Recreating a real home in Sims 4, accuracy or look and feel?

CorkysPetals

I'm recreating a real life semi-famous period home in Sims 4 and I'd like some opinions on a topic. When you duplicate an actual house or building from real life, do you go more for accuracy in detail or the look and feel?

I'm not that much of a builder, but I'm having fun trying to create an accurate version (as much as is possible with the tools Sims 4 provides). But doing so makes some features seem really awkward.

For example, the real life home I am copying was built around 1937 in the modernist style. I've found a floor plan for it and it has a surprising number of really tiny bedrooms with en-suite toilets and bathrooms. The house isn't exactly huge, but appears to have 5 bedrooms and 4 bathtubs, plus a small servant's apartment. Since I'm only doing this to please myself it doesn't really matter, but it's an interesting conversation. Currently I have two versions, one that is pretty accurate and one that is less precise and a little more comfortable looking.

I guess if I'm going to ever play a sim family in the home I'd go for the one with more flow and ease of movement, but it's also a fun exercise to see if I can really create the house as precisely as possible.

Anyway, comments?

rockstar_babe_55

I go for more accuracy. I think it's fun trying to make the house look as realistic as possible. But if hallways or rooms are too narrow and look like they might impact game play, I just expand by one or two tiles. So for the bedrooms you mentioned, I would just make them a bit bigger so they would be comfortable, but I don't think that would impact the accuracy of the real house, just adjust everything else accordingly. For me, if it looks the same on the outside, then it's a successful recreation.

Also, can we see the house/floorplan? It sounds really neat, and I want to see what you've done with it!

peragogo

Whenever I'm working from a real floor plan, I mostly go for accuracy. I take the dimensions of the house and divide it by three before rounding up. So a 42'x55' house in real life would be 14x19 in the sims. After that, I put the floor plan in a PaintToolSAI (just because I like it, but GIMP or another program would work well too) and scale it down to a grid I've made fitting in the dimensions I've got with some slight adjusting for uncentered or half tiles. There's just a lot less fiddling with it that way.

Once I get it in game, I might adjust a bit for sim flow or some remodeling.

Dianesims

I like doing that, except it’s mostly movie/series houses that I build. I’ve recently made 12, Grimmauld place, I built the Halliwell Manor too. It’s tricky because it’s hard to get an actual floor plan and, in the case of Halliwell Manor, they filmed a real mansion in LA for the outside, but the inside was made in studios and does not match the outside, both in shape and proportions.
But I guess for a real life house with a floor plan it might be easier to be accurate, well as much as it’s possible with the game at least, because there’s stuff you can’t build.

CorkysPetals

Thanks for all the responses. I started working on my house a couple months ago using photos I found and a top down view from google maps. I was able to do a pretty good job of making the living room, dining room, main hall and exterior. Then I got really serious and kind of obsessed. I found some thumbnails of the kitchen at a photography studio website plus a few other nooks and crannies. I was able to figure out the locations of some rooms by (ha ha) studying the views of some of the windows (do I sound crazy yet?). Then, after some marathon rabbithole searching I found a floor plan from some visitor tour book and had to redesign the kitchen and the tiny bedrooms.

It's interesting to know a house so well without having been in it. Plus also, I'm starting to understand the reason it was designed and re-designed a certain way. It was built by the architect (age 24!) where he lived for 60 years. There's an office right next to the main entrance. And I suspect all the tiny bedrooms were for guests since the architect didn't have any children.

rockstar_babe_55 wrote: »

I go for more accuracy. I think it's fun trying to make the house look as realistic as possible. But if hallways or rooms are too narrow and look like they might impact game play, I just expand by one or two tiles. So for the bedrooms you mentioned, I would just make them a bit bigger so they would be comfortable, but I don't think that would impact the accuracy of the real house, just adjust everything else accordingly. For me, if it looks the same on the outside, then it's a successful recreation.

Also, can we see the house/floorplan? It sounds really neat, and I want to see what you've done with it!

I'll probably keep going with the two different versions. If I make the bedrooms much bigger the proportions will be off. The playable version just has 4 bigger bedrooms. I get the impression the house was design from the outside in. Anyway, I'll post the floor plan and images pretty soon. I also need to do some landscaping.

peragogo wrote: »

Whenever I'm working from a real floor plan, I mostly go for accuracy... Once I get it in game, I might adjust a bit for sim flow or some remodeling.

The architect designed the furniture, cabinets, even the desks and clocks. Even an early 20c kitchen island countertop on wheels. There are several non-90° corners and curved exterior and interior walls. And of course, there are fitted cabinets, counters and various features made for the weird angles. Aaaach!

Dianesims wrote: »

in the case of Halliwell Manor, they filmed a real mansion in LA for the outside, but the inside was made in studios and does not match the outside, both in shape and proportions.

I've done that before too. There's some architect who has made "fantasy blueprints" of various sitcom shows. Film sets look very different than real life rooms.