What type of hair you all prefer?

[userz]

i want to make an custom hair, so i would like to take your opinion on this matter 

 

Example of an Alpha Hair by kewai-dou

 

 

 

[Guest zheur]

i want to make an custom hair, so i would like to take your opinion on this matter 

 

Example of an Alpha Hair by kewai-dou

 

 

 

 

 

Most of the time the alpha hairs can be too shinny. I prefer the maxis play doh hair or something similar  to it.

 

 

[fordirty]

IMO, I personally prefer alpha, I like the more realistic look. I find clay hair tends to be too block-ish, and when done poorly looks like a slab of misshapen plastic stuck to their heads, plus I'm not a fan of the colours clay hair tends to be made in. I really only use clay for short hairstyles, and toddlers.

 

That being said, alpha can indeed be too shiny at times, but that's really the only qualm I have with alpha. I just don't download the ones I think will look too shiny, there's plenty of quality alpha hairs out there.

 

[deathbywesker]

I use alpha hair mostly but I also use clay hair too, depending on the sim I'm making. 

[Hiroki]

It's not that I prefer the clay hair over the alpha hair, it's just that the alpha hair don't fit in Sims4. Sims4 is not photorealistic yet modders keep making photorealistic mods because it's easier for them to make an alpha hair or bake a picture for a model than to start working on their own real models and textures. And that's also true for most clothes, skintones... That's the big failure of Sims4, they decided to make a game with a cartoon look yet modders were unable to follow their style.

[fordirty]

It's not that I prefer the clay hair over the alpha hair, it's just that the alpha hair don't fit in Sims4. Sims4 is not photorealistic yet modders keep making photorealistic mods because it's easier for them to make an alpha hair or bake a picture for a model than to start working on their own real models and textures. And that's also true for most clothes, skintones... That's the big failure of Sims4, they decided to make a game with a cartoon look yet modders were unable to follow their style.

 

ESSAY AHEAD

I've never understood why people say certain mods/cc 'don't work' in the Sims. purely based on the way they look (functionality is a whole other matter, and unless the cc was poorly made, alpha hairs don't tend to break my game lol).

 

People have been modding the ever-living crap out of the Sims since its inception - TSR alone has been around for about 18 years, providing cc since Sims 1. I would also argue that the look of Sims 4 is more reminiscent of Sims 2 - which also used clay hair. However, people also made photorealistic mods for Sims 2, it was an extremely prevalent style for modders. I never saw nearly as many people take issue with the modding style for Sims 2 than I currently see for Sims 4, and I certainly don't see people calling the style of Sims 2 a failure.

 

Take a browse through the Sims 2 and Sims 4 tag on this cc blog. The modding styles are fairly similar at times. There are a few instances where I probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference if I didn't know which game was which beforehand.

SIMS 2 CC - http://sssvitlans.tumblr.com/tagged/s2cc

SIMS 4 CC - http://sssvitlans.tumblr.com/tagged/s4cc

 

I also don't know if alpha hair is easier to make than clay. I would kinda figure that clay hairs are more straightforward to make. I've never made hairstyles though, so I can't comment for sure.

 

I think it's completely fair for people to have a preference. Some people prefer the default cartoonish look, others prefer to mod the original style to fit their own tastes. I don't think this is a failing on anyone's part, though, so I don't understand why people say certain styles 'don't work' as an objective statement. I believe this is just a staple of the Sims modding community that's always been there. It all just comes down to preference.

[Hiroki]

 

It's not that I prefer the clay hair over the alpha hair, it's just that the alpha hair don't fit in Sims4. Sims4 is not photorealistic yet modders keep making photorealistic mods because it's easier for them to make an alpha hair or bake a picture for a model than to start working on their own real models and textures. And that's also true for most clothes, skintones... That's the big failure of Sims4, they decided to make a game with a cartoon look yet modders were unable to follow their style.

 

ESSAY AHEAD

I've never understood why people say certain mods/cc 'don't work' in the Sims. purely based on the way they look (functionality is a whole other matter, and unless the cc was poorly made, alpha hairs don't tend to break my game lol).

 

People have been modding the ever-living crap out of the Sims since its inception - TSR alone has been around for about 18 years, providing cc since Sims 1. I would also argue that the look of Sims 4 is more reminiscent of Sims 2 - which also used clay hair. However, people also made photorealistic mods for Sims 2, it was an extremely prevalent style for modders. I never saw nearly as many people take issue with the modding style for Sims 2 than I currently see for Sims 4, and I certainly don't see people calling the style of Sims 2 a failure.

 

Take a browse through the Sims 2 and Sims 4 tag on this cc blog. The modding styles are fairly similar at times. There are a few instances where I probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference if I didn't know which game was which beforehand.

SIMS 2 CC - http://sssvitlans.tumblr.com/tagged/s2cc

SIMS 4 CC - http://sssvitlans.tumblr.com/tagged/s4cc

 

I also don't know if alpha hair is easier to make than clay. I would kinda figure that clay hairs are more straightforward to make. I've never made hairstyles though, so I can't comment for sure.

 

I think it's completely fair for people to have a preference. Some people prefer the default cartoonish look, others prefer to mod the original style to fit their own tastes. I don't think this is a failing on anyone's part, though, so I don't understand why people say certain styles 'don't work' as an objective statement. I believe this is just a staple of the Sims modding community that's always been there. It all just comes down to preference.

 

Sims2 actually used alpha hair, not clay hair. Alpha hair = the texture is drawn on one or many transparent 2D layers, so you can see strands of hair like there:

 

 

Sims2 didn't had a cartoonish style. It was more like a photorealistic game with low details. That's why many mods could fit very well in this game with a photorealistic style.

 

Sims were very beautiful because you had detailed face and body textures. Example:

 

 

 

People try to reproduce this in Sims4 and the result is that many mods look very good on the picture but when you try the mod ingame you discover that it's complete crap because it won't correspond to the other cartoonish elements.

 

Another element is that Sims4 had almost no normal maps. In Sims4 a good model has a simple mesh, simple texture and a good normal map that corresponds to the mesh and painted details.

 

Many modders don't even bother making normal maps, especially if they used a photo to make their texture.

 

[deathbywesker]

Here are some examples of sims 3 hair that I'd really like to see in sims 4 

     

If I knew how to convert hair I would do it myself, but I don't know how to do this.

[dardev]

The best example of "clay" style hair : Max Headroom :D

I want this hair !!

   

[Mariana Soprano]

Sims 2

 

   

 

Sims 3

 

     

 

 

Sims 4

 

     

 

I m a complete new with Sims 4 (february 2017).

 

In my opinion hairstyles give the simsfaces much more individual personality and not just the hair also the eyebrows, beards. But some hairstyles change the head of the sims more or less extreme.

 

For TS2 we can find very good CC hairstyles too. With CC skins, eyes, makeup etc. TS2 sims look very nice too.

 

I like my sims as nudists (in the summer), poledancing and in course of this I like very long hairs especially for the female sims (but also for the male sims). But I do not like what the facial expression in TS4 does with the sims.

 

  

 

 

[userz]

at this point it seems that clay still the main preference.

and after doing some research comparing the workflow and result, it seems that no matter how great the alpha hair is it's still feel out of place.

in the end, everything is already decided on it's art style itself, because the sims 4 game engine's currently existing shader will never looks as good when used on photorealistic material.
from the way furniture, environment, lighting, and character modeled and designed it's hard to make it quite good chemistry without redesigning all of it.