This tutorial is currently a work in progress. I am working on the images for the part on peaked ceilings but will be adding them soon. I'd appreciate any feedback and if anybody would like to test that'd be awesome!




Aim of this Tutorial:
To show you how to slope the sides of your ceiling leaving a flat bit in the centre. If you’re feeling adventurous you can also try doing the peaked ceiling.
Difficulty:
Beginner-intermediate. As long as you’ve built a couple of buildings on TS3 before you should be able to follow this quite easily. The peaked ceiling is slightly more complicated but still do-able for most builders.
Credits:
Thanks to Armiel for testing my first attempt at this tutorial and convincing me to make it less wordy and complicated. Armiel also taught me the ‘Precise Terrain Elevation’ technique and allowed me to use it in this tutorial.
Thanks to Tom (TVRdesigns) for proof reading and unwittingly starting a chain reaction that led to me writing this (I was copying a style of CFE’d roof he’d shown me when I first discovered sloped ceilings were possible).
Also thanks to Ben and Jaguwar for proof reading my first draft


Set-up
> Working with a level base build your home as normal.
> Add your interior walls to the top floor now as it will be a lot more difficult to change them later.
> Off to one of the sides that you plan to have the gable end, build a guide wall. The guide walls need to have the same amount of levels as your house. (ie my basic home has two levels so my guide wall is two walls high).
> Open the cheats panel (ctrl, shift + c) and type in constrainfloorelevation false


Placing the Roof
I want my vaulted ceiling to start sloping up from half wall height so that’s the point I need to place my roof. To do that you need to sink your guide wall so that the top of it reaches half wall height on the equivalent level of your house:

> From ground level lay 8-steps and level out your guide wall [a]. (Doing them in two halves will save a little time later).
> With the level tool grab the newly created lowest point of your guide wall and drag it across the top of your house [b ]. Your walls should all be half height now so go ahead and add your roof [c+d].


Sloping the Ceiling
We already have the base of the slope so we might as well work our way up (if you’re doing a peaked ceiling, however, it’s better to start from the top and work your way down after you’ve placed the roof).

> With your level tool level the guide wall to 4-steps below ground level [e] then drag the level tool from the new highest point of the guide wall across your house. Be careful to leave the edges at the half wall height [f].
> Level the guide wall out to normal ground level [g] and once again, drag the level tool from the newly created highest point of the guide wall across the centre of your roof. Be careful to leave one tile between your sloped tile and the tiles you’re levelling [h].


Alternative Method: Peaked Ceiling

See this post for a rough and ready guide

Final Touches
> The main body of your ceiling has sloped edges now [i] but you’ll need to fix any dormers you have. Just drag the level tool from the highest point to the centre of your dormer. Leave one tile either side of the dormer to allow for the slope [j]. Once you are done you can open the cheats panel and type constrainfloorelevation true
> Occasionally you will get some clipping [k], you just have to adjust the roof height of the dormer to compensate.
> The final step is to get down low so that you can see the flat ceiling tiles in the centre of the room/dormer. Grab any floor tile and touch it to the ceiling [l]. You don’t have to place the tile, the ceiling slopes will automatically appear.




Examples



Peaked Ceiling:

This is great and I really want to try it but later since I'm quite tired right now. Thanks for the post.

This will be very helpful and it is stunning!

Roxor, I just had a thought.. Can you do that to a lot, then go OUT of the lot, place that lot into the lot-bin and then re-place the lot onto a... lot? Lol. I just wanna see if the roof pops up or if it stays at that level.. if it pops up, we need to work out how to get it to stay down because it IS possible.. I've seen it and experienced it.

Wow that's amazing! Is there a place to download that house though? I love it!

Tom, I tested it repeatedly and it never popped back up after I placed it from the bin. Only thing I didn't actually check was whether or not it popped back after you install a house as a DL. Somebody (can't remember who) did say it's the same as binning it though so should be good.

Lorenrose, sorry It's not actually a complete house, I only decorated the attic room as an example of what it could be used for but thanks :p

A roof doesn't pop up or dip down if it's corners are on same height and have grid under them. Which is the case with this tutorial - should be no such issues.

I love doing this It is a wonderful technique to do on mini lots. It gives an awesome feel, and also allows for a well utilized attic space. Wonderful tutorial!

As you know, I now use this ALL the time. My next two uploads will likely have this technique. Thanks for sharing and helping in #create when I get a little dumb.

The ceiling doesn't appear over the slopes. Is there a way to fix that?

I'm not sure I understand exactly what you mean? You did all the steps up to and including step 'L' and there's still no ceiling? I've not come across that kind of issue, could you maybe post a pic, might help.

It will appear once you place it on the flat top part of the roof (as shown in the tut) while holding Shift.

Oh poop!
I didn't notice the text above the picture, I'll try hover some flooring under the ceiling.

I just made a version of the murder house from American Horror Story and couldn't think of how to create the roof style in daughter Violet's room. Now I've seen this tutorial I might give it a shot. Question: Is the concept similar for a multistory level house, meaning, I created a dummy level between floors one and two with the foundation tool/cfe trick. I guess a few experiments might be in order
Awesome tutorial. Thanks for sharing!

You mean you want to have a playable floor on top of vaulted ceilings? I've never tried it, lol but I'd guess it's possible if you do a dummy floor like you say. Only thing is the dummy floor would have to be at least 4-steps (or foundation height) above the tallest point of your vaulted ceiling...might look a bit weird on the outside though I'm sure you could probably find clever ways to disguise the gap

Does this tutorial still work? I'm trying my hardest to follow it, but upon getting to E, F, G and H itseems there are something missing in the tutorial, and therefor preventing me from getting it right.. I've always wanted to make a room like this in the Sims and now that I'm so close I hope someone please can help.. Somehow this does not work for me..

The steps at E, F, G and H are just basic CFE which I don't think will ever stop working. I just made a vaulted ceiling yesterday and it works beautifully

Silly question but you didn't turn the cheat back to true after step D, did you? I'm not sure what's causing you problems but perhaps a pic of the stage you're currently at and a description of what exactly you're doing when it fails for you would help. Are there any error messages?

Constrainfloorelevation is still on false, no error messages, but somehow the wall is not looking right.. I've tried numerous ways to do the step to get it like picture E but my left side of the wall is not looking like the one in the tutorial.. I got the feeling perhaps a image or a small explenation is missing..

huh, I've only just noticed pics 'e' and 'g' are the wrong way round. Nobody ever pointed it out before >.< I'm still not sure if that's the reason you can't get it to work since I can't see what yours looks like but try looking at pic g+comment e and vice versa and let me know if it helps any. Otherwise can you post a pic so I can see what you mean by the wall not looking right?

I'll need to fix that pic but it's 0130am so not doing it tonight, lol

nice can't wait to try this

I did this yesterday and it is a wonderful technique, but I have an issue...

When everything is done, I cant delete a part of the floor in the room to create a half-attic feeling. The only way to get a hole in the floor is to put in a staircase, and that's not in my floorplans at all. I've needed to use invisible floors and it ruins the experience

Anyone that knows a way around it?

Kingisen, I'm not sure what you mean. If you're still working on that project could you post a pic of what you have/what you're trying to do?

As pathetic as this sounds, I can't get past the first step. I've made sure CFE is still set to false, tried multiple locations around the lot (also tried other lots and worlds) and I still can't get my guide wall to level properly. I even tried using more stairs to no avail. Instead of fully lowering to half wall height, it "compensates" by adding extra wall at ground level. The more stairs I use, the more wall it adds underneath to compensate. The top of the wall will only lower by about 4 steps every time. If you need screenshots, I've got several.

Any advice?

I finished the whole process and my finnal product is a room with short walls and a low flat ceiling, and on the floor above that, the floor just under the roof is all vaulted. So basically The floor is looks vaulted from the outside but when i go to look inside the roof is reaaly low and flat... Poop D: Any advice?

I think you can place the stairs first and then put the walls on the lowered ground.
On my last picture you see that the walls have different heights. You can drag the terrain level-tool from one wall to the other and change the height.