Questions About The Sims Skins

"The Sims 3"

• In "The Sims 3," you create and manage the lives of up to eight people, called Sims, in one house. "The Sims 3" has no true objective; you are free to do whatever you want to your Sim, such as making him popular and rich or unfriendly and a slob. Compared to past "Sims" games, "The Sims 3" streamlines some features, such as removing a few "Needs" bars from your Sim, while adding to others.

Creating a Sim

• On the character-creation screen, you design your Sim using five categories of basic information: age and gender, hair and hair color, head shape, clothes and personality. You complete these categories in any order, and it's possible to change some aspects of your characters, such as hair and clothes, during the game.

Skin Colors

• The ability to change skin color is located under Basic Information -- the first available category you see when you create any Sim. The six skin colors are white, brown, black, green, red and blue, and any Sim, regardless of age or gender, can have any skin tone. Once you set the skin tone, however, you cannot change it at any point during the game.

Customizing Skin Tone

• Once you have selected a base color, you can then customize a skin tone using the slider located directly to the right of it. Adjusting the slider to the left creates a lighter variation of that skin tone, while adjusting the slider to the right creates a darker variation. Leaving the slider in the middle causes no changes to the base color. For example, with the red base color, adjusting the slider to the left results in a pinkish skin color, adjusting it to the right creates in a maroon skin color, and leaving the slider in the middle sets the skin to a basic shade of red.

Skin Color of Baby

• When two Sims with different skin tones have a child, the child's skin color is a mixture between the two, except with red, green and blue -- the baby will always be one of those shades, making it impossible to have a purple baby, for example. You also can't alter a baby's skin color before or after pregnancy.