Sims 4 Genetics

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.

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.

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?

"Elliandre;d-996899" 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
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51836379819_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.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51835089317_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.

"Benjamilian;c-18041318" 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.

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.

"Elliandre;c-18041491" 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 :)

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
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51829181619_c02150512a_h.jpg
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51829181464_1827b3806a_h.jpg

Ryan, Dylan, and Emmett
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51836981418_2a4d0eaac8_h.jpg
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51837604035_68085fa133_h.jpg
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51836980983_519732a054_h.jpg

These are the triplets: Hadley, Cyrus, and Asher
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51835931332_bd3086f5f1_h.jpg
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51837612475_aa9a8ce45c_h.jpg
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51835931497_ec673046c2_h.jpg

Unfortunately Asher passed away before he could start a family of his own. :'(

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.)

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.