@ScaryRob

In Sims 3, the only plants that need maintenance are the harvest-ables. Everything else just stays as is.

edited to add: it's the 20th...so probably dumb to add this, but...I just remembered that with Sims 1 we used to have to water the flowers.
I remember one yard where I had 60 some tiles covered with agapanthus, and my sim took forever watering. Seems like a lifetime ago.

I remember how surprised I was with Sims 3 that I didn't have to water the potted plants inside or the bushes and flowers outside.

OK, I thought I read that somewhere - thanks.

Among other things? I had lots of fun with my secret spy base in my Kingsman Tailors lot, but as I was making it, as much fun as secret rooms and hidden passages are, there's also something fun about having things right out in the open and on a huge scale sometimes too! This inspired me to start in again with my S.H.I.E.L.D. Triskelion from Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I'm not sure that a secret organization could have a LESS secret headquarters, but it's a fun building, and it's prompting me to take a slightly different approach to building that I often do, since it's such a minimal style! (Plus the fact that it takes up two full-size lots!)

I can't wait to see the inside!

I'm working on another tower.



I'm hoping to make a medieval/fairy tale/Renaissance world on Castle Island by Volvenom.

You should know by now that I never even come close to just working on one thing at a time... Right now, the S.H.I.E.L.D. Triskelion and Hatley Castle (which has a thread in the TS2 CFF, if you're so inclined) are the two big projects that I'm spending the most time on, but that could change quickly whenever I get bored of them. I also always have unstarted projects that I'm considering how best to do as well... oftentimes, these will be inspired by an image that I want to capture the "feel" or "mood" of- it doesn't even necessarily have to have a practical building in it. Right now, the two that I'm most interested in taking inspiration from are a couple images I found of DeviantArt... neither is practical to try to make for TS2 in any sort of direct sense, but both have a mood that I'd LOVE to capture in a future lot.

I recently finished another couple of my brutalist concrete houses. If it weren't for the concrete wall covering, they'd probably be called International style, which is kind of like mid-century modern. Not sure if or when I'm going to upload those.

One I will definitely upload within a couple of few days is the one I'm currently working on:

Although I've changed the rear of the ground floor to a billiard room, instead of that sideways garage. I also got rid of the rear of the driveway and put in a small pool in that area. This still leaves 3 parking spaces further to the front of the driveway, up to where the car is now.
This house is based on a TS3 lot which caught my eye the other day, called Open Opinion. I worked off the pics and floorplans the creator included.

Yet another Victorian...

I splurged at the EA store again. Their Bohemian Gardens is on a Daily Deal for the next hour. I just bought it for about 900 points.
I just gotta have all those harvestables. The thing is, though, I can't be sure that anyone wants to download lots with EA stuff.
And I don't play the game so much...I go into Live Mode to test routing and so that my Sims can upgrade and tend the garden.

So I'm feeling some remorse for having spent approximately 9 bucks for something I'll probably never have use for.

Just once, I'd love to upload something using every EP I've got and every EA Store item available (without feeling guilty).

A few months ago, someone PMd me wanting my Greycliff Hotel without SN objects. I spent days trading stuff out, before uploading what I thought was SN-free.
Then it hit me - the windows and doors in the back (facing the ocean) were ALL from SN! I deleted the second file. I notified the member, but I never did hear from him/her.
There are just some looks we cannot fake with Base Game build objects.

So far, this house's interior is pretty much basegame and SN with some stuff from Ambitions (to hopefully appeal to the family-building crowd, I put in a washer and a dryer).

edited to add: I just realized the porch rail is from MH. I love MH. I think I'm going to use MH to build this. I love the stove from MH. I would love to put that in my kitchen.

@tsyokawe - I know what you mean about wishing you could use the Store items including Store worlds - so much great stuff came with Midnight Hollow.
I have tons of Store stuff from 6 years of playing Sims 3. And now I have 7000 simpoints from grinding, so Store items are/were never a problem for me. I was never opposed to the Store anyway, unlike so many people, although I do think some a lot of the stuff is way overpriced. Pre-September 2, 2014, (a day that shall live in infamy!) I thought, though, that I was supporting the development of Sims 4. But instead I was supporting some a-hole named Andrew Wilson and some others whose names I forget.

@ScaryRob - I don't have Sims 2 unfortunately, but I love that house and that style of architecture.

I'm basing it on a TS3 house, here: http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=566119

@ScaryRob

I like the cleaness of this, it's fresh and feels cool in what is clearly a hot place.

I like the yard a lot....the idea of a private courtyard is very appealing.

I didn't really care for the babyshit yellow, but I'm not liking this cream colour, either.

Essentially, everything's done. My sim has upgraded everything. But I'm just not happy with the colours.

I'm thinking of going with a medium grey (no hint of yellow at all)...give it a run down look....my favorite sort of Victorian...old.

I'm not a TS3 player, so I can't relate how it would look in-game, but it already looks fairly grey to me. It looks very good too, nothing wrong with it, imo.

I'm building a coffeehouse and would like to set up a small stage-like section. What is the best way to do this?

Have you thought about split leveling?

If you need more help on this, just yell

I think your question belongs in one of the Creator Feedback forums, depending on which game you're playing: http://www.modthesims.info/fd.php?f=473
Yes, I agree, this website has far too many forums, subforums and seemingly duplicate forums.
This here forum is kind of for creators who know what they're doing and just want some feedback on aesthetics.

From the tag for this group: "Lot Creators group - This group is for any expert and beginner lot builders out there! "

I am not an advanced or expert builder by any means, but I'm not brand new either. This *was* a question on aesthetics, what kind of stage would others suggest I use. Perhaps my question wasn't clearly worded, but that is what I meant. I would like to think that even experts can learn something new from time to time and asking a how to question shouldn't be out of line anyway. Oh and thanks for the welcome.

TO- thanks for the link. I like sims supply stuff.

tsyokawe- I like the medium grey, and especially the detail on the dormer over the front porch.

You're welcome attuned, I couldn't help thinking that an area using split leveling would be a cool area for a band and a bit more interesting than a plain platform.
Also I'd love to see pics of it so far when you're ready to show them :p

I like the idea of using this forum to discuss builds in a less formal atmosphere.
I think it might be a little less intimidating for some people to be able to discuss their building issues with other builders.

Of course, I was only reminded yesterday that we also have the Create>Building forum,
but that seems made for specific questions. Sometimes, a person isn't sure why something isn't working. Or they
want a particular look, and they aren't sure yet how to achieve it, or if it's even possible following EA's rules of physics.



To answer attuned's question: when making a small stage, I've fallen back on the deck tool.

When using CFE, there's always that point in the room where you're going to have to punch in a door through the wall.
Doors and windows won't show up right in walls that are shorter than 15 steps.

I only know of one way to merge two levels like that, and it always involves an angled wall.
I haven't learned how to hide those yet, except to use wallpaper without any horizontal lines.
That leaves vertical wood slats and stucco, pretty much.


Of course, now that we have NRaas Debug Enable>Move...it occurs to me that it might be easier to hide stuff using wall décor.
Just move it from one "floor" up or down. Or maybe something like the wooden kiosk from LN(?) could be placed in front.
Using moveobjects on, you can place things right into the wall...just enough to hide something behind it...

I think with LN came some dance floors, but if you're just looking for just the stage you have a few options.
1. make the coffeehouse on the ground and use a foundation any size you like for band.
2. the deck tool as suggested, but then struggle with doors and windows, and fences.
3. cfe can give you any size stage you like if you don't wanna use the ground for the coffeehouse. It has quite a few annoying bits though with twisted lines and floating floortiles.

I often end up hiding cfe walls behind 1 tile extra wall. Like split level staircases with an extra 1 tile wall on the side. It's possible to fix those doors cutting through with having windows overlapping on the regular wall above, so to double the door/window/arch whatever effect, so to speak. It just has to work off course. I've seen SimSupply do it several times, but my sense of minimalisme usually prevents me from adding when I can just have a wider wall. It just has to be clean to me, and two doors just isn't.

Thanks tsyokawe and Volvenom!

My subsequent houses and community lots are leaning more toward simplistic.

I did a house for an elder challenge. Not to upload .. I wouldn't do that to someone unless I finally either design one on my non-hug-bugged computer, or finally use the AGS I uploaded ... but to see if I could do this. The house looks simple, but I think I spent as much time on it as many more complicated lots.

For my personal challenge, I went with a few caveats. The house was to be something a real senior citizen would prefer. I'm a caretaker, and I have observed what sort of place a real-life older person with some physical impairments would want. This house had no stairs (all one level and no foundation), one and a half baths. Smaller lot that I shrunk, so there is a tiny area for a garden and a few trees, but not much more. The senior I have in mind likes to putter around the yard a little when the body is cooperative, but sometimes, that body will just not cooperate, and the senior loses steam more than in the past. Half the house is open-concept ... half-walls on a large part of the kitchen, allowing a Sim with hearing impairments to see someone enter. Lots of room to move around, yet areas for the Sim to lean or grab onto something. A separate bedroom that doubles as a computer room and a room for visiting grandkids. Mostly Maxis ... I tried to keep the CC list waaay down, but did insert such CC items as a screened porch in the backyard (MTS) and a daybed in the spare room (Sims2Artists, I believe.) Lots of owl pillows to make the daybed more ... errr ... daybeddy (to cover up the pillow on the daybed). I like owls; therefore. my senior is getting owl pillows, darn it! I got those from a few sites. Open porch in the front for people-watching and waiting for neighbors to drop by.

Trying to stick mainly to Maxis content and not getting too fancy was the challenge for me. I've been trying somewhat fancier buildings previously.

Currently, I'm perfecting my ability to make strip malls. My first efforts weren't bad, but I really needed to improve. I've been looking at real strip-malls to see where I went wrong. I kept most of my mistakes, though ... I liked the stores once I finished them! It's just that the buildings aren't connected the want I had wanted, and the roofs do not reflect the roofs you see on most strip malls. I'm also learning to work around the limits of shrunken lots. I THINK I'm improving as I go. That remains to be seen.

A couple of pictures of the senior citizen's house. I'm still trying to improve my picture-taking skills, so please bear with me. (And yes, I realized I left a tiny portion of the red marking in the corner of one picture .... oops!) The weird part is that this house is so simple, yet took much longer than I planned when I created it. And yes ... I cheated and auto-roofed this one because no matter how hard I tried, the roofing was being wretched.



I had already added a couple of extra CC items after I originally created the house. Having met the challenge, I thought I could relax just a little. Speaking of which ... that side view of the house is screaming for a vent near the peak of the roof. Time to see if I can find one! (http://www.parsimonious.org/furnitu...able_Vents.html is a good place to start, I believe.)

All those are really promissing !
For me now, I'm not working on a lot making, rather on a mod or 2. But I think I might do a waterworld someday.

All for TS2:

I love them all (and it's for TS2, Yeah !).