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101 Apartment Building: For the Non-Late Night-ers
JotaSims
Posts: 14
In this post I'm gonna teach you about the types of apartments I'm familiar with, and how to build them. Before starting the whole tutorial I'll explain a bit about this post and myself. ^.^
I'm a fellow Simmer who over the years has played quite a lot. I love inventing new houses and stories, and if I got my way around CAW, probably worlds too. The problem is, I'm one of the few people that don't have the 'Late Night' Expansion Pack (I know, shocking right!? :roll: ). But anyways, I was wondering around my town deciding what to build next when I noticed on the change lot type part (in edit world) that in the residential options it had apartment.
After lots of Google-ing, and failed tries, I have finally 'mastered' the art of Apartment Building! (at least to my knowledge...
)
But enough of chatting, let's get to business. Here are the two types of 'apartments' I'm familiar with:
Apartment Type 1 - A apartment type lot (set in edit world). Works like dorms in 'University Life' EP but you can actually live in it. You pay rent and have roommates. You won't receive any rent money from the other roommates. The roommates live in your lot and you need beds for them to sleep in. If you don't want them invading your personal space, you have to lock your doors ('n hide yo kids! ). Personally, the only benefit of this is that you pay rent instead of bills which is cheaper. (not sure this works without the University Life EP though)
Apartment Type 2 - A normal residential type lot. You can build it however you want. You'll have NPCs living in hidden rooms (like the ones in Late Night), blacked out, and unable to enter. They are none of your worries. You can knock on their door and socialize with them, but again, you can't enter their 'houses'. You will pay bills (I think you only pay for 'your' space, but I'm not entirely sure). I don't have 'Late Night' EP, thus, there wont be any of the LN mailboxes, and trash chutes, and all that. You have a mailbox and a trash can equal to the ones on the other residential lots. It's your house and no one uninvited can enter.
I'm only going to teach you how to make the second type, because all you need to do for the first type is to go to Edit Town mode and change the lot type to apartment (under residential).
WHAT YOU'LL NEED
- The Sims 3 Base Game (duh!)
- Your game updated
- Your cheats noted down 8)
TUTORIAL
STEP 1
Choose your residential lot. Write the following cheats (in order): testingcheatsenabled true -/- buydebug -/- RestrictBuildBuyinBuildings Off
STEP 2
Build. You can build whatever you feel like, either it's a tall building, or an underground type of thing, as long as it's walkable. There's no need in furnishing the rooms you want your NPCs to go, since you wont be able to see it. What you'll need is a lobby type room, doors for the NPCs' houses, and your own apartment space.
STEP 3
Now that you have your apartment all pretty and stuff, here comes the tricky part. In all rooms that you built for the NPCs (so the ones that you are expecting to be blacked out) put a hidden room maker. It's a silver sphere that you'll find on 'Buy Mode'->'?'->'Misc'. There are a lot of those so make sure you place the right one.
STEP 4
Now in the lobby, place a public room maker. It looks the same as the hidden room maker, and is located under the same category.
STEP 5
Do the following: Ctrl+Shift and then click on the NPC's room door. Select the option 'Make NPC Door'. AND YOU'RE DONE!
Sowwy for my Paint amateur-ness
Here's a screenshot of how the NPC rooms look (at the right) and how the lobby and apartment looks (at the left).
Another view of it.
NOTES: First of all, I want to say that if you have anything to add to this tutorial and/or any questions, you're more than welcome to post a reply. Every useful detail I may have forgotten in this tutorial will be very appreciated, since this is meant to help Simmers. The following notes are just a bunch of stuff to clarify any doubts. Thanks for reading, and I truly hope you found this helpful. Also, I would love to hear your feedback, and see what you builders come up with ^.^
- Repairmen and burglars will come to your house. The pizza delivery guy never came though
- I spent a sim-week at my 'apartment' to make sure it was fully functional. Even though I only had a couple of things, I paid a rent of 38 Simoleons (which makes me wonder if I pay for the NPC's rooms or not). If someone could tell me, I would be very grateful.
- You can't lock the front door/lobby door, obviously!
- Even though I'm not half as good as some builders I see around here, if you guys want me to make an apartment building and put it on the exchange, let me know! (PS: The one in the screenshot is only a experimental house, I'm not THAT bad
- If you want to learn how to make real apartments with the Late Night EP, here's a helpful post: http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/364138.page
I'm a fellow Simmer who over the years has played quite a lot. I love inventing new houses and stories, and if I got my way around CAW, probably worlds too. The problem is, I'm one of the few people that don't have the 'Late Night' Expansion Pack (I know, shocking right!? :roll: ). But anyways, I was wondering around my town deciding what to build next when I noticed on the change lot type part (in edit world) that in the residential options it had apartment.
After lots of Google-ing, and failed tries, I have finally 'mastered' the art of Apartment Building! (at least to my knowledge...
)But enough of chatting, let's get to business. Here are the two types of 'apartments' I'm familiar with:
Apartment Type 1 - A apartment type lot (set in edit world). Works like dorms in 'University Life' EP but you can actually live in it. You pay rent and have roommates. You won't receive any rent money from the other roommates. The roommates live in your lot and you need beds for them to sleep in. If you don't want them invading your personal space, you have to lock your doors ('n hide yo kids!
). Personally, the only benefit of this is that you pay rent instead of bills which is cheaper. (not sure this works without the University Life EP though)Apartment Type 2 - A normal residential type lot. You can build it however you want. You'll have NPCs living in hidden rooms (like the ones in Late Night), blacked out, and unable to enter. They are none of your worries. You can knock on their door and socialize with them, but again, you can't enter their 'houses'. You will pay bills (I think you only pay for 'your' space, but I'm not entirely sure). I don't have 'Late Night' EP, thus, there wont be any of the LN mailboxes, and trash chutes, and all that. You have a mailbox and a trash can equal to the ones on the other residential lots. It's your house and no one uninvited can enter.
I'm only going to teach you how to make the second type, because all you need to do for the first type is to go to Edit Town mode and change the lot type to apartment (under residential).
WHAT YOU'LL NEED
- The Sims 3 Base Game (duh!)
- Your game updated
- Your cheats noted down 8)
TUTORIAL
STEP 1
Choose your residential lot. Write the following cheats (in order): testingcheatsenabled true -/- buydebug -/- RestrictBuildBuyinBuildings Off
STEP 2
Build. You can build whatever you feel like, either it's a tall building, or an underground type of thing, as long as it's walkable. There's no need in furnishing the rooms you want your NPCs to go, since you wont be able to see it. What you'll need is a lobby type room, doors for the NPCs' houses, and your own apartment space.
STEP 3
Now that you have your apartment all pretty and stuff, here comes the tricky part. In all rooms that you built for the NPCs (so the ones that you are expecting to be blacked out) put a hidden room maker. It's a silver sphere that you'll find on 'Buy Mode'->'?'->'Misc'. There are a lot of those so make sure you place the right one.
STEP 4
Now in the lobby, place a public room maker. It looks the same as the hidden room maker, and is located under the same category.
STEP 5
Do the following: Ctrl+Shift and then click on the NPC's room door. Select the option 'Make NPC Door'. AND YOU'RE DONE!
Sowwy for my Paint amateur-ness
Here's a screenshot of how the NPC rooms look (at the right) and how the lobby and apartment looks (at the left).
Another view of it.
NOTES: First of all, I want to say that if you have anything to add to this tutorial and/or any questions, you're more than welcome to post a reply. Every useful detail I may have forgotten in this tutorial will be very appreciated, since this is meant to help Simmers. The following notes are just a bunch of stuff to clarify any doubts. Thanks for reading, and I truly hope you found this helpful. Also, I would love to hear your feedback, and see what you builders come up with ^.^
- Repairmen and burglars will come to your house. The pizza delivery guy never came though
- I spent a sim-week at my 'apartment' to make sure it was fully functional. Even though I only had a couple of things, I paid a rent of 38 Simoleons (which makes me wonder if I pay for the NPC's rooms or not). If someone could tell me, I would be very grateful.
- You can't lock the front door/lobby door, obviously!
- Even though I'm not half as good as some builders I see around here, if you guys want me to make an apartment building and put it on the exchange, let me know! (PS: The one in the screenshot is only a experimental house, I'm not THAT bad
- If you want to learn how to make real apartments with the Late Night EP, here's a helpful post: http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/364138.page
Post edited by EA_Solaire on
0
Comments
Thnx! Glad you liked it