Is there any point in terrain editing?

Vershner

Is it possible to build a house over uneven terrain? I've been searching around but I can't find much info on this. Mostly people seem to be talking about split level staircases.
What I'd like to do is either link a second story floor to a ground level floor on a hill, or link a building on foundations to a building without foundations. This seems impossible though. Embedding a building in a slope seems impossible too.
Other than landscape gardening then, is there about point to the terrain editing?

Rflong7

Yes.
Without code - https://modthesims.info/t/314938
With code - https://www.wikihow.com/Attach-a-Garage-to-a-House-With-a-Foundation-in-Sims-2-Nightlife

I don't understand your last question... is there any point to building a house or expanding a house? I guess, yes. You want me to list points for editing terrain?

Vershner

Thanks, that was what I was looking for. The last point was assuming there was no way to connect buildings on different levels, there didn't seem much point in terrain editing.

Is it also possible to embed a building in a slope?

Cinebar

Vershner wrote: »

Thanks, that was what I was looking for. The last point was assuming there was no way to connect buildings on different levels, there didn't seem much point in terrain editing.

Is it also possible to embed a building in a slope?

Yes.

Vershner

Cinebar wrote: »

Vershner wrote: »

Thanks, that was what I was looking for. The last point was assuming there was no way to connect buildings on different levels, there didn't seem much point in terrain editing.

Is it also possible to embed a building in a slope?

Yes.

How?

Rflong7

I don't understand the question? You want a whole building in a slope or a basement?
Basements are do-able. https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/853809/basements-in-ts2

I think editing terrain just for the yard is a good reason to have terrain editing. I'm so glad I can change it up if I want in TS2/3.

Vershner

I've seen a tutorial on basements, but that puts the whole room in the ground. I was hoping to build a house with the front door on the ground floor, but the back of the house partly covered by the slope, so the back door is on the first floor.

Something like this:

Rflong7

It doesn't put the Whole room in the ground if placed on a slope. Remove the one side of the foundation at the lower side and if it's ground height as shown in that tutorial, at that lowest level, put in a wall and you have a walk out basement.

Vershner

Thanks, I'll give that a try.

Cinebar

I'm trying to find you the old MikeInside tutorial of how to build a house jutting out from a mountain etc. But I've misplaced my bookmarks. I have it somewhere. But Rflong has pretty much answered one way to do it.

Rflong7

Some pictures of my older builds. I don't build on slopes much any more.











@Cinebar MikeInside isn't opening- it times out.

Vershner

Thanks for your help. I've been experimenting for the last few hours and I seem to have got it working.
Trouble is, I've now just run into a different issue. I just deleted the lot I was experimenting on and the game completely flattened the terrain where the lot had been. That is really annoying! Is there any simple way to restore it, or edit that terrain?

I don't have Freetime, so modifyNeighborhoodTerrain doesn't work.

I've read that it can be edited in SimCity 4, which I have, but it is very heavily modded, so I'm not sure that would work.

Rflong7

It can't be edited in SimCity4- the map can be edited but to use it in an already made neighborhood won't work. You can:
1. make a new neighborhood
2. download and follow the instructions for the 'HoodReplace 2.3' program. http://modthesims.info/d/279992
3. delete the template neighborhood you made if you don't want it.

**Make a backup of your neighborhood before doing it.

Vershner

So I tried this process with both the pleasantview.sc4 from my install and also the original pleasantview file from modthesims, and it kind of works, - in that the terrain was swapped - but bizarrely, neither actually matched the terrain from my original Pleasantview. I don't see how that's possible. I've never edited it. I can only imagine the game itself modifies the terrain when it creates the original neighbourhood.

Vershner

Finally did it! I installed a new copy of TS2 on a separate machine. Created a new neighbourhood and copied the Pleasantview terrain to that with Hoodreplace, then copied the temp neighbourhood back to my main machine and transferred the terrain to my original Pleasantview.

What a palaver!

Rflong7

Yeah, I didn't know you were using Pleasantview. The game map isn't the same as the neighborhood map. I guess they didn't keep the original for us.

Glad you got it to work.

Cinebar

My links are no longer opening MikeInside tutorials which have very detail step by step instructions with pictures of how to build a house jutting out from a sloped hillside. Thanks for letting me know Rflong, mikeinside site won't open.

I hate that as I often refer back to those when I get stuck on something or did something wrong and it not working correctly.

Here is the link from SimWiki, but I can't get this link tutorial from mikeinside to open, either. I'm not sure if it's my browser or if they have taken down their tutorials after all these years. It also includes (in part 2) how to build this inside (sort of) a sloped hillside. Hope someone can open the link but I can't.

http://simswiki.info/wiki.php?title=Tutorials:Basement_for_a_House_on_a_Hillside

Vershner

Archive.org has it - https://web.archive.org/web/20080830115058/mikeinside.modthesims2.com/building/basements/index.html

Looks like a good guide. Thanks!

Cinebar

Vershner wrote: »

Archive.org has it - https://web.archive.org/web/20080830115058/mikeinside.modthesims2.com/building/basements/index.html

Looks like a good guide. Thanks!

Thanks! But when I save it to my favorites then try to open it, it won't open but it does if I click on it from here. I had those saved somewhere but have lost them somehow. But I guess I can bookmark this thread and follow the link you provided from here. Thank you!

Oldeseadogge

Adding my thanks for the link! Great tutorial, and have started experiments - one thing to read it, another to actually do it yourself. The principles may work on beach lots as well, where there is relatively little flat land and that slope down to the water. Having that lower level access would be a build changer. I have several Victorian house plans that use this feature, so this will be golden.

Oldeseadogge

From someone who has a talent for goofing things up, happy to report that the experiments were a great success. An oddity is that the paper person and not so humble Mr. Humble both go down the slope to the back door, rather than the much more convenient front door. One of 3 welcome wagon folks did as well. Got my sim out there quickly, which may be why the other 2 didn't. Will try a door type change as the original one was rather nice.

Rflong7

@Oldeseadogge wrote: »

From someone who has a talent for goofing things up, happy to report that the experiments were a great success. An oddity is that the paper person and not so humble Mr. Humble both go down the slope to the back door, rather than the much more convenient front door. One of 3 welcome wagon folks did as well. Got my sim out there quickly, which may be why the other 2 didn't. Will try a door type change as the original one was rather nice.

All visitors (Guests and Service Sims) will go to a door on the ground. So, if you have the back door on the ground and the front on a foundation- they'll head to the back door. Same with a garage door.
What you need is a fence which stops them going to the back door (lock the gate) and they will use the front door on the foundation.

Oldeseadogge

Thank you! Will make the fix. Sounds like a prelude to TS4 bad coding.