[The Virtual ME Character Creator (or VMCC for short) is a fab bit of free software that lets you build amazingly realistic 3D avatars]
Virtual Me Website

Owned by EA, Virtual Me allows you to create avatars with "unlimited" possibilities. Creating an avatar involves using sliders for every part of the body, from weight to height and facial structure. Could EA possibly be using this engine for the TS3? The only thing its missing is a slider for skintone
The Website also shows the minimum requirements just to run an avatar creator so it should give us a clue on minimum specs for TS3.

They do look a whole lot like the previews of the sims from TS3. It looks interesting, whatever it is.

wow they look so much like the sims in sims 3, i hope they make something where we can take a pic of us or something and put it in the game. id love that idea

Yeah, i believe they did something like that in the sims 1

Looks a lot like Sims 3 models. I'm going to install it in a second and have a play.