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TUTORIAL: Roads and Lots in CAW
Nukapei
Posts: 88 New Member
Placing roads and lots in CAW isn't difficult ... it just takes patience and a little practice.
NOTE: Make sure you have your terrain sculpted and painted before you start putting down roads and lots! It'll be a lot easier if you do it in that order; otherwise you may end up going back and redoing entire sections to make room for a cliff/ocean/whatever.
First of all before you can place anything in your new world (including trees and effects) you have to make a new layer. Look to the left of the display, under "World Layers". At the top, it'll have a "Filter" box, then below a screen where you can browse all your layers. Right-click on "World Layer" and select "Add Layer". Name it whatever you want; it does not matter.
ROADS
I'd recommend putting your roads down first. It will help you have a good idea of the feel and flow of your town. To create a road, go to "Roads and Trees" at the top of the screen. Click on the "Road Placement and Editing Tools" button. This will open up the "Road Tool" screen. Click "Place Road", and then click in the "Render Panel" where you want your road to start. As you move your cursor away from the starting point, you'll see a road following it. Move your cursor to the place on your map where you want the road to end, and then click again. By default, the ending point of your first road is also the beginning point of the next road; if you don't want to place another road, just hit the [ESC] key.
What should come up is a road just like in-game. Under "Utilities" at the top, click on the "Move World Object" button, and then click on your road (Please Note: clicking this button will automatically close the "Road Tool"). Your road now should have a green line running down the center, two green boxes in the middle of the road, a brown mark at the central point of the road, and two blue boxes at either end. The mark is just for your own reference; it doesn't do anything. So is the green line; it just shows you the "center" line of the road. Clicking and dragging on the green boxes will make the road curve. Clicking and dragging the blue boxes will lengthen or shorten the road. Go ahead and play with both -- you can't break anything, and if you make a mistake just hit "undo".
Where two roads meet, you have to place down an intersection, and you have to do it correctly; else in-game when your Sims get to that intersection they will stop and get out of their car, walk over to the other side of the intersection, then get in their car and continue driving. Not very pretty, neh? So go ahead and open up the "Road Tool" again, but this time click the "Place Road Intersection" button instead. A road intersection just looks like a little square of road boardered by sidewalk. Place it anywhere in your world where you have a free spot for now; chances are, it's not going to line up with your road and we're going to need to do some fine-tuning first.
First of all, make sure your intersection is at the right angle. Under "Utilities", click on the "Rotate World Object" button (again, this will close the "Road Tool"). Click the intersection to select it (you'll know it's selected because a blue box will appear). Click on the intersection again and drag it to rotate it. Eyeball it and get it rotated so that one of the square's four sides is the exact same angle as the end of the road you want to connect it to. When you have it as best you can, click on the "Move World Objects" button and drag it over to the end of the road. Line up the edges as best you can. (Please Note: you may have to fine-tune the rotation a little bit more at this point) If all went well, the intersection and road should snap together. You'll know if this is the case because the side of the intersection connecting to the road will loose the sidewalk and instead a crosswalk will appear (two white lines). If it doesn't, try clicking on the road again, and then clicking the intersection. You can also move the road to the intersection, but I've found that moving the intersection to the road works a lot better than the other way around.
LOTS
At the top of the screen, click on where it says "Lots" to go to that menu. Then click on "Add a New Lot". Click where you want one corner of the lot to be, and then drag it out. If you did it correctly, a blue line should follow your cursor. Drag it to where you want another corner of your lot to be, and click again. Now, when you move your cursor away, it should form a box. Move your cursor to where you want the third (and, by virtue of the box being formed, the fourth) corner of your lot to be, and then click again. Just like with the roads, if you don't like how your lot is forming, clicking the [ESC] key will clear that lot out, so you can try it again.
That's the basics of placing a lot, but there's more involved than that. For example, how large do you want your lot? It's a VERY good idea to make sure you know what you want on this lot BEFORE making it. Will there be a diner here? A cemetery? A home? The lot needed for a grocery store, for example, is going to be a lot smaller than the lot for the military base, or a school.
Lot size is measured in tiles. They correspond directly to the tiles in Build and Buy Mode -- so, for example, if you have a lot that's 20 tiles wide, you can place ten two-tile sofas end-to-end across the entire lot. A good size for a small home is 20x20 or 20x30 tiles; medium would be 30x30 to 30x40 or 40x40; anything larger than that will have a tenancy to be mansion-sized to fill the lot.
What about community lots? How much space will you need? Some types of community lots that you build yourself (such as parks or a gym) are up to your own discretion -- obviously, if you want a small park you're going to want to make it smaller than a large park. (TIP: the only difference between a small park and a large park is the amount of townies it attracts. Both can host Chess Tournaments and neighborhood Grill-a-Thons, assuming chess tables and/or grills are available.) But some community buildings you can't build yourself, and these are called "rabbit-holes". A good example of a rabbit-hole is the grocery store -- when you send your Sim grocery shopping, they walk into the store and disappear, then reappear when they exit. Same with the police station, the school, the military base, the theater, etc etc. The game treats the entire building as a single object. Here is an excellent resource that gives the exact size of these rabbit-holes. Please note that these sizes are a minimum; even though the spa is only 14x12 tiles, you may want to put it on a 15x20 lot to allow for landscaping.
When you place a lot in CAW, it will ask you for the type of lot (residential or community) and the subtype. Residential is pretty standard; I wouldn't get too much into "townie" and "buyable"; plain-old "residential" is just fine. The others limit your game too much; townies can't move into "buyable" lots, and your Sims can't move into "townie" lots. Community is a bit more complicated. Some types of community lots have specific qualities or moodlets attached to them; for example, a Sim at the library gets a "Power Study" moodlet as well as decreased time it takes to read a book, and a Sim at the park gets a +15 mood boost from the "Beautiful Park" moodlet. It wouldn't make sense to get a "Power Study" moodlet at the gym, so CAW allows you to choose what type of community lot (and, therefore, what if any special attributes are activated).
However, when you look down the list, you'll see that it's incomplete. For example, there's no "school" or "police station" subtype. When placing that sort of lot, simply make it "Visitors Allowed". The game will sense what kind of rabbit-holes are on the lot, and assign the lot designation automatically from there.
So now we've placed a lot and chosen its type and subtype. And that's as far as we can go in CAW. If you want to actually build on your lot, you'll need to hit the "Edit In-Game" button under "Utilities". This will (eventually) take you to a watered-down version of the game. (I say "eventually" because the process is not fast; expect it to take about three to four times as long as it takes to load the game normally.) From there, under "Options" go to "Edit Town", and proceed as if you were actually in the game. Alternatively, you can also place pre-built lots from your lots bin.
Please Note: When in Bird's-Eye View, all the icons floating above the lots will be generic. Don't panic! When you export your world and go to live-mode, the game will change the icons so that they're appropriate. For example, a lot with the theater on it will have the generic "park-bench" icon floating above it, but when in live-mode it'll change over to the "movie reel" icon and have the standard "theater" options (ex: join music career, see concert, etc.).
That should cover it. Just please remember, this is CAW beta. It can be rather buggy at times. If it just won't select a section of road, no matter what you, be patient and play with it a little. Select something else and then try to select the road. If that "something else" won't select, try switching over to "move" mode and then back to "select" mode. Don't get frustrated, play around with it a bit, and it'll eventually do what you want it to.
I hope this tutorial will help some people. Happy building and world creating, everybody!
Edited for formatting reasons.
NOTE: Make sure you have your terrain sculpted and painted before you start putting down roads and lots! It'll be a lot easier if you do it in that order; otherwise you may end up going back and redoing entire sections to make room for a cliff/ocean/whatever.
First of all before you can place anything in your new world (including trees and effects) you have to make a new layer. Look to the left of the display, under "World Layers". At the top, it'll have a "Filter" box, then below a screen where you can browse all your layers. Right-click on "World Layer" and select "Add Layer". Name it whatever you want; it does not matter.
ROADS
I'd recommend putting your roads down first. It will help you have a good idea of the feel and flow of your town. To create a road, go to "Roads and Trees" at the top of the screen. Click on the "Road Placement and Editing Tools" button. This will open up the "Road Tool" screen. Click "Place Road", and then click in the "Render Panel" where you want your road to start. As you move your cursor away from the starting point, you'll see a road following it. Move your cursor to the place on your map where you want the road to end, and then click again. By default, the ending point of your first road is also the beginning point of the next road; if you don't want to place another road, just hit the [ESC] key.
What should come up is a road just like in-game. Under "Utilities" at the top, click on the "Move World Object" button, and then click on your road (Please Note: clicking this button will automatically close the "Road Tool"). Your road now should have a green line running down the center, two green boxes in the middle of the road, a brown mark at the central point of the road, and two blue boxes at either end. The mark is just for your own reference; it doesn't do anything. So is the green line; it just shows you the "center" line of the road. Clicking and dragging on the green boxes will make the road curve. Clicking and dragging the blue boxes will lengthen or shorten the road. Go ahead and play with both -- you can't break anything, and if you make a mistake just hit "undo".
Where two roads meet, you have to place down an intersection, and you have to do it correctly; else in-game when your Sims get to that intersection they will stop and get out of their car, walk over to the other side of the intersection, then get in their car and continue driving. Not very pretty, neh? So go ahead and open up the "Road Tool" again, but this time click the "Place Road Intersection" button instead. A road intersection just looks like a little square of road boardered by sidewalk. Place it anywhere in your world where you have a free spot for now; chances are, it's not going to line up with your road and we're going to need to do some fine-tuning first.
First of all, make sure your intersection is at the right angle. Under "Utilities", click on the "Rotate World Object" button (again, this will close the "Road Tool"). Click the intersection to select it (you'll know it's selected because a blue box will appear). Click on the intersection again and drag it to rotate it. Eyeball it and get it rotated so that one of the square's four sides is the exact same angle as the end of the road you want to connect it to. When you have it as best you can, click on the "Move World Objects" button and drag it over to the end of the road. Line up the edges as best you can. (Please Note: you may have to fine-tune the rotation a little bit more at this point) If all went well, the intersection and road should snap together. You'll know if this is the case because the side of the intersection connecting to the road will loose the sidewalk and instead a crosswalk will appear (two white lines). If it doesn't, try clicking on the road again, and then clicking the intersection. You can also move the road to the intersection, but I've found that moving the intersection to the road works a lot better than the other way around.
LOTS
At the top of the screen, click on where it says "Lots" to go to that menu. Then click on "Add a New Lot". Click where you want one corner of the lot to be, and then drag it out. If you did it correctly, a blue line should follow your cursor. Drag it to where you want another corner of your lot to be, and click again. Now, when you move your cursor away, it should form a box. Move your cursor to where you want the third (and, by virtue of the box being formed, the fourth) corner of your lot to be, and then click again. Just like with the roads, if you don't like how your lot is forming, clicking the [ESC] key will clear that lot out, so you can try it again.
That's the basics of placing a lot, but there's more involved than that. For example, how large do you want your lot? It's a VERY good idea to make sure you know what you want on this lot BEFORE making it. Will there be a diner here? A cemetery? A home? The lot needed for a grocery store, for example, is going to be a lot smaller than the lot for the military base, or a school.
Lot size is measured in tiles. They correspond directly to the tiles in Build and Buy Mode -- so, for example, if you have a lot that's 20 tiles wide, you can place ten two-tile sofas end-to-end across the entire lot. A good size for a small home is 20x20 or 20x30 tiles; medium would be 30x30 to 30x40 or 40x40; anything larger than that will have a tenancy to be mansion-sized to fill the lot.
What about community lots? How much space will you need? Some types of community lots that you build yourself (such as parks or a gym) are up to your own discretion -- obviously, if you want a small park you're going to want to make it smaller than a large park. (TIP: the only difference between a small park and a large park is the amount of townies it attracts. Both can host Chess Tournaments and neighborhood Grill-a-Thons, assuming chess tables and/or grills are available.) But some community buildings you can't build yourself, and these are called "rabbit-holes". A good example of a rabbit-hole is the grocery store -- when you send your Sim grocery shopping, they walk into the store and disappear, then reappear when they exit. Same with the police station, the school, the military base, the theater, etc etc. The game treats the entire building as a single object. Here is an excellent resource that gives the exact size of these rabbit-holes. Please note that these sizes are a minimum; even though the spa is only 14x12 tiles, you may want to put it on a 15x20 lot to allow for landscaping.
When you place a lot in CAW, it will ask you for the type of lot (residential or community) and the subtype. Residential is pretty standard; I wouldn't get too much into "townie" and "buyable"; plain-old "residential" is just fine. The others limit your game too much; townies can't move into "buyable" lots, and your Sims can't move into "townie" lots. Community is a bit more complicated. Some types of community lots have specific qualities or moodlets attached to them; for example, a Sim at the library gets a "Power Study" moodlet as well as decreased time it takes to read a book, and a Sim at the park gets a +15 mood boost from the "Beautiful Park" moodlet. It wouldn't make sense to get a "Power Study" moodlet at the gym, so CAW allows you to choose what type of community lot (and, therefore, what if any special attributes are activated).
However, when you look down the list, you'll see that it's incomplete. For example, there's no "school" or "police station" subtype. When placing that sort of lot, simply make it "Visitors Allowed". The game will sense what kind of rabbit-holes are on the lot, and assign the lot designation automatically from there.
So now we've placed a lot and chosen its type and subtype. And that's as far as we can go in CAW. If you want to actually build on your lot, you'll need to hit the "Edit In-Game" button under "Utilities". This will (eventually) take you to a watered-down version of the game. (I say "eventually" because the process is not fast; expect it to take about three to four times as long as it takes to load the game normally.) From there, under "Options" go to "Edit Town", and proceed as if you were actually in the game. Alternatively, you can also place pre-built lots from your lots bin.
Please Note: When in Bird's-Eye View, all the icons floating above the lots will be generic. Don't panic! When you export your world and go to live-mode, the game will change the icons so that they're appropriate. For example, a lot with the theater on it will have the generic "park-bench" icon floating above it, but when in live-mode it'll change over to the "movie reel" icon and have the standard "theater" options (ex: join music career, see concert, etc.).
That should cover it. Just please remember, this is CAW beta. It can be rather buggy at times. If it just won't select a section of road, no matter what you, be patient and play with it a little. Select something else and then try to select the road. If that "something else" won't select, try switching over to "move" mode and then back to "select" mode. Don't get frustrated, play around with it a bit, and it'll eventually do what you want it to.
I hope this tutorial will help some people. Happy building and world creating, everybody!
Edited for formatting reasons.
Post edited by EA_Solaire on
0
Comments
Thanks :thumbup:
actually this part is not correct, there is a subtype for school and i do believe for police as well. Also why not use community lot, and later have it add the icon from use? this part is a bit confuseing though. There are not lot markers for a few items though. :?
Jalida answered this one before I got to it. You should put your lots right up to the road, so that they're flush with the road, but no closer. Otherwise, the lot will overlap the road and cut huge chunks out of the road.
You could use the "community" subtype, too. It doesn't really matter all that much; like I said, the game automatically assigns the correct icon. I just like "Visitors Allowed" because it's a bit more open-ended than just plain "Community". And I've looked over that list literally a dozen times, trust me, there is no school or police station subtypes. There is an "Academy" subtype that was confusing a lot of people, but from what I understand that's like the martial arts academy in Shang Simla that came with the WA expansion pack.
Edit: if you'd like a little more information about the specific lot types and what they mean, see the "Recommended Objects Per Lot Type" section at the very end of the Tutorial.
where is the menu with police and such on it? I'm really confused, please help
Any ideas?
bump
Not always true you can have a lot right up to the road and the actual house is not level to the road. this will cause tearing in some areas of the road. Always good to check the height of the home you are putting on a flat lot.
If the ground is not level you may experience tearing in the road. You may have to move the lot back a little. You can move a lot with a house on it by using the big arrow tool then choose move.
Will that fix my problem?
zinc, try going into edit in game then selecting edit town. then select your lot you want to place on.