So, I've been wondering: what do you guys think about realistic sims?

Do you guys like them because it makes your game seem more realisitc?

Do you guys hate them because it makes them look tacky?

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I prefer Maxis-match, because from what I've seen, most "realistic" Sims tend to be chockful of photoskinned CC. Though, I have seen some nice realistic Sims. I personally play with Maxis-match, though. It looks better in my eyes, at least.

Plus, I mean... I'm playing a "utopia"-esque neighborhood, so I don't think realism is my goal here, anyways.

I don't "hate" realistic sims. What I hate is the overly shiny and creepily detailed skin, floating hair and clothes which doesn't seem to fit with the fabric of other Maxis stuff, and that painted on look. Oh, and the ridiculous body morph some clothes give

I only download Maxis-match hair. My Downloads folder is filled with 3t2 conversions. The only non Maxis match hair I have is from Nouk.

Clothes are a different story. I do have some painted on stuff but that's pretty much inevitable. I really dislike the outfits that give female sims large breast and huge hips. And the ones that make the men look too skinny.

So.. I'm not a fan of realistic sims but I don't dislike them.

"Realistic" sims all look alike to me and "realistic" eyes in particular creep me out. Cartoon faces all the way so I can tell them apart and stay out of that uncanny valley!

I prefer realistic. Maxis-match interrupts the illusion for me.

+1 to everything you said.

Would this be a rough comparison of maxis match vs realistic?



Because if so I find charm in both but would rather play sims that look more like the right picture. However because my neighborhood has been played so long, there are both looks swimming around my neighborhood for a hybrid maxis-realistic style.

The thing is, sims are too skinny in the game. Really, the fatness isn't nicely done either. On males atleast, where it maintains the skinny legs and arms but makes them have a beer belly.
Fat women in TS2 is what in real world we call "curvy," but healthy in terms of body fat. Not saying that the Normal and Fit bodies in TS2 are wrong, but that's not what your average, healthy person looks like.
Don't get me wrong, thin people can be healthy too, I'm 6ft (182 cm) tall and weigh 125 pounds (56 kg) and I'm healthy.
But the thing is, the realistic skins make sims look a little... TOO thin :/ This is something I like a bit more about The Sims 3, there sims that have a "normal" body don't look starved.

My mom was watching me make sims in the sims 2 a week ago. I showed her the fat morph.

She was like "No, that's normal." I told her that this is how Maxis interprets fat in TS2 and showed her the normal morph. She said "That's not normal." I told her that she doesn't even want to see the fit morph.

I don't even want to know what she would have said if I showed her some of the awful body shapes out there (especially around TSR) with 2-inch waists and DDDs and huge hips... *shudders*

I think both styles can look good, I prefer maxis match simply because I don't use any custom skin/eyes and MM clothes look better on my sims because of that. I think realistic sims and even some MM sims on tumblr look really good, I don't have sims like those in my game because I like playing the game simple, without having to worry about putting masks/freckles/spots on the sims in my game, also because they aren't geneticized, and I wouldn't know which of those I would have to put on their offspring.

And this is why I love how diverse play styles can be for this game because I LOVE all the freckle/face/nose masks and creating a variety of looks with those kinds of options (not that you can't get a variety of looks with vanilla material), and it's fun for me to remember to add those details to offspring to get similar looks!

My game is almost totally maxis match. I try to stick to Remi'd hair textures (like those selenaq13 makes) but I will resort to other textures if necessary. I do stick religiously to maxis's colors (which is a pain in the butt when making real people but perfect for my maxis match game otherwise.) What I don't like is a lot of these "pooklet" textures that look like a shampoo commercial on steroids. However, Skysims's original textures (without retexturing) are the absolute worst I've ever seen! I don't stick to maxis match for mesh shapes though, as long as the hair isn't flying off the head like an anime character on crack!

There are many realistic and even maxis-match skins I like. However, I don't like their versions of S3 because they are too dark and look terrible on sims like the Caliente sisters. So I stick to a default skin that just puts a Louis face mask on maxis' default skins (can't remember name or creator at the moment.)

I like the look of some realistic eyes themselves. However, the shadowy sclera creeps me out. It looks like the sims are dark and tired and have no soul or personality. I use a maxis match default for my eyes and to add on, I use all of JackieGoOutside's extensions to the maxis set. I thought about trying other defaults but I want everything to match, and I can't remove Jackie's geneticized eyes for the sake of avoiding corruption.

I've already went into enough detail about my hatred for photoskinned clothes, so I think I am done for now.

</close soapbox>

Maxis-match all the way... even better, no cc skins/eyes!
I like my sims to look like sims, not dolls or real people...

I only use default skin and eyes. The Maxis ones were pretty tragic IMO (especially the eyes). Though the skin I use is a bit shiny, but not too much.

I have a problem with deciding what features to add to sims born in game, I rather have the game decide them all by itself. I think I should ease on that a little bit and at least play with some spots and freckles.

It's funny how I used to use crappy TSR photoskinned everything and ultra-realistic hair, skin, and eyes back in my noob days and even as recent as a couple years ago. I guess my tastes did a total 180.

I like both. Sometimes I play maxis-match, sometimes I play realistic. Though I guess my idea of realistic would be more semi-realistic because my sims usually wear quite maxis-match style clothing, though I do have some nice realistic clothing that isn't photoskinned. When people think realistic a lot of people automatically think 'photoskinned clothing and get put off, but I've recently made a tumblr and some stuff on there is beautiful. I downloaded some cat tights from a tumblr page and was so impressed that I actually bought the same tights irl.

I think it depends a lot on the types of CC you have to accompany your Sims! Should somebody have a lot of "realistic" furnishings, perhaps those of high detail, then I think realistic Sims look a lot more suitable in their surroundings.

I personally try to keep to a lot of Maxis-match furnishings and build mode content, although I do have a few that skew somewhat to the more "realistic" approach! However for myself, I prefer Maxis-match Sims, as I might be one of the few who actually likes some (not all, sorry Komei Tellerman) of the generated Maxis characters. :3

I was exactly the same back when I was little.
Like literally circa 2005-07 when TS2 was gaining popularity and I was around 8 years old :D
I used to download literally everything I saw. I don't even know where
Then came my hiatus when I only played the Sims 3 and this year, 2015, I started playing TS2 again.
Now my taste has completely changed.

I believe there is a maxis-matchy skin set that has genetic freckles/spots out there. You could use that and let your game decide if you didn't want to manually put freckles on sims.

I don't think painted-on clothes are inevitable with the wealth of CC that's out there, unless you want to hang onto your old CC. I still have a lot of formal wear from All About Style because I think it's photoskinning done well and I find it funny to see my sims in red carpet fashion. I also have some casual clothes from All About Style and LianaSims because they have a mid-2000s boho-chic style that you can't really get these days.

I try to find a middle ground between MM and realistic. I use skins that are semi-realistic, realistic, and MM. With the too-realistic skins I add nosemasks and full-coverage blush to tone down the shinyness or pores, and with the too matte skins I add some shine and other face detail stuff. I use eyes where the iris size and texture is realistic, but the sclera is bright and animates well like MM. I use Pooklet's V3 textures when they're available for a hair because they're less shiny than previous incarnations. There are some MM hair textures that I like but I don't like MM colors and they clash with the wide variety of skintones that I use. If Simgaroop's textures in Pooklet's colors were a big thing I would be all over that, but it's not and I can't be bothered to retexture all my own hair.

My decorating is an afterthought compared to making sims, so the best I can do is make things colorful and dollhouse-like. My objects folder is all over the place wrt MM vs. realistic so I guess both my sims and their surroundings are semi-realistic and my game's aesthetic is cohesive in an eclectic way.

I think what puts me off to realism is that the surroundings of my sims are so cartoony that realism is out of place. Like the anime Dinosaur King that used to be on 4Kids whose creators apparently thought it wasn't tacky at all to mix anime people with 3D realistic CGI dinosaurs.

Funny thing is that I loved that show---at the same time I liked realism in TS2. I guess as a kid I had the Easily Impressed trait *shot for refrencing TS3*

I prefer MM. I have the set of skins that are shades inbetween Maxis (I think they have food names???) and the eyes with all of the nature sounding names (and the defaults). I can't remember who made them, but credits!

Clothing wise, maxis match is what I default to.

The only thing that bothers me more than creepy skins is the shiny floating hair. I will never understand how people are able to tolerate it. The minute I find one in CAS, it gets thrown in the garbage bin.

True. This is why I prefer Maxis hair over custom hair, custom hair breaks and clips through clothes and doesn't wave in wind.