Maxis agrees with Laurenke

[Sandilou]

The hospital doctor used medical string to tie the flesh tightly around the skin and stop the blood supply to the extra digits.  The extra digits literally wither and eventually drop off.  Gross!

[bluecatvon]

haha! it is kinda gross.. everyday presents a new knowledge..

[Sandilou]

The question you really don't want to ask is 'so...what if you don't notice exactly when it withers and falls off?'  It's a dim and distant memory, but I do recall that there was alot of screaming in my household when a little discovery was found on the carpet!   (The other digit fell neatly into my baby's shawl).

[Brynne]

Actually Gali, it may be misinformation, but I have seen in several places that there are genetics that govern appearances of offspring in the game.  Custom eyes and skin are always dominant and thus will be seen the most so if you use custom green eyes, then, yep, most of your kids'll have green eyes.  Even when they marry a Maxis townie with those infamous blue eyes. 

Chris

This is what baffling me. My sim has a son with Bella. That's him in the avatar holding the son as a toddler. Both sims have those "infamous" blue eyes and a custom medium toned skintone that is now the default medium in my game. Justin, the son, is now grown and is having children with a CAS sim I made.  She also has a custom skintone that's either tan or light (compared to Justin, she's a shade lighter), and custom dark brown eyes. I mentioned above that they had a brown-eyed baby. I have been trying to get them to have a baby with Justin's skintone, but every child they've had has looked identical. Her lighter skin and dark eyes. They've had 16 babies (in my frustration I had to keep exiting without saving and go back in and get her preggers again) and they've all looked just like her, except some have had Justin's mouth, I guess. The wife has a very distinctive mouth, so it's easy to tell when they have hers. I'm waiting for a child that looks at least a little more like Justin. It's not happening! Justin's skintone is now the default medium in my game, and I guess, from what you're saying, Chris, is that since the wife's skintone is not the default it will override Justin's everytime?

I'll try to upload an example:
The couple:


Justin with child #1. Every child thereafter (all 15 of 'em!) look just like this, some with a female twist...

[cwieberdink]

Justin's skintone is now the default medium in my game, and I guess, from what you're saying, Chris, is that since the wife's skintone is not the default it will override Justin's everytime?

That's what I've been told.  It was over on MTS or VS so it wasn't some IOD from the BBS having a BBQ on the QT..... sorry all the alphabet soup started to get to me.  LOL.  Anyway, I remember it being a fairly reliable source but I don't remember which one.

Chris

[Brynne]

Ugh. I wish sim surgery worked in simpe.

[Oddysey]

Sim genetics run roughly thus:

There are three levels of dominance for eyes and hair. If a sim has two genes of differing dominance, the higher level will express 100% of the time. If both genes for a given trait have the same dominance, there's a 50% chance of either gene expressing.

Level 1: Custom.

Level 2: Dominant Default. For eyes, this is brown and dark blue. For hair, this is black and brown.

Level 3: Recessive Default. For eyes, this is green, grey, and light blue. For hair, this is red and blond.

Skin is different: if a sim has two custom skins, it's random which one will express. If it has one custom and one default, it will always express the custom one. If it has two defaults, it can express any skin tone in between the two. So a sim with both the lightest and the darkest skintone gene can have any skin color. This means that two sims with the lightest skin in the game can have a baby with the darkest skin, if any of their antecedents had that gene.

The real genetics behind these traits is still not completely understood, but I know a few of the basics. Brown eyes are dominant over blue and green, and green is dominant over blue. Other genes control the intensity of the color, the appearance of other colors, and probably a bunch of other things I don't know about.

Hair color is determined by (at least) two sets of genes. One controls the level of melanin, giving a range from dark brown/black to blond. The more melanin, the darker the hair. The other controls the amount of what is, if I remember correctly, basically rust--iron oxide. This produces the varying levels of red in hair.

Skin color throws a bit of a wrench into the works, because (again, if I remember correctly; I really need to look this up . . . ) skin color is tied to the overall level of melanin that the body produces. Higher levels of melanin override whatever the local levels of melanin are in the hair and eyes, making them darker and browner. Melanin isn't the only chemical that produces skin color. There's also a yellowish pigment that I don't remember the name of, and the distribution of blood vessels in the skin. So instead of just a "dark to light" spectrum, it's a three dimensional spread, although enough melanin will override any other color.

The sims is a very good example of Mendellian genetics. Unfortunately, in real life there are genes whose influences "mix," producing an intermediate color (or whatever) rather than one or the other expressing. And having multiple genes control a feature, even if all those genes obey Mendellian laws, produces results that don't follow the standard Punnet square genotype mix. These sorts of interactions are what produce the sort of uneven blending we're used to in heredity. Mendel got unbelievably lucky, because he picked six features that all followed rules he could discover with the mathematics available to him.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Will Whitehouse in my game has the pale skin from Alle Meine Sims, and Hairfish's white-blond surfer hair and light grey eyes.  He has recently had an alien baby, who was blond hair, light grey eyes (which are much smaller than most alien babies' eyes, and his skin I'll swear is lighter green than normal!  He does have a smallish nose, but then so does his father () Will and his half-sister Wendy, who was created in CAS and since she only had a father, she was created by me to look as much like her dad as possible.

[Oddysey]

Oh, yeah, alien genetics.

Aliens normally have green skin, and always if the other gene is default, but I think it can be suppressed by custom content. Not totally sure. They usually have black eyes, but occasionally (5, 10%? Again, need to check. TreyNutz might know . . .) they have the "default" gene they inherited from their parent. I think that custom content eyes are dominant, but not totally sure.

Alien eyes can only be expressed on sims with green skin, so a non-green sim will have Maxis brown--not the default, either, because if you change the default you still get the original maxis.

There's only one alien skin tone, so unless you have a multi-PT hack installed all your alien spawn have the same skin.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Perhaps it's the light hair and eyes that make his skin look lighter too!

[Noukie]

My eyes can still change color, generally at will. I can make them go from brown to kind of reddish-glowy. It takes a lot of concentration and if I do it too much, I rupture a blood vessel and get an entirely red eye.

You must be related to the devil

[J. M. Pescado]

You must be related to the devil

This wouldn't surprise me if it were true. I can do the "YOUR SOUL IS MINE, MORTAL!" voice, too, but it hurts my throat to do it too long.

It'd be pretty neat if the Devil were in TS2, and sims that were related to the devil had special features and abilities.

[ZephyrZodiac]

It'd certainly get the 18+ rating then!

[J. M. Pescado]

It'd certainly get the 18+ rating then!

Well, I can't imagine WHY. I mean, there wouldn't be anything SPECIAL going on that isn't already in the game or appears in other T-rated games. Because kids are really going to be able to emulate the game and sell their souls to Satan.

[ZephyrZodiac]

You know that and I know that and anyone who plays The sims knows that - but the wierdos who want to interfere and just ban anything they personally don't like will unfortunately always find an audience!

[Oddysey]

My brother and I once worked out an entire religion expansion pack for TS2. Basically, you picked your religion, and then you got and lost religion points based on actions, much like the aspiration bar. If you got high enough in your religion, you got special powers. And something about a religion skill, that let you see/summon some sort of supernatural religious entity that followed you around, sort of like the social bunny. Except that ones of the same type would be friendly, and ones of different types would fight.

The satanist religion was our favorite. You could command your demon/devil following around thing to light stuff on fire.

[veilchen]

This wouldn't surprise me if it were true. I can do the "YOUR SOUL IS MINE, MORTAL!" voice, too, but it hurts my throat to do it too long.

It'd be pretty neat if the Devil were in TS2, and sims that were related to the devil had special features and abilities.

JM, if you ever develop a simulation game, I would like to pre-order. With that and all the other ideas you continually come up with it would be too good to pass up.

Excuse me, I have to go out and shoot my beverage :D.

G.

[Oddysey]

The genetics involved in that would be interesting. Hmm. . . .

[kim]

JM, if you ever develop a simulation game, I would like to pre-order. With that and all the other ideas you continually come up with it would be too good to pass up.
G.

i mentioned that, once or twice. maybe a petition would be helpful.

[baratron]

It's amazing what weird things can happen with genetics. I remember years ago, a white couple who lived near my fiance at the time had a dark-skinned baby. They were both extremely puzzled (the husband may have been a little more than puzzled!), so much so that they had genetic tests done and investigated both family trees. Turned-out that someone way back in (I think) the wife's family had married a Jamacan or something. I don't recall their names, but they were probably called Jill & Pollination Tech#9 Smith, or something very similar.

haha!! oh my god!! i've finally found the answer to the puzzle!

i was surprised as to how on earth would a family of white give birth to a dark-skinned baby. even had to try to remember if the daughter (sister of Johnny, the name's Jill right?) had had an affair haha. her husband was david gibson, red hair, green eyes, just so irresistable! the baby had green eyes and red hair too, which i'm very proud

Actually, this is a red herring. Having dark-skinned ancestors isn't the reason why these sims have dark babies. It's due to many of the Strangetown sims missing 2 lines of DNA - the lines which determine "skin colour to be passed on". My theory is that missing these lines of DNA makes the game choose the default skin colour, which is apparently 4 (darkest).

This is what I found out in SimPE:

Strangetown sims with missing DNA:
Jenny Smith, Chloe Singles, Erin Singles, Lola Singles, Kristen Singles, Loki Beaker, Circe Beaker, General Buzz Grunt, (Lyla Grunt), Ripp Grunt, Vidcund Curious, Olive Specter, Ophelia Nigmos.

These sims are all missing lines 7 & 10 in their DNA - the ones that start 268435462 (dtString): and 6 (dtString):, which determine the skin colour to be passed on.

Strangetown sims with missing AND extra DNA:
Pollination Tech #9 Smith, Johnny Smith, Jill Smith, Tank Grunt, Buck Grunt.

These sims are all missing the lines which start 268435462 (dtString): and 6 (dtString):, and have extra blank lines starting 268435463, 268435464, 7 (dtString) & 8 (dtString)! These extra lines seem to contain no information and can apparently be deleted safely.

Strangetown sims that are OK:
Ajay Loner, Nervous Subject, Pascal Curious, Lazlo Curious, all the townies.

Only 4 of the Maxis-made family members have complete DNA. Nervous Subject's DNA isn't right considering he is supposed to be Olive Specter's son, but this is probably because Olive is lacking the "Skin tone passed on" options, and he got both his lines 268435462 (dtString): and 6 (dtString): from his father.

You can read the full thread, including all my confused ponderings here, and I can PM you the text file I have with the corrected sim DNA if you want it. I'm supposed to be writing up a tutorial about how to fix it for someone on another forum anyway, so when I feel less ill and my brain is functioning, I can post it somewhere.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I'd just love to know what reasoning made them choose the darkest skin colour as default, when one of the two medium tones would have made more sense!

[baratron]

Well, I don't know anything about the game's coding - it's just a theory I have, based on the anecdotal evidence that anyone who's tried to have these Strangetown sims produce babies has obtained a baby with skintone 4. I don't know for certain that the game is choosing a "default" rather than picking one at random - could be that all the people who've obtained a light or medium-skinned baby haven't been surprised, so haven't posted about it anywhere. I'd be interested to see if any of the people who do know about the code could find whatever it is in there that chooses a skintone if the DNA is missing.

[SimsHost]

... a simple case of mendelian genetics...

This must be a creative new use of the word "simple" with which I was previously unfamiliar.  



Just in case someone is attempting compile statistics here:

My father: bright blue eyes, medium brown hair, all his life, to age 85.
My mother: hazel eyes, medium brown hair.

Four kids, all born blonde and blue
1. Female: Eyes faded to pale blue.  Hair changed to dark brown.
2. Male: Kept bright blue eyes.  Hair changed to medium brown.
3. Male: Eyes changed to light brown around age 3.  Hair changed to light brown.  (That would be me.)
4. Female: Eyes changed to dark brown around age 3.  Hair changed to dark brown around age 10.

My son's mother is Swedish--bright blue eyes and medium blonde hair.  Born with his mom's eyes and hair, which only now (at age 16) are tending toward matching mine.

On the notion that all babies are born with blue eyes and brown hair: That's probably mostly true of Anglo-Saxon descent; however I can attest from personal experience that it's not true of people from just about anywhere in the world outside the UK, Scandinavia, and Germany.

[ZephyrZodiac]

You could probably include Belgium, Holland, parts of Northern France, Northern Italy, parts of Russia (which got it's name from a Viing tribe!), Poland  ............

[J. M. Pescado]

Only 4 of the Maxis-made family members have complete DNA. Nervous Subject's DNA isn't right considering he is supposed to be Olive Specter's son, but this is probably because Olive is lacking the "Skin tone passed on" options, and he got both his lines 268435462 (dtString): and 6 (dtString): from his father.

Except Nervous doesn't have a father listed. If his "father" is supposed to be Grimmy (who actually has uninitialized variables and is considered by the game to be a female, making this kinda weird), this would still make Grimmy an "unlinked" sim and result in self-pollination. Which would, obviously, explain why Nervous is male....except that frankly, Nervous has no resemblance to Olive at all. To make matters more confusing, Strangetown itself contains *TWO* Nervous Subject files, one of which is referenced in some memories instead of the "real" Nervous. My guess is that Nervous is simply fabricated in CAS with no actual genetic relation to Olive at all.

I'd just love to know what reasoning made them choose the darkest skin colour as default, when one of the two medium tones would have made more sense!

Well, I don't know anything about the game's coding - it's just a theory I have, based on the anecdotal evidence that anyone who's tried to have these Strangetown sims produce babies has obtained a baby with skintone 4. I don't know for certain that the game is choosing a "default" rather than picking one at random - could be that all the people who've obtained a light or medium-skinned baby haven't been surprised, so haven't posted about it anywhere. I'd be interested to see if any of the people who do know about the code could find whatever it is in there that chooses a skintone if the DNA is missing.

That's probably true: You wouldn't be terribly surprised if you randomly got a light or medium skinned baby, given that Curious relatives run the range from S1 to S3 at least. S4 is very strikingly different, though.