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    Sims 4 Genetics

    ElliandreElliandre Posts: 2,468 Member
    in The Sims 4 General Discussion

    If you edit a Sim's face or hair in CAS, does it actually change their genetics, or is it just a makeover? One of my Sims had a child with bright red hair and I have no idea where the hair came from, because both the parents have black hair. I don't play with generations, do they pass their genetic traits to grandchildren? Vlad's kids in my new save have elf ears and I'm wondering where they got them from.

    Comments

    • greydonngreydonn Posts: 717 Member
      Yeah, it changes the genetics. I wish it didn't so I could give my sims more drastic makeovers, but oh well. The elf ears are probably from Ol' Vladdy.
      • Gen 25: Xanthe! >:)
      • She/Her.
    • StormkeepStormkeep Posts: 7,632 Member
      If you have CC hair, some CC hairs don't use the game's default hair colors either, which makes them just totally blow the concept of hair color genetics out the window.

      Genetics in TS4 aren't all that well developed compared to past games in the series either and you can get totally random results unrelated to the family tree at all, but the most shocking variances I've experienced in hair color have usually been because either one of the parents had CC hair with non-default hair color options or the child itself rolled a CC hair with non-default hair color options.
      This post will be edited by StormKeep at some point.
      2c2ab3785fad83173d9a155efa4afd1fc99b9595.jpg
      The Winters family Tree --- My Mods
    • ElliandreElliandre Posts: 2,468 Member
      Thank you! :smile:
    • BenjamilianBenjamilian Posts: 395 Member
      Out of interest, do children's genetics just draw on their parents visible genetics, or can it draw in things from grandparents? That is, can something like points ears skip a generation by lying dormant in one generation but still in their genetic mix? Does the Sims have dominant and recessive alleles?
    • HillyBethHillyBeth Posts: 3,505 Member
      edited January 2022
      Elliandre wrote: »
      If you edit a Sim's face or hair in CAS, does it actually change their genetics, or is it just a makeover? One of my Sims had a child with bright red hair and I have no idea where the hair came from, because both the parents have black hair. I don't play with generations, do they pass their genetic traits to grandchildren? Vlad's kids in my new save have elf ears and I'm wondering where they got them from.

      I have two generations living in my game- my founders have sadly passed away- and there were six kids in first generation. Five sons and one daughter. All five sons had their mother's blonde hair with Dad's brown eyes, but one or two boys had Mom's blue eyes. The only girl was the only one to get Dad's brown hair and all six kids inherited Mom's freckles. This is the family of the oldest sibling(he's holding his youngest baby).

      Ben's skin is not actually that dark. He got a killer tan during his birthday weekend in Sulani <3
      51836379819_b6b7970b68_h.jpg

      The older kids inherited Dad's brown eyes(which he'd gotten from his own father) while Ashlynn, the youngest, got her mother's green eyes <3
      Adeline- the oldest- is the only daughter of her siblings to have her mother's hair color.

      Here's another pic: Adeline- left- with her cousins Finley and Isabella. Finley and Bella's mothers are NPC sims, their fathers are Adeline's dad's younger brothers.

      51835089317_cb4ce31b9c_h.jpg

      Adeline, Ben, and Ashlynn have a grand-total of seven first-cousins on their dad's side. Would have been more, but one of their uncles died in a freak accident on Thanksgiving. He wasn't married or had kids. Ashlynn was named in his memory. Asher Cole was a triplet to Hadley and Cyrus Cole.
      Origin ID
      HillyPlays
      P.A.C.E- Positive Attitude Changes Everything
    • VeeDubVeeDub Posts: 1,862 Member
      Benjamilian wrote: »
      Out of interest, do children's genetics just draw on their parents visible genetics, or can it draw in things from grandparents? That is, can something like points ears skip a generation by lying dormant in one generation but still in their genetic mix? Does the Sims have dominant and recessive alleles?

      As far as I can tell, the genetics in this iteration are pretty basic. I never played the older games (beyond Sims 3 for a few weeks), but from what I understand, genetics were more detailed in at least one (maybe more?) of those. In this version it seems more like an issue of simple tagging on CAS parts. If everything's tagged correctly, it can sometimes seem like passing genes down through generations, but really it isn't.
      FYI: Just because you can see my signature, don't assume that I can see yours.
      Because I can't; I keep all sigs turned off. ;)
    • ElliandreElliandre Posts: 2,468 Member
      edited January 2022
      @HillyBeth Those are great photos how did you set them up? Even the three kids are posing so nicely.

      It looks like they only inherit from their parents, not their grandparents. Inheriting from a grandparent would be fun if you got a kid with pointy ears who's grandparent was an elf. But then on the other hand, you wouldn't be able to weed out the feature from the family tree if you didn't like it. It would be nice if we had both options to toggle on or off.
      Post edited by Elliandre on
    • jbadger12jbadger12 Posts: 321 Member
      In the Sims 3, each sim seemed to carry a record of features, skin, and hair color going back at least a couple of generations. Additionally, a sim's hair color might be a blend of their parents', rather than matching one or the other; skin color was the same way. With the skin tone update, I have seen some of that behavior in Sims 4.
      My experiences in playing with genetics in Sims 4 seem to indicate that facial features are inherited only from parents. Occasionally, even without CC, a sim will have a hair color that doesn't match either parent, but which may match a grandparent.
      fm1Ouiv.jpg
      Gallery ID: jjbadgett12
    • HillyBethHillyBeth Posts: 3,505 Member
      edited January 2022
      Elliandre wrote: »
      @HillyBeth Those are great photos how did you set them up? Even the three kids are posing so nicely.

      It looks like they only inherit from their parents, not their grandparents. Inheriting from a grandparent would be fun if you got a kid with pointy ears who's grandparent was an elf. But then on the other hand, you wouldn't be able to weed out the feature from the family tree if you didn't like it. It would be nice if we had both options to toggle on or off.

      Their paternal-grandmother was blonde and of her six kids all five of the sons inherited her hair color while her daughter got Dad's brown color. Grandma also had freckles and all six of the children inherited them. So far, it seems the grandchildren have as well!

      Some of the wives of the sons have darker hair but so far no one inherited black hair. LOL! Skyler Lobo-Cole is the only daughter-in-law with black hair and both her kids inherited their father's blonde hair color.
      Here's the family tree. I update it for every birthday or marriage.

      To answer your question: I had to use two different pose packs for the family pic of Ryan, his wife, and kids. The cousins photo is from another pose pack :)
      Origin ID
      HillyPlays
      P.A.C.E- Positive Attitude Changes Everything
    • HillyBethHillyBeth Posts: 3,505 Member
      Here are pics of Grandma and Grandpa Cole before they became elders and their six kids so you can see their genetics

      Andrew and Elizabeth

      51829181619_c02150512a_h.jpg
      51829181464_1827b3806a_h.jpg

      Ryan, Dylan, and Emmett

      51836981418_2a4d0eaac8_h.jpg
      51837604035_68085fa133_h.jpg
      51836980983_519732a054_h.jpg

      These are the triplets: Hadley, Cyrus, and Asher
      51835931332_bd3086f5f1_h.jpg
      51837612475_aa9a8ce45c_h.jpg
      51835931497_ec673046c2_h.jpg

      Unfortunately Asher passed away before he could start a family of his own. :'(
      Origin ID
      HillyPlays
      P.A.C.E- Positive Attitude Changes Everything
    • ElliandreElliandre Posts: 2,468 Member
      edited January 2022
      I saw what you all mean about the CC. I have been experimenting in CAS and had one kid get a purple ponytail. :joy: It also puts the CC makeup, jewelry and eyelashes on everyone, girls and boys. It would be nice if Maxis would let us tag items ourselves so we can somehow arrange them how we want them in CAS, who we want to wear them, sort our personal favorite clothes, have a little unique closet or jewelry box or something. I would love some sort of CAS sorting tool.

      @HillyBeth I will look for some posing packs! Thank you for mentioning them. :smile: I didn't know there were mods like that.
    • mightyspritemightysprite Posts: 5,851 Member
      edited January 2022
      There must be something at play with either randomness or recessive genes. In my Diminish the Torment challenge my founder, who I created in CAS, had brown hair. He married Becca Clarke, who also has brown hair. Their son was born with blond hair. I've always wondered where it came from. (I don't have any CC or mods.)
    • ElliandreElliandre Posts: 2,468 Member
      @HillyBeth Wow those Sims are so beautifully made. Are your Sims on the gallery? I never put freckles and other skin details on my Sims, but maybe it really does make them look more realistic.

      I have another question sort of related to genetics if someone could answer I would really appreciate it. What is a preset? I have seen some celebrity Sims that have presets for the downloads. Does that mean the preset is like an artistic rendering of the Sim and not made with the actual genetics in the game? I've always wondered how people got Sims to look exactly like celebrities. I can't barely get my Sims to have nice eyebrows.
    • Tequila_Rose_13191Tequila_Rose_13191 Posts: 143 Member
      It's pretty much a 50/50 of features, placement, & colouration. The skintones blend together and can make entirely new skintones. As far as most body & facial features go, it's derived straight from the parents. No generational skips. The elf ears are from Vlad's vampire form, too, btw. Occult Sims have 50/50 options between forms, too, but they get weird.
    • MindofyMindofy Posts: 313 Member
      mightysprite wrote: »
      There must be something at play with either randomness or recessive genes. In my Diminish the Torment challenge my founder, who I created in CAS, had brown hair. He married Becca Clarke, who also has brown hair. Their son was born with blond hair. I've always wondered where it came from. (I don't have any CC or mods.)

      I've had this happen in my game too. 3 generations of fully black haired Sims (all of them, even the married in ones) and then a baby was born with red hair.
    • SimmervilleSimmerville Posts: 11,658 Member
      edited February 2022
      mightysprite wrote: »
      There must be something at play with either randomness or recessive genes. In my Diminish the Torment challenge my founder, who I created in CAS, had brown hair. He married Becca Clarke, who also has brown hair. Their son was born with blond hair. I've always wondered where it came from. (I don't have any CC or mods.)

      I had something similar in my game. Ailis Fyres is the only blond child of Dominic (blackbrown) and Moira (red).

      I find that genetics mostly make sense. Only the skintones are a bit off after they introduced the "500 skintones batch" in 3 sections. Previously a child would be close to one parent's skintone, or somewhere between parents. Now there are plenty of sims getting a skin tone outside its parents' range. Might be a bug, or the new system is just not as good.
      Simmerville on Youtube | My blog is updated weekly: Simmerville's Sims<br>a.jpg
    • 83bienchen83bienchen Posts: 2,572 Member
      There's some randomness thrown in, but there is nothing Like recessives genes in TS4 that would allow for certain genes to become visible one or more Generations later.
      Now now EA, don't be stinking up our lovely lavender bath with your shopping fart. - My TS4 mods - Gallery ID: 83bienchen
    • JyotaiJyotai Posts: 505 Member
      edited February 2022
      Elliandre wrote: »
      I saw what you all mean about the CC.

      If you open up things in Sims4Studio you can see how they've been flagged. I am not sure if these are the same flags as used for genetics. It's likely so as when I examine the file's details I've yet to find other ways to determine it.

      But... it's pretty common to find something like hair or clothing where every color swatch has been flagged as the same, even when there are visibly many different swatches.

      It's easy to fix this manually, but obviously becomes very tedious if you have a LOT of CC.

      I do know that the color swatches for clothing DO matter. If you set a like or dislike you can find your sim is upset about wearing brown, when they're decked out in pink on your screen, because your CC maker just clicked to 'paste to all swatches' and so every color is actually seen as brown by the game...
      - This happens ALL THE TIME for me when it comes to furniture being not properly flagged...

      So I'm just guessing the color swatch flags are also used in genetics.

      You can find some of this bad flagging without using Sims4Studio by just filtering CAS by colors or fashion styles and noticing how many wrong things show up or how many right things are missing...

      Since I often build outfits by filtering by color and style to give myself a good look for that sim, this is something I've become keenly aware of.

      Some CC makers are more guilty of this than others...

      I don't use Discord because it doesn't support multiple accounts and I don't need folks at work wondering what I'm doing even on my own time. Until Discord catches up with every single other voice / video conferencing system, I limit where I use it:
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