Posing and Scene Compositions: The Question thread

[simtopi]

Behind the scenes on Chapter 29 (I don't take many of these). It looks like amochan8878 's Tavin is asking Adrian to dance.  Doesn't look very threatening, but when all is said and done, he just wants to eat his brains. :p (and no I haven't been keeping up with the dorm landscaping!)

 

I've mentioned in some past comment threads that I would do a Q&A about my posing and scene compositions because there seemed to be some interest in how I compose some of my shots and getting my sims looking the way I do. Unfortunately, I'm really bad at getting any behind-the-scenes shots as I actually pose a chapter, so I figure this is the next best way for those who might be curious.



Before I go on, I will say that my posing isn't overly complicated. I don't download every pose box in existence and most of my posing are Maxis animations.  I do spend a lot of time looking through the animations for the right frame though. It can be tedious but its rewarding for me (and I guess for the readers ;) ) when the scene comes together. Notice I do cheat quite a bit using camera angles.

Secondly, please do read, if you haven't already, Veron_Asher's tutorials about posing. I cannot recommend these tutorials enough. She goes in depth (with pictures too!) on how to use game animations and a few hacks to get great poses for your scenes. She also gets into overlay animations which in my opinion is huge. If I did an animation tutorial, I'd pretty much be repeating everything there, so I'm not going to. Instead I'll insist you follow the link.


And here's how the above shot looks finally published:

Please go ahead and ask me anything you like about posing and scene composition, for example how I set up a particular picture, and I'll do my best to help you out by recreating the scene step by step with screenshots, including the hacks, mods and cheats that I use.

Questions will be screened and answers posted in another post. Anonymous questions are welcome (I don't do IP screening, so no worries for your privacy). If no one asks, that's totally cool, I'll work on chapter 34 instead. :D

Comments

[starling-1.livejournal.com]

I've always found the overlays tricky and difficult, but they do provide some spectacular shots. One of the problems that really drives me crazy is line of sight: trying to ensure that they are actually looking where I want them to look instead of staring off over somebody's shoulder. The 'look at player' hack is pretty good but limited.

[simtopi]

Oh I totally agree about line of sight. It bugs me too. I let some screens get away with it because it's sort of cartoony by nature, but I do find it important for characters to need to at least look like they're looking at their target. It can tell a lot of the story.

I avoid overlay animations whenever I can because you're right it's kind of difficult to use and figure out, but for me the end result is what matters so I will fight those damn sims until they do what I tell them to do. LOL.