Tutorials:Building Great Realistic Houses - From the Ground Up

Introduction

This is a "tiptorial" designed to help anyone who is struggling with building to build a better house. It does not require an prior knowledge or skill in building besides being familiar with the build tools, but knowing a few terms will be useful. This article can also be helpful for expert builders - if you want some tips on improving your building skills, you've come to the right place! After reading this tutorial, you should be able to make better houses, no matter how advanced you are currently.

This tiptorial covers all of the main aspects of building, from foundations to landscaping to door placement. You can skip to particular sections using the Table of Contents listing above. You can read the entire tutorial, or just a few bits, to learn skills that you can use every time you build a house.

FAQ

FAQ coming soon!

Important Info Before Starting

• TS2 Only: If you’ve never used Numenor’s BaseGame Starter Pro or his AnyGame Starter you NEED to try them out! Here’s why. Any lot you build will REQUIRE all the Expansion Packs that you have installed. REGARDLESS of whether you have used stuff from them or not! If you use his tools instead, they only need the few that you decided to build with. If you have Stuff Packs install however, they are only required for the lot if you have used items from them. Remember this when you are uploading and mention in your post that you used the BGS/AGS. However is the user does use items from the stuff pack then the downloads can still download the house if they don't have the stuff pack, but they will need to run it through cleanpackinstaller to get rid of the items, you should make downloaders aware of this!

• You don’t need to use the 5x5 lots. Those are not for houses. Those are for community lots for people with super computers. To build a nice house you should pick a 2x2, 2x3, or 3x3, or even MAYBE a 3x4. Anything else is far bigger than you need to make a ‘normal family home’. Which, btw, is what we are learning to make.

• TS2 Only: ALWAYS BUILD ON A PERFECTLY FLAT LOT. Not a lot that you ‘flatten to street level’ after you move in. That’s not perfectly flat. See the tiles on the very edge?
  They aren’t flat. The reason for building on a flat lot is so that it will nuzzle up right next to its next door neighbor if its all the same level, but it won’t do that if its not flat AND it will reshape the neighborhood terrain. Many simmers (myself included) have painstakingly leveled their hoods by placing empty lots all over to make the hood perfectly flat. If they download your sloped hood it messes that all up, and sometimes its impossible (depending on where the roads are in relation) to get it back to being exactly flat. The one exception to this rule is if you intend to build a beach lot (they aren’t flat) or if you wanted to build a house on a hill or into a hill. Be conscious of what you are doing, that’s all.