Skintone Problems?-Solved

[Ark_Sky]

Well, my sims had these babies,see...but they didn't come out the custom skintone their parents are in...they came out as the default skintones I installed-and I'm POSITIVE the skintones is for all age groups...could someone please tell me what could be wrong?

[BeosBoxBoy]

Ark Sky - the genetics your sim babies inherit from their parents fall in a sort of table like Gregor Mendel might have made

Male parent dominant  ||  Male parent recessive
==================================================
Female parent dominant || Female parent recessive

The odds of the dominant for one parent being the skin tone you see is dependent on the "darkness" of the skin tone

Let's assume the Maxis skin tones are give the following values:

1 - light
2 - tan
3 - medium
4 - dark
5 - custom skin tones

(it's a bit more complicated than this, but these numbers will work for this illustration)

If you Sims are made in Body Shop or Create-A-Family - they have as their recessive the number for whatever the Maxis skin tone that was used for the base of the custom skin tone.  So even if you have a sime with a custom skin tone, he or she will always have as the recessive gene the Maxis default.

So let's assume you male parent sim has a light custom skin tone, and your female parent sim has a different light skin tone:

5 (a) || 1
=========
5 (b) || 1

The possible results of this pairing are:

Gene pairs
----------
5 (a) + 5 (b)
5 (a) + 1
5 (b) + 1
1 + 1

as you can see there is a 1 + 1 pair-up of genes -- so the baby has a 25% chance of getting the Maxis light skin tone (or your default replacement)

in the case of the 5 (a) + 5 (b) pair, it's a 50/50 chance either will be inherited.

If one of the parents has the Maxis light skin tone (even when a default replacement) the chance of a light skin tone being used increases to 50%

there is never a 100% chance that a baby born in-game will inherit all custom content - only the promise that it will be treated with a normal genetic preference as a dominant.

[Ark_Sky]

Thank you for the detailed explanation,it helped lots <3...so is this caused because the skins are genetisized? Because I do remember that I downloaded the genetisized version of the skin, I found that out yesterday. Would downloading the defaults of this skin(instead of the ones I have now) change this by any chance?

[BeosBoxBoy]

well yes - but only change the matter topically -- this blending effect of "geneticised" skin tones adds a new layer of complexity that my simple illustration doesn't include

taking geneticised skin tones into the matter results in the "blending" fo arbitrarily assigned darkness values 1.00 being the darkest, 0.00 being the lowest.

If the male parent dominant is 0.80 and the female dominant is 0.40, if the baby had both dominants, then the baby would pick up whatever skin tone closest matches 0.60.  But let's say that the Male dominant is 0.80 and the baby inherits the female parent recessive 0.25, then the baby would pick up whatever skin tone closest matches 0.525 (not shure how many decimal places the game handles in this or whether it rounds up or down to determine which number is used)

The "geneticising" thing explots a portion of the game coding that was mostly abandonned by Maxis/EA since they only had 4 colour values and the combinations they offered were limited.  Adding a full spectrum does give the game a more "real life" aspect, but renders planned genetics pretty much useless.

So replacing your defaults with the base 4 colours in the same series may offer some relief, but I don't know how much it will help you get a breeding programme you can comprehend.

[Ark_Sky]

Okay,thanks =D ah well,as long as I can have more variety in game,the better. I was not really concerned about them getting the exact shade,just the skintone type X3 but I understand it better now. Thank you beosboxboy.