Tutorials:Building Great Realistic Houses - From the Ground Up/Exterior

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Contents

What is this all about anywho?

Intro

In this exterior section of the tutorial we will be making a house while you follow along. Throughout the tutorial we will be showing you how we did things and explaining the techniques to you. We have also used good and bad pictures to show you whether you are doing it correctly or not so you can keep on track. The aim of it is to teach you new skills that creators often miss that will help you build an overall better exterior for your house.

What can I learn?

This tutorial has 8 chapters as shown in the contents list above. If you are struggling with a particular section of your house, such as landscaping, you can skip straight too it and see all the tips and instructions that help make your landscaping better. Reading the entire tutorial, or just a few bits, will help you learn key skills that you can think of every time you go to build a house. This way, you can look at it and think "did I do that right? Would it look better if I did this?" Hopefully after reading this tutorial you should be able to make better houses, no matter how advanced you are currently.

FAQ

Foundations & House Shape

This is the first section of the exterior tutorial, it will teach you how to make an interesting looking house and not a box house; it is the basis of your house and if it isn't right your whole house will suffer overall. If you are new to building you will need to know about foundations and how they work and can be placed, if not then you can more straight onto the "Box or Not?" section.


Foundations

Building WITH foundations

On even terrain

Uniquefoundation.jpg
This section is one of the simplest, building foundations is the same in The Sims 2 and The Sims 3; you should use the brick foundation for the main base of the house, the other types of foundations like stages and fenced ones can be used to do porch areas but should not be the main base for your house. On an even lot you simply need to plan out how you want your house to look, to the right is how we have chosen to build our foundation, as you can see we have planned the main area out using brick foundation and the porch area using the fenced foundations. As a general tip, always make sure you leave at least 1 tile of foundation betweem the wall where your front door will go and the stairs otherwise your sims can't get in the house!

Below you can see how to, and how not to place stairs and walls when building a foundation, the bad side (left) shows that you cannot build your foundation so that there is no space to put a wall at the top, the game won't allow it; the good side (right) shows how you can place a wall 1 tile back from your stairs, this is vital because you will need to place front and back doors like this. If you intend to place the door directly in front of the stairs, 1 tile away, then you need to put the door in first then the stairs, if you put the stairs in first the game won't allow the door to be placed on the opposite wall.

Badandgoodfoundation.jpg


On uneven terrain

When building on uneven terrain you must place the foundation from the highest point of the terrain, when you drag if out it will be flat on top and it will change in height below according to the terrain level. You can build a house shape like in the previous tutorial, just make sure that when you start at the highest point; also when adding section of foundation to the side, front or back of the current raised block, make sure you don't drag from the empty space to the foundation, drag from the foundation to the empty space otherwise they won't fit together.

This type of foundation placing means that your step down from the foundation will be a different height, when placing stairs your game may automatically lower or lift the terrain at the bottom of the steps slightly so it doesn't end up with half steps at the bottom. If however you think that this doesn't look right then you can turn on the cheat "constrainfloorelevation false" (for Sims 3) or "boolprop constrainfloorelevation false (for Sims 2) and then flatten the terrain at the bottom of the steps, the terrain will snap up around the steps and will leave you with a half step at the bottom. *note* always turn the cheat off afterwards by repeating the cheat and changing "false" to "true".


Adding in basements

Building WITHOUT foundations

Box or Not?

1 Storey Buildings

2+ Storey Buildings

Finishing Details

Intro to this section here

Windows & Doors

Windows and doors are magical objects. They allow you to see and pass through walls! On a serious note, every house requires them. This section is geared towards how to make sensible choices with them, though. We will start with windows, proceed to doors and then wrap up the section. Without any more delay, lets begin!


Windows

Windows are an absolute must for any house. They let in natural light, boost environmet scores, and break up walls to make them look less repetitive. There are two things that you need to know while choosing and placing the correct windows, style and placement, along with cheats.


Style

Lets imagine you have a shell of this nice and grand victorian house. You have ornate columns, precise attention to detail, and a lovely turret jutting up into the sky. Would you add in full legnth fixed windows? No, that would be stupid and illogical. The problem is, people do it anyway! You always want to pick the correct windows for type of house you are building, or else you run the risk of clashing styles and an ugly house. There is no exact way to tell you what window will always be right choice, but a good way of knowing which is a better choice is by knowing some background knowledge of what you are building. Chances are, if you are builing a victorian house, you have seen one before. They have panes of glass in their windows, not fixed arrangements. This same principal applies to all styles of houses, even if you are making something totally on your own, never seen before.


The Problem with Cheats

- This section is more geared toward TS2, but also also applies to TS3. When you are placing windows, sometimes it gets very frustrating. I can't even begin to tell you how frustrating it is to try and get those ridiculously stubborn windows with shutters on them to face the right direction. I can easily bet though, that you somewhere down the line enterd the cheat "moveObjects on" and placed the windows hassel free. It is SO much easier, right! WRONG. If you place windows while having this cheat activated, the walls will end up cutting through them. Not only is it really ugly, but the way to fix it is even more irratating then placing them the first time around. If you do place them with the cheat activated, you will have to deactivate the cheat, pick up the windows, and place them back in. So it is basically doing the same task twice. Another cheat to make sure you don't have activated is "snapObjectsToGrid". This cheat makes it impossible to palce windows properly. Save your self the trouble, and deactivate the ceats before placing windows.


Placement

- This is probably the most important aspect of windows. Many of the lots you find in Creator Feedback with changes required involving some poor descisions on the builders part. But if you read this, you will be able to avoid changes required for poor window and door placement. Windows use common sense for placement, but if you are unsure, here is a handy sheet.


-Kitchen = Counter Height/Medium
-Living Room = Full Legnth/Large/Medium
-Bathroom = Privacy
-Bedroom = Any
-Dining Room = Any
-Office = Any


Some rooms you can place any window, as long as the style fits, because these rooms can have different purposes. If you have a beach house you would want big windows, so you can see the ocean, but you wouldn't want giant windows in a suburb. No one needs to see what your sim is up to in bed, especially when there is special company over. Another big thing that I would like to point out is, no matter what style, shape, look, feel, taste or smell of the house, there are to be no giant windows in a bathroom. You don't see it in real life for a reason, don't bring it into the game [because no one wants to see you...doing your business].

Roofing

Intro to this section here


Drives & Garages

Intro to this section here


Patios

Intro to this section here


Pools

Intro to this section here


Landscaping

Intro to this section here


Fencing & Final Touches

Intro to this section here

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