More Awesome Than You!

I guess Maxi believes blue eyes really are superior.  Are there ANY darker skinned Maxis sims with brown eyes?  Every black Maxis person my sims have met has those blue/gray eyes.  It bugs the crap out of me.  I don't mind some (a few) having blue or gray eyes, it looks striking on Dirk Dreamer, for example, but come on!  That's not the usual color for people of color.  And it's not like you can just change them later in the mirror, although there is sim-surgery through SimPE, but that would be a pain to do for all of them....

Chris

I have noticed that, too, and find it annoying. It's very unnatural. I don't think I've had a single dark-skinned sim with dark eyes yet. I have to give them colored contacts. What is wrong with this picture?

Well, there's several reasons involved: Firstly, in real life, eye, hair, and skin colors are genetically linked traits, not independent, as they are in the game. Secondly, the Dreamer family is clearly not of primarily African descent: Their facial features are more European, not Negroid. My guess is that they're probably Middle Eastern, or North African, judging from the names of some of their ancestors, areas with a great deal of contact with the European world. And finally, the townies generated are basically a random selection of colorations, and don't actually have an ethnicity at all. If you want any ethnic anythings in your game, you're going to have to do it yourself. It's worth noting that the game probably is the least adept at producing Orientals. There's also the fact that the dark blue is dominant and often rather persistent, as well as quite striking, so when you don't get the expected brown, you notice.

Even if they are Middle Eastern, Puerto Rican, Hawaiian, Central American, Mexican, etc..... those people usually have brown eyes.  So are there any light skinned Maxis sims with brown eyes?  If it is a random assortment of colors, you'd think some would get those browns.... And I always thought that brown was dominant.  But blue is?   ???

Chris

Ivy Copur (the adult, dark-skinned one, not the teenaged one) is a prime example of the european-featured dark-skinned blue-eyed sim. And the only orientals I've seen in the game are Pao Mellon (the mailman) and possibly Mary Sue Pleasant. Not sure about her, but I think she looks somewhat oriental. The fact that I can't tell says something, I guess. All of my more ethnic characters in the game are home-grown.

I just started the surrounded by idiots challenge.  My torch holder is getting married to Mary Aj;diufajwejriayep from Strangeville.  She has negroid features with a broad nose and larger lips, but still, the gray eyes.  She's really rather pretty and I can't wait to give her some brown contacts.

Chris

Certainly where I come from (UK) the most common eye colour is blue or blue/grey, which is what mine are.  I'm your typical 'English Rose' - blue eyes, very pale skin and very dark brown, almost black, hair (I'd make a great vampire). I have to admit that I've always thought that blue were more dominant than brown, simply because I rarely see anyone with brown eyes and then they're nearly always African or Asian.  Here it's mainly various shades of blue and grey, either separately or combined.  In fact, having just checked on Google, it appears that England (where I live) has the highest rate of blue eyes in the world, namely 90% of the population, which explains why I always thought they were dominant!  Now I am going to have to find out why we have the highest rate of blue eyes in the world.  I mean, 90% and they're supposed to be recessive?  That's very interesting ...

I noticed this too.
Caucasian facial structure, black skin, green, grey or blue eyes.
Hardly any asian types found, except one mailman and the Mary-Sue chick :(
So I just make my own. I grab townies who walk by, change their facial structures to be a bit more authentic to the race I 'think' they are, and send them on their way again. Then I make it genetical with simpe.
I haven't figured out how to create contacts (I want to make my own), but when I do, I'll change their eyes too.

My grandfather had brown eyes.  My grandmother had blue.  My mom has blue, my aunt has brown.  My dad is blue also, I'm blue and my brother.  My husband is blue with some flecks of greenish gold.  I have six children.  2 of them started gray and turned a greenish/brown, getting more brown every year.  3 of them have BLUE eyes and one has yet to settle her color.  Hmmm.  I love those brown eyes though.  Prolly a case of we always want what we can't have.  Almost all my CAS sims have brown eyes.

Chris

@ ancient sim:

That's interresting! Let me tell you something about our family :)
My mother is black, with the darkest brown eyes possible. My father is white, with blue/grey eyes.
My sister has light brown eyes and 'tanned' skin. She is the prettiest one, I love her eyes.
My brother has light brown eyes and brown skin. He looks like a real half-blood man, and all the girls like him :)
I have my mothers allmost black eyes, and lighter skin, like my sister. I look like I'm from the middle east :)

So our genetcis aren't always half/half, or my skin would be much darker, like my brother's, and I would have lighter eyes.

(Maybe I'm really adopted and Saddam Husseins grandchild or something.... EEEK)

Well, I have the answer now to why almost everyone in England is blue-eyed.  I mentioned this high percentage to my eldest son (blond, blue eyes) and after laughing himself silly at me thinking blue eyes were dominant, he said that the explanation for all the blue-eyed people here was probably down to Hitler.  He reckons Germany probably did invade England after all and 'planted something'. Well, he's a typical Arian, so maybe he's right!

Heh, well I guess I'm an anomoly on two counts.

Compleyely English - completely dark brown eyes, pale skin and naturally mousey brown hair.

Plus I was born with these big dark brown bug eyes of mine - which I am told is an anomoly.

Wow! I didn't know eye color continues to change throughout the childhood stage. Interesting. I think my most varied family (real life) would be that of my cousin. He has brown eyes and light brown hair and his (ex) wife had brown eyes and darker brown hair. Their oldest daughter is very blonde (naturally) with blue eyes, their middle child (another daughter) has brown hair and brown eyes, and their youngest, a son, has blond hair and brown eyes, which I've heard is a rare combination. My husband and I have almost the exact same color eyes (someone once called them "water-colored", kind of greenish blue) and my son has that exact color as well. No variety there.

As far as my sims go, I just had my first brown-eyed baby (quickly transformed into a child). Very exciting! He's Bella's grandson.

When I was little I wanted brown hair and brown eyes so badly. I lived in New Jersey for a few years where there is a large puerto-rican, italian and jewish population. My little blonde pigtails made me feel so different. :P

When I was pregnant and reading lots of books about this sort of thing, it was always clearly stated that ALL babies are born with blue eyes and their natural colour can take two years to emerge.  As I recall, even Dr. Spock said that and he's American (or was, I think maybe he's been taken by the Reaper now).  Out of five children I only have one who doesn't have blue eyes, my second, who has hazel like her father.  Her eyes didn't change from blue until she was about 20 months old.

My children's eyes have continued to change until about 10 years or so.  My oldest son is 14.  His eyes a few years ago were "army green" and they are now looking more brown than green.  My 10 year old daughter's eyes are now "army green".  And my toddler has the gray color that usually changes, and she is not yet three.  I think their eyes started turning green somewhere around 4 or 5 years old.  Weird.  I know it's not my imagination.  I have pictures..... in a box.....somewhere.....

Chris

I knew that babies are born with blue eyes and eventually change to their real color, but I didn't know it happened so late in childhood. I think if a child is going to have dark brown eyes, his/her eyes will be more of a darker gray-blue at birth. At least that's what my friend's children did. They're puerto-rican/italian/polish/jewish. 

OK, so when do we get the mod that allows our Sim babies to start with grey/blue eyes and change when they transition to toddlers/kids???

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.

Yep, Maxis is racist...or maybe hairist...or eyeist...or something.  I have brown hair and blue eyes, so in the world of perfection, I'd be killed only half-way, I suppose.  

And yet another reason our El Presidente is More Awesome Than All of Us.

  :o (this is JMP turning his eyes a different color)

Chris

I guess I really am strange then. :)

Very interesting as I have dark brown eyes which makes me part of the 10% minority.  However having brown eyes is also very rare when combined with red hair (green eye alleles are normally paired with red hair and cross-linking is uncommon) making my father and I that extra bit special.  Cool ;D

Were you born with the brown eyes though?

As far as I'm aware, yes, however most babies tend to have blue eyes as you have mentioned.  My niece had very blue eyes but now her eyes are dark brown like mine.  The earliest photo I have with me, is me aged 9 months with brown eyes. 

My eyes change color too, though I can't do it on command like Pescado can. They range between reddish-brown to muddy green-brown.

Jen

My understanding is that to have blue, green, grey or hazel eyes, you need to have the (recessive) gene on both sides of the family, in other words, both parents have to be carrying it, but it may have never actually appeared for generations, and can make it's appearance simply because it finds a match. 

In my family, my mother had brown eyes, my father had blue, and we all got blue or blue/grey.  However, my sister's daughter has brown eyes like her father.

Also, if both sides of the family have only the blue-eyes gene, then brown eyes are an impossiblity, so if Afro-American, or Afro-British etc. parents both have blue eyes, then their children will as well.  You  need two blue-eyed genes to have blue eyes, only one brown-eyed gene for brown.

I may have this a little confused, so any biologists out there who can correct me, I stand corected.

Unfortunately it isn't that simple and hair and eye colour do not follow the straightforward Mendelian inheritance patterns you are taught in school.  Both eye colour and hair colour are determined from 8 different alleles each expressing different amounts of melanin.  It's unlikely having both parents with blue eyes would produce brown eyed children however it can happen.

I felt I'd probably got some of it wrong (or over-simplified).  And bear in mind, it's a long time since I went to school!

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.

That's funny, because my ex could change his from blue to green at will!

In my family, my dad has brown eyes & my mom has blue.  All five of us kids have brown except for one brother, who has hazel.  My ex had the blue (or green) eyes, and my kids have: #1: brown, #2: blue, #3: brown.

Another interesting genetic trait is that in my family, everyone has brown hair.  My dad had a red beard when he was young, but no one inherited any red hair.  My ex had platinum blonde hair as a child, but it darkened to a mousey brown when he was about 10 and stayed brown after that.  Of my three kids, the brown-eyed ones have brown hair, and the blue-eyed one has blonde hair.  She's almost 30 now, and it is still as blonde as it was when she was little.  We kept expecting it to darken like her dad's did,  but that never happened.  And, no, she can't change the color of her eyes.  They're blue, period.  But she just had her third child, so I will be interested to see what happens with their hair and eye colors as they get older.

Well, I've got a genetic lesson here - am I in the High School?...:)

Yes, Maxis prefers  blue eyes, and even blonde hair for tan/black sims. In the game, the black sims with black eyes and hair (as they should be) look very unattractive. Ophelia has brown eyes, but blond hair, and she looks more attractive this way.

For instance, If I have a sim with very black skin color, I always choose blond hair and light dress - otherwise I can't see the sim's face in the low resolution I have.

Nothing to do with genetics here (it's a game)...:).

I can tell you a new eye color that override (in the game) all eyes colors - green. My CAS sims are always with green eyes, and all my kids - no matter who my sim marry - are with green eyes...:).

So, drop the genetic - it's redundant here...:).

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. 

So, genetics is quite appropriate here if this is not misinformation.  All my sim children born from CAS sims have gorgeous brown or hazel eyes because that is the custom eye color.  I've not married a townie to a townie with different eye colors to see what happens.

Chris

My mother's family involved 8 English (with some ancestral German in there somewhere) kids, 2 brown eyes, 2 hazel, 2 green, 2 brown - still not sure how that happened.

Meanwhile I (English/Greek by genetics, Australian by location) was born with my big brown eyes - so I'm just as anomolous as you trubble.  My hair started out almost blonde, but as time has gone by I've gotten darker and darker brown.  I wouldn't be surprised if one day it goes completely black.

I'm told I also, when I was born, had a blue bottom.  Apparently it's a sign that there's some Turkish in my (probably) Dad's side.

Cripes that sounds weird!

(Edit: realised I missed a key word in one of those sentences.  First one to guess which word gets, um, a bene in the BBS?)

My eyes are.. err... odd. One is golden green, kind of "army" green I guess. The other one is that same color, but with a patch of very dark brown. My eyes are like camo!

Gali,

There is genetic hierachy for sure in the game. Brown hair is dominant over blonde. Not sure about eyes as my sims always have a shade of blue. But I have neighbourhoods of mostly brown haired sims. I introduce blonde but unless two blondies have a kid, I can't get rid of the brown.

It has been very interesting to read this thread. My toddler turns 2 in a few weeks and she had blond hair and very blue eyes. My husband has mousey coloured hair and green eyes. I have blond hair and green/blue eyes. She is definitely our daughter and I can only think that she got blue eyes from her grandfather. Her eyes have been the same colour since the day she was born. I wonder if they will infact change.

Even though I have light eyes, I have olive skin and black eyebrows. Looks odd with my blond hair. I am really curious to see how my daughter will turn out. My mother had brown eyes and my dad green/blue.

Lol, I know that, I studied in college too - but it's not pure, and besides - it doesn't matter; what matters is - is the sim ugly or not.

I accept the "racist" argument about Maxis (prefers blue eyes for dark skinned sims), and I quite like it; not because I am "racist" (I am Jewish, lol), but because the blue eyes and the blond hair  make the dark-skinned sims to look prettier, even if it contradicts the genetics...:).

I bred University drop out Tosha Go (pale skin, blonde hair, green eyes, you know, THAT townie teen with the Cassandra Goth imitation hair) with Amin Sims (dark skin, brown hair, blue/grey eyes)

The result was Amy Go: dark skin, RED hair, green eyes.

I'm quite bewildered and I have a paranoid phobia about using SimPE even to look at the genetics and turn my computer into a fireball visible from space.  A modder I ain't.

Dagmar the post girl is blonde with brown eyes.  She had 6 kids with Kennedy Cox in my game; they came out with black hair (Kennedy's) and brown eyes - and THAT nose.  He also had 6 kids with adult Ivy Copur - yes, the truly evil one; and although she had blue eyes (before she died) their kids all have brown eyes and black hair.

People may hate the townies, but Ivy's offspring make excellent fighters. ;D

My guess is that you had a blue bottom *lip*.

I think it's more common in the South to see people of African descent with lighter colored eyes, due to the higher level of race-mixing during slavery. Most do have brown eyes, but I've had several friends with either green or hazel. One friend's son had the most gorgeous crystal blue eyes I've ever seen.

For those of you who like the dark hair, dark eyes, dark skin combo, firefighter Dorian Miguel in Strangtown fits the bill. He's very easy on the eyes.  ;) I had him marry a Sim with alien skin-tone. All three of their children have her skin but his brown eyes. The combination is rather nice. NOTE: my aliens have custom lavender skin. The mother's eyes are grey.

As Posie Flump mentioned, the genetics for eye color is a bit more complex than simple mendelian genetics. Here is a sample of info which I found here (http://www.seps.org/cvoracle/faq/eyecolor.html):


Obviously real life genetics is far more complex than whatever spaghetti-coded engine the game uses to determine sims genetics. :P

I also wanted to note that just because a trait is dominant does not necessarily and explicitly mean that it is the most commonly expressed. The age old example is polydactyly, the autosomal dominant trait of having an extra digit (finger or toe). Although this trait is dominant genetically, it is not commonly seen phenotypically (expressed visually). In other words, dominance does not necessarily translate into high frequency. There are several examples of traits that are dominant, but just not found in the general population. The association and confusion probably arises due to semantics since the word "dominant" has a connotation that seems to imply that the population should have an abundance of this trait.

To put it simply, a dominant trait, in a simple case of mendelian genetics, is the trait that will ALWAYS be expressed over the recessive trait. In a simple example, you have two allelles for a certain gene, one from your father and one from your mother. Either of these traits can be dominant or recessive. In most cases, it requires two recessive alleles in order for that trait to expressed. Dominance dictates what trait is expressed, it does not necessarily affect how frequent this trait is expressed in the population. This is when natural selection comes into play. Theoretically, if the trait is adaptively advantageous, then supposedly it would be more commonly expressed in the population, since it may supposed help in the survival of its carriers, who could then go on to produce offspring and pass along the advantageous adaptation.In some cases, certain diseases or deformities are dominant. However, because the expression of these conditions are deterimental or even fatal, these traits tend to not get passed on to further generations, and therefore that is why they are not as commonly expressed in the general population.

Here endeth the mini lesson on simple genetics. [/geek]

Hehe, I hope that made sense and I hope I didn't pass on too much misinformation. Feel free to correct me as I often talk out of my ass anyways. :P Plus, in the ever changing, ever growing field of biology and genetics, something new is always springing up and changing the way we think and understand how things work. :D

Ste

But isn't it amazing too that we all seem to agree that dark skin, blue eyes and blond hair looks attractive. How many shows have you seen on Discovery channel that search the reasoning behind human attraction to each other? What do we consider attractive? I have heard that its symentry of the face but alas, it seems to be other things too.

I think the liking for dark skin with blond hair and blue eyes is partly due to the western desire for suntans - the deeper the tan, the healthier we think we look!

Interestingly, from what I understand from Syberspunk's post, since genetic inheritance is partly determined by external factors of what is beneficial to the community then, if the increasing global warming causes more and more cloud over  Northern Europe (as it seems to be doing!) we can expect an increase in light -coloured eyes, which let in more daylight.

Another interesting point, although the general pattern in Asia is for brown eyes, there are quite a number of people in Pakistan, mainly, I believe, Kashmiris, who have blue, grey, green or hazel eyes.  When I was teaching, we had a family of three Pakistani boys in the school, and all three of them had dark violet-blue eyes.  Some people blame this on Alexander the Great and his army, as I believe the same thing applies in Turkey and most other countries which were on his route!  Not sure I do, though.

I don't think they're related, but the Miguels in the game seem to be particularly good looking.  I have a sim married to Jason Miguel.  He has blue eyes, but still.  He's hot!

Chris

   
This trait runs in my father's family; the extra digits look a bit like little toes with no inherent muscles; My father has a younger brother who was born with 12 fingers (inc thumbs) and 12 toes; my father himself had 12 fingers - I'm relieved to say I was born with the usual 10 digits, but my younger son was born with 12 fingers too.  My father kept his extra digits well into adulthood - I could gross you out by saying I used to play with them!  But, due to his work (osteopathy) he eventually had them removed.  My son's extra digits were tied soon after his birth and fell off when he was less than a month old.  Both my father and son have the nodules on the sides of their little fingers where the digits were.

I've also seen a child with 12 digits who had  5 proper working fingers alongside his thumbs.  His extra digits were jointed, with proper nails which was why I'd not noticed them.  I'd taught him for over 5 months before the other children pointed this out to me.  I can still see the image in my head.  Aaaargh!

It could be, but not necessarily - it could be simple artistic principles. :) Dark skin and pale hair/eyes create a strong contrast, which attracts the eye. It's a rare combination in real life, especially with very dark skin and blonde hair on someone with European or Asian features, so the result on our human-looking sims is exotic.

Not everyone is fond of the exotic, though; I've seen complaints on other boards about the dark skin/light hair or eyes happening with Sims.

I think it's a mistake to treat your sims as though they were human and expect them to eithr look or behave exactly like humans!  They're sims, for heaven's sake, and they mate with aliens!  So far, at least, we don't appear to be doing that, at least, not with green ones!

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 :)

how exactly did you do that?

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!

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

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! :o  (The other digit fell neatly into my baby's shawl).

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:
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y62/Brynne14/justinandcadencecrop.jpg)

Justin with child #1. Every child thereafter (all 15 of 'em!) look just like this, some with a female twist...
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y62/Brynne14/justinprestoncrop.jpg)

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

Ugh. I wish sim surgery worked in simpe.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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

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

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 (http://www.variousimmers.net/vsimforum/showthread.php?threadid=1671), 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.

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.

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



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.

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  ............

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.

Dunno about eyes, but I know that in many parts of the world young children have lighter skin and hair than they do as adults. It's a signal for youthfulness. Interestingly, there's a theory that the oft-remarked upon preference towards blondes in Europe and North America is actual a preference towards lighter, and thus more youthful, skin. And in women, skin color varies with one's fertility cycle, with (I think) the lightest skin color corresponding to peak fertility, the darkest skin color corresponding to one's period.

Also, "Western" beauty preferences seem to be shifting towards somewhat darker skin and hair, and more African/Asian mixed features, reflecting new demographic norms. Check out beauty magazines and models. I don't think the research is definitive yet, but it's an interesting possibility.

Ah, the science of beauty, and sexual selection. A most fascinating topic.

Yes. Then there's the project where they amalgamated poll results to produce what was supposedly the "ideal" face.

Predictably, the resulting face was really quite bland and not at all appealing, like a pizza ordered by too many people.

As for the preferences shift, I theorize that it's actually a built-in thing for the "exotic". Whatever is "exotic" is in. This may partly be a defensive mechanism to prevent inbreeding.

I haven't heard about the poll results--at least specifically, as I can think of something that might fit it, but I haven't been able to find it, since all the links are dead--but I do know that when you blend a group of faces into one faces, the result is usually surprisingly attractive, since the various flaws even each other out. However, conscious selection often produces sub-desirable results, since there tends to be a gap between what people think they want and what they actually want, especially in the case of something like beauty.

Truly *beautiful* faces, however, almost always vary from the standard norm in some way or another, which is why extremely good looking people usually have rather exotic or striking features.

EDIT: If anyone's really interested in this stuff, I recommend "Why Is Sex Fun?" by Jared Diamond, and any books he references. It's all about sexual selection, specifically, what sexually selective forces have drive the human sex life to be so weird in comparison to other animals, including our closest genetic relatives. Gender roles, beauty, it's all in there. Very good book.

And pure, classical beauty (as defined by 19th C artists etc.) so often lacks character!

I've noticed people seem very conflicted in this regard. I, myself, lack this dichotomy, being that I am incapable of perceiving beauty without thought. Things don't jump out at me as "pretty" unless I think about it. Unless that something is pyrotechnical in nature. That's one of the few things that jumps out at me as "OOOH!".

I can definitely agree with that one. People who look like can and will punch you in the face are definitely very striking, and even more so if they actually do it. I personally favor things like angry eyebrows and sharp teeth. Because those are always very striking.

That's because you're a guy, Pescado.

And ZZ: That's another thing. The classical definition of beauty, with the emphasis on proportions and mathematical perfection, really has very little basis in reality. The main reason that the golden ration shows up so much in the human face is because there are so many ratios in the human face to begin with. Although there is an instinctual definition of beauty, (day old infants watch pictures of "attractive" faces longer than they do pictures of "unnattractive" faces) it's not nearly so hardcoded and definite as was once believed.

I'd certainly agree that physical perfection and Sex Appeal have very little in common!  While on person may be born lucky and have both, there are endless examples of people who have one and not the other.  Very few male rock stars, for example, are what would fall into classical definitions of male beauty, but thousands of women would give their eye teeth to get them into their knickers!

That is totally not an adequate explanation, especially since most of the other "guys" think that because I can look upon a picture of some female they deem to be "hot" and be utterly unmoved and unimpressed, I must be gay.

I'm not entirely sure that's true. I think that proportions and mathematical perfection are important factors, but that they're using the wrong numbers, and assuming that numbers which are actually individually specific variables are constants.

I think the "golden ratio" is just some arbitrary thing people made up, anyway. It has very little to do with faces. Clearly, an attractive face is one that displays a prominent cranium, and an alert, focussed expression indicative of intelligence and awareness. Preferrably an ANGRY expression, as anyone who appears to be happy is obviously severely deluding themselves about something, and while delusional perceptions of reality are amusing in friends, they are unsuitable in a mate.

I'm wondering if this is due to the "Exotic" factor. After all, "exotic" is "beautiful", and when an infant sees something strange and foreign to it, it may simply fixate on the strangeness. I mean, day old infants will also watch fires longer than they watch ANY face. Is this because fire is pretty and an infant which does this is destinated to be a pyromaniac like me, or is it because fires are new and different?

Infants and children are also apparently drawn to symmetrical faces. I think you see more symmetry in "exotic" faces than you do in the Ango-Saxon variety. I had never thought too much about my innate ability to attract infants and toddlers. They always stare at me for a bit and then innevitably they smile or otherwise try their baby 'flirting'. A fussy baby almost always settles down when I talk to it. I always thought I was just some natural-born baby whisperer. My son the artist mentioned in passing the other day that I have a very symmetrical face. That would be one explanation for my baby magic, I suppose.

J. M. Pescado I had this explained to me as an example of 'survival of the fittest'  Theoretically, the wider the gene pool, the stronger the species. 

ZZI learn so much from Sky News...there was a feature on babies being instinctively drawn to symmetrical faces.  The question raised was 'Is it a true definition of beauty?'  Turned on its head, it means asymetrical faces (twisted, warped and crooked) are ugly.  I wonder how much they were paid to come up with those findings. :D

J. M. Pescado
That's what all the less than beautiful people would have us believe. 

J. M. PescadoYou mucho too macho to be gay.

ReggikkoI have the same impact on babies, toddlers, children and animals.  Even the wildest animals seem to calm down in my presence.  On my recent visit to Wales the sheep came over to talk to me - and I wasn't over at the BBS, the horses and cows sought eye contact too! 

Sucks to be you. Me, I also *HAD* a very symmetrical face, but it has since sustained a great deal of battle damage. However, after I was about 12, babies never reacted positively to me. If I so much as looked at it, it would scream, and if I glared at it, it would soil itself. Except my cousins. They'd react with excitement and try to pull my nose, bite my ankles, and then try to rip my leg off unless I clubbed them with something repeatedly, which, while successful in repelling them from my person, generally caused them to switch to bombardment with thrown objects. I'm told I was the same way. It seems to be a family thing.

In any case, now I produce the same effect on children. They are first drawn closer for some bizarre reason, and when they get close enough to be irritating and I glare at them, they scream, soil themselves, and flee in terror.

I always find babies and toddlers are fascinated by people who wear glasses!

I saw that one.  My impression was that her eyes were too wide-set, her face was vertically squished, and her chin was too small.

So, who would you think of as extremely attractive women among celebrities we might know about?  (Personalities and abilities don't count here, just appearance.)

Off hand, I'd say, at their peak of youth and beauty: Maureen O'Sullivan, Grace Kelly, Catherine Deneuve, and Rose McGowan rank right up there.

I think Aristotle was the first one who made the definition that *symmetry*  is the sign of beauty and order, and *assymetry*  is the sign of disorder and uglyness...:).

...Now check yoursef who are you...:).

 

Nobody, really. I don't know of many celebrities, and the ones people show to me don't really attract me. I'm known for consistently handing out ratings no higher than "Meh". As a result, I'm occasionally accused of being gay. They all look too plasticky for my tastes.

I'll agree with those and add Vivien Leigh. Also, of more recent candidates, Angelina Jolie, Salma Hayak, Isabella Rosselini, Uma Thurman, and Reese Witherspoon.

I agree, and that goes for most of the celebrity males as well. I always get the feeling I'm dealing with empty packages there, and who wants an empty package?

My favorite actress is Myrna Loy, by the way. I think she is (was?) funny, witty, warm, and intelligent. She was (I don't know if she's still alive, I don't watch many movies or television, nor do I read any entertainment rags) also very pretty in my opinion.

G.

I always felt Judy Garland had more personality per square inch than almost everyone else!

Angelina Jolie is my secret crush ("hey" to everyone from the beaches of Lake Michigan) and I had a nice dream about Vin Diesel last night.   ;)

Most celebrities look so "unnatural" to me, just like the dark side.
Fashion is a form of uglyliness so intolerable we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde  ::)

Yeah. I'm rarely very attracted by male celebrities. They just don't look very interesting. Or something.

The exception, of course, is Viggo Mortenson. (I think that's his last name.) And that's as much the characters he plays as anything else. Aragorn rocks.

Oh, I agree with you about Myrna Loy, but she has one little problem that keeps me from getting excited about her--she looks just like my mother!

If anyone would like to be freaked out, I was born with navy blue irises, and pastel blue scleras (sclerae? the "white" of the eye). My irises went dark brown within a few months, but the blue in the scleras took a bit longer to fade - there's a photo of me aged six months where I still have noticeably blue "whites".

My eyes nowadays look like this (http://www.livejournal.com/userpic/703182/128879).

You look fine to me. Mine can look much worse than you. I'm consistently bloodshot and if I rupture something, it will turn entirely purple. Combined with the network of large throbbing veins on my head, and, well, you get the idea.

those rarely coincide.  or did you mean,"youth and marketability"? sorry, major personal annoyance issue.

Young and marketable, but often unable to communicate in more than three word phrases linked by "like" "You know" etc.

Oh well, I'm happy that I was able to provide some entertaining annoyance for you then!  ;D

my god!! that's gross and funny at the same time! lol!

i wonder where can we get a glimpse of our almighty Mr More Awesome than You...

At his Sim Page on the BBS, the avatar is close to how he describes himself...:)

http://thesims2.ea.com/mysimpage/mysimpage.php?user_id=195920

Wow! didn't notice - he is already "stand-up Sim"...:)

That's impressive. I've gained a rank in absentia? I haven't even really gone there.

Oh no,  your Avatar looks just like my husband.    :o   

Told you...your fame is universal. The german sites translate your stuff and send people to you all over the place. I'm sure that goes for many other countries too.

You don't have to actually be there, just being around somewhere is apparently enough for the adoring hordes of fans you have. :D

Perhaps you should start guided tours of the old homestead, JM?

As a biotechnology student we were taught in genetics class about a real case like this in the U.K a while ago. A totally white couple got a black baby. The husband accused the wife of cheating. So they went for a genetic test coupled with research into their family tree. They found out that one of them actually had a black ancestor several generations ago. The genetics were hidden for so long that their origin had been forgotten. :D

An even odder case, which you may also have heard about, was a pair of twins.  the mother was from Nigeria and the father was English, but the twins (monozygotic) were born one entirely black African in appearance, the other blond, blue-eyed and pale-skinned.  Evidently a very rare form of mirror-image twins!

I actually saw a similar thing at a wedding. The groom's half-sisters were mixed caucasian/asian. One had darker skin, but blonde w/blue eyes, the other was pale with black hair and eyes. Apart from colouring, their features were identical and they were stunning.

Myself, both grandmothers were blue eyed, both grandfathers and parents were brown eyed, all dark to black hair. As children, myself, brother and sister were brown eyed with dark hair, but now, my sister is blonde with green eyes...

oh my god!! That's our almighty Mr JM Pescado?! he looks so cute!! sort of like Amish people (no offense)..

still can't understand him..i mean, he's mean, and while i know some grandpas always amuse themselves by being mean, he's technologically advance...my dad can't even type a letter without my help..and he's younger than JM. I think I love him more...haha!

That's neat!  My avatar looks a lot like JM's avatar (and very little like me).  I'd show it to you but I have no idea how to figure out the URL of a link that would point to my sim page.

why don't you just type it whole and we can just copy and paste it?

This will sound really dumb, but I have to ask: How do I find out my user ID number on the Maxis board?






(Yup.  Even after I typed it, it still sounds pretty dumb.)

If you go to your SimPage, and look at the url, the last thing in the address is your id number.

Last thing I read, you are supposed to be attractive to someone who is different to you but not too different. The current philosophy is that you choose someone whose sweat smells different to you but who has a symmetrical face shape of the same race as you. (people of very different races may have divergent genetics, in which some of the genes have translocated, and this can result in offspring that are retarded/ deficient as a result of chromosomes crossing over and genes being left out) If someone has an abnormally asymmetrical face it implies that they are a) deformed, and therefore may have faulty genetics or b) they have walked under a bus as a result of stupidity/ poor reflexes or that they start fights and then lose, in which case their genes are also likely to be undesirable. It might be a freak accident and not their fault, but evolution doesn't work like that.

I have never seen a human being with black skin and any eye colour other than brown. Hair, eye, and skin pigmentation are all a result of production of melanin. Melanin production can vary slightly between different parts of the same person, but large variances are improbable. Albino people cannot produce melanin and have blue eyes, white skin, and colourless hair that looks pale blond. People with white skin never have pure black hair (not the really black sort that has a bluish tinge to it like Asian hair). Only people with pale skin can have ginger or blond hair and blue eyes. Blue eyes in my experience are extremely rare as this is the result of having no eye pigmentation and is recessive to everything else. Grey eyes and what people describe as being green have varying amounts of melanin, followed by hazel and then brown, which is the full pigmentation.

The NPCs that the game creates are all minging (IMHO) because they mix up incompatible features and hence the black-skinned man with blue eyes and a blond mullet who loiters in a repulsive tracksuit outside the house, urinating on the topiary and eating out of the dustbin. Even the ones with plausible skin/hair/eye colours are ugly because the archetypes are all ugly and don't look like the races they're supposed to represent. I don't know why this is because the playable characters in the game aren't plagued by faces with the eyes too far apart like hammerhead sharks and huge lips like startled guppies (well, apart from Dina Caliente (or whatever her name is -- the one in the dress with blonde hair), whose face is the stuff of nightmares). I use Pescado's No Townie Regeneration hack with my own neighbourhood, and blitz the character files and neighbourhood entries with SimPE before making any characters in it.

I read a story like that in Teen People magazine years ago... The mother was caucasian and the father was Jamaican...I think the twn daughters were fraternal though...but they looked the same just different skintones...people didnt believe that they were twins or even had the same parents...