Rigorous Genetic Experiment: Volunteers Needed

[J. M. Pescado]

Okay, because I am very busy, I need some volunteers to run an experiment for me under rigorous conditions.

Do the following:
1. Create two sims in CAS. Pick some normal hair colors of your choice.
2. Plop them on a lot.
3. Buy them a mirror. Change BOTH of their hair colors to something radically different from any of the originals. Green, blue, whatever. Something verifiably different.
4. Breed them and observe the colors on the spawn: Do they inherit the original colors or the new colors?

DO NOT:
1. Switch away from them at ANY point. Results produced by Story Mode abandonment are worthless.
2. Post crap in this thread. RESULTS BY THIS PROCEDURE ONLY. Anyone clogging this thread with non-experimental-results garbage will be nuked and banned. I'm not in the mood for your shit.

[spookymuffin]

I made two sims in CAS, both with blond hair. I moved them in to a lot, changed their hair colour (one pink and one blue) and got the female pregnant.

First child: pink hair.
Second child: blue hair.
Third child: blond hair.
Fourth child: pink hair.

So they can still inherit the original colour as well as the modified one.

[Roflganger]

Ok, setup according to Pes' guidelines: (Updating regularly with results)


CAS Male: Straight up brown hair, chosen from the presets.
CAS Female: Straight up blond, also from presets.

"Dyed" Male: Pink hair, white highlights, red tips, blue lowlights.

"Dyed" Female: Green hair, orange highlights, blue tips, red lowlights.

Baby 1 (Male):  Green hair, orange highlights, blue tips, red lowlights (in other words, exactly the same as dyed mom).

Baby 2 (Female):  Same as baby 1 (thus same as mother).

Baby 3 (Female): Pink hair, white highlights, red tips, blue lowlights (identical to father).


(Side experiment for my own interest: Father was extreme white, mother extreme black, first baby came out extreme white.  Second baby came out somewhere in the middle - deep tan, I'd say.  Baby 3, slightly lighter than Baby 2.)

Note: I had to change hairstyles for the kids to determine the exact coloring of the hair as obviously some hairstyles don't display high/lowlights or roots.

[MickeyJR]

I did a simple test.

Tester and Testa Subject were both created with Black Hair.

Changed to Blonde (both) and then Testa ended up preggers.

Had a Baby Girl, Testis Subject, Blonde Hair.

[Crazetex]

Dad/Mom: Red/Blonde to Green/Purblue
Baby Boy: Green

[eefje]

Made a woman with dark brown hair, man with light brown hair. Changed them to green and blue. They had a baby girl, who, when she grew up to toddler, had blue hair.

[Slymenstra]

CAS Mother with Brown hair, CAS Father with Black.
Dyed Mother Blond with Orange Highlights, Dad with black with blue highlights

1. Baby one Black with blue highlights.
2. Baby 2 same.

(I then made father have just black hair and 2 more babies born with just black hair no highlights)

[Marhis]

Purpose: We want to test how genetic works inTS3.

Matherials and Methods: We created two sims in CAS, 1 male and 1 female and made them married. Their hair were blonde (female) [fig. 1] and red (male) - sorry no pic. Also, the pics sux, and no idea why they turned out so dark. Their color wheel at birth is explained in data chart 1.



Fig. 1


Data Chart 1 - Parents' alleged genotype
Colors are expressed in RGB values.

Male Hair	Base	170	90	40
	Roots	120	70	20
	Highlights	190	120	60
	Tips	200	120	60
Female Hair	Base	255	240	200
	Roots	170	90	40
	Highlights	255	255	240
	Tips	200	120	60

Once plopped in a lot, we made them change appereance, specifically the hair color [Fig. 2, 3 - Data Chart 2]

Fig. 2	Fig. 3

Data Chart 2 - Parents' phenotype

Male Hair	Base	140	90	220
	Roots	0	0	0
	Highlights	255	255	255
	Tips	255	0	255
Female Hair	Base	0	255	0
	Roots	255	255	255
	Highlights	0	0	0
	Tips	255	255	0

No family switches were performed during the entire test.

Results: The parents gave birth to n. 1 female sim [Fig. 4]; its hair color is detailed in Data Chart 3.


Fig. 4


Data Chart 3 - Child's phenotype

Hair	Base	140	90	220
	Roots	0	0	0
	Highlights	255	255	255
	Tips	255	0	255

Child's hair color and her father's are identical.


Conclusions: TS3 genetics sux dong.

[J. M. Pescado]

Well, I'm calling it a wrap. Aside from Spookymuffin's unexplained outlier result, which, for lack of better explanation, I am going to file as "user error", all results have been consistent. Stay tuned next time for more crazy experiments.

[spookymuffin]

Aside from Spookymuffin's unexplained outlier result, which, for lack of better explanation, I am going to file as "user error"

I'm not sure what "user error" could have led to my inexplicable result if I followed exactly the same procedure as everyone else in this thread has, which I have. The blond child was born to the parents under exactly the same conditions that the blue/pink haired children were.
I'll make a new family and see if I can replicate the result.

*edit*

Made a new pair of sims, one with black hair and one with brown. After moving them in I changed their hair to white/blue and green.

First child: Green hair.
Second child: Brown hair.
Third child: White/blue hair.

The last two kids were twins and the blond child in the previous experiment was also part of a multiple birth. I don't know if this is significant.

[Simiolus]

I made two sims to begin with. One was a dark skinned male with bright green hair, the other a pale female with very red hair. I also made their jaw, cheeks and nose pretty much the opposite of each other just to see how the facial genetics would mix. I tested their genes in "child creator" in CAS which resulted in children with either green or red hair, no mixes of the two.





When they moved in I changed the male's hair to black with blue highlights and the female's to yellow with more yellow.




This is the offspring they produced. The skin tones seemed to mix nicely. She seems to take after her father in facial features.



And from the "Change Appearance" screen to get a better look at the hair colour.





Conclusion: The hair dye they use in Sim-land is apparently strong enough to alter their DNA.

[J. M. Pescado]

The last two kids were twins and the blond child in the previous experiment was also part of a multiple birth. I don't know if this is significant.

See, now this is a piece of significant data that may mean something. Devise an experiment to explore this possibility.

[Mikkey]

The last two kids were twins and the blond child in the previous experiment was also part of a multiple birth. I don't know if this is significant.

See, now this is a piece of significant data that may mean something. Devise an experiment to explore this possibility.

In one of my families the father has light blonde hair, mother has red hair. I didn't change their hair colors at any point but one of the girls was born with dark blonde hair (she's a part of the triplets).
I've read this has happened before to someone else (father black hair, mother blond and kid got brown hair I believe). I guess there's a tiny chance now that sim kids may get a random hair color?

[asmadasrabbits]

The last two kids were twins and the blond child in the previous experiment was also part of a multiple birth. I don't know if this is significant.

See, now this is a piece of significant data that may mean something. Devise an experiment to explore this possibility.

In one of my families the father has light blonde hair, mother has red hair. I didn't change their hair colors at any point but one of the girls was born with dark blonde hair (she's a part of the triplets).
I've read this has happened before to someone else (father black hair, mother blond and kid got brown hair I believe). I guess there's a tiny chance now that sim kids may get a random hair color?

My two sims, one red-haired and one black-haired with their hair colours never changed had a kid with brown hair as part of twins as well.

[Roflganger]

Ok from what I can see, there definitely appears to be an oddity with the way multiples' hair color is determined.  I'm going to experiment to see if I can get any sort of consistent or predictable results.  I'm going to follow the same guidelines as Pes outlined in the first post and give both Sims that Superfertility (or whatever it's called) perk and see if I can get her to pop out some litters.  I'll report back.

[hooptytrib]

Same experience here:  a black-blond union produced black-RED-black trips.  Neither parent had experimented with hair color.

[spookymuffin]

See, now this is a piece of significant data that may mean something. Devise an experiment to explore this possibility.

Another pair of sims made, one with black hair and one with blond.

While trying to build enough points to buy the fertility perk I had them have one baby. This encounter yielded one blond child.

First multiple birth: One child with black hair and the other with red. Obviously there shouldn't have been any red hair genes in the mix, I have no idea if this is supposed to be a "feature" or not.

I then changed the parent's hair colours to green and blue.

Second multiple birth: One child with green hair, one with blue and one with black. What I'm not sure of is if the black haired child inherited its hair colour from the original parental colours or if it's as random as the red haired child in the previous birth.

As far as I can see, singletons don't seem to inherit random hair colours.

The genetics in this game are fucking retarded.

[Bleached]

Yeah, I had a ginger girl breed with a black haired male. I didn't change the hair colors on lot, but they produced a light brown haired child somehow. The second spawn had the same colored hair as the father.

[Roflganger]

Well, the Fertility Treatment perk certainly works as advertised - I had one single (necessary to get enough points for the perk), a set of twins and a set of triplets.

All children received either the mother or the father's "dyed" hair color.  I don't have time today to continue experimenting, but if you need me to, I'll try again tomorrow or over the weekend.

[BeautyWitch]

I noticed something that might also be important.

When I went into CAST to make my family, the random female that I got before making my changes, had brown hair. I kept it that way, but added blond highlights. When I switch to male to make her spouse, the random male had blond hair. I changed everything to black.

I didn't follow the rules above, as I wasn't aware of this experiment until after I was done playing. But, what I noticed was that; 2 out of 3 children were born with blond hair  , and the other with brown and blond highlights, just like mom.

I decided to test it again a few hours ago since I saw this thread. The random male I got, before changing anything, had brown hair. Random female before changing had black. I changed the male's hair to blond and decided to keep the female's hair the same. Move them in and had 2 children. The first had blond hair and the second child, brown.

So, I think it might also have something to do with whatever hair colour the random Sim you got in CAST had. Weird...

[GloamingMerle]

I noticed something that might also be important.

When I went into CAST to make my family, the random female that I got before making my changes, had brown hair. I kept it that way, but added blond highlights. When I switch to male to make her spouse, the random male had blond hair. I changed everything to black.

I didn't follow the rules above, as I wasn't aware of this experiment until after I was done playing. But, what I noticed was that; 2 out of 3 children were born with blond hair  , and the other with brown and blond highlights, just like mom.

I decided to test it again a few hours ago since I saw this thread. The random male I got, before changing anything, had brown hair. Random female before changing had black. I changed the male's hair to blond and decided to keep the female's hair the same. Move them in and had 2 children. The first had blond hair and the second child, brown.

So, I think it might also have something to do with whatever hair colour the random Sim you got in CAST had. Weird...

An astute observation.. I wonder if you're on to something. I seem to recall people having sim babies that were either too light or too dark in comparison to the parents.. Now I wonder if their randomly generated sim in CAST had a skintone more in accordance with this. Whatever the case may be, I hope this is fixed in the retail version or patch.

[hooptytrib]

For those interested in multiple birth hair experiments without preparatory tedium, someone has uploaded a genetics kit here.

A caveat:  these are created using the Reloaded beta release.

Mom has standard red hair and light blue eyes.  Dad has standard black hair and dark eyes. 
Their skin tones are uninteresting.
Both are edited sim bin sims.  The question of dice pollution had not been raised when they were rolled.

Enclosed save files:
Genetic00: Sunday, fresh out of CAS, included for posterity.
Genetic03: Wednesday ~1900. Mom and Dad have the fertility perk, find each other "extremely irresistible," and are standing beside the bed.  Aye, here is the most useful one.
Genetic04: Saturday ~1630.  Mom will go into labor in about 90 minutes.  Dad has time to leave work and change appearance before labor.
Genetic05: Saturday ~1800.  Mom has just begun labor.  Dad has time to leave work and change appearance before birth.

So far, 2 runs each of 04 and 05 with various fatherly appearance changes resulted in four sets of excitable, red haired twin boys with light blue eyes.

[jonas]

This is not completely relevant, but I have done extensive testing with the "Play with Genetics" feature and determined some things.

1. Skin tones blend, IF and only if both parents share skin tones from the same slider.

2. Even in the "play with genetics" feature, occasionally the offspring would bork and have a random basic EA haircolor.

3. Grandparents don't appear to pass down genetics - I'm particularly pissed off about this.


A possibility I have deduced though is that when the borked basic hair color shows up, the game is TRYING to pull a hair color from a grandparent or other relation than parents. That's not available, so it just plinks down a random color. I think this hypothesis could use some deeper insight.

I would go as far as paying EA another $60.00 for an "Improved Genetics" expansion pack.  Yeah, like anyone cares, but it's somethin' that matters to me.

[Mimisims]

Has anyone saved their couple as a package before going into the Sims world to do the experiment so they could use the same couple to do the experiment again and again to see if the results always turn out the same?  I know you said not to switch families, but what if you complete the experiment with your couple and then start a new experiment with your copy of the same couple (in the same neighborhood or not), and try it over a few times to see how the results turn out?

[Zazazu]

3. Grandparents don't appear to pass down genetics - I'm particularly pissed off about this.

I just had a third-gen child inherit a first-gen eye color. So there is definitely some sort of genetic tracking going on. Basically:

Gen 1 : grey eyed CAS mom, blue eyed "townie" dad
Gen 2: blue eyed playable dad, dark blue eyed newspaper delivery mom
Gen 3: grey eyed girl child

Of course this is eye color, not hair. I haven't been doing the experiment, and 3/4 of the breeders involved were blonds.