Tuesday 6 December 2011

TIPTORIAL: LOTS

Here's a quickie on how to place your lots.

1. Add a new LAYER. Do this by right-clicking the "World Layer" or "yourname.world" (if you have named your world) link under the World layers panel on the left side. Next right-click the new layer_1 and select MAKE LAYER ACTIVE.

NOTE that roads are not affected by layers.




2. Turn on the GRID and Place a new stretch of Road. Click the LOTS tab on the Top Menu and click Add new lot icon.



3. Click at Point A and drag to point B, then click. Keep your eyes on the Numbers at the bottom-right of the window. That is the lot size.

4. Drag from Point B to Point C, then Click.

5. A window will open and this is where you set your lot as Residential or Community. If you choose community, you may also select the lot subtype, eg Library, park, etc. Or you may just leave it as community.
 - Additional Property value - set between 0 -50 (I think). This determines how cheap or expensive the land will be.
 - Beautiful vista - set between 0 - 100. This gives the beautiful vista moodlet in game play
Click OK and you are done.


6. In addition, you may include a Lot Address under the property browser (this opens when a lot or object is selected). Under the World Layers menu you may also label the lot. This is not necessary, CAW will simply number them as you create lots. 

And that's all there is to it. Please save inputing lot addresses and lot names till you have finished building the world and you are certain that you will not be moving stuff around.


27 comments:

  1. Hello - I've found your pages to be very helpful, as I'm relatively new to CAW. I've read your post on building lots, but I'm stumped. Don't know if you can help or not. When I go to build on a lot, I go into "edit in game" by clicking the Sims 3 plumbob button in the Utilities panel. I understand it's supposed to go to a mini version of my creation, but it crashes every time. Do you have any advice?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi,
      The best I can figure is that you need to download a fresh copy of CAW from the sims 3 website. It might just be a compatibility issue. There were a lot of problems when supernatural and seasons came out.

      Delete
  2. Hi there,
    I'm pretty new to CAW and I've found your guides to be of inmense help. Thank you very much for putting it together, it makes building worlds so much easier.

    I have one question regarding lot placement, I have a couple of lots that have roads on several sides, is there a way to indicate which road the lot will be "facing" to, or will the game just figure it out once I build the lot and place an entrance? Maybe this is not an issue at all and the lot will work without problems.

    Thank you in advanced.
    /Tota

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    Replies
    1. Hey there,
      Thanks for visiting and I'm glad to be of help. Concerning your question, the direction the lots face have to be adjusted by you.

      Basically, lay down your lots in CAW just the way you have it planned out. Then when you are building or placing them in Edit-In-Game mode, you simply make sure to build them facing the direction you want, or in the case of a pre-built lot, you rotate them in the direction you want when adding from the lot bin. Just as you would any lot in the game.
      Hope this clears things for you.

      Delete
    2. Hey ofkingsandcastles and krrank,

      I thought I'd jump in here; there is a way you can specify which direction the lot will face. When editing the lot in game, with the "testingcheatsenabled true" you can ctrl+shift+click at the edge of the lot where you want the front to be, and a button will pop up that says "make this front of lot". Once you select that, you will see a flashing arrow pointing from the street onto the "front" part of your lot. Hope that helps ... it's much easier than trying to rotate. :)

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    3. Hello Caittor, I didn't know that. Thanks for sharing that with the blog! It'll certainly help to speed things up.

      Delete
  3. Hey,

    I've been building my own world recently and i have tested it once i put it the roads and a few lots to see how it runs. Well i noticed my Sim would get out of her car on the road behind her house then run to the house, i also noticed this when she was heading to the hospital. She would get out the car and run over a grass section rather then use the road with is right outside the door. I've checked that all roads are fully connected and accessible to what i can see.

    Any advice would be appreciated in advance.

    Pixzi

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. hi Pixzi.
      Well it's not something you did wrong. It's simply the routing. Sims will always take the shortest route between two places and that might mean jumping out of the car and walking over the grass. This is very common when you have a lot flanked by two access roads.

      The only way to prevent it would be to paint some "sim non-routable" paint over the grass that you want to keep your sims off. But I advice you do this sparingly or you risk restricting your sims' movements too much.

      You may see the chapter on routing for more info. Hope this helps.

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    2. Thank you very much, i will give it a go and test it out. Thank you for your help

      Delete
  4. Can i move lots after placing them? or is my option just to delete and re-make?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hello Maggie, yeas you can move lots, although I prefer you delete them and replace so that there are no bumps or tears in your world.

      Delete
  5. This is a stupid question... Can I use lots with different EP? Like place a bot emporium next to an arcade? Same with objects. Like a bot building machine in a building with a brain-enhancing machine?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. NO such thing as a stupid question...:D
      YES you can do so. Have fun!

      Delete
  6. On your screenshot, the lot's borders line up precisely with the road sidewalk
    Is there a technical meaning there?
    Thanks for sharing the fruit of your experimentations.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Makheda,
      Firstly, thanks for visiting. To answer you question. If you have the grid turned ON, then the lots and the roads can be aligned perfectly, like a "snap on" effect. But without the grid, the lots and the roads will move "freehand".

      Delete
  7. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  9. Hi, great tutorials! I'm very happy that I found your blog. I create my first world. Where should I build lots. In the game or in "edit in game mode" in the CAW?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Anna
      Either way is okay. Just use whats convenient for you

      Delete
  10. Loving these tutorials. I'm currently working with a world that someone else already made and trying to customize it in CAW. Maybe you covered this but i can't find it...How do you delete lots???

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    Replies
    1. Thanks! to delete, just click the lot and hit delete on your keyboard. that should do it

      Delete
  11. First of all, thank you for your wonderful tutorials.

    I know no one has commented here for a long time. I am posting here in the hopes it gets spotted and answered. I've been searching for days and no one else seems to have had this issue.
    Trying to make a very small deserted island type world. When going to test the world, I try to move in a family and the residential lot does not show up for purchase. If I edit town, it shows as residential. If I go back to the family bin and try again, the lot only get a pop up that says no interactions available. Tried using edit town to switch it from residential to commercial and back again. No change. Deleted the lot in game, put in a new lot in game, marked it residential, and still no interaction available. Lot is not over cost, so that is not issue, lot is next to a road. Just for testing made the whole island perfectly flat, so terrain not aligning doesn't seem to be the issue.
    Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. hi, first of all my deepest apologies for this extremely late response, blogger stopped sending me notifications on new comments and I only just rectified the issue.
      I do hope you have already found a solution to this issue, but if you haven't, please email an image of the situation and I'll figure something out. Thanks

      Delete
  12. so what if I make a lot a set it as a town hall from CAW will that make it work as rabbit hole?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hello,

      Thanks for using my tutorials. To answer your question. No. Your building will not work as a rabbit hole. As you know rabbit holes are objects, so to make your own custom rabbit hole, you need to download custom rabbithole placeholders from the community that you can put into your lot so that it functions as a rabbithole. Here is a link.


      http://nene.modthesims.info/download.php?t=376414


      I hope this helps

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  13. I can't get mine to add layers. It shows no layers to add. I'm not sure what to do and the help page is down and non responsive.

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  14. Thanks for the guide I will be deffo using it

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