No - and thank you for reminding me. Changing eyebrow color would be great. Add that to my feedback list ;-) And thanks for the feedback on CD. I did it from memory on a whim, not sure how accurate she is but it was fun. The hairstyle inspired it
![Happy [:)]](/Emoticons/happy.gif)
Can you change brow color in Body Shop independent of hair color? Not sure I knew that (I hadn't really bothered about it).
Here is my feedback/comparison. I spent more time talking about Star Maker of course.
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I will try to keep my thoughts to the point this time - as to the features in Star Maker vs. Body Shop.
In order to do this, I think I will simply post thoughts good and bad as to both. Likely this will be more useful to the game creators than a dissertation anyway ;-)
Star Maker - good:
Hairstyle interface: One does not have to slide past hairstyle after hairstyle; the smaller renderings are easier to page through. Also being able to choose hair color in the same way.
![Good [Good]](/Emoticons/good.gif)
variety of hair color including darker brown, brown, and black. Also nice to be able to use grey hair regardless of age.
Facial hair for men: Quite a nice variety. Very subtly done. Overall the men's choices seem more to real life than the women's.
Lipstick: The realistic colors are overall nice.
Shape-of-head sliders: Nice to have, because the results are immediately seen. Sliders are nice so one can fine tune it. Vs. Body Shop in which the shape of head is a drawing and only clicking on it tells how it looks on the sim. There are no subtleties. Star Maker is superior there for ease of use and how it's viewable.
Skin tones slider: Nice to have peachy/reddish/sallow/pale choices. But the tone itself - looks like they all have freckles. Real movie stars have perfect complexions, natural or man made ;-) A few have had freckles but not many. (It does make the skin more 'realistic' but, is that the goal - or glamour?) (Mainly for the women)
Eye color choices:
variety of choices, and the colors are nice. I like the pale eyes, very unusual colors. Also the sound effect sounds like marbles, which the eye icons resemble. Even though that is the standard sound effect, it still made me smile.
Advanced Mode - good:
Nose controls overall better than Body Shop's. Nice being able to make a crooked nose as well, for Marlon Brando or Wallace Beery actors. :-) The nose tip does not have that sharp point that often happens in Body Shop.
Eyes: I like being able to change one at a time. Some people have eye size or shape which is uneven.
Mouth controls: Bowed lips (pinched lip shape) better and more realistic than in Body Shop. Body Shop's seems to pinch up only in the very middle. Also, I love the control that allows the lips to stick out one at a time. I have been wanting to replicate Gene Tierney's overbite. :-)
Ears: I like being able to change the shape of the ears, and how far they stick out too. I would like a button in that screen so I could remove long hair temporarily without going back to change the hairstyle. This way I can see the ears I am modeling.
Eyebrows: Seems I can make them longer and that is a nice touch over Body Shop.
Hair puff *?* Being able to puff out the hairstyle is nice. Anything which can reshape anything is good.
Star Maker - bad:
(When I say 'bad' I mean things I wish were different, and/or things I'd like to see in addition)
Heads: All look the same. The same woman on different days. No real variety. Shape of heads too, even with sliders, is basically the same.
Hair: Needs updating and to look like real hairstyles. Texture looks matted and unreal, not silky and real. Hairstyles need to be more piecey like real hair; not all of one piece.
I did like the sort of Jamaica hairdo, because it didn't seem all of one piece as much.
Eyeshadows: Shapes generally too heavy. Looks like club girls, not older women or women in everyday roles. Colors too bright and harsh. Needs much more subtlety. More choices than Body Shop but neither program looks like what women actually wear. Most women wear browns, greys, etc. Also eyeliner should be separate.
Same with lipstick. A few realistic shades, but overall, too many blue, black, etc. How about glitter, gloss, pale shades, oranges, plums. Lip liner should be separate. Be nice to have a "Baby Jane" option of lipstick outside the lines, too.
Costume makeup like Cleopatra eyes, or clown makeup would be a nice option in the game.
Advanced options:
Nose: I don't like the way it automatically turns with certain controls. Means I just have to turn it back again, to see it from another angle. I want to see every alteration from every angle. Also, would like to see controls for shaping the nostrils other than just widening them/making them narrower. Also a way to shape the ball of the nose would be nice. There is no way to do these things in Body Shop either, and it makes modeling certain faces difficult or impossible. Also some way to adjust the point between the middle and tip of the nose, other than turning the tip up or down, in or out. Making it wider, narrower etc. would be nice. Also some way to put a bump in a nose which is otherwise not standing out far.
Eyes: These are my least favorite controls, and, especially in movie stars, "the eyes are the windows of the soul". The sockets are ugly, to be blunt. The shape does not really change, and there is no real way to make them larger. Open more, but not larger. I want to be able to duplicate rounded eyes, almond shaped eyes, cat eyes, etc. This should be the strongest feature in this game, movie star faces have unforgettable eyes most of the time. Also eyelids are crucial - a glaring omission from Body Shop. Be great to put sleepy eyelids, bags under eyes, etc., etc.
Mouth: As with Body Shop it is very hard to make a small, thin mouth. In Body Shop it ends up looking pinched. In Star Maker, the mouth area can at times look like a monkey's. The upper lip seems very thick (not the lip itself, but the part between nose and top lip). Also the shading at times makes it look like a shadow/mustache problem on the female faces. Not good. Adjusting teeth is a nice feature but I'm unable to see what it does. The diagrams are a bit hard to figure out. Having them in color might help. Or maybe when the sliders moved, the diagrams move too, so that one can see what will happen. It's actually easier sometimes to see this way than on the model. Moving the mouth up or down does not work so well. It goes to a limited amount and no more. Be nice if one could go to the end, reset, then begin to adjust it more. Without the mouth on the model changing in between. In Body Shop currently one can only do this by choosing a new part, or by saving the sim and editing it again. I would like to control one lip at a time and also to make lips which were 'fatter' vs. more pinched or thin. By fatter I mean the shape not the size. Let's have a Trout Pout! Just kidding.
Chin: About on a par with Body Shop; but would be nice to be able to make a cleft, a dimple, etc. in chin and cheeks both. Actually Body Shop edges out a bit here with more controls and a bit finer adjustments. I'd like to make a square chin (a truly square one, not possible in Body Shop either) and a fleshy chin and a very pointed chin, which did not seem extreme or ugly. Delicate, perhaps is the word. Most of the chins resulting so far in Star Maker, are much too coarse and masculine.
Please note I am looking at this mainly for modeling female faces: The controls work better overall for male faces, since female faces are more delicate as a rule, and subtler controls are necessary.
Cheekbones: Again Body Shop wins here. Simply more controls. Neither is satisfactory in my opinion however. What's missing mainly is a control for the triangle between (the bottom of the) cheekbone and the top of the jaw. There is currently no way to fill this in, in Body Shop, other than making the face 'fat'. I don't want it fleshy necessarily. This makes a round but not fat face like Renee Zellweger's very difficult; (in both) also a square one like John Stamos'. I want to bring that area in or out on its own, without filling in the entire lower face. In Star Maker, too, the cheekbones are not able to be raised or lowered (up or down, not in or out) like in Body Shop. In Star Maker the entire side of the face goes in and out when attempting to alter the cheekbones.
Overall Star Maker tends to make faces slightly heart shaped and very fleshy for the females. In Body Shop the tendency is to thin oval faces. Neither is preferable since the key is variety. Squared faces are possible in Body Shop to some extent but look like cartoons usually. In Star Maker there seems a lack of square or angular aspects.
Again the eye sockets are too deep in Star Maker and the shape when animated is ugly. Movie star eyes must be compelling. See: Ava Gardner?
Forehead: Diagrams are bad. Hard to even tell that is a forehead. Need a wider shot of the entire face. Having the arrows a different color than the drawing is good, though. Due to the animation (that constant face making drives... me... bonkers) it is very hard to tell what the 2nd control does.
Eyebrows: Again the diagrams are hard to see. I figured it out, but, why have the hassle. Maybe again make it look more like a real face in the drawings. The 2nd control should really be face-front. Maybe make the drawings lighter - so dark it's hard to see the face in them. Not sure how to make the diagrams more obvious to the newbie. Someone who's used Body Shop a lot will know what the up or down arrows and the drawing of the end of the eyebrow, means. But to a newbie it just looks like pierced eyebrows. (How about a tool tip?)
Overall: Again, the constant animation of that awful face drives me nuts. I would LOVE to have ability to turn animation off in Star Maker. When animated, how about a face a star would actually make. I can't even describe the face Star Maker animates (monkey grimace comes to mind). Something much more subtle though, and maybe, a type of face for each movie genre. Scowling for male action stars, wistful for female romance stars, funny faces for comedy, also, sadness, laughter, anger, etc. If the purpose is to test a face for flexibility/expressiveness, why not use the actual expressions an actor or actress would make in a film. But if nothing else, please, let me turn that face off. I can't even tell what the modeling looks like. I have to wait it out, until the face is briefly in a normal pose.
"Create A Sim" does that too and it also drives me just as batty. LOL I think the face the model makes in Star Maker is worse, though. Also I'd like to see a big big grin, to see the teeth. Dunno why. (Well when people mod teeth, that will help to have as an option)
Body Shop has bodies and clothes. Star Maker is just heads. That is a clear advantage by Body Shop. I want to see how these faces look on their bodies! Now, if you can offer various body types and even mods of body SHAPES you will be far ahead of Body Shop where every sim is the same height and there are only 2 choices of bodies. There is some variation in Body Shop with certian clothes, but overall, very average shapes and then ones that are a bit round in the middle but with spindly legs. As a person trying to create something authentic that is just frustrating.
I'd love to see movie star faces so realistic their heirs call custom creators and tell them the likeness is too real, they can't use that in their machinima any more. ;-)
Controls I'd love to see in Star Maker (also not available really in Body Shop):
Control each face by thirds in each direction. Make the middle part wider, but only the middle third (Same with nose - by thirds, if not fourths, plus the tip and nostrils each separately shaped). Bring the middle part of the face up or down, to make it disproportionate. Actually would love to see that option for each third of the face itself. In Body Shop one can bring the entire face up or down, or the eye socket, but those both require restructuing the features. I've had features down before, then had to make the face shorter, only to have to do the features again as they're still not in the same proportion as they'd be on the real person.
Would like to bring parts of the nose in or out, up or down, not just the bridge, bump and end. How about the part between the middle and the tip. Sort of around the nostrils if you will. How about shaping nostrils; some people's are quite prominent. Study faces of character actors? Know whose face I had a hard time making in Body Shop? Tim Roth's. I just could not make the forehead and jaw shorter, and middle part longer.
Another part in Body Shop without controls, is the part of the jaw between the corners and the chin. Just no way to shape that. Would like to bring that in or out, up or down by itself. This way one could make a squarer face, or one with prominent jawline.
Hairstyles - in general, neither program is very stylish or realistic. Study hairdo magazines from each decade? Also teen magazines, rock magazines and anime for today, those are the hairdos that most people request on TS2 forums. The texture of the hair in Body Shop is superior to Star Maker, which looks painted. I reek at hair textures so I am not judging. But, maybe study George Hurrell photos of the past, for glamorous hair textures? Silky hair is very important for female movie stars.
Hope this feedback has been helpful.