Putting a house on a hill?

GrumpyGlowfish · January 2022

I'm building a hard-to-reach house on a hill for a bunch of secluded vampires. On the left you see the hill, on the right is a premade house from Forgotten Hollow:

Now I thought I could just pick up the house and put it on the hill, but it always ends up half in the ground!

I've tried deleting the stairs and foundation, completely flattening the terrain underneath the house before moving it, turning MOO on and off, but the result is always the same. Now I'm going to start moving the rooms individually, because that works at least. But I'd still like to know what I'm doing wrong.

crocobaura · January 2022

Are you not able too level the ground at the top of the hill, so the house stands on top of the ground instead of half burried? Also, you might be able to raise the foundation, so house sits higher on top of the snow. I rarely play with the terrain tools as I find them fussy and they don't offer enough accuracy and movement control and you end up with unrealistic looking mounds and terrain.

GrumpyGlowfish · January 2022

The top of the hill was always flat, but it still didn't work. Now that the house is finally on the hill, whenever I try to move it, it actually stays on that level and I could even add a foundation and a basement, which is cool. But I still had to move all the rooms individually, which was annoying.

I'm not a great builder in general, and not a fan of the terrain tools either. I hate how they turn the entire landscape green and yellow, which I guess is supposed to be helpful in some way, but it's really not, I can't even see what I'm doing until I switch them off.

Definitely not looking forward to more "adventurous" builds like this anytime soon...

crocobaura · January 2022

GrumpyGlowfish wrote: »

The top of the hill was always flat, but it still didn't work. Now that the house is finally on the hill, whenever I try to move it, it actually stays on that level and I could even add a foundation and a basement, which is cool. But I still had to move all the rooms individually, which was annoying.

I'm not a great builder in general, and not a fan of the terrain tools either. I hate how they turn the entire landscape green and yellow, which I guess is supposed to be helpful in some way, but it's really not, I can't even see what I'm doing until I switch them off.

Definitely not looking forward to more "adventurous" builds like this anytime soon...

I was thinking that it should be possible to flatten the terrain after you placed the house and bring it to the same level.

GrumpyGlowfish · January 2022

Oh, you meant flattening the terrain after moving the house up there? I hadn't considered that. Good idea, I'll try that next time! (Even though I hope there won't be a next time...)

crocobaura · January 2022

GrumpyGlowfish wrote: »

Oh, you meant flattening the terrain after moving the house up there? I hadn't considered that. Good idea, I'll try that next time! (Even though I hope there won't be a next time...)

Yes, one of the tools flattens terrain to a chosen level, I think it would have helped to raise the house, it looked like it was sunk in the ground.

Simmingal · January 2022

I wouldn't have known answer to problem but dang i just gotta say this cool as heck im sure vampires living there are having a blast

SweetieWright_84 · January 2022

For future reference, I usually build the house first, move it to where I want the house to sit, raise the foundation, then the terrain. If I want a foundation higher than the terrain, I'll raise it a little more. The terrain is usually my last thing I do before landscaping and floorplan.

Also, that is an awesome house. It really fits the vibe of Forgotten Hollow, and a great use of terrain manipulation.

Stormkeep · January 2022

It might be finicky, but I'm just glad we actually HAVE those terrain manipulation tools now.
It rather sucked that everything was just flat for so long after the game came out.

GrumpyGlowfish · January 2022

crocobaura wrote: »

Yes, one of the tools flattens terrain to a chosen level, I think it would have helped to raise the house, it looked like it was sunk in the ground.

That's the tool I used to make the hilltop flat, it just didn't occur to me that I could use it with the house already in place. I guess I'm still used to TS2's terrain tools even though I haven't played that game in years.

Simmingal wrote: »

I wouldn't have known answer to problem but dang i just gotta say this cool as heck im sure vampires living there are having a blast

SweetieWright_84 wrote: »

For future reference, I usually build the house first, move it to where I want the house to sit, raise the foundation, then the terrain. If I want a foundation higher than the terrain, I'll raise it a little more. The terrain is usually my last thing I do before landscaping and floorplan.

Also, that is an awesome house. It really fits the vibe of Forgotten Hollow, and a great use of terrain manipulation.

Thank you!

It was quite annoying and time-consuming to build (for me, anyway; I'm sure there's talented simmers out there who could have done it in 15 minutes), but I'm quite pleased with how it turned out, and so are my vampires.

@SweetieWright_84 That's usually my preferred order to do things, too, but in this particular case, I had to build the lot around the climbing wall to keep it functional, so I figured I'd start with the hill for once. (It's not Forgotten Hollow, by the way, that's just where the premade house is from. It's the big lot in the snowy neighbourhood of Mt. Komorebi.)

Stormkeep wrote: »

It might be finicky, but I'm just glad we actually HAVE those terrain manipulation tools now.
It rather 🎁🎁🎁🎁 that everything was just flat for so long after the game came out.

Agreed, I'd rather have finicky terrain tools than none at all. I just wish they were a little less finicky...

EgonVM · January 2022

I'm wondering how did you place the rock climbing wall? Does that require a mod or is there a trick?

Stormkeep · January 2022

Every time this thread gets bumped up and I see it, I get Ed Sheeran's song in my head. I know the song is "castle" not "house" on the hill....but I don't control my subconscious brain.

EgonVM wrote: »

I'm wondering how did you place the rock climbing wall? Does that require a mod or is there a trick?

I imagine with bb.moveobjects on cheat code. Or is there something about the placement that makes you think there was more to it?

Unless you meant just being able to place it on the lot in the first place. That's a mod. You can get it over at MTS.

SweetieWright_84 · January 2022

GrumpyGlowfish wrote: »

SweetieWright_84 That's usually my preferred order to do things, too, but in this particular case, I had to build the lot around the climbing wall to keep it functional, so I figured I'd start with the hill for once. (It's not Forgotten Hollow, by the way, that's just where the premade house is from. It's the big lot in the snowy neighbourhood of Mt. Komorebi.)

I haven't ever thought of using the climbing wall as a retaining wall. That's a great idea.

After going back and looking at the picture, I do see that is Mt. Komorebi. It looked like Forgotten Hollow because of the darkness.

SheriSim57 · January 2022

Can you put a climbing wall on random lots?

GrumpyGlowfish · January 2022

For anyone wondering about the climbing wall: That is a mod made by Bakie. You can get it here:

https://modthesims.info/d/650784/unlocked-amp-recolored-rock-climbing-cliffs.html

Make sure to read the instructions, because getting the walls to look and function properly can be a little tricky.

I searched for them in debug and live edit mode before downloading this mod, but couldn't find them, so I don't know if they're available there.

Admiral8Q · January 2022

@GrumpyGlowfish Whenever you're done this build, to your satisfaction, I'd love if you uploaded it to the Gallery.

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Putting a house on a hill?

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