Designating Rooms «12345...Next Go

Terrylin

This was brought up in this thread here pg 74 with this quote:

brainybee wrote: »

Hey @Cyron43, I've been meaning to ask someone who might know, how hard it is to make a mod to have lockable doors in 4? Can you think of a reason why they might be difficult to add to the game?

Which lead to the discussion of the game mechanics by @SimGuruMax.

I would love to see this discussion go further.
In my layman's terms I believe the discussion was if and how they could designate rooms so our sims would recognize them as different rooms. This would help eliminate eating in the bathroom and doing dishes in the bathroom sink. It could also help to set sims bedrooms for individual sim.

The techy simmers on here can elaborate/correct more (I hope) but as I see it, since in build mode rooms are already recognized or they don't have ceilings then the first step is already there. So how hard would it be to categorize a room like venues are done? Where to make a bathroom you would have to put in certain bathroom items. then our sims would know it is a bathroom.

Would our Techy Simmers like to come and discuss this? @Seamoan @brainybee @Cyron43 and any other that might like to join in!
I would also love to have @SimGuruMax input on the possibilities of this!

MasonGamer

for bedrooms I think just making lockable doors and some items would be easier, that way we can set them to only be used by specific sims. it should be a checklist
Only me
Family/Roommates
Friends

As for Kitchen and bathroom stuff, I'm not sure.

brainybee

Terrylin wrote: »

This was brought up in this thread here pg 74 with this quote:

brainybee wrote: »

Hey @Cyron43, I've been meaning to ask someone who might know, how hard it is to make a mod to have lockable doors in 4? Can you think of a reason why they might be difficult to add to the game?

Which lead to the discussion of the game mechanics by @SimGuruMax.

I would love to see this discussion go further.
In my layman's terms I believe the discussion was if and how they could designate rooms so our sims would recognize them as different rooms. This would help eliminate eating in the bathroom and doing dishes in the bathroom sink. It could also help to set sims bedrooms for individual sim.

The techy simmers on here can elaborate/correct more (I hope) but as I see it, since in build mode rooms are already recognized or they don't have ceilings then the first step is already there. So how hard would it be to categorize a room like venues are done? Where to make a bathroom you would have to put in certain bathroom items. then our sims would know it is a bathroom.

Would our Techy Simmers like to come and discuss this? @Seamoan @brainybee @Cyron43 and any other that might like to join in!
I would also love to have @SimGuruMax input on the possibilities of this!

...and now we are in the ideas corner. *sigh*

Terrylin

brainybee wrote: »

...and now we are in the ideas corner @Terrilyn. sigh...

Well I thought since it is an idea it would have been move anyway. Sorry
I didn't want to mess up Bon's thread and they close it for being OT!
Guess it was a bad idea!

Cyron43

Thank you for your effort @Terrilyn. Alas I'm pretty busy atm. So if someone wants to carry my posts over I hereby grant permission.

brainybee

Terrylin wrote: »

Well I thought since it is an idea it would have been move anyway. Sorry
I didn't want to mess up Bon's thread and they close it for being OT!
Guess it was a bad idea!

Don't feel bad. I just knew this would happen. I am still looking for a way to keep it general discussion.

Terrylin

Cyron43 wrote: »

Thank you for your effort @Terrilyn. Alas I'm pretty busy atm. So if someone wants to carry my posts over I hereby grant permission.

I could do that if you would like to continue the discussion.
Finish eating and move them over.

Terrylin

brainybee wrote: »

Terrylin wrote: »

Well I thought since it is an idea it would have been move anyway. Sorry
I didn't want to mess up Bon's thread and they close it for being OT!
Guess it was a bad idea!

Don't feel bad. I just knew this would happen. I am still looking for a way to keep it general discussion.

Bethelle is strict and would move it when she came on. I couldn't come up with a title that would keep it in GD sadly.

Seamoan

What I took out of that quote was that rooms do not exist.

Objects exists and can be grouped together in such a way to identify a certain area and the expected sim behaviors allowed in that area.
If an area has a fridge, a sink and a counter within a certain distance of the sim, then the sim should behave as if they are in a kitchen and do kitchen things. If an area has a bathtub, a toliet and a sink within a certain distance of the sim, then the sim should behave as if they are in a bathroom and do bathroom things. That area would be measured vertically (which explains the lack of terrain tools, the reason we can only build 3 or whatever levels, missing toddlers, same height teens, no mixing foundation levels on the same lot and a host of other height related issues) and horizontally (which explains why everything is at the exact same flat level)

This gets all messed up with players use kitchen counters in a bathroom or a door is placed backwards like in the example from the first thread.

This also makes it quite easy to plop down rooms and move walls all over the place. Space does not exist in the sense that there is a room that holds objects, it mutable based on where the sim is in relation to certain objects. That's the "auras" or "feelings" or whatever that make certain objects affect sims behavior or mood in certain ways.

As far as "locking rooms", I don't know how possible this would be. It all depends on how the game sees walls - ie they are obviously treated as something since sims can't walk through them, but what? Is the "zoning" based on the distance between the roof and the foundation/ground and the objects that are surrounding the sim or is there something more that defines the "zone"? It sounds like the doors have a "knock" "answer" "allow in" type functionality, but according to that quote, they have nothing to do with anything beyond a hard scripted scenario between 2 sims based on the door object itself. These are the things, I don't know.

Terrylin

Seamoan wrote: »

What I took out of that quote was that rooms do not exist.

Objects exists and can be grouped together in such a way to identify a certain area and the expected sim behaviors allowed in that area.
If an area has a fridge, a sink and a counter within a certain distance of the sim, then the sim should behave as if they are in a kitchen and do kitchen things. If an area has a bathtub, a toliet and a sink within a certain distance of the sim, then the sim should behave as if they are in a bathroom and do bathroom things. That area would be measured vertically (which explains the lack of terrain tools, the reason we can only build 3 or whatever levels, missing toddlers, same height teens, no mixing foundation levels on the same lot and a host of other height related issues) and horizontally (which explains why everything is at the exact same flat level)

This gets all messed up with players use kitchen counters in a bathroom or a door is placed backwards like in the example from the first thread.

This also makes it quite easy to plop down rooms and move walls all over the place. Space does not exist in the sense that there is a room that holds objects, it mutable based on where the sim is in relation to certain objects. That's the "auras" or "feelings" or whatever that make certain objects affect sims behavior or mood in certain ways.

As far as "locking rooms", I don't know how possible this would be. It all depends on how the game sees walls - ie they are obviously treated as something since sims can't walk through them, but what? Is the "zoning" based on the distance between the roof and the foundation/ground and the objects that are surrounding the sim or is there something more that defines the "zone"? It sounds like the doors have a "knock" "answer" "allow in" type functionality, but according to that quote, they have nothing to do with anything beyond a hard scripted scenario between 2 sims based on the door object itself. These are the things, I don't know.

But in build mode it exists in the sense that it has to be a room to have a ceiling and or roof. So rooms themselves do exist even for a porch or deck. So can't that be elaborated on? Adding a designation such as bathroom with requirements?

brainybee

I'm still kinda wanting to open a thread where we can talk about other things besides just room designation. I've been wading through pages of tech guru posts and a lot of the things that people are thinking of as "bugs" are actually design choices. I think we could give better player feedback and ask for realistic features if we knew how the game was set up.

Seamoan

Terrylin wrote: »

Seamoan wrote: »

What I took out of that quote was that rooms do not exist.

Objects exists and can be grouped together in such a way to identify a certain area and the expected sim behaviors allowed in that area.
If an area has a fridge, a sink and a counter within a certain distance of the sim, then the sim should behave as if they are in a kitchen and do kitchen things. If an area has a bathtub, a toliet and a sink within a certain distance of the sim, then the sim should behave as if they are in a bathroom and do bathroom things. That area would be measured vertically (which explains the lack of terrain tools, the reason we can only build 3 or whatever levels, missing toddlers, same height teens, no mixing foundation levels on the same lot and a host of other height related issues) and horizontally (which explains why everything is at the exact same flat level)

This gets all messed up with players use kitchen counters in a bathroom or a door is placed backwards like in the example from the first thread.

This also makes it quite easy to plop down rooms and move walls all over the place. Space does not exist in the sense that there is a room that holds objects, it mutable based on where the sim is in relation to certain objects. That's the "auras" or "feelings" or whatever that make certain objects affect sims behavior or mood in certain ways.

As far as "locking rooms", I don't know how possible this would be. It all depends on how the game sees walls - ie they are obviously treated as something since sims can't walk through them, but what? Is the "zoning" based on the distance between the roof and the foundation/ground and the objects that are surrounding the sim or is there something more that defines the "zone"? It sounds like the doors have a "knock" "answer" "allow in" type functionality, but according to that quote, they have nothing to do with anything beyond a hard scripted scenario between 2 sims based on the door object itself. These are the things, I don't know.

But in build mode it exists in the sense that it has to be a room to have a ceiling and or roof. So rooms themselves do exist even for a porch or deck. So can't that be elaborated on? Adding a designation such as bathroom with requirements?

I don't know. I didn't know TS4 had ceilings. I don't play it. I was going directly off what that guru's post and all the missing items from the game .

But to answer your question theoretically, I would think everything is based on the distance between the ceiling/roof and the foundation/ground to figure out the vertical scope of the area. Picture your sim surrounded by one, big, 3-dimensional square. Everything within that square is fair game for a sim's behavior/feelings. The size of that square is defined by how far it reaches vertically and horizontally. In the case of a roofed front porch, the horizontal objects (outdoor deco, plants, trees, flowers, jogging townies, anything else that is outside) indicate that even though there's a roof/ceiling, all the objects indicate outside behaviors, so the sim is going to act like they are outside.

Honestly, I would guess the vertical part of the equation doesn't even matter until we start talking about toddlers, weather or pets, in which case it becomes huge since they will be incorporating new sim heights that will need to interact with everything and weather could definitely cause some problems. I would be very suprised if this game ever has any terrain modification, I expect to see lots of rocks and other things that give the impression of a modified terrain, but nothing like we've had in the past.

I can't remember from the trial, did TS4 require a roof or could you build a wide-open house with no roof? And did they end up including the walls that could be pulled to different heights?

brainybee

Good observations @Seamoan. What you are saying goes along with other comments they've made.

brainybee

The entire world is basically the relationship between a sim and any object. The relationships can be complex and don't always work as intended. For example, the pull of a computer on a sim seems to trump the line of sight parameters for privacy during woohoo or the pull of washing the dishes in a "routable" sink trumps the line of sight privacy for avoiding a sim using the toilet.

Cyron43

I am pretty sure a closed room is recognized as such. Well at least in TS3 it is. Just go into build mode and create a room. As soon as the last wall is up the lighting inside changes regardless of a roof. Is it the same in TS4?
Routing is a completely different aspect. What I assume from watching Sims behavior in TS3 it's like this: the code looks for the closest interaction target object (i.e. a basin to wash dishes). This is done by calculating a straight line in 3 dimensions and that's why Sims probably walk upstairs if that basin is the closest (not by walk distance but by the shortest straight distance, regardless of walls or floors in the way). The outcome is sometimes awkward but saves a great deal of processor power.

Lucifer Amadeus

where's the original discussion? I want to read.

Terrylin

Seamoan wrote: »

Terrylin wrote: »

Seamoan wrote: »

What I took out of that quote was that rooms do not exist.

Objects exists and can be grouped together in such a way to identify a certain area and the expected sim behaviors allowed in that area.
If an area has a fridge, a sink and a counter within a certain distance of the sim, then the sim should behave as if they are in a kitchen and do kitchen things. If an area has a bathtub, a toliet and a sink within a certain distance of the sim, then the sim should behave as if they are in a bathroom and do bathroom things. That area would be measured vertically (which explains the lack of terrain tools, the reason we can only build 3 or whatever levels, missing toddlers, same height teens, no mixing foundation levels on the same lot and a host of other height related issues) and horizontally (which explains why everything is at the exact same flat level)

This gets all messed up with players use kitchen counters in a bathroom or a door is placed backwards like in the example from the first thread.

This also makes it quite easy to plop down rooms and move walls all over the place. Space does not exist in the sense that there is a room that holds objects, it mutable based on where the sim is in relation to certain objects. That's the "auras" or "feelings" or whatever that make certain objects affect sims behavior or mood in certain ways.

As far as "locking rooms", I don't know how possible this would be. It all depends on how the game sees walls - ie they are obviously treated as something since sims can't walk through them, but what? Is the "zoning" based on the distance between the roof and the foundation/ground and the objects that are surrounding the sim or is there something more that defines the "zone"? It sounds like the doors have a "knock" "answer" "allow in" type functionality, but according to that quote, they have nothing to do with anything beyond a hard scripted scenario between 2 sims based on the door object itself. These are the things, I don't know.

But in build mode it exists in the sense that it has to be a room to have a ceiling and or roof. So rooms themselves do exist even for a porch or deck. So can't that be elaborated on? Adding a designation such as bathroom with requirements?

I don't know. I didn't know TS4 had ceilings. I don't play it. I was going directly off what that guru's post and all the missing items from the game .

But to answer your question theoretically, I would think everything is based on the distance between the ceiling/roof and the foundation/ground to figure out the vertical scope of the area. Picture your sim surrounded by one, big, 3-dimensional square. Everything within that square is fair game for a sim's behavior/feelings. The size of that square is defined by how far it reaches vertically and horizontally. In the case of a roofed front porch, the horizontal objects (outdoor deco, plants, trees, flowers, jogging townies, anything else that is outside) indicate that even though there's a roof/ceiling, all the objects indicate outside behaviors, so the sim is going to act like they are outside.

Honestly, I would guess the vertical part of the equation doesn't even matter until we start talking about toddlers, weather or pets, in which case it becomes huge since they will be incorporating new sim heights that will need to interact with everything and weather could definitely cause some problems. I would be very suprised if this game ever has any terrain modification, I expect to see lots of rocks and other things that give the impression of a modified terrain, but nothing like we've had in the past.

I can't remember from the trial, did TS4 require a roof or could you build a wide-open house with no roof? And did they end up including the walls that could be pulled to different heights?

I think you are right that they don't have a visual ceiling. I am more referring to when you make a room it has floor tile on top of it if it isn't recognized it wont have said tiles. I encountered this issue when I was making a house with the pre-made rooms and the hallway made by the rooms wasn't recognized until I went over the walls with the wall tool. You can build with or without a roof and it will still be a room.

I see what you mean as to how it is designed as to sims reaction in said room but with adding a designation like they did with the venues then wouldn't the sims be able to recognize the room they are in? Just as they do a gym?

Terrylin

brainybee wrote: »

I'm still kinda wanting to open a thread where we can talk about other things besides just room designation. I've been wading through pages of tech guru posts and a lot of the things that people are thinking of as "bugs" are actually design choices. I think we could give better player feedback and ask for realistic features if we knew how the game was set up.

I could change the title to be more open. What do you suggest?

Terrylin

Lucifer Amadeus wrote: »

where's the original discussion? I want to read.

On it now!

brainybee

SimGuruMax said that room designation would be difficult because sims behave based on the proximity of objects. He said if you designate a room a bathroom because of a sink, shower, and toilet then what happens if a room is really big or a player builds a wall between the toilet and sink area? Or what if a player wants a bathroom sink in the kitchen?

I'm not sure it would have to work the way he says, but they might have to change the way the sims work at the most basic level?

Seamoan

brainybee wrote: »

Good observations @Seamoan. What you are saying goes along with other comments they've made.

@brainybee - it was that guru quote you posted. It really put things together for me. I'm so used to sims games that are primarily based on a sims interaction with an object or an other sim, but this time is different. No wonder there are so many unhappy players.

I can see where they were trying to go with it, but it seems like they focused way too much energy on killing the complaints about sims washing dishes in the wrong sink or socializing in the bathroom. It's the "smarter" sim stuff. Not to mention how much quicker it makes the devs jobs , it's much easier to incorporate hard coded careers and behaviors into an almost static environment.

Terrylin

Cyron43 wrote: »

brainybee wrote: »

Hey @Cyron43, I've been meaning to ask someone who might know, how hard it is to make a mod to have lockable doors in 4? Can you think of a reason why they might be difficult to add to the game?

Shouldn't be hard but from what I have heard the doors in TS4 have a static "knock at" side. So if mounted "the wrong" way visitors enter the house, knock at the door from the inside, then move to the outside and wait. Is that a known bug? That must be fixed before doors can be locked.

brainybee wrote: »

Thanks @Cyron43. That makes sense. The coding of this game has me smh sometimes. Some of the weirdness with the "smart" sims' routing makes me wonder too. SimGuruMax told us that they no longer have room designation, so that is one of the reasons people leave the kitchen to go up 3 flights of stairs to wash dishes in a bathroom sink and why kids go into their parents bedroom to use a computer while their parents woo hoo. I wonder how this affects modding.

brainybee wrote: »

Thanks @Cyron43. That makes sense. The coding of this game has me smh sometimes. Some of the weirdness with the "smart" sims' routing makes me wonder too. SimGuruMax told us that they no longer have room designation, so that is one of the reasons people leave the kitchen to go up 3 flights of stairs to wash dishes in a bathroom sink and why kids go into their parents bedroom to use a computer while their parents woo hoo. I wonder how this affects modding.

Cyron43 wrote: »

brainybee wrote: »

Thanks @Cyron43. That makes sense. The coding of this game has me smh sometimes. Some of the weirdness with the "smart" sims' routing makes me wonder too. SimGuruMax told us that they no longer have room designation, so that is one of the reasons people leave the kitchen to go up 3 flights of stairs to wash dishes in a bathroom sink and why kids go into their parents bedroom to use a computer while their parents woo hoo. I wonder how this affects modding.

Oh - my - god! o_0
If Sims the game as a whole can't differ between outside and inside anymore that's indeed a massive problem! In order to fix that (as a modder) he had to write a core mod first which grabs right into the guts of the game code and decorates it with such a categorisation. Uh oh, I suggest we stop calling for toddlers now and start begging for room designators. That's a top priority thing!
I mean it!

brainybee

Terrylin wrote: »

brainybee wrote: »

I'm still kinda wanting to open a thread where we can talk about other things besides just room designation. I've been wading through pages of tech guru posts and a lot of the things that people are thinking of as "bugs" are actually design choices. I think we could give better player feedback and ask for realistic features if we knew how the game was set up.

I could change the title to be more open. What do you suggest?

Hang on for now. I am working on it. I will tag everyone when I get it set up.

Terrylin

brainybee wrote: »

Cyron43 wrote: »

brainybee wrote: »

Thanks @Cyron43. That makes sense. The coding of this game has me smh sometimes. Some of the weirdness with the "smart" sims' routing makes me wonder too. SimGuruMax told us that they no longer have room designation, so that is one of the reasons people leave the kitchen to go up 3 flights of stairs to wash dishes in a bathroom sink and why kids go into their parents bedroom to use a computer while their parents woo hoo. I wonder how this affects modding.

Oh - my - god! o_0
If Sims the game as a whole can't differ between outside and inside anymore that's indeed a massive problem! In order to fix that (as a modder) he had to write a core mod first which grabs right into the guts of the game code and decorates it with such a categorisation. Uh oh, I suggest we stop calling for toddlers now and start begging for room designators. That's a top priority thing!
I mean it!

Here's what SimGuruMax said in September in response to a question about rooms in Sims 4:



Here is a fun fact - we don't really have the notion of Rooms anymore on TS4. We had this on TS3 and we felt that it ultimately added a lot of complexity without giving much in return because we would often mischaracterize larger rooms or rooms with weird mixtures of objects. In our quest to reduce unnecessary complexity, we decided to avoid implementing Rooms until we had a compelling reason to do so. One never really came up, so we never did.

I think we will end up implementing Rooms on TS4 eventually (as usual, no promises). We can use some marquee objects like the Fridge, Stove, and Toilet to tag certain spaces with room identity. It would not be too hard to discourage Sims from using sinks that are in a "bathroom," meaning ones within line-of-sight of a toilet. We could also use this tech for many other uses, such as to discourage Sims from socializing in bathrooms. We would avoid creating some kind of room assignment UI because it would be awkward and we really have the data we need to figure this out in almost all cases, even if the answer is "multi-purpose room."


So he says they "might" add this designation in the future, but more recently they have also suggested other solutions that would not work with this one.

ETA link http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/782859/simulation-tech-talk/p8

Cyron43 wrote: »

brainybee wrote: »

Cyron43 wrote: »

brainybee wrote: »

Thanks @Cyron43. That makes sense. The coding of this game has me smh sometimes. Some of the weirdness with the "smart" sims' routing makes me wonder too. SimGuruMax told us that they no longer have room designation, so that is one of the reasons people leave the kitchen to go up 3 flights of stairs to wash dishes in a bathroom sink and why kids go into their parents bedroom to use a computer while their parents woo hoo. I wonder how this affects modding.

Oh - my - god! o_0
If Sims the game as a whole can't differ between outside and inside anymore that's indeed a massive problem! In order to fix that (as a modder) he had to write a core mod first which grabs right into the guts of the game code and decorates it with such a categorisation. Uh oh, I suggest we stop calling for toddlers now and start begging for room designators. That's a top priority thing!
I mean it!

Here's what SimGuruMax said in September in response to a question about rooms in Sims 4:



Here is a fun fact - we don't really have the notion of Rooms anymore on TS4. We had this on TS3 and we felt that it ultimately added a lot of complexity without giving much in return because we would often mischaracterize larger rooms or rooms with weird mixtures of objects. In our quest to reduce unnecessary complexity, we decided to avoid implementing Rooms until we had a compelling reason to do so. One never really came up, so we never did.

I think we will end up implementing Rooms on TS4 eventually (as usual, no promises). We can use some marquee objects like the Fridge, Stove, and Toilet to tag certain spaces with room identity. It would not be too hard to discourage Sims from using sinks that are in a "bathroom," meaning ones within line-of-sight of a toilet. We could also use this tech for many other uses, such as to discourage Sims from socializing in bathrooms. We would avoid creating some kind of room assignment UI because it would be awkward and we really have the data we need to figure this out in almost all cases, even if the answer is "multi-purpose room."


So he says they "might" add this designation in the future, but more recently they have also suggested other solutions that would not work with this one.

ETA link http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/782859/simulation-tech-talk/p8

Okay got it but anyway the game MUST differ between outside and inside in some way even if it is by querying some object like an outside plant but honestly doing such an object query costs more processor cycles than a simple get from a room enumeration property. Also those object lists which hold information about which object represents which room eats up memory. I would reconsider that design if I were among their team.

brainybee wrote: »

Since there are a couple of people in this thread interested about how the game works, I give you this from SimGuruMax:

We built a data-driven interaction system for TS4. In general, the gameplay engineers don't script content anymore - we script new features and then integrate them into our data driven architecture, making them available to our tuning system. New buffs and traits can be added entirely through tuning, for example. Thats pretty cool, but obvious. We took it further. New objects and interactions can be added entirely through tuning (assuming the model and animation content is available). New NPCs can be added if they are simple like the Maid or Bartender. New situations can be added if they conform to one of our situation templates, which have to be scripted but then can be reused across multiple very different situations (situations control everything from parties and weddings to how Sims in your neighborhood behave and even venues).

This has contributed substantially to our ability to add new content to the game quickly and also is one of the chief reasons, I believe, why TS4 is so stable - all interactions are going through a shared, generic pipeline and so fixing any bug fixes it in all interactions. This is not with out its costs, though, as it does make it much harder to make the first of something because you have to design it within the constraints of the system. Ad-hoc implementations are not only discouraged, they are rendered virtually impossible in our architecture. This further feeds into why we have a system-based approach to fleshing out the game.

(This is from the same page as above)

Seamoan wrote: »

Cyron43 wrote: »

brainybee wrote: »

Cyron43 wrote: »

brainybee wrote: »

Thanks @Cyron43. That makes sense. The coding of this game has me smh sometimes. Some of the weirdness with the "smart" sims' routing makes me wonder too. SimGuruMax told us that they no longer have room designation, so that is one of the reasons people leave the kitchen to go up 3 flights of stairs to wash dishes in a bathroom sink and why kids go into their parents bedroom to use a computer while their parents woo hoo. I wonder how this affects modding.

Oh - my - god! o_0
If Sims the game as a whole can't differ between outside and inside anymore that's indeed a massive problem! In order to fix that (as a modder) he had to write a core mod first which grabs right into the guts of the game code and decorates it with such a categorisation. Uh oh, I suggest we stop calling for toddlers now and start begging for room designators. That's a top priority thing!
I mean it!

Here's what SimGuruMax said in September in response to a question about rooms in Sims 4:



Here is a fun fact - we don't really have the notion of Rooms anymore on TS4. We had this on TS3 and we felt that it ultimately added a lot of complexity without giving much in return because we would often mischaracterize larger rooms or rooms with weird mixtures of objects. In our quest to reduce unnecessary complexity, we decided to avoid implementing Rooms until we had a compelling reason to do so. One never really came up, so we never did.

I think we will end up implementing Rooms on TS4 eventually (as usual, no promises). We can use some marquee objects like the Fridge, Stove, and Toilet to tag certain spaces with room identity. It would not be too hard to discourage Sims from using sinks that are in a "bathroom," meaning ones within line-of-sight of a toilet. We could also use this tech for many other uses, such as to discourage Sims from socializing in bathrooms. We would avoid creating some kind of room assignment UI because it would be awkward and we really have the data we need to figure this out in almost all cases, even if the answer is "multi-purpose room."


So he says they "might" add this designation in the future, but more recently they have also suggested other solutions that would not work with this one.

ETA link http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/782859/simulation-tech-talk/p8

Okay got it but anyway the game MUST differ between outside and inside in some way even if it is by querying some object like an outside plant but honestly doing such an object query costs more processor cycles than a simple get from a room enumeration property. Also those object lists which hold information about which object represents which room eats up memory. I would reconsider that design if I were among their team.

I think it's the roof. That's also how I think they'll be able to add weather at some point.

Terrylin

brainybee wrote: »

Terrylin wrote: »

brainybee wrote: »

I'm still kinda wanting to open a thread where we can talk about other things besides just room designation. I've been wading through pages of tech guru posts and a lot of the things that people are thinking of as "bugs" are actually design choices. I think we could give better player feedback and ask for realistic features if we knew how the game was set up.

I could change the title to be more open. What do you suggest?

Hang on for now. I am working on it. I will tag everyone when I get it set up.

LOL Well buggers OK on pause

brainybee

I want to make sure I have the short, sweet, relevant posts from Simgurus on the important topics such as privacy, ownership (there is an ownership system already in game for everything - including computers), culling, AI, babies, teens, etc...