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

simgirl1010
Hero
3 years ago
I don't think any of them are ugly. Wonderfully unique but still with traces of their parents.
GirafHuntr
New Spectator
3 years ago
I find that it works pretty well for me. I do often see traits of the parents get passed on, and they often even look appropriately different on the different genders.

Here are some examples of one daughter who decidedly inherited her grandfather's nose, after her father passed it down. He was a sim that I loved in Sims 2 and attempted to recreate in Sims 4, with his long nose. I was really hoping that at least one of his children would inherit it, and his one son did, and then passed it on again to his daughter, and I absolutely love her face. First, side profile of her with her grandfather. Then, her with her younger brother (who, when he aged up, had a nose more like his mother's side.)

https://i.imgur.com/vcruGOE.png

https://i.imgur.com/dNOWpjd.png

ETA: I do really wish this game had done something more with recessive genetics. I loved that so much in Sims 2. I would prefer that things could skip a generation, and I would prefer that dying your Sims' hair did not cause the dyed color to get passed on genetically. That really makes me roll my eyes.

Edited: originally stated it was her father in the picture, but that's actually her grandfather! it passed down twice. :)
GirafHuntr
New Spectator
3 years ago
@sireneiles I play a really long and slow-growing rotation, and only have one continuous save. Thus far, I am on the third generation for a bunch of my families and they are all coming out fine. I don't expect that something will suddenly change at generation 4 but I'll dig up this thread and let you know if something weird happens when I get there (probably in the next year). Mike Ojo's children had no chins right off the bat and are kinda funny looking. :lol:
JesLet40
Seasoned Ace
3 years ago
"VeeDub;c-18137354" wrote:
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.

This! I get so many born in games sim where I need to manually add a chin because the game decided to reduce their chins to next to nothing, or enlarging their lips while at the same time reducing the chin giving the impression the entire face was one big mouth.

So yes, I get what you're saying. I often find sim-offspring looking weird, and when I do I go in and manually fix it.
Kittybass
New Spectator
3 years ago
It's mostly the chins (or lack thereof) for me too. Sometimes there's weirdness going on with their lips or jaws and I have a very difficult time fixing them.
sireneiles
3 years ago
It is possible in real life because we have a ancestry of people behind us that sometimes pop up randomly on our face. It does not apply on pixels people whom their genetic code are strictly tied to a mix of only their parents
sireneiles
3 years ago
"Flikka_Flikka;c-18137244" wrote:
*Sigh* isn't there anyone out there who doesn't consider prominent noses (such as mine) ugly and offensive?

You willingly ignored the whole explanation i made to make it about yourself and manage to somehow be offended. You'd think people would read what i write to proceed to have a meaningful exchange about the game but no... Never in my post did i write that big noses are ugly. I implied that distorsion of the features big or small end up making ugly/distorted sims in the long run (generations after generations) because genetics randomly add or remove some of the features that make both of the parents unique and thus erasing the ressemblance of past generations sims. If the grandparents and parents had a big nose, i want the kid to respect that feature and likely have one, i don't want that feature to be erased or the nose to get randomly smaller just because of random poor coding. That would not make any sense since the game implies that only the parents are at play (50/50 chance) and since, let's say both of them have a big nose, i don't see why the kids would not. I don't like the element of randomness that tweak some of the features that made my sims distinct, and thus, not respecting the work i put in on all of my sims faces. The 2 OG parents are "disney" pretty to clearly see the differences with the kids and make it clear for you to witness ; but i have tons of others family who have different features. Then those features are either exaggerated to the max or disappear. That's my concern and the subject of this topic.

I'm happy with personality too, it's just not the subject and i don't see what is the relevance of bringing that into this post. It's a post about me wondering if you guys have this problem too with offsprings in your game so i make sure my game work fine or if i need to start searching/ working on a mod that hopefully fix that.

To reply to some of you, i don't have any mods that tweak the presets/Sliders.

Thank you all for replying
sireneiles
3 years ago
"GirafHuntr;c-18137468" wrote:
I find that it works pretty well for me. I do often see traits of the parents get passed on, and they often even look appropriately different on the different genders.

Here are some examples of one daughter who decidedly inherited her grandfather's nose, after her father passed it down. He was a sim that I loved in Sims 2 and attempted to recreate in Sims 4, with his long nose. I was really hoping that at least one of his children would inherit it, and his one son did, and then passed it on again to his daughter, and I absolutely love her face. First, side profile of her with her grandfather. Then, her with her younger brother (who, when he aged up, had a nose more like his mother's side.)

ETA: I do really wish this game had done something more with recessive genetics. I loved that so much in Sims 2. I would prefer that things could skip a generation, and I would prefer that dying your Sims' hair did not cause the dyed color to get passed on genetically. That really makes me roll my eyes.

Edited: originally stated it was her father in the picture, but that's actually her grandfather! it passed down twice. :)

I think my game has a weird problem mostly with chins and brow bones (even tho the eyes get smaller or bigger at times for no reason, and nose could get randomly super petite or way bigger). But really what caught my attention is that the chin often times get abnormally small especially for females. Do your sims still look okay after 4+ generations ?

"Sha2520032003;c-18137417" wrote:
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.

I agree, i had one of the parent's brother had a baby with a premade sims randomly and their son was the most pretty sim i have either seen in game so far. The problem is that it rarely translates to the kids (it oftentimes get weird)

"MDianaSims;c-18137405" wrote:
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.

I don't think the problem is that one feature does not translate well to another sex, or that i want to keep "control" of what my sims look like etc... it's more so that i firmly believe that the the game do not respect the values i put in my sims faces and it gets weirdly exaggerated one way or another (smaller...bigger...)

The dad has a biger nose than the mom in my example, but it's not exhibit : female+male from group 3 type of big.
The mom has a smaller-ish nose but it not exhibit : female from group 2 type of small.
The dad has a bigger chin but it's not exhibit : male from group 2 type of big either.
The mom has a smaller chin but it's not exhibit : female group 2 type of small/receding.
None of the parents had exhibit female group 2 type of brow bone either. If you draw a line from the eye to the brow, and do the same for the parents you'd see how big that brow bone is and how it does not respect the values i put in the parents at all.

Even if the feature did not translate well, still none of the parents share "that much" or "that little" value on their face is what i'm trying to say. And it's especially obvious when it's the same feature for the same sex.