Sim Genetics :D your experiences

[Aerodynamic]

so I've gotten into legacies lately, and one of the most important things to legacies are obviously procreating! I've stopped most of my legacies due to crappy genetic mixes, so I'm curious what you have experienced in your games. Any tips, secrets, interesting facts? (: Discuss here.



I know this isn't the pictures forum but I'm sure no one would mind if you just posted links to images of your sims and their offspring.

[RosalindP]

As a general rule, you don't want your founder's face to stray too far from the Maxis templates -- make them look unique, yes, but don't overdo it on the sliders, as that never mixes well with townies!

Also, while making them, switch back and forth between genders to make sure that the facial features look nice on both. It's very disappointing to find out when your male founder has daughters, they've all inherited thin lips that looked fine on him but terrible on them. :)

[inkbottleblue]

In addition to switching genders, I usually also see how they look at all life stages.

[HunterGreen]

Before making a sim, make their parents and use the pacifier to create them in order to give them recessive genes, I always kick myself later when I forget to do that.

[annachibi]

That's a good tip, HunterGreen! I never really thought of doing that, myself.

[DiamonteGirl]

Yeah, I do it ALWAYS!! Don't want any 'ET's' in mah game ;)
What I do is when I create a family in BodyShop, I base the faces on the father or mama, you know age them down. Then when I make them in CAS, I roll the pacifier and see what the other kids turn out like...

[Webster54]

it always seems like the kids come out with the ugliest features of their parents. i find myself picking townies to marry more based on their looks than on anything else. although i've got to say, i love kevin bear's face from the university. it's an earnest pudgy little face with an earnest nose. that nose always gets transferred too.

[TaylorLane]

As a general rule, you don't want your founder's face to stray too far from the Maxis templates -- make them look unique, yes, but don't overdo it on the sliders, as that never mixes well with townies!

Also, while making them, switch back and forth between genders to make sure that the facial features look nice on both. It's very disappointing to find out when your male founder has daughters, they've all inherited thin lips that looked fine on him but terrible on them. :)
That makes sense. I'll have to remember that. :)

[FurryPanda]

Or if you want to make a weird overslidered sim, make that sim. Then make a sim of the opposite sex with a maxis face template. touch nothing. Use Make a baby on them. If its pretty, make sure that a townie with that face template fathers the children. If it is ugly, try another template.

[ani_]

If you download your founder - remove custom skin.

[Tigerlily]

Before making a sim, make their parents and use the pacifier to create them in order to give them recessive genes, I always kick myself later when I forget to do that.

I don't get why you need to do that? Wouldn't you want the offspring to look more like the founder than a townie?

confused :lol:

[Endersgirl07]

Tigerlily, it gives you diversity in your legacy's gene pool. For example if you created your legacy founder from a parent with brown hair and blue eyes and one with red hair and brown eyes, they'll have one eye color an one hair color, but they'll carry the genes for the other one as well :)

[Elspeth73]

I find it almost impossible to have any in game born redheads or blondes after about 2 generations. One parent with brown hair or brown eyes and that's it for ever more.

[Tigerlily]

Tigerlily, it gives you diversity in your legacy's gene pool. For example if you created your legacy founder from a parent with brown hair and blue eyes and one with red hair and brown eyes, they'll have one eye color an one hair color, but they'll carry the genes for the other one as well :)

Aah that makes sense. Thank you

[tankochan]

I had some experience with poverty challenge. I created a Sim using Oepu's face template, slightly modified. She had good looking kids with townies Joe Carr and Darren Dreamer. Her daughter had three pretty girls and two of them were made with ugly Komei Tellerman. I wasn't expecting THIS, since looks doesn't matter that much in this kind of challenge.They didn't look that cute when they were toddlers and kids, but grew up to be beautiful. The makeover made one of them unfairly nice looking for ingame born sim.

I guess custom face templates will mix better. Don't ask me why. They're the best for pretty townies and custom hoods. But so much prettyness can be boring sometimes, I guess I have more fun with ocasional surprises (wow, a pretty daughter of KOMEI!).

I'm doing legacy, Apocalypse twist. I wasn't pleased with my founder, so I'll do it over again.

[Metatwaddle]

As a general rule, you don't want your founder's face to stray too far from the Maxis templates -- make them look unique, yes, but don't overdo it on the sliders, as that never mixes well with townies!I made that mistake. D: When I had my second generation as toddlers, they looked okay from the front (well, okay, they had big ears and cheekbones that could cut steel) but when I looked at the side, I found they had no noses! I was really disappointed because the mother was Kaylynn Langerak, and she has had adorable kids in previous incarnations of my game. One of them got a little bit of a nose as a young adult, so I made him my heir, but he was still kind of funny-looking. The other three had no noses at all and looked very odd. Especially the alien daughter. But she redeemed herself by being FREAKING AWESOME.

The third generation was a lot better. The nose still wasn't there for my toddlers, but by teenagehood they had normal noses, and their eyes were really gorgeous. The cheekbones and ears had been toned down too. I did it by marrying my second-gen heir to a college townie with a really lovely face (it might be the 01 Heart template). She's the one with a brown ponytail, medium-light skin and a dark blue (or purple?) athletic-looking short-sleeved dress. There are a couple of other Sims with that template floating around. Vanessa Chen from BV's Far East is one.

I've got high hopes for the fourth generation, since I nabbed another Sim with the same gorgeous template from college. But I actually have to have my family branch off to complete the Ivy League/knowledge "master point" (since the kid has to get all the college scholarships, including the orphan scholarship, and I can't kill my adult heir and then send the kid to college because that would break the chain of always having an heir there). So I've picked a wife for my heir's brother, another college girl, and she looks basically identical to Dina Caliente. Does Dina have cute kids?

At any rate, I'm happy to say that looks are not my top priority in my legacy. I play for points. And I got my third master point today, and basically ensured that I'll get a fourth when my current heir dies! :DDD I was thrilled.

[Lemon&Lime]

I have a few questions.

I made a lone Sim in CAS and they had two alien children a few days after I moved them into Strangetown. However, both of the children she had (not twins, two seperate abductions) had her blue eyes. I thought it was a little strange but not abnormal.

Anyway, I matchmaked this lone Sim (Estelle) to a male Sim (Windigo), also made in CAS. While Estelle has blue eyes, Windigo has brown, so I assumed that their kids would have brown eyes. Unfortunatly they don't, their kids eyes are blue! Why aren't they brown? I've recently downloaded default replacement eyes for my Sims.



Also, take a look at this picture....
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff142/Tangodancer17/snapshot_d545cb37_3560082e.jpg

In the picture is Estelle, Windigo and their new twin babies. The baby in the crib has a different skintone to their twin - fair enough - but the baby that Estelle is handing to Windigo has a completely different skintone to both parents! Estelle hasn't been having an affair, both children are definatly Windigo's... what's going on?! I have HystericalParoxysm's idoltary of flesh default skintone replacements.

Why do Estelle and Windigo's children have blue eyes when Windigo has brown eyes?

And why does one of the twin babies have a skincolour completely different to both the parents?!

[HelloClarice]

HP made the skins so that if a dark parent has a child with a light parent, the resulting baby would be medium. Or that's how I remember it, anyway.

[Gwennero]

Figgi:

1) Are you sure your new default eyes aren't actually custom eyes? That would explain the eye problem.

2) I used to use HP's idolatry of flesh skintones, but not as defaults. I actually had my regular Maxis defaults, and HP's skintones would mix with the Maxis skins. She explains the process on the download page better than I could, but basically each skin is assigned a number and when the parents' genetics combine, the offspring has a new skin number and the skintone closest to the child's number is the one you see, making it 9 possible skins instead of 4. One of HP's intermediate skins is actually darker than the one that is supposed to be one step darker. I was constantly getting babies with skin darker than either parent, and it drove me so nuts I took the skins out and found different ones.

Sounds like maybe you don't actually have the skin and eyes installed as default replacements.

[sumpsychochic]

It is really hard after getting black or brown hair into the family to get blonde or red back in. My founder was a redhead and her husband was black hair and all their children have black hair.
I'm hoping to marry the gen 2 heir to a redhead to see if i can get the recessive to come back out.

Also, I thought that blue and brown eyes are dominant, and green, grey, and light blue are recessive. Is that true?

Founder:
http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m153/anykinssims2/CrayolaLegacy/Gen1/gen1college7.jpg

Few of the children (she had 6)
http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m153/anykinssims2/CrayolaLegacy/Gen1/gen1house80.jpg

http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m153/anykinssims2/CrayolaLegacy/Gen1/gen1house85.jpg

[rome_raven]

Brown and Dark Blue are the dominant eye colors. Light Blue, Grey and Green are recessive. So if 2 parents have Brown and Dark Blue eyes, the children have a 50/50 chance of receiving either one.

[Lemon&Lime]

Figgi:

1) Are you sure your new default eyes aren't actually custom eyes? That would explain the eye problem.

2) I used to use HP's idolatry of flesh skintones, but not as defaults. I actually had my regular Maxis defaults, and HP's skintones would mix with the Maxis skins. She explains the process on the download page better than I could, but basically each skin is assigned a number and when the parents' genetics combine, the offspring has a new skin number and the skintone closest to the child's number is the one you see, making it 9 possible skins instead of 4. One of HP's intermediate skins is actually darker than the one that is supposed to be one step darker. I was constantly getting babies with skin darker than either parent, and it drove me so nuts I took the skins out and found different ones.

Sounds like maybe you don't actually have the skin and eyes installed as default replacements.

They are definatly defaults, because when I made the parent Sims I did not have the eye default replacements I have now, nor did I have HP's skins. When I made Estelle I had different default replacement eyes, and when I changed them and the skin to the ones I have now her skin and eyes definatly changed, so its all defaults.

[rome_raven]

Figgi, are the mother's eyes light blue or dark blue?

[dragon_tfm]

of topic sumpsychochic where did you get her eyes?

on topic i tend to just make a sim thats rather maxisy but use make up to help make them more unique...or atleast i make sure if ui use a downloaded sim to remove any custom skins and make up so i can see what they really look like , since even just basic make up can really change a sim, ive downloaded many sims that look great until they no longer have cc on..which can make for some eeerm interesting babies, but ive also used some super funky sims as my founder but then again thats what i was going for i actually need to refind one sims that had eyes that were almost like anteneas

[Metatwaddle]

Has anyone had any success with Nina and Dina Caliente? I found a college dormie who looks just like them, and I'm wondering whether or not to have one of my Sims marry her and have a child with her.

[sumpsychochic]

dragon_tfm: The eyes are from here. (http://modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=267224)
I used to use Helaene, but I like these better.

:D

[ElZorro]

It's very disappointing to find out when your male founder has daughters, they've all inherited thin lips that looked fine on him but terrible on them. :)

I figure that's just part of life. Some sims happen to be handsome and others happen to be ugly.


I have been considering making a lineage of really ugly sims and see how many generations the ugliness lasts before it gets diluted out with townie genes.

[Moonstream27]

yeah, about the thin lips thing...i had this alien sim, with huge eyes and super thin lips. then i bred her with a sim who was born a plant sim. mistake, lol. the kids are really ugly! they have huge eyes that turn up like crazy at the ends, their lips are as thin as their mom's, and they have the pointiest ears! so i decided that those parents aren't going to have any other kids, lol. i might even not let the kids reproduce...but maybe i will to see if i can dilute the ugly. shrug.

the other thing is the black hair. it drives me crazy. I introduced Regina Jitmakusol (black haired townie) into the line, and now every kid has black hair like three generations down, and i've been breeding them with blondes and red-heads!

[ElZorro]

I introduced Regina Jitmakusol (black haired townie) into the line, and now every kid has black hair like three generations down, and i've been breeding them with blondes and red-heads!

It is never clear to me how much the sims' genetics is like rl genetics.

If a sim with two blackhaired genes breeds with a blonde with two blonde genes, theoretically all the first generation will have black hair, but they will all be hybrids--in theory.

If one of the first generation of offspring breeds with a blonde, then the children should theoretically be 50% black and 50% blonde, right?

Maybe this is the sort of problem that "rolling the pacifier" was meant to fix.

Or maybe I just don't understand sim genetics.

[Moonstream27]

It is never clear to me how much the sims' genetics is like rl genetics.

lol, right there with you. it makes absolutely no sense to me...but still, the genetics is one of the reasons i like the game so much, so i guess i shouldn't complain, still i wish it could be a little closer to real genetics...seeing as that's kindof what i want to do with my life.

maybe we just don't understand the dominant/recessive system that maxis set up...it seems pretty complicated and untrue to reality, maybe if we had a better idea of the system, we'd understand it better, lol. i bet the creators never thought we'd get this indepth, lol.

this is interesting...i was browsing through my family tree, and i found a very intriguing atomic family. The mom, Wini, and dad, Frederick, both have black hair, everyone in the mom's family has black hair, but the dad, Frederick, had black hair only through his dad, his grandparents were blond and red. now the interesting part, is that they have three kids. The oldest is a blond boy, the middle is a black haired boy, and the youngest is a red headed girl. This just confused me even more, and i felt u guys would like to know about it. :D

[ElZorro]

I have a lame genetics question.

Let's say a child is born with black hair, but you use the mirror to get blonde or red hair. Does that change the genetics of the child or does that merely change the appearance without affecting the genes?

[androfire]

I'm pretty sure it only changes the appearance, and does nothing to the genes.

[Lemon&Lime]

I'm not sure, but I don't think it will change the genes. I've wondered about that too.

This could be easily tested. Make two sims with blonde/red hair in CAS, then change one of the sims hair colour to black, or both to black, and then see what colour the childs hair is. If its black, it does change the gene; but if its blonde, it doesn't.

[sumpsychochic]

It doesn't change the genetics. It is much like when people dye their hair, it doesn't change the genes.

[simsample]

If one of the first generation of offspring breeds with a blonde, then the children should theoretically be 50% black and 50% blonde, right?
Yes, they will all be 50% blonde and 50% black genetically, but the expressed hair colour will always be black. So all the offspring will be dark haired but able to pass a blonde gene to their offspring.

This could be easily tested. Make two sims with blonde/red hair in CAS, then change one of the sims hair colour to black, or both to black, and then see what colour the childs hair is. If its black, it does change the gene; but if its blonde, it doesn't.

If you change the hair colour in CAS it automatically overwrites the previous haircolour. So if you click the black hair button, that sim has black/black hair genes. If you change the haircolour in game though, it does nothing to the genetics. So you could have a genetically red sim with brown hair, who would pass red hair genes onto his children.

[Robo-KAI]

Yes, they will all be 50% blonde and 50% black genetically, but the expressed hair colour will always be black. So all the offspring will be dark haired but able to pass a blonde gene to their offspring.

I believe ElZorro is referring to the grandchildren of the CAS homozygous black and blonde haired sims, while you mistook him as asking about the children.

In theory, if the breeding original CAS sims are BB (homozygous black hair) and bb (homozygous blonde hair), then 100% of the first generation will be Bb (heterozygous black haired (with an unexpressed blonde gene)). This is what Simsample was referring to.
However, ElZorro asked if one of these first generation offspring (Bb, black hair expressed) were to breed with a blonde sim (would have to be bb, since blonde is recessive (in the case of the only two hair colors being black and blonde; ignoring red and brown for this example)), 50% of the children will be Bb (black haired, but with a blonde gene that is not expressed) and the other 50% bb (blonde).
That's only if sim genetics actually work like (simplified) human genetics. (I hope they do.)

[simsample]

Oops, sorry- I misread it! *rubs eyes* Anyway, no- the grandchildren, when produced from one black/ blonde parent and one blonde/ blonde parent will technically have a 50% chance of being blonde/ blonde. However, that doesn't mean that 50% of them will be blonde, as it is only a chance, so random distribution applies (or sadorandum distribution, maybe, if you don't roll the pacifier!)

[ElZorro]

I am not sure whether this is the right location for this question, but....

I have heard people say that all the infants look alike. You have to wait until they grow up a bit before you can evaluate their genetics. But whenever one of my sims gives birth, I try to guess the gender from the baby's face and I am very often right. Have I just been lucky or is there a slight difference between the eyebrows of male and female infants?

[Moonstream27]

I am not sure whether this is the right location for this question, but....

I have heard people say that all the infants look alike. You have to wait until they grow up a bit before you can evaluate their genetics. But whenever one of my sims gives birth, I try to guess the gender from the baby's face and I am very often right. Have I just been lucky or is there a slight difference between the eyebrows of male and female infants?

i haven't noticed the boy/girl thing, but i think that most of the babies do look the same. (with the exception of eyebrow color and alien babies) bc i had these babies with the weirdest genes (i used inTeen to have kids with the Father Time NPC) and they looked totally normal as babies, but the second they grew into toddlers their faces got all distorted and mutilated. i was like...that's different...i had never noticed that all the babies looked the same, but apparently they do!

[purplestarz2006]

i haven't noticed the boy/girl thing, but i think that most of the babies do look the same. (with the exception of eyebrow color and alien babies) bc i had these babies with the weirdest genes (i used inTeen to have kids with the Father Time NPC) and they looked totally normal as babies, but the second they grew into toddlers their faces got all distorted and mutilated. i was like...that's different...i had never noticed that all the babies looked the same, but apparently they do!

The face of the baby sim does not give gender away. However, I've noticed that the pose the baby has in their icon does give it away. For example, if the baby's icon comes up where they are turned to the side and looking over their shoulder, it's always a girl. If the icon comes up where the baby is looking straight with it's arms slightly away from the body, it's always a boy.

[ani_]

The black hair domination is kind of annoying, so at the moment I have a few families who I'm trying to keep from marrying people with black hair.

What's the rule when it comes to skin colour. Shouldn't the kid be medium if one parent is black and one white? So far I'v always had black babies if the parents were of different colour - I don't remember ever having a medium baby. The only exception to the rule has been that one of my cas sims who's white, married Armando Cox from the gardening club - who's black. Their doughter, is really white. Probably the mom's skin colour. I'm not using any custom skins, learned my lesson there, but default replacements. So that should not effect the genetics. Is it possible to actually get a medium coloured kid in this game?

[ElZorro]

The face of the baby sim does not give gender away. However, I've noticed that the pose the baby has in their icon does give it away. For example, if the baby's icon comes up where they are turned to the side and looking over their shoulder, it's always a girl. If the icon comes up where the baby is looking straight with it's arms slightly away from the body, it's always a boy.

Aha! Maybe my subconscious was using that as a cue. Or maybe I did just have a lucky streak. :)

[Fantasyrogue]

What's the rule when it comes to skin colour. Shouldn't the kid be medium if one parent is black and one white? So far I'v always had black babies if the parents were of different colour - I don't remember ever having a medium baby. The only exception to the rule has been that one of my cas sims who's white, married Armando Cox from the gardening club - who's black. Their doughter, is really white. Probably the mom's skin colour. I'm not using any custom skins, learned my lesson there, but default replacements. So that should not effect the genetics. Is it possible to actually get a medium coloured kid in this game?

I think it is that the kid gets a randomly assigned skintone within the range of the parents? So, if mom's 1 (lightest) and dad's 4 (darkest) the kid can come out with 1, 2, 3 OR 4? Something like that.

I've had children come out with medium skintones if the parents were different colours. But not that often, mostly it's either the mom's or the dad's skintone for some reason.

[ElZorro]

I think it is that the kid gets a randomly assigned skintone within the range of the parents? So, if mom's 1 (lightest) and dad's 4 (darkest) the kid can come out with 1, 2, 3 OR 4? Something like that.

Yes, that's my understanding of how it works, too.

I've had children come out with medium skintones if the parents were different colours. But not that often, mostly it's either the mom's or the dad's skintone for some reason.

If it were real life, I'd argue that it means that all the genes are on the same chromosome and so Mendel's assumption of independent assortment doesn't hold. In the game, it is probably just the way the programmers set up the randomizing aspects. The programmers probably thought it was more charming to have offspring who resembled one of the parents.

[Lemon&Lime]

Whenever I've had two sims have kids where one Sim was darker than the other, it was always either medium or the darkest. Only once or twice the lightest skin colour. I'd say that genes do play a part when choosing skintone. Take alien skins for example; a child of an alien sim can be normal but then pass on the alien skintone.

[ElZorro]

I'd say that genes do play a part when choosing skintone. Take alien skins for example; a child of an alien sim can be normal but then pass on the alien skintone.

Does a sim then have three genes? A maternal gene, a paternal gene, and, for lack of a better term, a display gene? I hypothesize this because if you change the hair color in the mirror, the computer has to remember what that sim's hair color is now and what it was before.

Or maybe sims don't need maternal and paternal genes. Maybe the program knows to look up the family tree for each sim. So for your alien skin example, the parent has a gene for a human skin tone, buit some percentage of the time the program looks back up the family tree and borrows one of the grandparents' genes.

[Lemon&Lime]

What do you mean by a display gene?

In terms of genes, there is only two. A sim could have a paternal very pale skin gene, and a maternal very dark skin gene, and it will probably be the maternal gene which is dominant, your "display gene".

It is only the dominant gene that displays itself, however in skintone I suspect that the recessive gene could influence the dominant gene, but in terms of hair/eye colour genes only the dominant gene presents itself.

Edit; The Sims child will only have the grandparents features if the parent has those features as either recessive or dominant genes.

[twigglebby_SC]

Her daughter had three pretty girls and two of them were made with ugly Komei Tellerman.


guess I have more fun with ocasional surprises (wow, a pretty daughter of KOMEI!).


all my sims that have married komei have had amazing looking kids... i think under his uglyness theres really good genes...

my tip - if you have one sim with custom skin.....all of there kids and on will have a costom skin... it gets old fast.

[ElZorro]

What do you mean by a display gene?

I still haven't done my experimental test, so I might be talking through my hat.

Let's say that when I am next playing TS2, I create a black-haired couple: Biff and Twinkie Smith.

Step one: produce a child as a control. It should have black hair.

Step two: change Biff and Twinkie to blondes. If what sumpsychochic said in her post is right, they still should be black-haired deep inside, even though they now display as blonde. The display gene is not really a gene. It's an storage of an environmentally altered variable.

Step three: produce a second child. If the second child is black haired, the existence of something like the display gene is demonstrated. If the child is blonde, then the mirror must alter DNA.

Part of why I haven't bothered with this experiment is that I think sumpsychochic is right. Consider, for example, the skin tones for plantsims and vampires. Those skin tones are not passed down and so information about them must be stored someplace outside the normal parental genes.

Does that make sense?

[sumpsychochic]

What do you mean by a display gene?

In terms of genes, there is only two. A sim could have a paternal very pale skin gene, and a maternal very dark skin gene, and it will probably be the maternal gene which is dominant, your "display gene".

It is only the dominant gene that displays itself, however in skintone I suspect that the recessive gene could influence the dominant gene, but in terms of hair/eye colour genes only the dominant gene presents itself.

Edit; The Sims child will only have the grandparents features if the parent has those features as either recessive or dominant genes.


That holds true for eyes, but for skintones it does not. You could have a mother with S1(lightest) skin and a father with S4 skin(darkest) and the child can have S2 skin(medium), but his genes to pass down would be S1 and S4 I believe.

[Lemon&Lime]

Then how can a child inherit alien skintone from a non-alien skinned Sim if there is no such thing as recessive/dominant genes for skintone?

And I've had Sims where the grandparent has S4 skin but none of the grandchildren suddenly have S4 skin, so I doubt that the child will also have the gene for dark skin, but instead will only pass on the gene for the skin colour that they have. Any children that they then have will have the gene from the father and the gene from the mother to determine their skintone, which makes much more sense to me. That way you don't get to the point where each Sim child could have up to 4 different skintones to choose from, as you would if each parent has 2.

[gwengirl9105_SC]

I'm currently doing a legacy and the genetics have gone horribly wrong except for one of the founders kids. Too Unique Parents I guess.
I also had it where a child of a natural blonde and a natural black haired sim had the red hair of her grandmother, Has anyone else had stuff like that?

[Fantasyrogue]

I did a bit of digging in SimPE. There's a dominant and recessive gene for skintone. But, what happens is that it looks at mom's skintone gene and dad's skintone gene then picks one in that range for the kids. The kid then gets the picked skintone as their skintone gene, both dominant AND recessive, and can only pass on the one they got.

For example: Emmy has skintone 4 (the darkest). Florian has skintone 2 (second lightest). They have three children. Two of the children have skintone 2 and one has skintone 3 (despite neither parent carrying any sort of gene for skintone 3). Looking in SimPE, the ones with skintone 2 only have genes for skintone 2 and the one with 3 only has genes for 3.

The only sims that are exception to this, it seems, are aliens. They carry 1 alien skintone gene and 1 normal skintone gene. I suspect that if one of the parents carries an alien skintone gene, they can pass it on and if it gets picked as the dominant one the kid expresses an alien skintone instead (since alien skintones don't work with skincolour ranges like the other ones do).

[ElZorro]

For example: Emmy has skintone 4 (the darkest). Florian has skintone 2 (second lightest). They have three children. Two of the children have skintone 2 and one has skintone 3 (despite neither parent carrying any sort of gene for skintone 3). Looking in SimPE, the ones with skintone 2 only have genes for skintone 2 and the one with 3 only has genes for 3.

This suggests that if you had 100 sims and had them breed for 100 generations, you'd probably end up with mainly skintone 2 and 3 and very little 1 or 4 at the end. Is that right?

[Fantasyrogue]

This suggests that if you had 100 sims and had them breed for 100 generations, you'd probably end up with mainly skintone 2 and 3 and very little 1 or 4 at the end. Is that right?

Probably not, actually. Randomness of the dice gave Emmy 3 children with none of her skintone. It just happened that 2 of the kids ended with skintone 2 (which was Florian's) and the third child got a completely new skintone. I've similarly had it go the other way round. Where a light skinned sim had 2 kids with a dark skinned sim, one was skintone 3 and the other skintone 4.

I don't think skintones are weighted in any particular way, it just randomly picks somewhere between the parents skintones (including the parent's skintones themselves) for each child.

[Moonstream27]

weirdest thing happened today...i had a red head (homozygous dominant) and another red head (heterozygous with blond) have a blond kid!? is blond dominant over red? in which case the mom (heterozygous) should've had blond hair...i thought red was dominant, or is it equal to blond?

[Fantasyrogue]

Blonde and Red are equal. 50/50 chance of either one when a sim carries both genes. Same for brown and black.

[sumpsychochic]

Wait, but if children only wind up with one skintone, then how do some babies end up with their grandparents skintones?

[ElZorro]

Wait, but if children only wind up with one skintone, then how do some babies end up with their grandparents skintones?

Good question. That's why I wondered whether the game not only looked at the parents genes, but at the grandparent's genes.

[Fantasyrogue]

Nothing in SimPE suggests they do and I personally don't think I've ever really seen that happen either. Seriously, if you look at the data they all have the same gene set in recessive and dominant except for alien sims.

But that's just what I think and know, I'm not the expert on this stuff.

[simsample]

The only time I remember my sims inheriting a grandparent's skintone was if I had custom skins in there. Fantasyrogue, is the recessive skintone gene the same thing as the figure given for skintone range when you use the SimDNA cheat?

[Fantasyrogue]

It probably is, I'd never even heard of this SimDNA cheat until now so I had to google it. The dominant and recessive skintone gene for most sims is the same, a sim with the darkest skintone will have listed a lot of zeros and a 4 on both recessive and dominant. Only alien sims will have one listed as a number between 1-4 and the other will be some collection of numbers and such which probably indicate the green alien skintone.

[Lemon&Lime]

Considoring the direction this conversation is going, you might find this interesting regarding inheriting skintones from grandparents.

http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff142/Tangodancer17/snapshot_756a90be_15778d9c.jpg

Anyway, in the picture is Ripp (the father) and Dyana (who was born in-game to a CAS-made Sim, and the mother of the twins).

Ripp has dark blue eyes and pale skin, and Dyana has alien skin and light blue eyes.

One twin has inherited her alien skintone and her light blue eyes, whereas the other twin has inherited Ripp's dark blue eyes and has the skintone of Dyana's mother. I think it is evidence that grandparents skintones can be passed down, but only if one parent has dominant alien skintone.

[Fantasyrogue]

I forgot that there's another skintone modifier in simpe, the skintoneRange one. That one does come with numbers from both parents (so a sim expressing skintone 3 that has dominant and recessive set as 3 might have a skintone range set as a 1 and a 3). But how it works exactly, I don't really know. Like I said, I don't think I've ever seen a sim inherit a grandparents skintone except for aliens (as mentioned above) and for custom skintones.

Similarly, I wonder how facial features work. What decides what passes on from which parent?

[charlie-chan_SC]

Has anyone had any success with Nina and Dina Caliente? I found a college dormie who looks just like them, and I'm wondering whether or not to have one of my Sims marry her and have a child with her.

I had Dustin Broke marry Dina Caliente and they had one child Sophie (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v228/serenicevanescence/Sims%202/snapshot_95784363_55785831.jpg). She is a natural blonde because both parents are blonde.

Skip Broke (Dustin's father) was blonde and it carried onto his three children with Brandi.

In past families that I've played, where the mother has been blonde and the father has been a brunette/blackette, at least one child that they had together were normally blonde (Example (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v228/serenicevanescence/Sims%202/cezannesmilingatsheila.jpg))

[Lemon&Lime]

I've found that Nina's children always looked beautiful/handsome, especially if she had children with Don. They had one kid as part of a consequence of their affair, but after seeing how beautiful their daughter was I made them have several more children in an effort to introduce good genes into Pleasantview! Unfortunatly that was in a previous game, so I have no pictures. :(

[ElZorro]

I talked a little bit about this family with Moonstream via private message.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3184/2646229188_14d1d4ce53.jpg

Top row: John Nipton and Pollination Technician.

Middle Row: Gina Baena (a townie) and Raphael.

Bottom Row: six kids only one of whom is alien-skinned and even then that's only after trying to "roll the pacifier". From left to right: Scintilla, Plumeria, Frank, Heidi, Dan, Chip.

I guess I'll have to see about finding an alien-skinned spouse for Plumeria for when she is all grown up. :einstein

By the way, John is the son of two CAS sims. I am not sure whether that makes any difference in terms of randomness of offspring or not.

[Lemon&Lime]

If he's the son of two CAS Sims that just means that he'll have both recessive and dominant genes I think, which, I suppose, could mean more variety in offspring as there is more genes to choose from?

[Kaelem Gaen]

See, and I look at it as. "Not everyone is pretty." Sucks to hear that skintones don't get passed down like the rest of the genes. I've got a custom skintone that I want to come up as recessive in family lines. But I guess the kids won't really get a recessive skintone gene unless there is an alien in the line then?

[Lemon&Lime]

Custom skintones always come up as dominant, so you won't ever get a CC skin as recessive, unless its default.

And yes, you can only get a recessive skintone gene if there is an alien in the family, and even then it will only be the alien skintone, yet again, that can be changed if you find a default replacement.

[sumpsychochic]

Wait, what if there are 2 CAS sims with CC skin? Which one will become dominant? And if one becomes dominant then why does the other not become recessive?

[Kaelem Gaen]

@figgi- I actually used uh SimPE to make the custom skintone show up lower than the whitest white. Man, I hope TS3 has actual recessive skintone genes.

@sumpsychochic- I think then the kid has a 50/50 chance of getting either skintone, like with eye and hair color.

[Selene1212]

So, umm, does this mean then that a CC skin would be dominant over an Alien skin? (See avatar pic) So confusing... I'm working on generation 4 (G1 being CaS sims) in my neighborhood and am very curious about genetics in the game.

[Tzigone]

Sucks to hear that skintones don't get passed down like the rest of the genes.
I agree. I thought I'd read that they did get passed down initially (before Uni?), but that it was changed because players didn't like couples having babies that were much lighter/darker than they were. I wish they were still passed down. Of if they never were passed down, I wish they were (but I thought they had been and that's where the "skintone range" in SimPE came from).

[BlueJalepeno_SC]

I've found that whenever my (default skinned) babies come out they usually take the darker of their parent's skin-tones. Also in my game, alien sims who breed with 'human' sims, almost always come out with the default alien skintone.

[Genetix]

Whenever I have twins with two parents of different hair colors, almost always the twins are born with different hair colors but exact facial structures.

[Kaelem Gaen]

I agree. I thought I'd read that they did get passed down initially (before Uni?), but that it was changed because players didn't like couples having babies that were much lighter/darker than they were. I wish they were still passed down. Of if they never were passed down, I wish they were (but I thought they had been and that's where the "skintone range" in SimPE came from).


I wouldn't doubt it. It is that "Test Audience" effect, for some reason, the test audience always hates the greatest things about something. So it gets lopped out.

[Lemon&Lime]

Wait, what if there are 2 CAS sims with CC skin? Which one will become dominant? And if one becomes dominant then why does the other not become recessive?

The other won't become recessive because CC skins are as dominant, always. If there are two CC skintones, one will be chosen randomly for the offspring. But it will not work genetically.

[Miex]

Even with default face replacements, Townies still make the ugliest babies with the worst facial combinations. There is no growing into those faces, it's just pure ugly from toddler to adult.. D:

[Selene1212]

Well, my Alien / CC skin couple (see avatar) had their twins last night. Both babies had the Alien skin. I also use CC eyes with my Sims and one baby had the father's (Tim) eyes and the other had Tim's mothers eyes.


PS I've had a lot of good luck finding decent looking townies.

[FablesOfEuphoria]

I finally got past one generation with my sims, thanks to my first legacy. My heir had to get himself a baby producer, so picked an old flame frome college. Well anyway Suzanne Pons makes some horrible looking children, all with slim lips and weird noses. Damn you Suzanne! There goes the legacy supermodel calender. :(

[Dinosaure]

I just started a new legacy and they had kids, im scared to match them up with townies!
They all look so HORRID in my game! :(

[simsample]

Has anyone ever seen this before? My daughter's sim had a baby, and it looks like this:
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y288/Bluefunk/Peregrine.jpg
It is the great-great grandchild of Julien Cooke (and Pollination Technician). She has Phaenoh's genetic eye colours in game, and JoyLyn's extra Maxis skintones (hence the baby is S3.5). But I've never seen a baby with Alien eyes and sim skintine before- I thought the eyes were linked to the alien skintone? She does have Pescado's creaturefixes in game, which fixes some problems with the alien eyes, but nothing else to affect this. Is this something that is possible but rare, or is the game glitched? I've tried countless times to get a baby with sim skin and alien eyes, to no avail!

[Bemii]

The alien eyes and human skin tone is probably possible but rare. I have had it only a couple of times in my game. However, it could be a glitch. Sorry that didn't really answer your question haha!

[kustirider2]

I have had it before (quite a lot actually)... I have alien babies with normal eyes too.

Also... Does your daughter have alien eyes seperatley downloaded (as CC?)

[simsample]

I have had it before (quite a lot actually)... I have alien babies with normal eyes too.

Also... Does your daughter have alien eyes seperatley downloaded (as CC?)

No, no alien eye downloads. The only genetics in her game are the extra skintones and the extra eye genetics (which are just different shades of sim eyes, no alien look alikes). Maybe she got this because it's so far down the line- I don't think I've had any sims so distantly related to an alien before. As you can see, the baby's mother has the green skin and also has alien eyes, but the father is a homozygous townie, brown eyes brown hair.

[Lemon&Lime]

simsample: This kept happening to me. I had alien eye defaults though - and once I removed them then everything went back to normal. All adopted children in my game got the alien eyes - they had to go.

[Katya Stevens]

simsample, I've seen it in my game, but only after a long session of an alien sim having kids with a townie and wondering why, despite having default replacements, I was still getting the Maxis brown eyes on the offspring who had Maxis skintones.

Basically the coding is screwy for alien eyes. Genetically all the babies I was being given with brown eyes had the alien eyes, but they were unable to show it, and instead were showing the eye colour on the skintones.

I highly doubt it's anything to worry about. If it is, then all the people who have legacies where at least one sim has normal skin/alien eyes needs to start worrying :P

Edit: The main reason I wanted to post here...I've had blonde hair as a recessive gene for a legacy founder (who showed black hair), and it showed up on his great-grandson in the main lineage. The founder married a black-haired woman, their black-haired daughter married a brown-haired man, and their brown-haired son married a blonde-haired woman. Out pops a son with blond hair.

A different family: the starting couple were a black-haired husband and a brown-haired wife, and their son got black hair. He married a red-haired woman and all of a sudden they have two blonde-haired daughters. Turns out I'd given (and then forgotten I'd given) the starting wife a recessive blonde gene.

[fakepeeps7]

I kind of like seeing how ugly my Sims will get. Once you introduce Goopy to the gene pool... Well, let's just say that if you're looking for ugly Sims, he's the Townie to use.

I started out a custom neighbourhood with a fairly unique-looking male Sim. He had blond hair and grey eyes. I made him marry Brandi LeTourneau, who has brown hair and grey eyes. For some reason, all five of their children had black hair, and only one (the fourth) had his father's facial features. Go figure.

[qwackie]

I notice that a lot of my sims noses seem too short for their face. Y'know, the gap between the nose and mouth seems kinda big. It's reaaally annoying. Even if the parents are both beautiful the kidlets turn out weird. I guess it's because the face templates aren't combining very well. :/

[yinakori]

She does have Pescado's creaturefixes in game, which fixes some problems with the alien eyes, but nothing else to affect this.
I scouted this a bit at MATY, and according to Pescado, in the original game the alien eyes were linked to the alien skin...
The black Alien eyes do not appear on teens at all and can only appear in combination with the alien skin: Other sims end up with the eyes painted on the skin texture, which can be really awful. He also mentions that his fix corrected this. Therefore, alien eyes appearing with normal skintones should in fact be enabled by creaturefix.

[simsample]

I scouted this a bit at MATY, and according to Pescado, in the original game the alien eyes were linked to the alien skin...
He also mentions that his fix corrected this. Therefore, alien eyes appearing with normal skintones should in fact be enabled by creaturefix.

Thankyou yinakori- yes, I read that a while ago and completely forgot to add it to my post. It seems that the original intention was for the game to allow the alien eyes to express on the 'human' skin, but that it was broken. I had originally thought that the creaturefix hack just cured the teen alien eyes and the vampire overlays, but it seems that Pescado has rolled this in at some point which I hadn't read on the forum. He has a habit of summarising the function of the hack in the documentation- for example, creaturefixes says 'Skin coloration and layering fixes' which you wouldn't necessarily understand included this! :lol:

[yinakori]

Pescado has rolled this in at some point which I hadn't read on the forum. He has a habit of summarising the function of the hack in the documentation- for example, creaturefixes says 'Skin coloration and layering fixes' which you wouldn't necessarily understand included this! :lol:
Yes, very true. The only reason I knew about it was because I searched for that problem specifically and found his little commentary before anything else :D He does seem to have a habit of not informing people properly, doesn't he? I think he's overestimating our mind-reading powers a bit XD