Possible to make a playable half-story with dormers?

KaylyRed

This is difficult to describe without pictures (which I can't post yet, apparently - Sims veteran, forum noob), but here goes.

I want to build a Craftsman bungalow that's a story-and-a-half. The upstairs would under the main roof line, and extended by dormers. This used to be easy to do in TS3, but I'm having some real issues getting the roof to work for me in TS4 because the game wants to render all the odd roof bits in cut-away walls mode. I suspect it would function as the bedroom area I want it to be, but it just doesn't look right.

Anyhow, can anyone explain how to make nice dormers than Sims can actually live in, and that don't look horrendous in play mode when the Sim is on the second story?

Ash072

I know you can make split level houses from sims 4 tutorials on YouTube. You can try there. Also, you may be able to adjust the wall height on each floor, so the first 2 floors can be at tall height and the "1/2" floor could be made at short or medium height.

KaylyRed

Thanks, Ash. I noticed that tutorial, but it's not exactly what I'm after. To quote U2: I still haven't found what I'm looking for.

Ash072

@Rutless_kk posted this on a thread about dormers:

"I discovered at the Creators Camp from talking to Simguru Houts that the new roofing system works differently and the only way to keep a roofline from clipping into a space is for there to be a room...a connected room near or under the roof.

In other words, in The Sims 3, having a roof on top of another roof would "erase" the one underneath...so if you wanted to keep a roofline from clipping in you had to make sure there was a roof over it right?

Well now, in The Sims 4, you have to have a room under it to keep a roofline from clipping in. That means 3 sided open spaces will have roof clipping. It has to be a closed off "unit" that the game recognizes as a room ( or move-able block) and then it will erase or hide the parts clipping in.

It is a different way of doing things and it will have limitations...but it will also prevent those open roof gaps we often saw with some kinds of construction...it will just be something to get used to using. Hope that helps and it makes sense."

Does that help at all?

KaylyRed

Hmm. I *think* I get where she's coming from. I'll have to experiment. Thanks, Ash!

tenor22

I found the roof renders in strange places based on what it thinks is a room. It took a bit of fiddling but if you adjust the room shapes just so, you can get a roof that plays fairly nicely with dormers.

KaylyRed

Thanks, @tenor22. I've been fiddling with it, myself. I'm still not 100% happy with the results, and sometimes things don't work out at all like I want them to, but I'm starting to figure out that if you use smaller roof pieces (you break the front line of the roof into segments that wrap around the dormer) the results are better. The roof still invades into the dormer area, but it's... tolerable.

tenor22

@KaylyRed, I didn't go into too much detail because I wasn't confident I could describe it in a way that had enough detail but I'll give it a shot. The dormer space needs to be part of a room that's playable space. The roof that then goes around the dormer should be placed on the floor below the dormer. You may have to do it in pieces, although I was able to do it in one piece with a steep roof grade.