Building Tutorials and/or Advice?

[Kristalrose]

Hubby bought me a book of Colonial and Southern Floorplans for Christmas! (Hubby's stock is on the rise in my book, hehehe) Anyway, I want to build Sims homes, and I thought if they were good I'd make them available for upload. I've read MikeInside's tutorials and did a search of his message board, and learned some things. The biggest piece of information I was able to find to suit my needs was that there really is no conversion of real life square foot to Simmy Building Squares. I guess this explains why when I convert them by three the rooms are two small, and convert them by 2 they are too big. 

So, the question is for all you accomplished Sims Archetects: Got any advice for me? Good links?

[BlueSoup]

I'm by no means an architect, but I've found it's easier for me to just build the house with no set design, and floorplans that I've tried to follow usually go right out the window when making it useful for the game.

I've heard Reggikko say (well, seen her type  ) that she also just builds as she goes, without following plans either.

[agcons]

I use plans and/or photos sometimes, but I have the same trouble with scale.  I try to retain the flavour of the house but make it useful for game play.  Other times, I just start building without a plan or a photo in front of me -- often they're houses in my area of the city that have caught my eye, and I guess as to what the interior layout is like.

[Renatus]

I use floorplans myself, but I don't go by the scale on the plans because as you noticed it doesn't really work out. I mostly do it by guess, and rough conversion, comparing like objects (windows, doors, arches) to get a rough estimate of about how big one square would be. I also keep in mind some general rules for building a house that sims will live in - hallways must be at least two squares wide, bedrooms with double beds must be at least four by four squares, dining tables really need two squares on either side to make room for their chairs, and so on. I actually try to stay away from building cheats because they tend to cause weirdness with my game and with decorating - if I have a split level house I can't use patterned paint or wallpaper without it looking weird, and if I need to knock out a wall to expand I'm shit out of luck.

[Brynne]

There are some really good tutorials at MikeInside's :

http://mikeinside.modthesims2.com/#mike

[BlueSoup]

Psssssst...Brynne.

She said she was reading MikeInside in the original post.  That was my first thought too, although SimMasterRalph has some pretty good tutorials on the official exchange, as does SimSherry (it might be SimSherry2, not positive).

[simmiecal]

I like to look at pictures and floor plans as ideas and to get a general layout but don't think you can follow them too closely. Another reason why you wouldn't want to follow them too closely: playability. Thinking about how the sims move (especially when they complain someone is on the stairs they want to use) or about how many spaces an item takes up (every bedroom in my house has a clothes dresser but do you really want to take up that kind of space in the bedrooms?) really alters how you build things. In a real house would it take 45 minutes to walk up to the third floor? There is also visibility issues - does that staircase block the player's view from most angles? A hallway might look good only one tile wide, but sim doors will get stuck if it's not two or more tiles wide.

I usually make two kinds of houses: ones that look good and ones that play well. I like to download houses that look good AND play well. 

[Brynne]

Psssssst...Brynne.

She said she was reading MikeInside in the original post.  That was my first thought too, although SimMasterRalph has some pretty good tutorials on the official exchange, as does SimSherry (it might be SimSherry2, not positive).

Oh. 'Scuse me. I was skimming.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I usually have an idea in my head when I start.  Some of the houses I build are traditional and tend to follow a similar pattern, with variations, but othrs are ones I've created more for something to fit in with a theme.  I have several bits of space debris converted to houses in my current game, plus a converted church and othr odd buildings.  However, if they don't play well, I either alter them so they do, or I scrap them.  I've never used a Maxis house yet that played well without extensive alterations!  (They can't even put front doors on which will close, but stay open and prevent sims from getting past!)  And as for windows, they're nearly always the wrong way round, so you get the window sill and the exterior mouldings inside!

[simmiecal]

I've never used a Maxis house yet that played well without extensive alterations!  (They can't even put front doors on which will close, but stay open and prevent sims from getting past!)  And as for windows, they're nearly always the wrong way round, so you get the window sill and the exterior mouldings inside!

Yep! When I reinstalled and started from scratch, first thing I did was nuke the Maxis houses with the exception of a couple of the new 2x2 lots that came with Nightlife.

[Sagana]

My husband got me Mediterranean Home Plans and Japanese Modern - fun hm? :) Husbands can be cool when they want to. I only build for me, so I don't really have anything productive to add. I like the plans and don't bother to worry about scale - just try to make it look right compared to the other rooms and if it's rectangular not end up with a square or something :) And make it the size the sims need it to be. I love split levels - I think they're easy to play as both levels show up well from a 3/4s view and most of the connecting walls are hallways and the like where I don't mind a plain wallpaper (especially with the California/Med. type homes - plain stucco colors work great :) So, just really saying Merry Christmas :)

[skandelouslala]

I almost always use floorplans when building my sims homes b/c I suck at being creative building houses most of the time lol

Like you noted..there is no way to really make convert them to sim scale...err more like any set rules...it's just trial and error. 

You just need to remember that sims are stupid when it comes to navigating their way around their homes so you have to build them to their IQ level.  For example small hallways are not a good thing b/c sims don't realize they can walk around another sim lol

I also almost always use connecting stairs in my two story homes instead of the one piece staircases pretty much for the fact that more than one sim can go up/down them at a time.  With the one piece staircases they cannot and so they stand there complaining that something is in their way if they need to go up the stairs and somebody else is already using them.

[ZephyrZodiac]

In fact, about the only advantage the one-piece staircases have apart from being easy to use when you first start building, is they take up one tile less floor space upstairs.  Oh, and they come in more than one colour, although thanks to Numenor, this is much less of an advantage than it was!

[nectere]

I tend to build about one to one, however I place furniture as I go so that I am sure that the spacing is usable. I used floor plans for a bunch of victorians I did over the summer, I also used some as a rough idea for a few starter homes. I sometimes get in a rut and start placing rooms in the exact position over and over so thats when its time to look at a few plans to break out of the same old same old.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Trouble is, of course, that most Victorian town houses (at east here in the UK) tend to follow very similar patterns.  You can find houses all over the country that are almost identical in design.  So it's very difficult to make a Victorian house different - except when you get to the upper end of the price scale.  I tend to use different colour-schemes, or decorating styles, to get a different look, and often I "modernise" the interior, since that's what people do!

[Kristalrose]

Wow.    Thanks y'all.  I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one with these problems with scale.  I worked 3 hours last night on this house:  http://thesims2.ea.com/exchange/lot_detail.php?asset_id=288281&asset_type=lot&user_id=124521

I can't get the roof to look right, and I didn't use the connecting staircase.    I need more practice, I think.  But, yeah, I found myself building the rooms one at a time, and thene adjusting the floorplan as I went.  I think that, except for the weird looking roof, it looks fine.  Moved a family in it before I quit last night, so I haven't tried it out for playablitiy yet. 

[nectere]

Hmm, I easily can put 5 or more hours into a house getting it just right. I can throw them together in less if I have to, but I prefer to take my time with the details, but I love building so its easy for me to loose track of time. Sometimes I will get stuck on a house design and have to come back to it the next day or so.

[Muisie]

I use plans from a magazine since I noticed that my own designs all look the same.  Like skandelouslala said, it's trail and error.  I use different styles, my favorite being Italian.  My main hurdle is how roofs work.  I don't even bother trying to put rooms in roofs.  And how many times have I had a second floor porch surrounded by a strip of shingles, only to discover that the game thinks the porch is inside and thus keeps it in permanent shade.  Also, what's with the  roofshape in empty lots vs. occupied lots?   Either you have a mountain slope roof or a pancake roof.  Bleh.

[simmiecal]

Wow.    Thanks y'all.  I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one with these problems with scale.  I worked 3 hours last night on this house:  http://thesims2.ea.com/exchange/lot_detail.php?asset_id=288281&asset_type=lot&user_id=124521

I can't get the roof to look right,

It looks very nice.

I have a problem with the roofs as well. That's why the houses I've built so far have flat roofs. 

[humybyrd]

I use graph paper and create the house to fit the furniture I want in it. Makes it easier to convert floorplans to sim scale. Plus it gives an idea of the traffic flow. When it comes to porches I find that placing a floor roof on them before the house roof and deleting the floor after leaves it open.

[nectere]

Slope angle values add a nice change to building roofs. I usually put an auto roof on classic homes before adding any doors or windows, and look at all the different auto roof choices. I may find one I kind of like and then I take off parts that I dont. I then use the regular roof choices to fill in the pieces I took off with what I want. For modern homes though I dont bother, I usually already have a roof type in mind and build it myself.

[Sagana]

Can you get slope roofs to give different angles for different pieces? Or are you stuck with the same angle for the whole roof?

[nectere]

Slope angles apply to the whole roof. I WISH you could do that!

[ZephyrZodiac]

I totally agree about using dormers - they are definitely not the simplest part of building, but with practice they can be mastered.  At least, unlike basements, they can have windows!  And in big cities you often have a whole family living in a basement flat, so it would be pretty dismal for them if they didn't have windows!

[FatedCircle]

Slope angles apply to the whole roof. I WISH you could do that!

Oh, me too!  I would love to be able to have different roof pitches on the same house.

I use floor plans too, but I tend to stick to smaller houses, as they are generally quite simple.  I look for ones that seem possible, with the building tools available, including the roofing.  I have found that if I see something that looks cool, but I know that I won't be able to do that with what is offered in the game, I'll just be unhappy with it.  The biggest problem I've encountered is with stairs though.  There is no easy way to do stairs with landings or turning stairs, although, I'm getting better at it.  I wish Maxis would come out with a mesh for stairs with landings, so I don't have to spend hours trying to shrink walls to get them to turn.  Plus I get annoyed when the walls look funky, so I tend not to do houses with turning stairs, unless I'm prepared for a battle.

The other thing that gets me is there seems to be a problem with roofs, when the ends of two roofs intersect.  If the trangular wall portions cross, it creates a piece that sticks up above the roof, which is utterly annoying.  I've only noticed this post NL, and I'm not sure if it occurred before....  It's weird, and makes building all the more frustrating.  But when it comes out right, it's loads of fun.  I love building as much as I love playing.