I’ve heard the sentiment uttered for a couple years now - and if I’m honest, a couple years ago, it wouldn’t have been all that outrageous for the statement to emerge from my own lips - that all characters from The Sims 2 look alike.

And you know what? I know where they’re coming from. Even with a program as versatile as Poser, there are some generally identifiable traits, sometimes hard to quantify, that a keen eye can spot and say, A-ha! Poser! The same can be true for The Sims 2. If you stick to the stuff they give you out of the box, or rely on the game’s own internal “randomizer”… you’re going to end up with characters that do seem to share the same basic bone structure and set of skin tones.

But enter the world of user-designed custom content… color outside the lines a bit… and everything changes. The variety of faces which can emerge from The Sims 2 when custom content is employed is nothing short of stunning.

The above characters were submitted over a period of one week by members of one forum, The Hangout. Thanks for your help with this, fellow Hangout-ers!

A plethora of possibilities. And the same goes for Poser. When artists get their hands on it, the variety of looks available are remarkable. What’s most impressive is that in some ways, The Sims 2 is actually a more powerful, easier-to-use character designer than even Poser! True, Poser has some strengths as an independent platform that a mere game cannot hold a candle to… higher poly counts, clothing physics, import/export, high quality rendering… But in terms of being able to efficiently craft good-looking characters of all shapes and sizes, TS2’s Body Shop (when custom content is employed) is, I believe, the second most powerful character creation tool ever bundled with a game (the first being Second Life’s), and competitive in many ways with some independent platforms when talking about the human body. And among those who have never used it, Body Shop is one of the most underrated and underestimated machinima tools in existence.

Perhaps it’s never been the cut of their jib that has been the dead giveaway when identifying characters crafted in a particular environment. I’d argue that, if anything, it’s the animations - in The Sims 2 and in Poser - which make evident the environment used. It is possible in either environment to make use of custom animations, though neither is a cakewalk.

Custom Animations in Poser: http://www.3dlinks.com/motionbuilder-poser.cfm
Custom Animations in The Sims 2: http://www.jd-movies.com/animtutorial.php

If you’d like to download the Wall Of Sims above, there are a couple resolutions available:

• http://z-studios.com/images/sims/UniqueSims_2400×1600.jpg
• http://z-studios.com/images/sims/UniqueSims_1200×800.jpg