Maxis Premade Sim Genetics

[strangetomato]

I've been thinking about the Good Genes III contest at GoS, and what really interests me in it is not wondering if the ugly would breed out (I think we all knew it would, given three generations), but which Maxis sim features you're left with. Planning for those three faces to blend with an attractive (and hopefully unique) final result is what made it so interesting to me. A lot of people go the Face One/Face Two route, but are their sims interesting enough to win the contest? Pretty is pretty, but what stands out enough to win? It remains to be seen, I guess. I know I'm more interested in seeing the diamonds in the rough, making pretty from unexpected gene choices. I'd like to see people receive bonus points for using a sim like Chester Gieke or Malcolm Landgraab, but lose points for every Brandi, Ajay, Don, or Cyd (or any other Face One/Two type).

Speaking of odd gene choices, I'm surprised that so many people have used Oberon (he's at least as popular as Don Lothario), because his nose is so wide and he's just not as conventional as the other sims that get re-used frequently. Also, Lilith Pleasant gets used a LOT and have you ever seen what that nose looks like on a male sim? It's intense. I'm really surprised that I'm the only one so far (I think...) that has used Ripp Grunt. He has really attractive features (for a man, at least... his daughters need to worry about the chin). Are any of the choices surprising you?

I've been thinking about devising my own variation on a Maxis sim breeding challenge, but have people start with Face One and aim to remove it, but still end up with something attractive. I'm not sure I'm up for the work of designing it, but it'd be something fun to do. Perhaps I'll suggest it for a Maxis_taste challenge.

Comments

[mae-o-nays.livejournal.com]

One thing that strikes me with most of the attempts so far is that I prefer the second-to-last generation to the last. A lot of the 'interesting' is bred out by the end. The trouble with using Sims like Brandi Broke (face 1) or Lola/Chloe Curious (face two) is that those face presets seem to be incredibly dominant. As much as I love Brandi as a character, she can make some really boring kids.

Breeding the interesting in would be a cool challenge.

[pixelcurious.livejournal.com]

Chloe is much closer to Face 3 than Face 2, and isn't exactly either. Not that it matters, but just sayin'.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Which one is Face Three? I can't think of a townie offhand that has it.

I always thought Lola and Chloe were mostly Face Two, with some tweaking.

[pixelcurious.livejournal.com]

I don't know which townies use 3, but I had Chloe in Body Shop and moved the sliders on both 2 and 3, and she's very close to Face 3 but really quite different from 2. Her eyes are a little bigger than 3, and more slanted, and her mouth is maybe a bit smaller, but her nose/face shape/everything else is pure 3.

Face 2 is more generic pretty in my opinion. More of a heart-shaped face, dainty nose, plumper lower lip. Chloe's actually got a good sized nose for a female sim.

While checking this in Body Shop, it seems like I have somehow gotten a replacement template for Face 1 (and it scares me a little bit!) I'm going to have to check in CAS and see if it shows up there, too. I don't like the idea of replacement templates sneaking into my game. Maybe it's just a weird Body Shop glitch. O_o

[pixelcurious.livejournal.com]

You know what, scratch all of that... Chloe IS mostly Face 2, and something is REALLY wrong with my Body Shop. Face 1 has been bumped up to the second slot; Face 2 to the third slot, and so on. And I have this I-don't-know-what in the Face 1 slot. But in CAS they're correct.

>_>

WTF

!!!

ETA: it's freaking Hilary Duff! Her face template took the Face 1 spot. And she's really scary looking! *laughs nervously*

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Bahaha! Hillary Duff is the new Face One. XD Scary stuff.

What does she look like? Doesn't she have a whole full face makeup that paints her face on for you, too?

[pixelcurious.livejournal.com]

LOL. I feel so embarrassed now with my "Chloe is so not face 2!" thing. She totally is. I just have an effed-up Body Shop.

I guess Hilary could be worse. Yeah, she has the full-face makeup (it's in Costume Makeup). It has Maxis brown eyes so you can't change them, but underneath they're light blue, or maybe gray, I'm not sure (and she has no eyebrows, since they're painted on the mask).





Here's her template usurping the spot of Face 1. Maybe this is why she vanished from the Exchange, while other celebrities remain there? When I'm done with her, I'm going to take her back out (and store her elsewhere in case I want her again).



Another odd thing is her face makeup only appears for S1. Change the skintone to S2 or anything else, and that mask disappears from the Costume Makeup section.

[(Anonymous)]

I had that happen with the Jeanette Biedermann sim. I already deleted the sim itself so I'm not quite sure what's left behind to cause that.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

That's really odd, and troubling, too. It's one thing to show up as a face under the faces category, but another thing entirely to show up as a template.

Could it be the "Sims 3D" package that comes along with a lot of the official content, I wonder? I know the outfits all come with sims that show up in CAS and Bodyshop, so maybe Jeanette came with something like that. Maybe you could re-download her and find the offending file, then seek it out in your downloads folder.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Heheh. Don't be embarrassed. I'm nonstop making a tool of myself around here. Remember the whole Lot Adjuster hate-on incident? :P At least you didn't end up on simsecret (yet). I even manage to get my moronic spelling errors posted on there from time to time. XD

That Hillary thing just smacks of too much creative control to me. I can just imagine her insisting that the player has no way to mess with her look (and don't even THINK about changing her skintone! >:O!!!). I'll give her the benefit of the doubt, but that's where my mind instantly goes.

Though having the template there so the game generates random townies with your face in any number of eye/skin/hair/outfit combos sort of goes against that aim. Imagine Hillary with alien skin, some sort of killer afro, and the Nightlife raver outfit! Heehee.

It reminds me of the Humble thing. I'm sure he make himself an "untouchable" townie to prevent players from messing aorund with him too much. Little did he know... XD (Spoiler: I've even bred him into the Tomato Legacy!)

[pixelcurious.livejournal.com]

Humble is a real person? I did not know! Sims is educational! I am eager to see your humblespawn. :D

My mind went to creative control too, with the face makeup (I accidentally typed "fakeup" -- truth in typos!)

I forgot to mention, that template is only for adult females. Other ages of female get one of the "ugly" townie faces. If I remember right, it's the sort of bug-eyed one with a big nose. Males also get that face. Imagine breeding in a townie all unknowing that his daughters may do a Duff in adulthood. :D Maybe I should leave her in my game...

I saw you mention the 3D file in another comment. Hilary does come with that. She has several files. Three are no doubt the clothes, hair, and face makeup: afbody_Hilary, afhair_Hilary, afface_Hilary. Then there's afarch_Hilary, which I worked out is probably archetype, since I read that term on MATY. And there's Hilary_3D and HilarySim. I'm assuming either the archetype or the 3D is the face template, but I don't know which one till I experiment with taking one out.

All around, it's such a weird way of putting a sim together for download. I can totally see the real Duff saying "Don't let them cross me with ugly sims, don't let them make me black..." I don't know a thing about her but it's where my mind goes!

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Are the Face Ones and Twos more dominant? That's a shame. I always thought that those more removed from the templates, via sliders, were more dominant. There's so many conflicting views on this, I'm beginning to think there's no truth to it and things are completely random. This challenge would support that norion.

Then again, there is that category of dominant traits in SimPE... maybe that's what determines it, and it's different from sim to sim, and would explain why Brandi is often dominant (you're not thinking of her first child, right? He's always a clone).

I think so. It would also allow for people to aim for something besides pretty, if they want to. Attractiveness is so subjective, afterall.

[mae-o-nays.livejournal.com]

Dominant is probably the wrong word (you wouldn't think I studied English lit...), but they really water down more interesting genetics. Really extreme genetics do dominate, but I've had trouble keeping medium-weird faces in the family gene pool. I'm going mostly on my own game, though, so I think you've got a point about it being random.

I've made Brandi have babies with a few Sims - with Remington the man-maid, the kids were a good mix of the two parents. Her babies with Darren Dreamer looked a lot like her, and Darren's lovely wide nose didn't get passed on. He actually makes really interesting kids with Cassandra Goth. But like you said, it's all subjective :)

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Okay, I see what you were saying now. I agree. Combining two parents that are sort of "middle of the road" often ends up more interesting than really extreme combined with a more basic and pretty template.

I've had some nice kids from Cass and Darren, too. I love his wide nose! It's such a rarity among the Maxis premades and I do have a soft spot for wide and generally bigger noses. (My SO has a very proud proboscis, in fact. :P)