Inheritance of Genes

[Motoki]

Okay, boy do I feel dumb. 

I found the source of the mystery black haired child's recessive red gene. It wasn't from her townie mother, but her CAS father. I had forgotten I had done this, but he was one of a group of sims I made in the CAS via breeding, cross breeding and rebreeding various sims over several generations instantly in the CAS so I could end up with sims who were attractive and had features that mixed well with my other sims to make nice looking kids.

Basically, I'd take a couple of template sims, use the create a baby tool a few times until I got a kid I liked, aged the kid to adult, save the sim, delete the parents, make another one via this method, breed the two, and maybe delete the parents and so forth. So the dad came out of the CAS with recessive red genes and recessive medium skin though he has tan.

Well that's one mystery solved. 

[Jelenedra]

I used to do that with my CAS. I never thought of deleting them though. I always just dropped them in a pool since it's a nice quiet way of dying.

[Motoki]

Well if you delete them in the CAS before you load the family it's no big thing. Plus you only have room for 8 sims and I was doing a whole bunch of generations and cross breeding so I had to get rid of some before I could make even more.

[Jysudo]

Yes, the genetics of the facial characteristics are confusing. I used to be under the impression that once a certain feature, say, and eye shape, is labelled dominant, it stays dominant throughout the generations (that's what it says in the guide... ). But then I noticed that when Brandi had her third son, a male clone of herself, his listed dominant facial features differed from hers. So, apparently, the dominance of each feature is reassigned for each sim, and an eye shape that got inherited as dominant may turn recessive, and so on.

I just checked the guide on this. (Keeping in mind that the guide has inaccrurate information on some other genetics issues) it says that, when a sim is made in CAS, each region of the face is randomly labeled dominant or recessive, but the chances of a certain feature to be labeled dominant depends on the gender of the sim. A male sim has a 66% chance of his brow, nose or jaw being labeled dominant, and "only" a 50% chance with eyes and mouth. Vice versa for females (but there are more features listed in the DNA in SimPE than these five mentioned, so it's incorrect at least in that regard).

About the chances of the features being passed on, the guide says that if one parent has a dominant feature while another recessive the child has a 66% chance of inheriting the dominant one. When both are dominant or recessive, then the chances are 50/50.

But, considering how correct the guide has been on some other issues, I wouldn't count on this information.

Thanks for typing this out. I think the guide might be correct in some of the points above. It is possible that recessive genes can become dominant. For instance, green colored maxis eyes. The grandmother (mother's side) have green colored eyes and it was passed on to the grandchild when both parents have customised eye colors (so here its 50%-50%, I suppose) . But other than that, every other feature of the father was passed onto the baby girl - nothing was passed from the beautiful mother to the child. The child look ugly ( actually she looks realistic and might be considered pleasant looking in RL but since we are playing a game of dolls, i want my dolls to be perfect) and now I am thinking of a pool accident.

Its very strange. I noted that when the child inherit a particular skin color of a parent, the child will inherit all facial features of the parent whom it inherit the skin color. I don't know if these 2 are related but I have several instances of this occuring.

This is getting extremely disturbing for me...

[Simsample]

Jysudo, I'm not sure whether this would help you or not...
http://www.joodiff.com/simgen02.htm

[Motoki]

There are hacks you can use to give kids surgery. The red security panel from the Woohoo set at Valdea.com and the Insimenator can both do it.

Just be aware that it doesn't change the DNA that they pass on, just their appearance. There is a way you can fix their DNA to match their new surgery face though. There's a tutorial on how to do it with SimPE over at MTS2.

Also, some homely children grow up to look quite attractive as adults and the reverse is also true sometimes.

In general, how the kids look has always been a mixed bag with this game and 2 attractive parents never guaranteed and attractive child.

Part of the reason I did my little CAS quick breeding experiment was to get faces that look nice and mix well with other faces. It worked with the first child of 2 sims made that well. Well, as a child her eyes were small and squinty but a bit of subtle makeup helped that. Now she's a teen and quite pretty.

[Jysudo]

Motoki, thanks but I am not getting the kitten killer. I seriously have waay too many hacks in my game. I only use the ones from here now.

I grow the tot up to see her adult face. That's how I know she looks exactly like her dad. To confirm, I even go into CAS and generate the female version of daddy. And yea, as alike as 98%  the 2% is the eye color inherited from maternal grandma.

[Motoki]

Well if you got her to grow up then she can use the Maxis surgery machine that comes with University. TwoJeffs has a hack so it can work on teens too.

[Wolfee]

Basically, I'd take a couple of template sims, use the create a baby tool a few times until I got a kid I liked, aged the kid to adult, save the sim, delete the parents, make another one via this method, breed the two, and maybe delete the parents and so forth. So the dad came out of the CAS with recessive red genes and recessive medium skin though he has tan.

Wow , I never thought of doing that what a great idea.I must try that

Speaking of genetics has anyone noticed how the ugly features on a Sim turn out to be the dominate traits and all the attractive features turn out to be recessive? At least I have.

Take for example 2 Sims are  user created . They look great by themselves but because they were so altered in CAS or Bodyshop to look like some celebrity or cartoon character but their offspring invariably turn out looking not so nice. We're talking freak show material folks  .
Hideous looking doesn't even come close to describing them. I usually grow them up ,  ahem..that is if they actually do grow up cuz we all know how "accidents" can happen  ,then use the plastic surgery machine to make them presentable. Thereupon I don't let them procreate. Too bad I didn't save them before I got OFB and  used a clean install because I could have used them to run a freak show in the back yard and charged the other Sims admission to view them.

BTW has anyone noticed if green is recessive to blue? I have 2 Sims that I had created in Cas where one has a custom blue eyes and the other has custom green eyes. All of their off spring (6) so far has the custom blie but not the green. Pity though, it's such a pretty green and I had hoped it could have been passed on

[Motoki]

Celebrity sims make the WORST breeding material! They are so distinctive looking. Really when breeding sims the more generic, even if it's pretty generic, the better.

[Ellatrue]

I think Maxis made the DNA homozygous to correct the crazy strangetown and Veronaville DNA issues- it seems like the easiest, most obvious thing to do

[IgnorantBliss]

Its very strange. I noted that when the child inherit a particular skin color of a parent, the child will inherit all facial features of the parent whom it inherit the skin color. I don't know if these 2 are related but I have several instances of this occuring.

Hmm, well, all the sims inherit a skintone gene from both parents, and the expressed skintone of the child may be different from both of them if, say, father is S1, mom S3, and the kid ends up S2. I don't think the skintone and facial features are linked in any way, probably just coincidence

has anyone noticed if green is recessive to blue? I have 2 Sims that I had created in Cas where one has a custom blue eyes and the other has custom green eyes. All of their off spring (6) so far has the custom blie but not the green. Pity though, it's such a pretty green and I had hoped it could have been passed on

Since those are custom eyes, whether they are green or blue has nothing to do with the dominance. The game doesn't "know" what color they are. Generally all custom eyes are equally dominant, and if you have two custom eye genes, they both have a 50/50 chance of expressing. But I think there are ways of making custom eyes recessive, too, so that might bring some complications to it.

[Jelenedra]

Did you add genetic material to the custom eyes? If not then it is a straight 50/50 shot of getting blue over green. If you did add genetic info, blue and green should have the same genetic trait (2) so again....50/50.

[Renatus]

Celebrity sims make the WORST breeding material! They are so distinctive looking. Really when breeding sims the more generic, even if it's pretty generic, the better.

It's not even so much the distinctiveness of their faces as how it seems people go about making them. My guess is that they start with a template that is only kind of close to the face they want to end up at, if at all, and do a lot of tweaking with the various fine-tuning sliders to ge tthe face how they want it. Problem is, a lot of that fine-tuning can introduce weirdness into the features that isn't readily apparent - maybe the nose has a slight bump at the bridge, no big deal, right? - that ends up looking weird and deformed when you switch the sim's gender or it breeds. I've had some amount of success with using a default template close to what I want and then blending in other templates to get even closer, and only then using the fine tuning. I often go back and blend in other templates if I notice something a bit odd happening to the features, then go back to fine tuning. It's more work but the result is better.

There's also the issue that some celebrity sims are made by people who are making a sim based on a celeb by what they think the celeb looks like, not what s/he actually does, and/or doesn't take into account the inherent limitations in building a sim's face.

[maxon]

Celebrity sims make the WORST breeding material! They are so distinctive looking. Really when breeding sims the more generic, even if it's pretty generic, the better.

You're kidding right?  I can't tell most celebrities apart.

Motoki, thanks but I am not getting the kitten killer. I seriously have waay too many hacks in my game. I only use the ones from here now.

InSim isn't the kitten killer - it's just another large scale hack that invades your game.

[Motoki]

People tend to make those celebrity sims have extreme features and almost sort of be a charicature. And Renatus is right, the people who make them tend modify them extremely from the average sim templates. The more different a face is from another the more freakish the kid will look.

[Jelenedra]

I found the best way to insure good looking kids is to (from a CAS couple) is to use the same sim only change the gender on one and make them more feminine more masculine and change hair color and eye color. My children never look the same as each other and they're never deformed.

[Renatus]

How on earth would they look different when they are mostly going to be clones, due to their parents having nearly exactly the same facial genetics? That doesn't make any sense.

Anyhow, it's hogwash that the sims have to look very similar to have kids that look good. There are certain features that do not mix well (long faces with short is a good example), but one can have a pretty decent variety of facial features in sims and still have the children come out looking pretty nice - if one is willing to not assume they will be horribly ugly just because they aren't supermodel material as children. Sim kids are usually funny looking, much like real children. I'm finding my custom neighborhood is a good example of that - only one kid so far has come out with questionable looks, and he's still a toddler so he may well grow into them.

[Jelenedra]

They don't look exactly the same because I used the same face as a template and changed it, the parents still have different features. They're just have more in common so the features don't clash and get fugly.

[maxon]

People tend to make those celebrity sims have extreme features and almost sort of be a charicature. And Renatus is right, the people who make them tend modify them extremely from the average sim templates. The more different a face is from another the more freakish the kid will look.

Well, cariacature is different and I'm sure you're right about people using extremes when they make sims but I still can't tell celebrities apart.  I think it's because I'm not very interested.  It's then you realise that a lot of people in the public eye conform to a narrow set of facial variables.

[Jelenedra]

The problem with celebrities is that they are all too skinny and have these very pronounced cheekbones that look horrid in the game.

[Motoki]

Anyhow, it's hogwash that the sims have to look very similar to have kids that look good.

Not look similar, but just certain features have to be roughly similar. It's hard for me to explain. Like I tend to make my sims have smaller eyes (less Anime/dollish) and have their faces higher up so they don't have a huge forehead. If I breed them with a townie they might, say get the mom's low mouth and the dad's high nose and look freakish with this huge space between where the nose ends and the mouth starts. Does that make sense?

Of course they can look different, it's just that you don't want to go blending extremely different features.

[Renatus]

Yeah, that makes sense.

It's hard for me to tell, sometimes, when someone says 'have to have similar features' if they mean that sims have to be kept consistant in style (Realism vs cartoon) or if they mean they all have to look very similar, period. I have run into people who did sincerely mean the latter... but then, those sorts were usually the people who got really annoyed whenever they had a sim that looked like anything other than 'generic pretty white person'.

[maxon]

Not look similar, but just certain features have to be roughly similar. It's hard for me to explain. Like I tend to make my sims have smaller eyes (less Anime/dollish) and have their faces higher up so they don't have a huge forehead. If I breed them with a townie they might, say get the mom's low mouth and the dad's high nose and look freakish with this huge space between where the nose ends and the mouth starts. Does that make sense?

Of course they can look different, it's just that you don't want to go blending extremely different features.

I know what you mean - the Maxis default face templates are too cartoony/anime for my taste too.  I got AllenABQ's face templates (s/he posts on here doesn't s/he?) but, they don't work for default townies in a new neighbourhood.  I like them though - they make for more normal faces to start with and I think they get used for newly generated townies (so works with deleteallcharacters - though I might be wrong about that).  I read an interesting site when I got them, I think AllenABQ said he based the templates on ideas from that site.

http://www.sagesims.com/tutorial_anime.php

[Regina]

Since those are custom eyes, whether they are green or blue has nothing to do with the dominance. The game doesn't "know" what color they are. Generally all custom eyes are equally dominant, and if you have two custom eye genes, they both have a 50/50 chance of expressing. But I think there are ways of making custom eyes recessive, too, so that might bring some complications to it.

Yes, you can set dominancy in custom eyes.  My daughter has made some eye colors and set their genetics accordingly.  I threw out all my custom eyes because of the dominancy issue a long time ago but went back to using some after she made these.  You can find them at www.springhole.net/bogsims if you're interested.