Is anyone really good at making beach-friendly neighborhood terrains?

[SaraMK]

I've spent several hours in SC4 trying to get this stupid thing to work, and I give up. 

I got the perfect little island from here http://nene.modthesims2.com/download.php?t=218435 (Golden Bay Island), and I've been trying to make it so that more of it can be used for beach lots. Currently only one side accepts beach lots (two small ones or one large one fit there), but the other sides do not.

I've tried it a million ways and nothing works. What the hell do you have to do to get it right?

[BattyCoda]

There's some good ones here somewhere by Sleepycat.

Like this one:
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,9965.0.html

[witch]

I have one up here you might like.

As to converting them, I reckon it depends where your coastline finishes in terms of the SimCity squares. I had lots of trouble converting the one I just linked to, because one of the sides was sitting at the right place and one side wasn't. From memory, I needed about 1.5 SimCity squares between the road and the edge of the water. The water and land have to have a very gradual slope, I don't know how many times I applied the shallow edging tool.

I also used the cheat to enable God mode again after I entered city building mode, 'cos it was a a complete PITA going back and forth between landscaping and road building.

I would recommend you have a look at the spacing on the side of the island that is working for you, then try to match that where it is not working.

I have an island/peninsula here too.

[SaraMK]

I already have all of those, and they're awesome. I wanted Golden Bay Island specifically because it's so tiny. It's awesome in the game because you can see the whole thing from any lot. It's the only one I've found where you can actually see that you are on an island, no matter where you are.

[Zazazu]

Yeah, 1.5 seems the key. I tend to cut it too close. I just did this one, which I named HooknCrook (Haloway Lake in-game).


Beach lots are ridiculously flat, but obviously it needs a camera hack. There's a liveable area on the top of the plateau, big enough for a few mansions.

[Gwill]

I love those tiny islands, but I hate the slope down to the beach.  I want FLAT goddamit!

[Nepheris]

In size of SC4 tiles I've found 1.5 to 2 tiles works best for beach lots. (If you check the twikki terrain in SC4 for example, the distance is exactly 2 tiles)
What really helps as well is having the general level of your land area be quite close to sea level. If the slope is too harsh, the game sometimes does not accept beach lots.

I'll have a fiddle with it later, see if I can help you out.

[Mizz Rose Bud]

I have some "beach terrains" here http://home20.inet.tele.dk/rosebudsims/sc4.htm ... it is the first/upper six ones and they work okay for me. The rest were made before BV and I don´t think that they would be very good for beach lots.

I start with "a water hood" in SC4 and then raise a tiny bit of land, just so much that it shows through the water. Then I use the Plain tool (God mode) to raise the ground where I want land. That´s the easiest way to get a working coastline IMO.

[Zazazu]

I do mine from a .png on up. Set a layer to blend anything below 83 (greyscale). Then use something at 85 for the flattest beach lots possible. 84 seems to be cutting it too close. Since I like my terrains randomized, I just splotch in a bunch of 85, then work up brighter for higher areas. With my current set of terrains, this was done using letters in different fonts.

[Nepheris]

Mh, I declare the original SC4 file beyond all hope. Gave up trying to fix that one and just created a new hood that looks more or less the same (same road layout).

Behold, the beachlottery.



Hope you've got some use for this

[SaraMK]

Perfect! Baaaaaa! Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! 

Okay, I feel better that it was the original terrain and not all my own stupidity.

[Inge]

Also see this, tips for tweaking an existing hood to use with beach lots: http://simlogical.com/slforum/index.php?topic=1686.0