Discussion: Of Basegame Premade Sims and Face Templates

[strangetomato]

I was involved in some discussion on Skell's Tumblr recently (here, here, here, and here) about some of the basegame premade sims and which face templates they were based on. Some of them seem fairly obvious, while others are much harder to pin down. Inspired by this conversation, I've been taking them into Bodyshop (which I've done a little before, and was often surprised by my findings) to get a little more scientific (results are here, here, and here), and I'd love to open this up to more discussion and analysis with a wider audience.

Here are my results so far:


Beau Broke - Face 1 and 28 (altered) ???
Brandi Broke  - Face 1 (altered)
Dustin Broke - Face 13 and ???

Jennifer Burb - Face 2 (altered)
John Burb - Face 2 (unaltered)
Lucy Burb - Face 2 (altered - jawline only)

Dina Caliente - Face 2 and 15 (brow and forehead) (altered) ???
Nina Caliente - Face 3 and 15 (altered) ???

Darren Dreamer - Face 2 and ??? (altered?) ???
Dirk Dreamer - Face 2 and ??? (altered?) ???

Alexander Goth - Face 18 (slightly altered - chin/neck only)
Cassandra Goth - Face 17 (altered)
Mortimer Goth - Face 2 (altered)

Don Lothario - Face 2 (altered)

Coral Oldie - Face 13 (altered)
Herb Oldie - Face 2 (unaltered)

Angela Pleasant - Face 14 and 16 (altered) ???
Daniel Pleasant - Face 2 and 9 and ??? (eyes/brow) (altered?) ???
Lilith Pleasant - Face 14 and 16 (altered) ???
Mary-Sue Pleasant - Face 8 and lips from ??? (altered?)

Pleasantview Bella Goth - Face 2 (altered)


Circe Beaker - Face 28 and ??? (altered) ???
Loki Beaker - Face 12 (heavily altered) ???
Nervous Subject - Face 1 and 17 (heavily altered) ???

Lazlo Curious - Face 8 (altered)
Pascal Curious - Face 8 (altered)
Vidcund Curious - Face 14, 15 and ??? (altered) ???

Buck Grunt - Face 2 and 18 (altered) ???
Buzz Grunt - Face 1 and 17 (altered - eyes only) ???
Ripp Grunt - Face 1 (altered)
Tank Grunt - Face 2 and 17 (altered) ???

Ajay Loner - Face 1 (altered)

Chloe Singles - Face 2 (altered)
Erin Singles - Face 1 (altered)
Kristin Singles - Face 3 (altered)
Lola Singles - Face 2 (altered)

Jenny Smith - Face 2 (altered)
Jill Smith - Face 2 (altered)
Johnny Smith - Face 14 and 15 (altered) ???
P.T. No. 9 Smith - ??? (really, really not sure about this one, for obvious reasons)

Ophelia Nigmos - Face 28 (altered - brows only)
Olive Specter - Face 1 and 14 (altered) ???

Strangetown Bella Goth - Face 1 (altered)


Capps - didn't check them yet

Montys - didn't check them yet

Bottom Summerdream - Face 13 (nose) and 27 (unaltered)
Oberon Summerdream - Face 5 (nose) and 27 (altered?) ???
Puck Summerdream - Face 27 (unaltered)
Titania Summerdream - Face 27 (altered)


I will edit this as I get more/better information.

I've only included playable premade sims from the basegame. The ones with ??? next to them are once I remain a little unsure about in one way or another. I also welcome disagreement about the ones without any ??? next to them, if you have evidence or theories (which we can test) of a better match. Please dig in and do some Bodyshop work of your own (you can download them all here at at maxis_taste) to share here or just react and discuss however you like. I love talking about face templates. This stuff has always been really fascinating to me.

I'm thinking of maybe making some gifs out of my Bodyshop shots to include here when I get a chance. Flipping back and forth between the templates in Bodyshop really helps to illustrate some of the similarities and differences that are not as easy to see when comparing two images side by side.

Also, I'm still getting over the fact that I've only just realized that Ripp was based on face 1 (more on that here and here). How could I not see it before? Someone please tell me. How many times have I looked at his face? Thousands? Millions? Haha!

Comments

[meetme2theriver.livejournal.com]

Bella Goth (Pleasantview) is a Face 2 as well, but with altered eyes.

This is a really interesting little scientific project. :)

[skellington7d.livejournal.com]

Gender-flipping can help you spot the features, since the male features are usually more extreme. If it looks the same flipped both ways, then you know it's the same feature.

I thought Pascal and Lazlo are the male version of the Mary Sue face? (Sometimes mysterious templates show up in bodyshop so the numbers might be one off)

I think Nina still might have different lips, since I don't think the face 15 ones could be shrunk that far without leaving little lines at the edges. Pinching in and thinning out the face 2 lips looks close to hers, for both males and females. And I have no idea how to get her jaw; I think you'd have to edit lots of things with the jaw and face shape.

I'm impressed by how not face 2 Dina looks (or any template really). With most of the others it's really obvious flipping back and forth, but she doesn't have a feature that isn't changed.

Heh I remember thinking "Wait, isn't Ripp face 1?" when you've talked about it before, but then I figured you must have been thinking of him when you talked about trying to make those face 1 dudes look manlier. I must have missed you wondering about his template.

[simsforaranya.livejournal.com]

This is FASCINATING. I'm notoriously bad at recognizing face templates (and even which parent a kid looks like), but I can see where my old love of Face 2 came from. I never really liked Face 1, but seeing which premades were my favorites...an interestingly high number are Face 2s.

[kin-thalas.livejournal.com]

Nice work! I was never curious about the faces, but figured out the Curii and Nervous' faces one day by accident.

Fun fact: it was yesterday I figured out that male face 1 is Ripp's, because I used the female face 1 for a Sim and then turned them into a male for some reason and gave them the long hair.
Then I thought: "he looks ALOT like Ripp" XD

[sophie10.livejournal.com]

I'm terrible at recognising face templates, it wasn't until someone pointed out that the Burbs where all face 2 that I saw it. It does bug me that many of the pre-mades are only very slightly altered face templates, particularly in the case of Cassandra and Alexander Goth. It just strikes me as lazy especially when there is a built in feature for making children from two sims. I like that the pre-mades from later Eps are much more interesting looking, faces like Chasity Gere and the AF Ramirez (her name escapes me).

[nicthesim0.livejournal.com]

If everyone took out their cc and df-repl's you would see that between different basegame discs the sims have minor differences. I have 3 copies of the basegame (dvd, dd, and 4-disc original) and I first noticed it when my Tank Grunts all age transitioned. They had the same general face with minor differences, i.e. one had less severely back-tilted eyes and thinner lips, while another had larger eyes (slightly)and fuller, less curved lips. The last one looked similar to both having the soft eyes of the later with the thin lips of the former.

[jänis policy (from livejournal.com)]

I second calling the faces by their textual names. I do wonder what some of the 3 character abbreviations expand to though. Is 'ara' Arabic, and 'eng' – English?

A little rant follows.

It disappoints me that there is no consistency whatsoever between faces. Neither pretty faces inhabit a particular neighborhood, nor families have either pretty or ugly faces, nor similar ones. Nobody notices that a person has a pretty face. They effectively have no face at all, because it has no effect. Web forums attempt to collect these characteristics of people to describe them, when there is nothing to describe.

How is that both pure English (Cassandra) and almost pure Arabic (Alexander) were born to the same parents? And how is that Angela/Lilith have mostly sharp-nose faces, but were born to a rounded Japanese looking Mary-Sue. There was so much they could have told with such discrepancies, like one being an out of marriage child. But since these aren't exceptions but rather the rules, no such stories fit.

Downtownies were well made, but could also have some more stories behind them. And they should have had _names_ to those faces. The, how do you call it, Teen-with-the-life-jacket and Rose Miller clearly had 'base' faces. But Teen's 'base' face exploded into a birds-nose-down face when he grew old into an adult. That could have a supporting story, except that it's really a plain random bug.

Some of those are actually wrong.

[csyde65.livejournal.com]

A lot of these are actually wrong. Check out my own page on information about the faces of many pre-made base game Sims [http://csydes.wikia.com/wiki/Sims_2_-_Notable_Pre-Made_Sim_Face_Templates here].