I must be missing the obvious...

Inna Minnit · January 2016

How do I just build on a lot? I don't want to create a Sim. I don't want to play. I just want to pick a lot and practice building. I can do this easy peasy in TS4. What am I missing?

Karritz · January 2016

You need a tester sim. Just pick one out of your library.

It is best though if the sim has some skills - such as handiness.

You use them as you build too. You need to make sure a sim can go places they need to and can climb stairs etc.

BTW: If you want to have things upgraded the sim with handiness can upgrade everything for you. Or you could have a bunch of sims with high handiness to upgrade everything.

EDIT AGAIN: When I build my castle I also had horses and dogs and cats as testers as I had to have pets able to get into various parts of the final build.

darkrai2010 · January 2016

go to edit town there will be a option to build on a empty lot click the build/buy mode and you can start building what ever you want hope this helps :)

TreyNutz · January 2016

Click on the button with 3 dots, choose Edit Town. Pick an empty lot of the size you want and click on the map tag. There's a button on the pop up window to change the lot assignment (residential vs. community) if you need to. Then click the button on the pop up window to go into Build/Buy mode on that lot.

I don't have TS4; I have no clue how it's done in that game.

edit: you don't need to create or play a sim. You do need to start a game in whichever world you want to build though.

Inna Minnit · January 2016

Thanks. I appreciate the help. I got TS3 specifically for building. Is there a pack I should have that has good build and buy objects? I have the base game, high end loft and island paradise. No cc or mods.

Karritz · January 2016

Inna Minnit wrote: »

Thanks. I appreciate the help. I got TS3 specifically for building. Is there a pack I should have that has good build and buy objects? I have the base game, high end loft and island paradise. No cc or mods.

I ended up getting everything for Sims 3 as the Build Objects are well scattered.

There are a lot of them in the store too. In sets, venues and worlds.

In the store you can view the list of objects that come with them to see if there is anything that you specifically want. You can probably do that with Expansions and Stuff Packs as well.

Inna Minnit · January 2016

Ok, thanks. I haven't spent any time looking at the store. Is it custom content? Or EA created?

Also, super cute doggie!

CoolBlueJay902 · January 2016

Everything on the Sims 3 store are created by EA. Anything else that isn't created by EA might be considered custom content made by other players.

donnabailey · January 2016

As Karritz said, build objects are well scattered throughout the store, EPs, and SPs, but as far as the store goes, there are some sets and venues which are predominately build related. A lot of it depends on your style. I love the Old Town: Starter Kit and the Now & Then Century Manor because I'm fond of the style represented. With that set and venue, I can build my dream plantation house for Twinbrook. There's also the BahHaus set, which is all build objects. Just look around and see what pleases you!

JoAnne65 · January 2016

For me there are two EP's that stand out theme wise where it comes to building: Supernatural (old fashioned) and Into the future (very modern). In fact I know people who bought Supernatural, not because of the supernaturals but because of those items.

A tip by the way when you build, is to not only save the game every now and then, but also the lot (to the bin). You can always throw away previous versions.

Karritz · January 2016

I bought Supernatural just for the build items then worried about how I'd keep the supernatural a out of my game. I got used to them and now I have lots of them in my games. although I do have them turned off in options so I can control who is a supernatural and the type of supernatural.

Inna Minnit · January 2016

I spent about an hour or so building this morning. Thank you to those who helped me get that far. I decided to save, but it wouldn't let me do it in that screen. It said I had to go back to the town screen. So I did. I saved but then I couldn't find the house. I don't know if it didn't save or if I just don't know which lot to look at. I am such a noob and it is just a harder, less intuitive game to me.

FoxyLovesKitty · January 2016

If you're in edit town, there's a blue button at the top of the screen that allows you to return to game.
If you don't play a household yet, you need to pick one. Otherwise the game won't show it. If you do play a household, the icon of the house should be green (compared to the other houses who are blue).

Charlottesmom · January 2016

Inna Minnit wrote: »

I spent about an hour or so building this morning. Thank you to those who helped me get that far. I decided to save, but it wouldn't let me do it in that screen. It said I had to go back to the town screen. So I did. I saved but then I couldn't find the house. I don't know if it didn't save or if I just don't know which lot to look at. I am such a noob and it is just a harder, less intuitive game to me.

You have to save the lot to the library. It takes some getting used to but soon you will have it down pat.

TreyNutz · January 2016

Inna Minnit wrote: »

I spent about an hour or so building this morning. Thank you to those who helped me get that far. I decided to save, but it wouldn't let me do it in that screen. It said I had to go back to the town screen. So I did. I saved but then I couldn't find the house. I don't know if it didn't save or if I just don't know which lot to look at. I am such a noob and it is just a harder, less intuitive game to me.

Saving the game should save the lot you built at the location you were building. Only in that save though. A new game in the same town won't have those changes.

Saving to the library allows you to use the lot in other worlds, but isn't necessary to save your progress.

Karritz · January 2016

Inna Minnit wrote: »

I spent about an hour or so building this morning. Thank you to those who helped me get that far. I decided to save, but it wouldn't let me do it in that screen. It said I had to go back to the town screen. So I did. I saved but then I couldn't find the house. I don't know if it didn't save or if I just don't know which lot to look at. I am such a noob and it is just a harder, less intuitive game to me.

It helps if you've actually started a game and have a sim in residence. That way all you have to do is open the game again and it will take you straight to the lot you were 'playing' or building on.

You can't save in Build or Buy mode. You need to be in Live mode to do that. A quick way to get back to Live mode from Build or Buy mode ONLY is to hit the F1 function key. F1 does other things in different screens.

TreyNutz · January 2016

Karritz wrote: »

You can't save in Build or Buy mode. You need to be in Live mode to do that. A quick way to get back to Live mode from Build or Buy mode ONLY is to hit the F1 function key. F1 does other things in different screens.

You can save in Edit Town. I do all the time when building.

Karritz · January 2016

TreyNutz wrote: »

Karritz wrote: »

You can't save in Build or Buy mode. You need to be in Live mode to do that. A quick way to get back to Live mode from Build or Buy mode ONLY is to hit the F1 function key. F1 does other things in different screens.

You can save in Edit Town. I do all the time when building.

I didn't say you couldn't save in Edit Town. I said you can't save in Build or Buy mode.

If you save in Edit Town you have to Return to Game.

If you don't have a household in the lot your building on it won't take you back to the lot. You have to know where to find the lot you are building on. If you are unfamiliar with the town and where your lot is that can be extremely stressful.

Karritz · January 2016

If you want to have some tutorials on basic building and then complex building when basic is covered, this thread is set up to do just that.

http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/499348.page

It is the Zoo University master thread and this link takes you to the old Sims 3 forum. But all the info is there.

IreneSwift · January 2016

I do most of my building on a totally empty flat map I exported in CAW for that purpose. I don't need to have any households to do it, nor do I need to exit Edit Town to save the town. You just have to remember where you put your building project. On my empty map, it's easy. In an existing, populated town, it will be harder, but if you left build/buy mode and saved in Edit Town mode without moving your camera to some other location, the lot you've been building on should be right there at the center of the map when you open the save.

HappySimmer3 · January 2016

I don't know if you will find this useful, but Carl's site has a General Guide to using Edit Town in TS3: http://www.carls-sims-3-guide.com/buildedit/editmodetutorial.php

You don't have to have a household to start editing lots in TS3, you can go straight to Edit Town. You can, and some people prefer it - for example if you have a sim that's level 10 handiness they get a discount on all build items.

But since you are building and not playing, just pick a lot and remember which lot you were using.

As a word of caution, you might want to stop building after a while even before you are finished, go back to edit town, and give the game a saved name. It's best to do this periodically. For me, it's really easy to get absorbed for hours and hours in building and when TS3 is open for too long it is prone to crashing. Sadly many of us have lost building progress because of this. It may not be a danger to you unless you begin adding more and more packs to the game, though.

Saved games are at the bottom of the Main Menu screen, with the name(s) you gave them. As previously pointed out, the same saved game has to be opened in order to find the lot you are (or have finished) building on, so you do need to remember which lot it was. Maybe you could look for landmarks or other characteristics. That's what I do when I want to find my car again after exiting one of those big box stores.

TS3 has a lot more bells and whistles, but I prefer it even with the complexity. In fact it's the complexity that makes the game so interesting and absorbing to me. I don't know that I would say that it's less intuitive, either; I don't remember having a great deal of difficulty figuring it out. But maybe that's because I also played TS2? It didn't seem all that different from TS2 to me.

TreyNutz · January 2016

Karritz wrote: »

I didn't say you couldn't save in Edit Town. I said you can't save in Build or Buy mode.

You said:

Karritz wrote: »

...You need to be in Live mode to do that.

I don't consider Edit Town to be Live Mode since you don't need to be playing a sim to get into Edit Town. Therefore I thought that particular statement was incorrect.

If you save in Edit Town you have to Return to Game.

You do not need to hit the Return To Game button to save while in Edit Town. I'm not sure what you are trying to say here, but I've customized whole worlds before without ever playing a sim. I start a new game, go directly to Edit Town, customize, save while in Edit Town, continue building, etc. I've never needed to be in Live Mode or have an active household.

If you don't have a household in the lot your building on it won't take you back to the lot. You have to know where to find the lot you are building on. If you are unfamiliar with the town and where your lot is that can be extremely stressful.

True. One way to always get back to the lot you are working on is to make it your active lot. But that means you have to use money cheats. I find it easier to not to bother with an active sim until I'm done and need to test, and even then I do that in a different save. As for finding the lot I was working on....sometimes it's time consuming to search the world lot by lot, but I've never found it stressful in any way.

Minx · January 2016

I have a save that is just meant for building. (I have to remake that save.) I use an empty world and just save my lots to the bin. I find it very easy to build like this. The hardest part is remembering to save.

(No, I don't use nraas saver.)

JoAnne65 · January 2016

I prefer building in the world where the house is meant to be in, at the right spot. That way I can make sure the windows are where the view is and the style fits the neighborhood. I can imagine that isn't important to everyone, but I need to really see that. I build in a seperate save in order to be able to use moveobjects, because I avoid that cheat in the save I play in. Saving to the bin I mainly do in case something goes wrong with the save. That never happened, but better safe than sorry

Karritz · January 2016

JoAnne65 wrote: »

I prefer building in the world where the house is meant to be in, at the right spot. That way I can make sure the windows are where the view is and the style fits the neighborhood. I can imagine that isn't important to everyone, but I need to really see that. I build in a seperate save in order to be able to use moveobjects, because I avoid that cheat in the save I play in. Saving to the bin I mainly do in case something goes wrong with the save. That never happened, but better safe than sorry

Everyone develops their own building style and do whatever works for them.

I prefer to place the house on a lot my Sims are going to live on too.

Some times I build without a resident family, mostly I have my testing sims on site so I can be sure they can use everything and get into places without having routing errors.

If Sims not being able to access everything and routing errors on the lot are acceptable then there is no need to test with a sim.

I personally find it easier in the long run to fix things as I go rather than finish a build and then start trying to find and fix all the problems created by not knowing if a sim can get into a place or find a route around the build.

Several of my builds are community lots and there was no possibility of having a Sim live on the lot while I built. However, I always had a testing family close by so I could make sure everything worked as intended while I was building it.

Again, if producing a build with potential routing errors is acceptable, then there is no need to test as you go. Just run a few sims around it after it is finished and if they don't find any problems consider it done and working satisfactorily.

EDIT: FYI This is the last build I did and put onto the Exchange.

http://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail.html?assetId=8578813

It uses the gondola from the store and has a fairy land futuristic type setting with lots of dew flowers from Into the Future scattered around the lot.

I'm not planning to do any more.

HappySimmer3 · January 2016

Ha ha! Just to clarify, and I'm not saying that you are directing this to me, but I never said that I don't test my houses with a sim living in the lot, @Karritz, I just said it's not necessary to build with a household active. I have a saved game with a bunch of empty lots and a builder sim that I do use a lot of the time, but not always. But I always put a sim in a house I make and test it before I ever upload it any where.

Like you said, people have different ways of doing it. I just added to this thread myself because I felt like there was a lot of conflicting instructions being given out and if I were new to building I would have been a bit confused by them.

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I must be missing the obvious...

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