Pollination Tech needs makeover...

[Sky]

I like to have some of my male sims abducted so I can get alien babies, but sometimes the pollination technician's facial features show and it can be just horrible; giant eyes, no nose, etc... I like the green skin and black eyes but the rest I can do without. Is there a safe way to somehow change his face? Currently I just use a plastic surgery thing but it can't be used on kids .

Thanks

[Kyna]

You could use a default replacement PT. 

Personally, I use DylanTK's default PT over at Laverwinklesims. 

I believe there are other default replacement PTs over at MTS2, and there is also a multi-PT mod at MTS2 (where you can have several different PTs, and the game will randomly choose one to be the alien parent whenever a sim is abducted and comes back pregnant).

Or you could make your own default replacement PT.  I think there's a tutorial somewhere over at MTS2.

[Lorelei]

I believe MTS2 has a four pack of PT replacements for more DNA mixing and less fug. If you haven't replaced yet, though, Laverwinkle aliens are a nice lavender / periwinkle blue / greyish colour mix and thus likely to be more distinctive if you also have lots of green plantsims.

[SaraMK]

Is there anyone left in the intelligent simming world who hasn't replaced that ugly thing with something purdier?

There's a cool alien skintone at Rensim. I just can't stand having so many green things in the game.

[Sky]

Thanks a lot for the info, I'll look into these.

I don't really mind the green tone, not too many plantsims around my hood, I got bored with those fairly quick, tho they are good for running stores and stuff.

[danicast]

I made one too, is posted at my site:
http://www.havesometea.net/danicastsims2

[doren]

I made one too, is posted at my site:
http://www.havesometea.net/danicastsims2

I like the facial structure, but I have some questions about your note:

If I would use this one as a replacement, it would pass on the green XM Sims hair (if downloaded) or - if I don't have that hair - I would end up with an alien which has any of the custom hairstyles I have? Meaning that if I am unlucky I have an alien that passes on blond dreadlocks or some other custom hair that I have been too lazy to delete? Could I modify the file, so that it has black hair as default again?

Did you make the alien skin/eyes genetically LESS dominant as they currently are? I currently have one alien pregnant (Chloes Singles) and the father has custom skin/custom eyes. I would be quite happy to hear that the alien skin/eyes are dominant even towards custom genetics, because I would like them to appear in the children. Since I have not replaced Pollination Tech (yet), I don't see abduction as an option to keep or increase the alien population.

[seelindarun]

I don't believe it is possible to make the PT's skin or eyes "less dominant".  The PT has homozygous, un-binned custom alleles for skin and eyes, whether you use a default replacement or not.

If Chloe Singles isn't genetically borked, she should have one skin allele from the PT (green) and one from her normal father (S1, S2, S3, or S4).  She displays green skin because the PT has two alleles for the custom green skin.  Her child has a 50% chance of receiving a green skin allele from Chloe, or the other normal skin allele, which originated from Chloe's normal sim father.  If Chloe's breeding partner is a CAS sim with un-binned, custom skin, then he also has two alleles for his custom skin, and that is all he can pass to his children.  Because Chloe's partner is homozygous, his custom skin is what will show on the child, even if the child should receive one alien skin allele from Chloe.

Depending on the combination of EPs you have, this may vary.  EAxis have changed the rules from time to time.  This is just what happens in my game running all EPs up to Seasons.

Basically, you can never count on the offspring of aliens to show green, as all alien sims born into the game are really only half-breeds.

[doren]

I don't believe it is possible to make the PT's skin or eyes "less dominant".  The PT has homozygous, un-binned custom alleles for skin and eyes, whether you use a default replacement or not.

If Chloe Singles isn't genetically borked, she should have one skin allele from the PT (green) and one from her normal father (S1, S2, S3, or S4). 

I don't know if they were truly bred in-game, but from what I have seen, none of the Maxis sims carry the genetics of their parents. Chloe and Lola have alien genetics on both sides. It's like Lilith and Angela (they have genetically red hair despite Mary-Sue being black haired). I think the only one who carries the genetics of mother and father is Cassandra Goth.

[seelindarun]

Ah, so you checked Chloe and she is homozygous for her alien skin?  Then, if her breeding partner is also homozygous for his (un-binned) custom skin, their child has a 50% chance of showing either skin.  However, that child is obviously going to be heterozygous, no matter what it shows, so things get a bit uncertain as you go on down the generations.

[doren]

Ah, so you checked Chloe and she is homozygous for her alien skin?  Then, if her breeding partner is also homozygous for his (un-binned) custom skin, their child has a 50% chance of showing either skin.  However, that child is obviously going to be heterozygous, no matter what it shows, so things get a bit uncertain as you go on down the generations.

It does not work like that with the regular skintones, thus my question about the genetic dominance of the skintone/eyes.
If you have one sim with regular Maxis skin/eyes - whatever colour but homozygous - and you pair it with homozygous custom skin/eyes, you always get the custom for the child.
If you have one parent with heterozygous custom skin/eyes and one parent with homozygous regular skin/eyes, there is a chance of x percent (definitely less than 50) to get a child with regular Maxis skin (and custom eyes most likely). It's not quite like biology lesson, when we plagued the neighbourhood with our drosophila melanogaster breeds.
The alien eyes can't be 100 % dominant because I remember Pascal Curious (where I reloaded the game about a million times) giving birth to children with non-alien eyes (and did they look horrible!). I can not remember if they always had the alien skintone.

[Zazazu]

Ah, so you checked Chloe and she is homozygous for her alien skin?  Then, if her breeding partner is also homozygous for his (un-binned) custom skin, their child has a 50% chance of showing either skin.  However, that child is obviously going to be heterozygous, no matter what it shows, so things get a bit uncertain as you go on down the generations.

It does not work like that with the regular skintones, thus my question about the genetic dominance of the skintone/eyes.
If you have one sim with regular Maxis skin/eyes - whatever colour but homozygous - and you pair it with homozygous custom skin/eyes, you always get the custom for the child.

This is a dangerous statement that hasn't been universally true since the early days of the game. A lot of creators now geneticize their custom eyes and skins, so that customs aren't always dominant. All of my eyes and custom skins are geneticized, and only a handful were done by me.

[doren]

Ah, so you checked Chloe and she is homozygous for her alien skin?  Then, if her breeding partner is also homozygous for his (un-binned) custom skin, their child has a 50% chance of showing either skin.  However, that child is obviously going to be heterozygous, no matter what it shows, so things get a bit uncertain as you go on down the generations.

It does not work like that with the regular skintones, thus my question about the genetic dominance of the skintone/eyes.
If you have one sim with regular Maxis skin/eyes - whatever colour but homozygous - and you pair it with homozygous custom skin/eyes, you always get the custom for the child.

This is a dangerous statement that hasn't been universally true since the early days of the game. A lot of creators now geneticize their custom eyes and skins, so that customs aren't always dominant. All of my eyes and custom skins are geneticized, and only a handful were done by me.

Mentally add "non-geneticised" to my statement if you wish for more precision. I don't think any of the skintones or eyes I have were geneticised by the creators and I have not altered them.

[seelindarun]

If you have one parent with heterozygous custom skin/eyes and one parent with homozygous regular skin/eyes, there is a chance of x percent (definitely less than 50) to get a child with regular Maxis skin (and custom eyes most likely).

This is not the same situation as Chloe and her mate which you asked about first.  In her case, I first assumed she was heterozygous custom, and her mate, homozygous and custom.

How many times did you re-load the birth to determine that the percentage is less than 50 for the case you describe above?  I've had slightly less than 20 2nd-gen alien births, but a quick chi-square test shows my results are within the expected variance.  EAxis has claimed that it should be 50%, but they've been known to change the rules. 

The alien eyes can't be 100 % dominant because I remember Pascal Curious (where I reloaded the game about a million times) giving birth to children with non-alien eyes (and did they look horrible!). I can not remember if they always had the alien skintone.

I'm not sure about Pascal's genetic material, as I avoid Strangetown since I read in the War Room that most of its citizens have scrambled genes.  Although it is possible that EAxis have changed (or borkened) the rules for alien genetics, I'm fairly confident that there isn't any way to change the dominance of alien traits.  PT replacements follow the same rules for genetic inheritance as the default.

[danicast]

If I would use this one as a replacement, it would pass on the green XM Sims hair (if downloaded) or - if I don't have that hair - I would end up with an alien which has any of the custom hairstyles I have? Meaning that if I am unlucky I have an alien that passes on blond dreadlocks or some other custom hair that I have been too lazy to delete? Could I modify the file, so that it has black hair as default again?

Genetically he have the default alien skin and eyes and it will work how the game planned. I didn´t changed the dominance. If you not have the XMhair, the game will assign any other non-binned hair. Even with the hair in my game, I have offsprings generated with other customized hairs. I have a test family that had a blond girl and a red-hair boy. The next generation can have a default tone skin, just like regular generated abductions and default eyes, like Jill Smith from Strangetown.

Since is a default replacement, all genetics will follow Maxis default rules. None of them are dominant like a customized sim with customized skin, hair and eyes - these ones tend to be dominant to all others just because the makers never think about sims genetics when they make stuff, so bodyshop attributes the highest value.

I don't believe it is possible to make the PT's skin or eyes "less dominant".  The PT has homozygous, un-binned custom alleles for skin and eyes, whether you use a default replacement or not.

It is possible when you make a default replacement, but this piece of info must go inside the skin, eye or hair that you are using as replacement.

If Chloe Singles isn't genetically borked

There is a thread here somewhere that explains that a lot of Strangetown sims are genetically broke. I checked some of them myself with Simpe, John and Jill Smith, as example, have no genetic data for skin and eyes. I never checked Chloe, but is possible that she have some segment missing.

I don't know if they were truly bred in-game, but from what I have seen, none of the Maxis sims carry the genetics of their parents. Chloe and Lola have alien genetics on both sides. It's like Lilith and Angela (they have genetically red hair despite Mary-Sue being black haired). I think the only one who carries the genetics of mother and father is Cassandra Goth.

Lilith and Angela actually are Mary Sue and Daniel offsprings. I tested the genetic data plus facial geometry and gave to Mary Sue and Daniel 2 new offsprings, both resembles Angela and Lilith, one have black hair and the other one red hair.
Cassandra and Alexander are not Bella and Mortimer genetic kids, they are template made (Alexander uses the same template as Goopy, Cassandra uses the same template as Kaylyn, the maid). It´s impossible to make offsprings between Mortimer and Bella that remotely resembles Alexander or Cassandra. Also, Mortimer is genetically blond, he is not dark hair.

PT replacements follow the same rules for genetic inheritance as the default.

Exactly.

[Kyna]

Lilith and Angela actually are Mary Sue and Daniel offsprings. I tested the genetic data plus facial geometry and gave to Mary Sue and Daniel 2 new offsprings, both resembles Angela and Lilith, one have black hair and the other one red hair.

The only way this would be possible is if you first edited Mary-Sue's genetics so that she had a recessive red or blond hair gene, and one of the girls could then inherit that instead of the black hair gene from her.

In a game where you haven't edited Mary-Sue's genetics both Lilith and Angela would inherit black hair from Mary-Sue and red hair from Daniel, and given the way genetics works in the game, they would both be black haired.

[danicast]

Just wanted to show you some of my Politech offsprings in a friend´s game, she just sent me those:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/denialalice/mysims/RiverSmith.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/denialalice/mysims/SmithFamily.jpg

Pretty awesome, in my opinion

[doren]

Thanks DaniCast. I am going to download your PT then, although I have a notion that I will never ever see an abduction in my game again. But if it happens, there is at least no risk that I will get this horrible alien nose. 
As for the (half-)alien offspring, I think I will edit the genetics of the fathers before the births take place and then change them back afterwards. By rule of thumb (seelindarun, I have not come to the point of doing chi-square tests yet) I should get the results I want then.

I went through the genetics of the "broken" sims this morning with SimEnhancer. There is a section which shows you the expressed skintone, with one box labelled "recessive skintone?". A few sims I created had that box empty (N.A.), but it does not seem to matter too much. In the case of Johnny, Jill and Jenny Smith the expressed skintone was not available, the same was true for Vidcund Curious, Lola, Chloe, Erin and Kristen Singles. Pascal and Lazlo Curious were alright (I forgot to check the other families).
In the section below, you get the genetics of the parents and there is nothing missing there.

DaniCast, I also had a look at Mortimer and he has genetically brown hair in my game (with n.a. for the expressed hair colour).
What I found extremely surprising is what you said about Lilith and Angela Pleasant. Mary-Sue is based very much on the one asian face template, with Daniel it is hard to tell, but he definitely has a rather short nose. Lilith and Angela's faces seem to use a completely different template ("Benjamin Long"?) and I can only imagine them to come after the grandparents if they are Daniel's and Mary-Sue's daughters. Mary-Sue had another child, but not with Daniel and her son has the features I would expect from that face template. Lilith has four children (double twins!) and while two of them resemble the father, one of the boys (and one daugther) comes totally after her. He is going to have a very long nose and will not resemble Daniel or Mary-Sue in any way.
Cassandra's offspring on the other hand - and there is plenty - has these really thick lips - like Alexander. It is possible that I made a horrible mistake when I created the father, but my suspicion always was that Mortimer was responsible for that.

[Dea]

In my game Mortimer's daughter with Dina had brown hair. His son with Bella had black hair with brown recessive.  If he was genetically blonde that would not be the case. 

Is there anyone left in the intelligent simming world who hasn't replaced that ugly thing with something purdier?

There's a cool alien skintone at Rensim. I just can't stand having so many green things in the game.

I just went about replacing mine.  I just never thought about it bc its been a while since an alien has been born in my game.  Now that Im starting to play Strangetown again though I have to worry about what the spawns will look like.

[danicast]

DaniCast, I also had a look at Mortimer and he has genetically brown hair in my game

He is genetically blond at my game but he had a twins cheesecake with Bella and both offsprings have black hair. I was amused to discover he is blonde, it was something that never crossed my mind.

Mortimer:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/denialalice/simsfamilies/snapshot_6dae6a73_d3e4ca1b.jpg

What I found extremely surprising is what you said about Lilith and Angela Pleasant.

I was discussing this same issue in another thread and I suspect that maybe I can have different chars at my game because my game is the Deluxe Brazilian version (which means it´s an european version, brazilian games are produced in EA Europe). I don´t know about differences but I know they exists. I have some different houses from US version. But the most important is the fact that if you breed Daniel and Mary Sue you get Angela/Lilith facial geometry result at the offsprings. It was something I doubt it because they don´t look like (to me) possible Mary Sue offsprings. It seems they are, because the sims that I had in my game are very similar to them. I was surprised.

Here are  Daniel and Marysue Dreams offsprings at my game:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/denialalice/simsfamilies/snapshot_d409a064_f40c6a64.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/denialalice/simsfamilies/snapshot_cdae71fd_544a75de.jpg

I am using a CAS template replacement, that changes the result, of course, my sims have smooth angles due the CAS template (Deuglified from MTS2).

I am also using a file called hairtone_defaults.package that I got here at MATY in some post that changes how hairs genes works. Makes a huge difference in results, fixed some Maxis weirdnesses.

I like your experiments Doren, I married Cassandra with Goopy and all her children look like him. Alexander just had a child recently in my game, I will check how that will look like.

The Smith family have gentic pieces missing, I checked them at Simpe, they don´t have recessive skintone or hair in my game. The whole Smith family was a mess, I had to fix them.

More people posted my PT offsprings at the other forum I go, the results are amazing but I discovered the hair is not working for binned hair, my PT is giving genetic black hair to offsprings.

Here some more pics, despite this hair result (I am frustrated, I wanted not-binned hair, but users are happy, so...)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/denialalice/simsfamilies/snapshot_d4a6c047_94a6c12e.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/denialalice/simsfamilies/snapshot_d4a6c047_34a6c467.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/denialalice/simsfamilies/lola_chloe.jpg

[doren]

Here are some pictures of one of Cassandra's husband and one of their daughters ("Next Generation" album) as well as pictures of the two children which resemble Lilith ("Pleasantview" album).

http://www.picturetrail.com/doren_with_cats

The nose still looks different to me, compared to your Mary Sue/Daniel offspring, but it is hard to tell.

Did you check Mortimers genetics or did he simply end up with blond hair when you made him young again? I am playing the European version as well, so there is no difference there. That Cassandra's children all look like the father (Goopy in your case)  is not such a surprise. I think she does not have one dominant facial structure. The chin, eyes etc. I easily recognise as coming from him, but the mouth? And it is not the difference between the male/female face, their (only) son has it too.

[Dea]

Keep in mind that when you age an elder to adult they don't necessarily get their genetic color.  All 4 Maxis colors share the same gray.   I have aged Mortimer down many times and he aged down to all 4 colors.

[Invisigoth]

More people posted my PT offsprings at the other forum I go, the results are amazing but I discovered the hair is not working for binned hair, my PT is giving genetic black hair to offsprings.

It might not be working because the custom hair you use might not have toddler/child meshes. I tried to go check it out on your site so that I could get a better look at the files, but I got a message saying that you were over your bandwidth limit. If this is the case then the children produced from this PT have messed up genetic data.

Another thing, you should carefully consider the ramifications of using a non-binned hair for any sim that you intend to use for breeding purposes. If the hair works properly for all ages then the resulting offspring will have that same exact hair. They won't get other hairs from the custom bin; they will only be able to pass down that specific hair. This would be a problem for me, but others might not be annoyed by that. To be honest, I never use an un-binned hair in CAS. If I want a sim to have an un-binned hair I give them a binned hair to start and then after I move them onto a lot I change their appearance in the mirror to give them a custom hair. I often do this with my alien sims so that they have appropriately weird (often green) hair. If you are comfortable with the genetic results that using a non-binned hair will yield then that's fine, I just wanted to make sure that you have all of the information (and perhaps you should pass this information on to the people who will be downloading your PT replacement; they might not know, and they might not want that hair to go down for generations).

[danicast]

Doren, some really awesome sims! I am drolling here.

Mortimer is genetic blonde, I don´t get it either. I checked with SIMPE. His kids with ressurrected Bella are dark hair - Wednesday and Fester have black hair.

Maybe is something weird new from TS2 Deluxe version? EAxis always broke the Deluxe versions, users from TS1 Deluxe never managed to install House Party, I have TS1 original and deluxe version, HP simply don´t install if you use TS1 deluxe as base game. Also TS1 Deluxe don´t have several sttuf that the original TS1 have.

The nose still looks different to me, compared to your Mary Sue/Daniel offspring, but it is hard to tell.

I am using the thrid CAS replacement I tried in my game so far - deuglified from MTS2 - and it drastically changes the results. I was using Doc Doofus when Marysue/Daniel girls born, so maybe that´s the reason the geometry is not like the parents. I read somewhere that once you add a CAS replacement, the game will seek for the CAS model and use that as a genetic source, so if you have Cassie/Goopy kids or better, Benjamin Long kids with someone, the noses will be different because the CAS replacement. Don´t take my word on that, I just read that somewhere at MTS2, I am not sure if is truth - as far as I understood the game always use the original parents facial geometry as source not the CAS source.

It might not be working because the custom hair you use might not have toddler/child meshes.

You are right.
... but It didn´t worked anyway.  I got more pics from people who are using Sky and it seems is 100% of black hair at the offsprings.  I think only works with playable sims, maybe don´t works with genetic source files - I am not sure, I must revise what I did step by step but the fact is all Sky offsprings have black hair, according other users reports.

... but the facial geometry is awesome. I posted Sky at MTS2, people are thrilled, so I am happy too

[doren]

Sky is downloaded and in my game, now I only have to wait if I ever get an abduction again. By the way, did anybody else notice that he has the same name as the person starting this topic?

DaniCast, thanks for the compliment. I must admit that I am rather proud of my sims and there are more good ones, which are not included in the albums (yet). Those in the "visitor" album are not mine though, they are Sleepycat's, the only ones I ever downloaded.

As regards the hair, I would not create sims in bodyshop or CAS with unbinned hair either (I did a few times in the beginning), but in the end in doesn't really make much difference since hair can easily be changed. It is usually the first thing I do with toddlers anyway. Black hair is fine by me.