Forum Discussion

3 years ago

Beautiful parents - Ugly offsprings. Genetics are a mess

Beauty is in the millimeters. It takes only a few to change a face from ugly to attractive and from a familiar one to a stranger. The distance between our eyes, the length of our nose, the fullness of our lips… all are big clues to instantly recognize someone.

I don't fully see that in the sims. And it bothers me. I played the game for a while and would often redo the face of my children (few of them would get lucky… the rest would look like monsters) but at some point i thought to myself : there's no way all these gorgeous different and unique sims make these weird looking offsprings, or worse, the subtility that would make them unique-looking and appealing would get lost from generations to generations and by the 3rd or the 4th they would look, (if untouched) either very bland or toonish. Almost like a caricature of their (grand)parents. So i started doing some tests.

Spent hours making the faces of the parents, played with genetics (tried it all : neutral faces, androgynous faces, and very masculine and feminine faces) as i'm fully aware that a very masculine male sim and a very feminine female sim can make awkward mixes and maybe that was the answer to my problems (it was not). I got disappointed again and again. I had plenty of babies (sometimes directly via the hospital, sometimes via the CAS)… still disappointed. Both tests : same results. They most often than not look "off" and i always need to intervene to save their botched faces.

When i looked closely again, i realized something was wrong : the offsprings would kinda ressemble the parents, but when i'd really look into it i'd realize the proportions were way off ! The chin was receding or got way bigger, the nose got longer, the lips suddenly got fuller, the pout went into another direction…

Here's an example :

Group 1/ Parents
Group 2/ Example of Offsprings from group 1
Group 3/ Example of Offsprings from group 1

Spoiler

I want you to look closely at the brow bone, the nose, the chin, and the fullness of the mouth.

Let's notify the features that look out of place (not a mix, but different), for both, please compare with the parents to really see the difference

Group 2 :
- The female sim has a huge brow bone, her nose got smaller, her lips bigger
- The male has a very long chin

None of these features are present in the parents. Again not a mix, but a distorsion.

Group 3 :
- The male sim has a slightly longer and stronger nose
- The female sim has a way bigger nose and her chin is slightly receding

As you can see, all these features suddenly appear or change and the subtility that made both of their parents pretty was lost in the process.

Now the problem that i have with this is that the genetics in the sims 4 work this way (i researched all over internet to get proper infos)
1/ Children only take from the parents. Grand parents are totally ignored in the genetic system.
2/ Dominant and recessive genes do not exist. Everything is 50/50.
3/ Some "happy accidents" like an eye color being slightly different from the parents are explained this way : some eye color/hair color share the same allele (coded the same way) which means you get a 50/50 chance from a light brown/hazel to a green. This is explained with the apparition of new colors in an update that happened few years ago which means it's pure coincidence if your grandchildren have the green eyes of their grandma.

If we sum it up, we have children that will not take anything from their grandparents (in clear, nothing will from times to time "boost" their genes and avoid them to look "weird/toonish/flat" after few generations because "strong" genes do not exist), in other words, they might look like a distorted caricature of their parents (Bogdanov syndrome) after a generation or two. Now imagine that same "distorsion" process as generations go on...

Last thoughts :
1/ I also play the sims 3. The children look a lot like the parents or a slight mix of the two (i installed a mod that help in that way called NRAAS advanced genetics). The big chins, recessed ones longer noses etc does not happen in that game. If the feature is not on the parent, it won't be on the child unless a grandparent possessed it which make generations of the same family look way more related.
2/ By "ugly" and "beautiful" i mean conventionally speaking. We all know beauty is in the eye of the beholder and standards vary from one person to another. The problem is not about longer noses or bigger chins, the problem is that none of the parents possessed that feature which NEGATES the whole genetic aspect of the game (for me). I want to see a long nose matter because one of the parents came from a dynasty that had one, not because of a glitch. Having genetics tied to a poorly coded system kills the excitement.
3/ I must specify that i only use EA presets for these tests, as i'm fully aware that some custom content presets do not translate well from one gender to another.

- Does anyone know if a mod would be feasible to correct all of these problems (or at least some) ?
- Did that problem was ever was adressed officially ? i believe i see on tons of forums how everyone seem to "redo" the face of their offsprings but no one seems to be really alarmed about how bad the problem really is, or how we could fix this once and for all ?
- Does that problem ever bothered you at all ? For those who perfect their sims i want to know : How did your offsprings look after 4 + generations ? Were your happy with their looks ? Did you redo them ?

feedback

benjamilian
3 years ago
I think this can be true in real life too.
Jooleeyuh
Rising Vanguard
3 years ago
*Sigh* isn't there anyone out there who doesn't consider prominent noses (such as mine) ugly and offensive?
simsimsere
New Adventurer
3 years ago
I've liked almost all of my sim kids. Their looks usually grow on my. I believe I've only edited one face afterwards. It was because her eyes were tiny and I didn’t want that pass to her kids (her eyes are still rather small just not that small). I've found that while I find almost all sims pretty, other people have way different criteria, so there's not much I can do to help.
Kimmer_one
Rising Traveler
3 years ago
I always end up liking the not-so-perfect Sim children just as much as the pretty ones. Their personality is far more important to me.
My Sims just seem to mostly have quite regular looking kids. I guess the parents look so bland that their kids don't turn out interesting looking either. I never give them plastic surgery, if I like their personalities I can deal with their looks whatever kind of features they have.
mightyspritesims
Seasoned Hotshot
3 years ago
As other posters have said, I enjoy my unique-looking sims and I don't want them all to be conventionally pretty. (I like prominent noses too @Flikka_Flikka :) )
That said, there is definitely something funny going on with your noses and chins.
Do you have mods?
Did you maybe do a lot of CAS manipulation with the parent sims that involved pushing the cheeks way inward? That's the only thing I can think of, maybe the offspring inherited the pushed-in cheeks and that makes the brows, noses and chins stand out more.
VWoodsong
Seasoned Observer
3 years ago
I think your sims' offspring are rather lovely and unique looking. And at least they do all have chins, even if a couple of them are a little longer than average. I find that offspring in my game more often have short chins if they deviate from average at all.
logionX
Seasoned Hotshot
3 years ago
I like to edit my sims a lot in CAS, but I don't tend to let my sims have a lot of children.. I think the offspring game mechanic is working as intended... I think some sims can end up looking very strange because the game copies the values for distinct features like the chin etc. and apply them on a different face structure.

Some sims can look very good as adults but end up having very strange looking children.
MDianaSims
Seasoned Hotshot
3 years ago
I've looked at these pictures extensively throughout the day, and the more I look at them, the more I see these kids perfectly combining their parents' genetics.
Also, they are by no means ugly, I've seen much much weirder offspring off two supposedly pretty sims.

Anyway, I think the problem is the underestimation of the complexity of the facial features. Each part of each feature has different parameters: size, shape, width, height, sometimes sharpness and or curvature. All of these different factors are used in creating offspring.
So (random example) while they may have their dad's nose shape and nostrils, but with the height of the mother's nose and nostrils. They may have their mum's nose tip, but with dad's nose tip width, with a nose bridge width that comes from mother, etc. There are so many variants.

And, a lot of people (myself included) underestimate the strength of gender swapped features. If you make a really pretty sim in one gender, then switch to the other, a number of their features will inevitably be exaggerated. And the overall Sim, will more often than not, not be really really pretty, but strangely attractive at best.

If you want predictable-ish offspring, make parents that look a lot like each other, or at least use the same general sizing of features so that large and small parts don't mix in uncomfortable ways.
Meka3211
Rising Newcomer
3 years ago
I get excited for age-ups and especially the teens as that is the most telling of what your Sim will look like. I do think Sims genetics are a bit weird in game. But I feel like some of the pre-made Sims produce the most interesting looking children in my game. For example, in my Legacy Challenge, my heir married Orange Bailey and his lips, which are super thin passed on for 3 generations & some of my heirs weren't the best looking. But I still enjoyed playing them. I tend to like my unique looking Sims.
DaniRose2143
Hero
3 years ago
I'm really not sure what I'm supposed to be seeing here. Sure there are differences, but nothing that I would call alarming. I took a quick glance before work this morning and a much longer look now that I'm home. All I see is small random variations of the parents features. They aren't clones, but if you put them in a lineup without telling me who was who, I feel certain I could match them to their parents. I like that they're imperfect representations, it makes them uniquely their own selves. The sim genetics for the most part do a good job of picking and combining features from both parents.

The differences I see between your sims and their parents is easily tweaked in CAS if you really want them to be as close as possible to their parents. Enjoy their differences and don't sweat it.