Okay, so @Dukasha and I did some investigating, and it turns out that there are dozens, if not hundreds, of different types of animals that the community has created for The Sims that even predate Unleashed.

Most of these animals were created from the object Max the Dog that David Goss and Patrick Barrett III created at SimFreaks and Sims Plus, respectively. If you've ever seen "Llama" on these animals, or they used the same walking pattern and behaviour, then they were based on Max.

(Maxee the Llama at Simorphor was based on Max, as were the pig and the chicken, released at Sims Plus and SimSlice.)



Here's the big catch, though: Max was never complete, in terms of his programming. He was only made as a test demonstration of what could be achieved to create a pet object for the game. He was based on the pre-release Maxis duck that never made it into the game, and David and Patrick developed that duck object further into a starting pet object for the community, essentially: Max the Dog.

Since then, hundreds of different animals were created from this object by the community, some with great graphics, that all use the same (early/incomplete) base template. (This is why pre-Unleashed animals always worked a bit odd in the game, and tended to not survive for long.)

So here is our project:

I will (or we will) build upon the work done on Max, and update/rewrite Max's programming, so that animals will have a basic intelligence, and so that we'll have a set of different, more advanced base animal object templates to use for the game.

These animals will work with all versions of the game -- from base game all the way to Makin' Magic. They will use pre-rendered graphics, in the same light as the hamster ("guinea pig"), and the fish (aquarium) in the game -- but, like the hamster and the fish, they will have an intelligence, with their own needs, and actually be "alive". Properly programmed animals for the game, that feel like they came with the original game.

Then we'll port all the graphics over, one by one, from the old, Max animal objects to the new, updated object templates -- creating smart and realistic animals for the game, each being slightly customised to best represent that animal's needs and behaviour.

As we create new animal objects for the game, we'll release/post them here, one by one. (And, in addition to releasing the base templates, I hope to write some step-by-step documentation on how to do it, so that everyone can help with the porting process, and you can create your own animals for the game.)

For starters, we'll create one animal object (pet) that behaves exactly as we'd like it to -- as we would expect pets in The Sims to behave. (Most likely a dog, since Max was a dog, and that is the closest and makes the most sense.)

Then we'll create a few different templates from that for the other types of animals, and their behaviour: zoo/wild animals, farm animals, flying birds in the sky, etc.

We'll make these animal objects usable on all types of lots -- so that we can colour our Sims environments with life.

Sound good?

Sounds great. I would really like to have a farm or a zoo where animals don't die every minute. But is it possible to make an object move ("walk") to another object? It's surely possible for a sim, but these animals are not sims.

We shall see. In theory it is, yes. They can move, and they are aware of other objects near them. It's just a matter of pointing them in the right direction. I'd also like them to be able to move across water/puddles, the same as sims can if they have to.

Extending their lifespan, and making them poop at more sensible and manageable intervals will not be a problem (it's an easy fix), but I'd like to make all this make actual sense in terms of animal/pet behaviour -- so that we really get the feeling that they are lifelike/real, like the sims. When they're hungry, they should look for food, and if there is no food, complain.

We need at least a fair warning before they drop dead, leaving us wondering what on earth just happened.

Their movement would also be nice if it could make more sense, rather than being just completely random. If it had a bit of actual logic to it.

And I'd like to add more fitting sim animations for interacting with the animals.

We'll see... step by step. 😉 Let's clean up their basic behaviours first. If you're happy to help me test, and suggest improvements, I'll share the work-in-progress first object template, one progress at a time.

Making good progress on the new Max. Animals now poop a reasonable amount daily. When cleaning up poop, the sims will now comment the usual "eww", and be appropriately grossed out by it. I've changed some of the sound effects and animations as well to ones that are more appropriate. (Animals do not snore, but they now shuffle to sleep.) The sims now have a "pet" option that actually has them spending time playing with the animal, and talking to it.



The sim either murmurs to the animal something, or giggles happily from the social interaction of petting it. Petting the animal gives a light fun and social boost (making it worthwhile), but costs a tiny bit of hygiene.

The best outcome from this has been that multiple sims (e.g. children, or adults and children) can gather around an animal, and pet it or play with it at the same time, watching and taking turns -- and this actually looks and feels natural, the way children or families would play with a cat or dog.



The next challenge is getting the animal to walk to the food source to eat when they're hungry, or to complain if they don't have a food source or the bowl is empty. (And to have them be able to walk across puddles.)

In addition to the animal complaining, I'm thinking to introduce an alert message that pops up, saying, "Your pet/animal is starving," (in the same vein as the children's low grades alert message) if the player forgets to feed the animal and the situation becomes critical. That way the game gives you a heads-up before your animal dies of hunger, and time to respond to save it. How does that sound?

On the subject of illness in The Sims, do we want sims to be able to get an illness from handling animals if they do not keep their hygiene to a bare minimum?

Should I create templates with illness implemented, or without illness? Or should we have both, and people can choose if they want illness or not in their game?

I think illness makes sense if your sim's hygiene is very-very low, and they are handling an animal/pet. If it falls that low, then it makes sense that your sim would catch an illness.