Good Genes III

[strangetomato]

I've been following the Good Genes III contest over at GoS, and, though I'm one of the lurkiest of lurkers over there, I've decided to enter it. It was way too much fun to pass up. Genetic experiments are always fun, and anything with Maxis sim genetics is right up my alley. I love all the interesting results that have been posted so far, and I'm especially loving all the less than ideal Maxis premades that people are using. You have your usual suspects for what most people consider pretty (lots of Dons, Brandys, and Ajays), but also some very surprising choices, like Consort Capp. Some very cool results, too!

Surprising nobody, I've selected three of my obvious favourites from the Maxis sims, who I also happen to think possess some fine genetic material, when mixed well. Did I get lucky with the blend?










Marlene looks like a Picasso! :D I also found it surprising to see just how Johnny-like Ripp and Marlene's kid was. Markus has Ripp's eye's and mouth, but everything else seems pure Johnny. Imogen ends up with a nice balance of genetics from all three, though favouring Ophelia's features, which is fine by me. And she has Ripp's eyes. Can't go wrong with those!









I also took this as an opportunity to play with my defaults, using the more realistic Maxis-match skins and eyes by Summerdream Sims (and edits of the same eyes by Nilou). I really love this set, but it's too big of a switch to use in my story, so it's nice to be able to try them out. They're very beautiful.

Comments

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

I'll upload her as soon as I get a chance to extract her and load BodyShop. ^_^

[cosmetical.livejournal.com]

You had very good results, considering some of the other results I've seen. Imogen is lovely. I did a double-take when I saw you using the Neena/Nilou eyes, but I like how they look on JRO.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

I've seen some other nice results that have blown me away when I saw what they were working with, genetically. It just goes to show that most Maxis sims have some good features, some not so great. It's just a matter of breeding well.

I really like those eyes, and they aren't such a huge jump from the Phobia eyes, at least from a distance. But they are quite a bit more realistic, so I wouldn't want to use them in the story, but I'll probably use them for some little side things like this.

[spyroeldragon.livejournal.com]

She's is completely adorable. I love Ripp's eyes on her. :D

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Ripp's eyes are hard to resist. ^_^ I really hope he passes them on if I get around to breeding him in my Strangetown.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

It's a perma-pucker! Heehee.

[profbutters.livejournal.com]

What a COOL contest! I would never have thought of it. Do you mind if I tell some of my simming friends about it?

I'm terrible with genetics. You got some gorgeous results!

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Of course I don't mind! ^_^ I'm sure the GoS crowd would welcome more participants.

I don't always have such good luck, but I do think it worked out really well for me this time. I only had two kids per generation (three are allowed, by the rules), so there wasn't a lot of room for bad results.

[pixelcurious.livejournal.com]

Whoa! Marlene really does look like a Picasso. What a great idea for a contest. I have my fingers crossed that you'll win!

I bet I'm more even lurky than you are on GOS...

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

I love this contest idea. It'd be fun to do a variation on it to try to create the most interesting sims for pixel_trade (using Maxis or pixel_trade sims and 4 generations) or maybe start at face one and aim for ugly with Maxis-only sims.

I don't even really care if I win the contest (the prizes are nice, but not really my type of thing), but entering it sure was a lot of fun! ^_^

I feel bad about being so lurky, because I really do like the place and I get a lot of my cc from there. It's hard to get out of lurker mode once you're in it, though.

[pixelcurious.livejournal.com]

You wouldn't have some outtakes, would you? Maybe some romancing of Sy and Marlene? *bats stalk-eyes*

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, I don't. I was playing this really late at night, and just wanted to get through it as quickly as possible.

I did link Madame Ugly to a fun outtakes post at Ferretsim's journal, which you'd probably enjoy. That's the best I can do for now!

[pixelcurious.livejournal.com]

I saw that! Thanks to your link. It was pretty awesome. :D

[muslemura.livejournal.com]

Marlene is wonderfully 'picassoesque' :D And Imogen has a great mix of genes - she's a real cutie! Ripp eyes are never wrong :)

(PS Do you remember where you found those Nilou edits?)

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Imogen is everything I'd hope for in a Ripp/Ophelia baby (well, except the Johnny eyebrows, but if they can work that in, fine by me! :P).

The Nilou edits are right here. Another reason I'm fond of the Neena eyes are the fact that this set gives you so many options in that style. If I were going to go a little more realistic with my sims, I'd definitely choose this style.

[muslemura.livejournal.com]

Ooo, I saw those but silly me didn't recognize them - thank you :)

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

You're welcome. ^_^ I love to be a download enabler.

[madame-ugly.livejournal.com]

Cool contest (and great submission!).

Makes me curious about the "faceblendlimits" cheat, too. I've goofed off with it before but never saw much of a change using it vs. not. But I wasn't working with a sim like Sy.

It's fun to see just how quickly Extreme Fug can be squashed. But now I really want to see everyone's rejects. There in lies the LOL.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Thanks. It's a fun thread to browse. I'm sure you'll like some of the more interesting results on there. I saw some LOL-worthy outtakes somewhere... *goes to check*

It was here, at Ferret's journal. Some CRAZY looking sims.

I did this a couple of nights ago when it was way too late to be awake (damn you, late evening espresso), so I didn't take many pics while playing. I just got what I needed for the contest and got out.

I've always been curious about that cheat, too. So you've tried it? It seems like something you'd be able to do a lot with. Maybe try it in NoCheat?

[madame-ugly.livejournal.com]

I tried that cheat a long time ago (using parent sims with extreme features--but not as extreme as Sy) and honestly I didn't see much difference between spawn created with the cheat on and with the cheat off. BUT, I could have been doing it wrong or my sampling was too small or. . .(and this was my conclusion) the cheat just doesn't do much.

I think the point of the cheat is more to eliminate freaks then grow them. I noticed folks at GOS bringing it up when discussing the breedability of their shared sims (meaning they use it to encourage attractive spawn).

Speaking of attractive spawn CC makes the sim, hmm? I'd love to see all the entries stripped down to no/bare minimum cc (so no crazy layers of makeup, like mouth corners and such). Scrape off all the excess and really see what those sims look like.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

It's set by default to keep things more palatable, though, right? Why would people warn of it with downloads? I've never used it, so I would even think to type it in. (It's not like I expect you to know the answer. this just strikes me as funny.)

That's always been my beef with cc skin, and still is. This Neena skin is probably the farthest I'd go into the world of smooth and softened (though thankfully not too shiny) cc skin. It doesn't completely erase the natural line of the mouth and such. I still prefer my more slightly edited defaults, because you can still see all those details, and notice more clearly the differences in the genetics. (Plus I actually like the head wrinkles.)

I don't mind the mouth corners and eyebags and all that. The added texture is interesting (I often add more wrinkles and things), as long as it doesn't completely change the look.

And yeah, it's no coincidence that I chose this contest as the time to test out this cc I've been eyeing. People have a lot of opinions about the more Maxis-match of the Maxis-match stuff. It's less distracting this way. And it's pretty.

[madame-ugly.livejournal.com]

They weren't warning about it with downloads, they were discussing the "breedability" of the offered sims and the faceblend thing came up (in a "I never take it off" kind of way). So they were kind of guaranteeing their shared sims would throw pretty kids.

I found it amusing, too. Especially since the sims in question were all very smooth faced (meaning no sharp cheeksbones, etc) and they had tons of CC (so you'd really only get what was pictured if you left all the cc on).

While I'm kind of bad mouthing cc, I will say you can still get some great looking sims when you strip off all the cc. I have one in my VDSL right now who (while he looks nothing like his preview now that he's without all the cc extras--I even wonder if his creator would recognize him!) is still very awesome. It's fun to get all the "pretties" and hose the cc off and see what they really look like (a lot of them are just boring in the vein of face template 1).

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't know if keeping that setting on guarantees pretty kids, but breeding only variations on face one and face two certainly will. There's a lot of that going on in this contest, but enough interesting material to make it interesting. Some brave souls have used Malcolm and Consort, but nobody has ventured into Chester or Gunnar territory yet.

I like the image of you hosing all that pretty cc off. I imagine the sims enetering your game through a car wash type of thing to blast all that cc off.

[madame-ugly.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the few folks who were brave enough to use the lumpier offerings got lovely offspring (even after they went though the Madame CC Wash!).

I have my eye on Chester when I go over to Strangetown for the Sly Snootles version of my GOS GG home game (they've had three total, so one for each base hood--Sly so needs to join Strangetown).

The big flaw with these contests is you get too many children. Three per round pretty much guarantees you'll get a clone of the "pretty" sim (I noticed that with the one I already did).

For the next one I do, I'm thinking it'll be Hardcore. Only one spawn per breed. You have to work with what you got.

[crushthecamera.livejournal.com]

My very first thought while reading this: Markus is proof that J/R/O is Meant to Be. Because Ripp loves Johnny so much that he gave birth to him so that Johnny could marry Ophelia who Ripp (and Johnny) also loves?

Which I suppose is a very convoluted way of saying that I am only halfway through my first coffee of the day, but yes.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Haha! Exactly. I was thinking something similar when I saw how Johnny-like Markus was. How did Ripp even manage that? (Truth be told, Markus had Ripp's mouth and chin, too, so he really only has Johnny's nose, eyebrows and colouring.)

Ripp will find some way to work it all out. He's determined. ;)

[amaryssobellus.livejournal.com]

Wow. That's really cool that it didn't take that long to breed out the alienest of Sy. I would have thought it would take 5 + GENERATIONS to breed it out. And Imogen is quite lovely as well as Markus!

It surprised me to see how Johnny like Markus turn out to look. :D

ETA:
Are this the skintones that you're using in this post?

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised by it, too. Some people seem to be able to breed it out in the first generation. I always thought the more extreme features were a little more likely to be passed on, but maybe I'm wrong about that.

Markus is mostly like Ripp in facial features, actually. It seems like Johnny's nose is what gives him most of his look.

Yes, those are the ones! ^_^ She creates such lovely things.

[sophie10.livejournal.com]

Imogen is just stunning. And a very good blend of JRO.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I really did get lucky with this blend.

[simsnowcherry.livejournal.com]

Imogen is gorgeous! Like you said, can't go wrong with Ripp's eyes. All in JRO have good genes in my opinion.

Also, totally off topic, but because you're their big fan too, I just have to share this joy with you: I SAW BELLE & SEBASTIAN LIVE YESTERDAY! YAY! A smile was stuck on my face for the whole gig. They were awesome and adorable and so on. :))

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Thanks. There are some iffy bits and pieces in the JRO genes that could end up lookly kinda rough if they were combined in the wrong way, but I do think they're good breeding material, overall.

Oh, man. Really?! How lucky! ^_^ I was thisclose to seeing them during a trip to England during my art studies, but I haven't been able to see them yet. I would LOVE to see them live. I didn't even think they were still playing together. I thought they were on indefinite hiatus...

[boolpropbea.livejournal.com]

Imogen is basically gorgeous! :D

[selenecorvino.livejournal.com]

Way behind on mail... Nice experiment. Could you also make Markus available as well as Imogen? Will check out the GoS site, thanks for the info.

[selenecorvino.livejournal.com]

Found everybody on your downloads page, thanks for making them available.