A few days ago I posted a modern house with a pool in a pond/lake. I've been asked by a few people to make a tutorial on how I did it, so I made one.

Hope it's helpful!

The house:
http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=351955

Step 1.

Choose where you want to build your pool.


Step 2.

Use the 'level terrain' tool to level the terrain where you want to build the pool.
You can also Build the pool first and create a lake/pond around it when done.


Step 3.

You have to delete all objects directly around the pool, except for foundations, walls and fences.


Step 4.

If you want a fence around the pool, place the fence first. You can't place a fence on the pool walls as you could in TS2.


Step 5.

Build the pool.


Step 6.

Use the 'lower terrain' tool to lower the terrain around the pool as much as you want.


Step 7.

Change the pool walls/floors if you want to.


Step 8.

Done!

Wow! Great IDEA! Thanks for sharing

Oo looks better than i expected. Thanks for the tip! :D

That is so cool! This is awesome!

WOW!!! Awesome!!! Could really come in handy... Thank you so much! I didn't know it was possible! =P

I gotta go try this :D

Could you post a screenshot?

Can you upload the house please? It looks awesome :D

That is a great tutorial, easy to read and seems like such a simple process yet it looks totally awesome! Great job AllHeartAnne, and thankyou very much for sharing this!

There's a link in the first post.

Thanks for the reactions

wonderful, it makes very original houses, like yours!

the sims 3 has so many ressources!

That is GORGEOUS!!!! - Thanks for the pics and the easy to follow instructions. =0)

Thanks for this! :D

I just tried it but the blue tiled outside rim shows when I lower the ground and I can't change it's style, how did you get past that?

I know this thread is pretty old, but I am trying to get down some basic building techniques, and am having a bit of trouble with this just like the previous poster. I have managed to get the pool in the pond, however, the outer walls of the pool that are in the pond, are grass. I can't have a physical wall there where I can edit texture.



In the screenshot you can see the grass underneath the bottom of the brick fence. I tried to manually add a new wall in, but it told me it had no support. I even tried building a basement underneath it to support a new wall and it still said there was no support for the wall. Does anybody have any ideas?

Try using the level terrain tool. Use it to level the bottom of the pool next to the pool wall.

I've not had much luck getting the wall to show. I've tried leveling it several times with and without CFE enabled. I tried dragging through the wall of the pool, but the game wouldn't allow it.

I downloaded and placed your lot in Twinbrook, and had the same problem with the walls on the house you uploaded. I have installed up to the latest patch/EP, so I am wondering if the patch could have broken that mechanic (or fixed it rather). After all, the tutorial was written quite a bit ago so that could be the case.

Thanks for the reply nonetheless!

lovely! Thanks for sharing! :3

erm..I too have problems making the pool wall showing up in the pond like in the OP's first screenshot. I tried leveling too but no luck.

This tutorial is ancient. How pools work have changed several times. Using constrainfloorelevation you may get the walls down, but basically you would then push the walls of the pool down and have to replace those. The risk is the pool surface will distort and look strange. Another option is to put down tiles first and then lower the terrain, without touching the pool walls themselves. Then you will have the tile you put down as the walls. If you can do the last the pool surface may stay intact, but the pond may vanish. Just give it a try and see what happens.

The problem is you can't lower floor that has tiles on it!!!!

so I used floor paint instead