Create-A-World Tips, Tricks, and Annoyances

[Zazazu]

It only took me an hour to get CAW to crash out of frustration. Go me!

So far I have a few tips:

• The autopaint feature is crap. Do not touch it or the "Clear" button next to it, ever.
• Press < or > to rotate the world. That little world rotate button at the top menu bar does nothing.
• If you go too close to the edge of your designated space, terrain paint and editing tools will disappear. It takes a lot of finangling to get the perfect zoom and angle at times.
• Figure out your road grid first! It can be hard to tell scale, so you don't want to work yourself into a corner your sims will have no way of plopping a house in.

There seems to be a possibility of doing the same thing you could with SC4 regions: making an image file from which the tool can create an elevation map. I haven't figured it out exactly yet, but darker areas are water and the lighter the pixels, the higher the elevation.

Any thoughts?

[PolecatEZ]

Road tools are a horrible mess, especially when you're trying to line up bridge sections on watery maps.  I also haven't figured out a way to delete a road once it has been laid down.  Pretty much everything else works as well as I expected, though it looks about 30-40 hours of work to get a nice and good-sized playable world.

[DigiGekko]

Yes, roads are a bit of a bitch until you figure them out. First of all, you have to use the crosswalk section if you want them to split at all, and you can't just slap it in the middle of an already made road. Most of your road manipulating is going to be done by pressing that move objects button in the upper left; roads count as objects, and you can delete them by selecting them first with the pointer. Also using the object mover, you can manipulate laid roads, making them longer or shorter, curving them, and snapping them into place into crosswalks (the game will snap them in when you get close enough).

Basically, just use the move objects tool to mess with roads, and you'll figure it out pretty fast.

[Zazazu]

It has taken me about 50 minutes to get this done:

Meh.

The road tool is evil. DigiGekko has already outlined how to manipulate them. You can also delete them by going to the select tool (fat arrow with select sign) and hitting the DEL key. I haven't done bridges yet.

Tried to edit in-game and game loaded and then stalled at a full bar. All my mods and downloads were stripped out before I patched.

[brownlustgirl]

I will be relying on this thread to figure out how to use the tool, I have never used SC4 or any of that type of program. I will be figuring and playing around with it so I might take days or weeks to get it. 

Thanks for what has been posted so far and I will be keeping an eye on this.

[shadow]

O.K.  Anyone tell me where I find the button to 'add a new layer'? Before I can put down a house I need to add a new layer, but I'm buggered if I can find it!

 Right-click WORLD in the 1. World Layers window and then choose ADD LAYER. (from the user guide)

[Inge]

I exported my world.  Now how do I get it into my game as a hood?

[Lion]

I exported my world.  Now how do I get it into my game as a hood?

From the help.pdf:

Share your worlds on The Sims 3 Community Exchange so other players can play them in their games!
To share a world:
First add a world description and an icon by right-clicking the topmost layer of your world and 1. choosing ADD/EDIT DESCRIPTION. Your icon image must be a .png file that is 256x256.
Save your world.2.
Under the File menu, choose SELECT WORLD FOR EXPORT and then browse to the world file that 3. you want to export and choose OPEN.
Finally, upload it to the Exchange (via 4. The Sims 3 Launcher) as you would a lot or family.

From MTS discussion board (I think):

When i first installed the tool i edited quickly SunSet Valley template and then exported the files...
Then i moved them at C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\GameData\Shared\NonPackaged\Worlds and the game loaded it just fine

Next time, just go to Documents/Electronic Arts/The Sims 3/Exports and double click the world. It'll start installing.

Now I can't give icon image to the world I created. "a .png file that is 256x256"? I created a 256x256 .png in paint, but then the world builder says "Selected file is not a 24-bit color PNG image". I tried to get some from google image, but none of them is 24-bit either. Help!

[Scroll]

Zazazu I really like the layout of your world. The beachfront and the elevated plateau is wonderful and the small hidden beach looks great. Could you keep adding piccys as you develop it further, I am very curious about the outcome (perhaps not in this thread but in Pudding Factory if you would be inclined). So far I have mostly seen really shitty landscaping, but perhaps the really good ones need more time to develop before the sharing starts.

It looks small or are the roads just very large?

[nanacake]

@Lion: You probably have to use GIMP or photoshop to save your .png file.

@Zazazu: Were you able to successfully use your hood with sims yet?

[Rhumba]

Roads were an annoyance until I started to plan by intersections.

If you drop the intersections down first, you save yourself some headaches later. Just string sections of roads in between the intersections and don't worry about connecting them.

After you have the pieces on the map you can use the move object tool to drag the ends of the roads to the edge of the intersection. They have to meet more or less square on, and if they are too far out of alignment, they won't snap together.

You can then use the move object tools to pick up an intersection and drag any attached roads around from that point.

I'd like to try bridges in my beach world, but for some reason, the base game doesn't provide bridge objects in CAW, not even the basic non-WA bridge from Riverview.

[KawaiiMiyo]

Hmm, I can't seem to be able to place a cross-section of road. I'll select it and only a regular road appears. Ugh. And are terrain paints *supposed* to look so choppy? Can't seem to figure out how to soften the edges.

     And is it just me, or is CAW running slow or taking a toll on anyone else's CPUs? Seriously, my computer has been able to handle most everything so far, but I load up the create-a-world tool, and the thing starts humming as loudly as can be. Not to mention switching between tools or windows in CAW seems to take forever, gives the appearance of freezing for 15 seconds or so. Surely that program can't require higher specs than TS3 itself....!

[I.Am.She]

Hmm, I can't seem to be able to place a cross-section of road. I'll select it and only a regular road appears. Ugh. And are terrain paints *supposed* to look so choppy? Can't seem to figure out how to soften the edges.

     And is it just me, or is CAW running slow or taking a toll on anyone else's CPUs? Seriously, my computer has been able to handle most everything so far, but I load up the create-a-world tool, and the thing starts humming as loudly as can be. Not to mention switching between tools or windows in CAW seems to take forever, gives the appearance of freezing for 15 seconds or so. Surely that program can't require higher specs than TS3 itself....!

If you set the fall-off or whatever it is, the edges of the brush fade out, making it less choppy.

And yeah, when I played with CAW, my laptop practically set on fire... and it's not a shitty laptop, I can easily play TS3 with max settings on everything without lag.

[Zazazu]

It looks small or are the roads just very large?

It's small. It's using a small size map, plus I have a good amount of negative space with the ocean and what I'm calling the Tail of the Dragon - that bunch of mountains off to the left. I'm building it to be a very tight, urban sort of neighborhood with a lot of very small lots.

@Zazazu: Were you able to successfully use your hood with sims yet?

No. Not even close to that point yet.

Roads were an annoyance until I started to plan by intersections.

If you drop the intersections down first, you save yourself some headaches later. Just string sections of roads in between the intersections and don't worry about connecting them.

What I've found was a good idea was to plop down a rough road plan, then place lots. Then delete roads and replace them precisely. What I thought looked like a bunch of very useable road ended up being a hot mess when I started placing lots.

Definitely need more terrain paints. I ended up going with volcanic mountains since there aren't any good deep brown tones.

[Lion]

@Lion: You probably have to use GIMP or photoshop to save your .png file.

@Zazazu: Were you able to successfully use your hood with sims yet?

Finally IrfanView converted it for me.

Now that I exported and installed it, yes, I can play sims in it. I also managed to put down some dirt road. But it does not look very good.

[I.Am.She]

Zazazu - When I had a play... before I uninstalled everything, I only saw 4 terrain paints, where on earth was the volanic paint?!

[kittyuk]

O.K.  Anyone tell me where I find the button to 'add a new layer'? Before I can put down a house I need to add a new layer, but I'm buggered if I can find it!

 Right-click WORLD in the 1. World Layers window and then choose ADD LAYER. (from the user guide)

Thank you, shadow 

[LauraW]

[
Now that I exported and installed it, yes, I can play sims in it. I also managed to put down some dirt road. But it does not look very good.

Is it possible to use a different texture for the sidewalk in CAW? If so, maybe a sparse grass would look better than dirt and resemble a banked shoulder. I really wish there was a way to take out the sidewalk for period hoods or country hoods. I rarely see sidewalks out in the country here.

I wonder if its possible to make an entire hood without roads but just using walkways? I read the CAW beta manual and it says that you need roads to have cars, bikes and scooters. But if we don't want those, such as in a medieval hood, a sidewalk/walkway with a new texture might work instead.

Did you re-texture the road in your world within CAW or did you do that in an outside program? The manual is vague on that.

Thanks!

[Lion]

[
Now that I exported and installed it, yes, I can play sims in it. I also managed to put down some dirt road. But it does not look very good.

Is it possible to use a different texture for the sidewalk in CAW? If so, maybe a sparse grass would look better than dirt and resemble a banked shoulder. I really wish there was a way to take out the sidewalk for period hoods or country hoods. I rarely see sidewalks out in the country here.

I wonder if its possible to make an entire hood without roads but just using walkways? I read the CAW beta manual and it says that you need roads to have cars, bikes and scooters. But if we don't want those, such as in a medieval hood, a sidewalk/walkway with a new texture might work instead.

Did you re-texture the road in your world within CAW or did you do that in an outside program? The manual is vague on that.

Thanks!

Yes, you can customize your road. I'm experimenting on them right now. You do "Create Custom Road" under "Road Tool". I don't fully understand all those parts, but by switching a few main ones I'm getting some nice results. May show them here soon.

I plan to only put down road very sparsely. And the rest just use sidewalks, so I can see my sims walk/run all day. 

[LauraW]

[
Yes, you can customize your road. I'm experimenting on them right now. You do "Create Custom Road" under "Road Tool". I don't fully understand all those parts, but by switching a few main ones I'm getting some nice results. May show them here soon.

I plan to only put down road very sparsely. And the rest just use sidewalks, so I can see my sims walk/run all day. 

Thanks for the information! I haven't installed it yet because I have a work project to finish and am procrastinating enough without CAW. But when I do, I am going to make a test hood without roads to see what will happen. I have this theory that if we put schools and rabbitholes (using the modded ones so we can have custom rabbitholes) close enough to the residential areas, people will just walk to work/school. I am eager to see if it works. If so, this might be the best gift to themed hoods ever!

[CLmeow]

I actually like that road, Lion.  If you can manage to make a world with that I would definately download it.  After trying for a frustrated two hours to figure out that CAW tool, I have realized it's not something I can do.  It's more complicated than my pea brain can understand (perhaps later after I have read more I will try again).
I will definately be on the look out for worlds people have created though!

[Lion]

Do you know how to use the "clone lots"? I can clone alright, but then how do you "paste"?

[KawaiiMiyo]

Do you know how to use the "clone lots"? I can clone alright, but then how do you "paste"?

     When I clone lots, after selecting the tool, I just click on the lot I want to clone and drag the square over,to where I want the copy to be. and it should be able to stick once I click on that spot. as long as the square outline is blue. If that was any help.

Also wow this road stuff has gotten easier to understand.  Once the intersections are snapped in, you can click and drag those to make your roads stretch or line up however you want! It moves the roads with them.  I was frusterated at first, as Moving the roads alone just messed everything up.  I used the Grid placement option, and by moving the intersections alone, and rotating them only, I was able to get the roads pretty straight where I wanted them to be.

     And by the way, with the grid turned on in CAW, can anyone tell me how close that grid follows the one in-game? Or how one might be able to depict lot size in CAW? (I.e. 20x30/40x40 etc)  I'm having a hard time figuring this out, and need to know just how big to plan lots for rabbitholes and such.

[Lion]

Thanks for the tip.

I have yet to find out how to snap roads together, especially if they come from different angles.

[Zazazu]

And by the way, with the grid turned on in CAW, can anyone tell me how close that grid follows the one in-game? Or how one might be able to depict lot size in CAW? (I.e. 20x30/40x40 etc)  I'm having a hard time figuring this out, and need to know just how big to plan lots for rabbitholes and such.

A 10x10 spot is the equivalent of a 1x1 lot in TS3. You need to get fairly close in to make sure you are seeing the individual grid squares, as it will compress them on zoom out.