,etc.
Turkey today era "Network
Turkey today era "Network reported that at least three Kurdish Workers' North Face Jackets On Sale Party militants on the 1st night Elazig province in eastern Turkey and Bingol province, security forces shot dead.
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