How to Create Another Family in Sims 3 Pc

Contents

• 1 Introduction
  • i.1 Currently Incomplete
  • i.2 A Word of Warning
  • one.iii Skill Level
  • one.4 You Volition Need
  • 1.five Make a Programme
• 2 Bones World
  • ii.1 Create a New Globe
    • 2.ane.one Custom Pinnacle Maps (Optional)
  • 2.2 CAW Setup
  • 2.3 CAW Controls
  • 2.iv Saving Your World
  • 2.v Terrain Sculpting
    • 2.5.ane Sculpting Basics
    • 2.five.two Edge of the World
    • 2.v.3 Tips
  • two.six Terrain Painting
    • ii.vi.1 Painting Basics
    • 2.6.2 Tips
    • 2.6.3 Chunks and Boundaries
  • 2.7 Roads and Sidewalks
    • 2.7.1 Placing Roads
    • 2.7.2 Adjusting Roads
    • 2.7.3 Sidewalks
    • ii.7.4 Custom Roads and Sidewalks
    • 2.vii.5 Tips
  • ii.viii Layers
    • ii.8.ane Creating Layers
    • 2.8.2 Using Layers
  • 2.9 Lots
    • ii.9.1 Placing Lots
    • 2.9.2 Adjusting Lots
    • two.9.3 Deleting Lots
    • two.9.four Tips
  • 2.10 Camera & Sim Routing
    • 2.10.i Painting Routing
    • 2.10.2 Tips
  • ii.xi Spawn Points
    • 2.11.1 Placing Spawn Points
    • two.11.two Tips
  • 2.12 Decorations
    • 2.12.1 Distant Terrain
• 3 Full Map
  • iii.1 Rabbit Holes
  • 3.2 Community Lots
  • three.iii Residential Lots
  • iii.4 Bare Lots
• four Playing Your Globe
• 5 Sharing Your Globe
• 6 Related Pages

Introduction

Create a World (CAW) is an EA created tool which allows players to create their own worlds (neighborhoods) for The Sims 3. With about limitless possibilities, y'all tin sculpt the world to your verbal design. But information technology tin can be complicated to apply, and there's a lot of things to consider when making a world. This tutorial volition take you from start to finish and so you can make your very own worlds for your game and for others to utilise.

Currently Incomplete

If you lot have stumbled across this tutorial, delight exist aware that it is a work in progress and is not currently anything like consummate. Whole or partial sections may be missing and some wording may be wrong. I am working to finish it as before long as possible.

A Discussion of Alert

Creating a globe is time-consuming. Information technology tin can have a loooooooooong time to create a skilful world - it would be very surprising to run into a full world including decorated lots created in under a month of defended, regular difficult work, and for almost people it would probably take longer. Each individual part really isn't that hard and some of information technology is quite relaxing and enjoyable, but information technology is tedious. And yous really can't halfass it. If you want to create just a blank map, that can take less fourth dimension, but you really still have to do a lot of the tedious parts even then as well.

Making your very own globe from scratch is a rewarding and overall fun experience, only if you lot're doing more just playing around - if you truly desire to brand your own full neighborhood to the quality of Riverview or Dusk Valley, then you are committing a serious chunk of time to this to practice information technology right.

Skill Level

Boilerplate calculator user-ish. Most of the Create a World interface is pretty easy to utilize, once you know where everything is. You lot'll demand to know basic stuff - finding particular folders, moving files around, not using your mouse every bit a foot pedal. For custom textures and such, it can get a bit more than advanced, but none of this is rocket surgery. It's merely kind of complicated but not -hard-.

You Volition Demand

• Create a World - A free download. Download it, run the exe. This is PC only - Mac folks will have to use Bootcamp or something like that.

• A fully updated game: Run the game's Launcher and Update your game. Yous may have to update EA Download Manager to do this. You may too have to update expansions separately from the base of operations game. Update everything.

• Remove your mods: Sometimes, mods tin interfere with CAW working properly. Temporarily remove the contents of your Program Files\Electronic Arts\Mods\Packages folder to somewhere else. Files installed equally sims3packs are probably okay.

• Photoshop or a graphics editor (optional): If you want to truly customize stuff, this can be helpful only isn't strictly necessary to make a new world. You'll need a DDS plugin (google Photoshop DDS plugin or Paint Shop DDS plugin or whatever you're using) to save some images.

Make a Plan

If you're going to practise a consummate neighborhood, before you always open CAW, you should draw out a bones outline (at least in your head) of what kind of neighborhood you want to create. Having a solid plan before you showtime will aid give y'all a goal and management as y'all work - really necessary for a long booty projection.

• Size: Riverview and Sunset Valley are the largest available size, though they use upward a lot of space around the edges in inaccessible hills. Do you want a small, cozy neighborhood that's just big plenty to fit everything, or a bustling urban landscape with houses and businesses everywhere - or maybe a small town surrounded past wilderness? Once y'all get past terrain sculpting, you won't be able to easily resize your globe without losing work, so be sure of the size!

• Terrain: What sort of land forms exercise you want to create? An island? A rolling patently? A valley between steep mountain ranges? Think about the kind of views y'all want to create - what's your idea of a cute vista? Sketch out a bones shape for where you want the water, the hills, the flat parts. You tin always change it later. Also, consider what kind of climate you want for your world - tropical, grassland, beach, alien lava rocks, whatever. What would the weather be like there? What kind of plants grow there? You lot may vary the landscaping here and there on particular lots and areas, only overall, accept an idea of whether you want palm trees or oaks.

• Style and Theme: What kind of overall manner do you lot want for your globe? What sort of sims volition exist living there? What do their homes look similar? Attempt looking at house plans and browsing by manner to become an idea of what appeals to you (and you lot think yous could build). While individual houses or groups of houses in a earth will vary, most real life places have a full general style in one area, and virtually of the buildings will have elements of that style. Make up one's mind what elements you want throughout your creation.

• Special Features: What interesting stuff exercise you want to include in your globe? What bully lilliputian nooks and crannies or pretty spots do you imagine would be nice? Roughly where would you put them on the map? Jot down any absurd ideas y'all have for your world every bit you're doing the sculpting, so you tin make certain to leave room for everything you want.

Basic Earth

A bones map is one created upwardly to a level where you could reasonably share it with others - it'south a bare slate with everything but stuff on the lots and sims placed. Everything that tin can be done in Create a World has been done, and all that's left is doing the stuff that can all be done in-game. "Basic" may sound easy, merely there are a lot of parts to creating a basic map.

Create a New World

Run Create a Globe.

File > New World.

New World Options: Here, you lot'll need to select the height map yous want to employ for your new world. A superlative map is an image which uses light and night shading to stand for higher and lower areas - a topographical map. CAW comes with many built-in superlative maps which you tin use as a starting point. Choose one that sounds interesting - or try taking a look at a few to run into if any inspire you.

• Premade tiptop maps are located in: My Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3 Create A World Tool\UserToolData\HeightMaps

• You can choose between Large, Medium, Minor, and Tiny maps. Medium or Big is recommended so yous accept enough space to fit everything, though yous could be very clever and do something cool with a smaller map.

• You can cull between Lush and Desert for your default texture - but yous can ever change the textures later.

• The number on the end of the height map file name indicates the correct setting to use under Maximum Tiptop (100, 200, or 300). So MediumMountainRiverMap200.png should be used with a Maximum Meridian set to 200.

• There will be some delay after clicking OK on New World Options - CAW may appear to exist frozen. Give it a little bit - it has to generate a whole map from an image.

• Performance Tip: Maximum Height is the maximum height of terrain on the map - yous can't have mountains every bit high using 100 as yous can 200 or 300. A lower Maximum Height means better performance, and then use the lowest one you can for the globe you desire to create.

Custom Height Maps (Optional)

The height map for Riverview (click for full size).

If you would similar to create your own height map, you can. Almost any graphics editor can create height maps. White is higher, black is lower. Shine transitions from light to dark will mean a smooth incline - a harder edged transition volition mean a steep, craggy cliff.

Even if you don't draw out your whole height map in detail, you may find information technology helpful to at least use a big blobby brush to depict out where yous want the hills, where you want mountains, and where you want low areas.

• Size of the peak map image = size of the map: The larger the prototype, the larger the map:

Big: 2048x2048

Medium: 1024x1024

Small: 512x512

Tiny: 256x256

• Height maps are xvi-bit greyscale PNG images. Saving in any other setting will cause your height map to be smushed downwardly and repeated twice across the world map. To modify this in Photoshop, utilize the Image > Style menu to ready it to Greyscale and 16 $.25/Aqueduct.

CAW Setup

CAW is non very customizable, just there's a few settings y'all'll want to know well-nigh before you get too far:

• View > Fog - Turn off to remove the haze you'll see when viewing terrain and objects at a distance. You'll usually want this off - it's on past default.

• View > Camera Settings - The view distance slider is here. You lot probably don't want to max it out unless y'all have an amazing computer, but you may want to turn information technology up one or two notches, so more than of the terrain will exist fully rendered and clear.

CAW Controls

Moving around in CAW tin can be kind of tricky. Here are the bones controls:

Keyboard and Mouse Controls
Select and manipulate stuff	Left mouse button
Zoom in/out	Centre mouse scroll West/S NumPad +/-
Wait effectually	Center mouse click
Pan camera view	Mouse correct-click and drag Arrow Keys
Camera up/downwardly	Q/F
Exit current tool	Esc
Delete selected object	Del

Do moving around in CAW for a while before trying to edit - get used to the way the camera moves.

• Tip: You lot can move the camera faster if you lot apply two controls that movement you in the same direction. For case, use the mouse bicycle to roll up (to zoom in) while using the up arrow key to get forward and yous'll move forward faster than if you did either one alone.

Saving Your Earth

Once you lot accept establish a map that you like well enough to beginning working on, relieve information technology. Relieve often! Some things in CAW, you cannot undo, and it can crash or otherwise have issues.

File > Relieve Every bit. A standard salve box volition come up up - give your world a name and save it.

• Tip: Yous may want to keep incremental saves - do Save As instead of Save periodically as yous're working on your globe, and give it a new proper noun. For example, MyIsland1, MyIsland2, etc. That fashion, you tin become back to an older version if yous have fabricated changes you're not besides happy with, or if anything goes incorrect with your electric current version.

• Tip: The game saves backup copies of quondam versions - occasionally it will ask you if you lot want to delete some older backups when you go to save. Printing Abolish to save anyway but without deleting the backups. Y'all can do this instead of incremental saves, but for something that you work on and then much, why not exercise both - better to be condom than distressing! For very large, complex worlds the files may go quite large, so you might remove some very onetime ones yourself and go on only the newest few.

Terrain Sculpting

The first major office of creating a earth is terrain sculpting. It can exist extremely fourth dimension consuming and irksome but besides very relaxing once y'all become into information technology.

Sculpting Nuts

Terrain Tab > Terrain Painting Tools > Sculpt

Here, you notice the controls that will allow you lot to make mountains, cleave canyons, and place plains.

Modifiers are the unlike types of effects that y'all tin can use to shape your world. They're listed at the top of the Sculpt panel.

Modifier	Result
Flatten - Gentle	Levels terrain at a low rate. Not reliable enough to utilize in flattening for lot placement, but can be used for interesting effects with smaller brushes at a adequately loftier setting.
Flatten Terrain	Levels terrain at a high charge per unit. Apply at a strength of 100 to flatten for lot placement, or at a lower level to create plateaus for later smoothing.
Hill - Gentle	Raises terrain at a low rate. Click and elevate around a trivial to continue raising. A large brush gives mountains, a middle 1 hills, and a small ane small rocks.
Colina - Steep	Raises terrain at a high rate. Less useful than Hill Gentle as it's harder to control.
Mountain	Raises terrain at a very high charge per unit. Not very useful at all.
Sheer Cliff	Raises terrain sharply at a high rate. Easier to just apply Hill Gentle and adjust the Falloff.
Smooth	Blend terrain heights at a high rate to fifty-fifty out terrain.
Smooth - Gentle	Blends terrain heights at a low rate to fifty-fifty out terrain.
Valley - Gentle	Lowers terrain at a low rate.
Valley - Steep	Lowers terrain at a high rate. Less useful than Valley Gentle equally it's harder to control.

Below the Modifiers is the Bear witness Unroutable Terrain tickbox. This is a very of import tickbox! When ticked, it will show ruddy on terrain that is too steep for sims. Every bit you lot get toward the final version of your terrain and you're putting on the finishing touches, you'll want to use this tickbox a lot. Yous don't want a few patches of unroutable terrain on an otherwise smooth hill, and yous may want to increase the incline on certain areas. There's a lot more to routing - see below under the Routing section.

At the lesser of the panel is Brushes and Castor Parameters. You lot tin change castor settings here to have exact control over how you shape the terrain.

• Size: How big an area you desire to effect. Start with a larger brush to rough in the main features and and so use a smaller brush for fine particular.

• Force: How strong you want the brush to be. For most uses, you lot'll probably desire this at a low setting like v-twenty as this gives you greater command. You tin ever click and drag or click multiple times for a greater upshot.

• Falloff: How fuzzy the edges of the brush are. Prepare to 0 for a very soft edge that's good for blending and 100 to a hard edge.

You tin utilise the small-scale blue button at the top of Brush Parameters to save a brush as a preset under Brushes. Correct-click on a castor in the list to delete it.

Border of the Earth

Part of the distant terrain for Dusk Valley. The grey mount is right on the corner while the blurrier greenish and grayness mountains across are part of the distant terrain object.

The world map you have to piece of work with is of a limited size, and you have to figure out what to do with the edges of the world - there's nothing but an endless stretch of h2o out there. The easiest thing would exist just to make an island. You can as well create a mountain range or rolling hills around your world and make the edges off-limits to the photographic camera past the using of Routing (see below section) - Riverview uses this method past having lots of farmland that rises upward effectually the edges of the map. Or, y'all can use one of the premade altitude terrain objects. Dusk Valley uses this method, with the distance terrain being all of the faraway surrounding mountains, hills, and roads leading off into the altitude. At that place are ones for Prc, France, etc. supplied as well if y'all have Globe Adventures. Y'all accept to position these objects correctly and sculpt and paint the edges of your terrain to match the edges of the objects, only the end result tin be worth the effort for the event created in-game. Any you do, you want your world to seem realistic to the player, without the watery edges of the earth showing unless you intend them to be visible.

For more on the Afar Terrain objects, see the Decoration section below.

Tips

Creating realistic terrain is as much an fine art as it is a skill, just here's some tips on improving your terrain:

• Remember the Sun: View > Time of Day will allow you lot to see how your landmasses will look at various positions of the sunday. Setting this to 6:00 shows y'all sunrise and 18:00 shows yous sunset. You may wish to sculpt your mural to brand the well-nigh of sunrise and sunset.

• Water Direction: Watch the ripples in the ocean water around the edges of your map - you lot'll notice they all flow in one direction, toward one corner of your map. If you lot have a beach or river you desire to brand from this water, y'all should make sure to sculpt your terrain so the water direction makes sense - it'd look pretty weird to have the water constantly moving away from shore.

• Large to Small: Start with a general overview of your map - do all of the big parts first - crude out mountain ranges, high plains, beaches, islands, etc. with a large brush. Remember almost the sorts of views you're going to make. Then get over once again and refine your map; not a final draft, but give your mountains some shape, and piece of work on some of the transitions from loftier to depression. Leave the details till later, after yous've placed the lots and roads. You'll be kicking yourself if you lot spend three hours sculpting the perfect mountain and then realize you really need to put something in that location once yous beginning placing your lots.

• Sea Level: Use the Change Ocean Level push button under the Terrain tab to set the level y'all desire for the sea'southward surface. But click the push and then click the level you want on the terrain. You lot tin can click again if you want to readjust it.

• Special Features: Get out some sort of indication of where you want the special features you planned out before. Even if it's a dip in the landscape, or a little raised circumvolve, it will help reserve that area every bit you work.

Sculpting a Mountain

Summit Left (Step i): Heighten with Loma Gentle.
Top Correct: (Step 2) Sculpt branching ridges with Colina Gentle gear up to a smaller brush.
Bottom Left (Step 3): Carve details with Valley Gentle set to a very small castor.
Bottom Right (Step 4): Bones terrain painting.

• Mountains: Use Colina Gentle set to a large size to create a big raised area for a mountain. Then prepare it a chip smaller and brainstorm making some ridges downward the side. Branch off the ridges a little here and in that location. Use Valley Gentle set up to a very pocket-sized size to begin carving the mountainside and making it look crude and craggy - imagine your brush is h2o going down the mountainside, finding the easiest path, and eroding the rock as it goes. You tin later highlight the dissimilar shapes of the mountainside with terrain paints to make it look like rocks jutting out of mossy growth or whatever you lot like.

A shallow beach with terrain paints.

• Beaches: If you're very careful with the Flatten tool, you can flatten the area just underneath the water's surface into a wide, shallow embankment merely underwater. You'll exist able to vary the peak of this beach with the terrain sculpting tools so you can make soft sand sculpted by the waves, and y'all can paint the underwater terrain as well, to make a beautiful beach with interesting sand or stone merely visible below the h2o. Doing this in very pocket-size, sparse lines and painted correctly, information technology can await similar a coral reef.

Terrain Painting

To give your terrain some detail and realism, you can paint the landscape with the terrains of your choosing. This is similar in many ways to the fashion the terrain paints piece of work in-game, only in that location's some layering and operation problems to take into account.

Painting Nuts

Terrain Tab > Terrain Painting Tools > Paint

On the Paint console, you'll find all of the controls you need to texture your earth just the way you lot want it.

In the Layers list, you'll find the default textures used for your Globe. You lot'll take a dissimilar set of default textures depending on whether you chose Lush or Desert for your world. You can curlicue through the list and see a thumbnail of each of the textures, and the blazon of step sound each i makes listed in parentheses.

Below that listing is the Add Layer button. Clicking it volition bring upward a small-scale window that allows you to add your own custom terrain paints. You lot tin can proper noun your layer, choose the texture, and choose the pace sound for the terrain. For more on custom terrains, encounter the Tips section.

To the right of Add Layer is the Articulate push button. Don't touch this push button! That button resets your terrain to the default terrain texture - any painting you've done will be erased entirely! It can be useful if you've just started and don't like what you've made, but otherwise, leave it alone!

The long button beneath Add together Layer and Articulate is AutoPaint and really isn't that useful - it automatically paints the whole terrain in a rather blotchy messy way. Don't touch this button either unless you intend to - it can't be undone!

There are two sliders downwardly beneath the gear up of buttons. The offset is Routing Opacity. Slide this slider to the right to come across unroutable areas. They will be highlighted in red. You lot may wish to paint these areas to look similar rock or otherwise inaccessible terrain. The second slider is Colour which simply becomes available when Individual Layer Mode is ticked. Individual Layer Way allows you to just alter a item terrain texture without changing any of the others there also. The Color slider, when set to 0, acts every bit an eraser. Prepare to 100, information technology paints the terrain there instead with the chosen terrain paint.

The Visualize Layer tickbox shows the current chunk in black, with the currently selected layer in grey to white. This allows y'all to see exactly where you've painted a detail terrain.

At the heart and bottom of the panel are Brushes and Castor Parameters - these work exactly the same as they do when doing terrain sculpting, with the exception of the Shape dropdown, which you can prepare to Circle or Square here (it'due south greyed out for sculpting).

Tips

• Custom Terrain Paints: You tin can use some of the game'south terrain paints when you do Add Layer - look in the \My Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3 Create A World Tool\UserToolData\SourceTextures\ binder for some of the game's default terrains that you can use. This isn't all of the terrains though - many others can be extracted from the game's files and used. Make sure you utilise a unique filename for your terrain paints - you tin can do them as a TGA or DDS and should be a standard size (256x256, 512x512, 1024x1024). Terrains should wait very adept when tiling - you may take to do a lot of aligning if you make your own!

• Editing/Deleting Paints: If you decide yous don't like the look of a particular layer, you can correct-click the layer in the listing and choose Edit. You can and then choose a different texture to use for that pigment, replacing it everywhere it's used in the world. Yous tin can also delete a pigment if you just want to get rid of information technology entirely, and it'll automatically be removed from the world too.

• Paints are Layered: The Paint tool calls them Layers considering that'southward what they are. The first detail in the list is the default texture which is laid down underneath all others in the world. You will be able to come across niggling bits of the base of operations texture forth transitions between one texture to another, then if y'all want, say, a mostly rocky earth that's but got patches of grass here and in that location, gear up your first layer to rock and paint on the grass and whatever else.

• Importing Paints: If you'd prefer to paint a particular layer in Photoshop or other graphics program you lot can, like to how peak maps are done - white is full opacity and blackness is fully transparent. Correct-click in the Layers listing under Pigment and choose Import or Export. Imported and Exported layers must be PNGs.

Chunks and Boundaries

Office of a map, with Chunk Boundaries visible as a grid on the landscape.

Hither's one of the more technical parts of the CAW mechanics. Each map is divided up into pieces - called chunks - of 256x256 tiles. Basically, chunks allow your computer to load part of a globe'south details instead of the whole thing, and makes the game run improve.

To view chunk boundaries: View > Show Chunk Boundaries.

All y'all actually need to worry almost with chunk boundaries is that you lot use no more than than 8 terrain paints per clamper. Y'all tin can have as many as you want for your whole world, just don't mix and match them too much within a single clamper, to ameliorate performance. And of course, fewer is amend - if you can get away with three or 4 rather than 8, do so!

Roads and Sidewalks

A good route arrangement ways your sims tin get effectually your neighborhood chop-chop and easily, and will move in a way that looks natural. Having some sort of roads is probably a good thought unless you intend your world to exist very primative - sims won't use vehicles or bicycles at all if there are no roads (including NPCs like police force and repairmen), and will be forced to run everywhere. While it may exist tempting to get really rural, think near how sims are going to get around boondocks - it's a existent pain to have to wait six game-hours for your sim to run across the mural. Balance your artistic vision with an enjoyable play feel.

Placing Roads

Roads and Trees Tab > Road placement and editing tools > Place Road

Before you lot starting time placing your roads, it might pay to work out where all the intersections are going to be, and place them start.

Use the Identify Road Intersection and simply click on each spot where you want your roads to intersect. You can rotate intersections with your mouse equally you place them, withal afterwards placing them you will need to use the Rotate Tool in the upper lefthand pane. You should also identify insections where you want dead-cease roads to stop because the intersection piece allows cars to turn around.

Select the Identify Road tool then plop and drag roads forth advisable terrain, using your pre-placed intersections as guides for stopping and starting. The road stretches out in segments, its curve following your cursor. With each click you place a new segment adjustable in its own right. When you lot want to stop placing a continuous road, press Escape to deselect the tool. Don't worry virtually connecting all the segments, or getting the curves perfect just yet, this volition be explained presently.

Bridges are ploppable, and designed to combine with the road network. You can find a small number of bridges in the metadata window, just blazon 'span' into the filter and cull the way that most suits your needs.

Adjusting Roads

Each route segment has ii handles, one at each length's end. Combined with the Motion Tool these adjust the curvature of the road. Yous tin can besides move the roads freely themselves, like other objects, however every bit you connect them that will become more than difficult to do. Sections of the road that are continued already are marked with low-cal blue squares between them, and unconnected ends are marked with dark blue squares.

Routing will fail if y'all have any nighttime blue squares left, so cheque advisedly to see that you've made all the connections, peculiarly at catchy junctures like joining a route to a bridge.

Sidewalks

Custom Roads and Sidewalks

Tips

• Intersections: Information technology's by and large ameliorate to place more intersections than you lot remember you'll need, fairly oftentimes along a length of road. Yous can e'er adjust the exact placement of the intersection, and information technology'south easier to have it from the commencement than to add information technology in later.

• Grid Placement: Apply Snap to Filigree to show the grid and help you lot marshal roads along the grid. This will brand placing lots confronting them easier, and will brand your world seem neater and cleaner.
• Plausibility: Await advisedly at the terrain you've sculpted and consider what sort of roads you might realistically construct for it. Unless you lot're aiming for a surreal world, roads probably shouldn't run straight up slopes or undulate wildly. Think well-nigh how your sims would construct the roads on their scale - sweeping effectually mountains rather than right over them, etc.
• No Layered Roads: Unfortunately, you can't position bridges above roads, so y'all cannot make under-span tunnels. If you try, cars and sims will float through the air up and over the bridge.

Layers

Layering is a mode of grouping like objects or items in your earth. This improves functioning and makes your world run better. Organizing stuff on layers is quite piece of cake, so there's really no reason not to practise it.

Creating Layers

To create your start layer:

• Right-click on World Layer.
• Choose Add Layer.
• Rename Layer: Your new layer (under the Global Layer) will be called Layer_1. Click twice (slowly) on the name to rename it. Yous can call your new layer any you lot desire, but make it descriptive - Lots, Trees, Rocks, Decorations, etc.

Using Layers

Whenever you place something that requires a layer in your world, you'll demand to make sure you're placing it on the right layer. When y'all identify something in your world, it will place on your active layer.

Y'all can see which layer is agile by looking to see which proper noun is shown in assuming. In the screenshot to the right, the Rocks layer is active. To make a layer active, right-click on it and choose Make Layer Active.

To see what's on a layer, click on the small + icon to the left of the name.

If you accidentally put something on the incorrect layer, you tin motion information technology by dragging it in the list onto the correct layer's name. You will have to do this 1 item at a time, so pay attention and then you don't have to move 30 misplaced trees i by one!

To delete a layer, right-click on its proper noun and cull Delete. Deleting a layer volition besides delete anything on it.

Lots

A small section of diverse sized lots, with a sidewalk network filling virtually of the gaps.

CAW will let you lot create lots of any size - from 1x1 to 64x64 and annihilation in between. The size of lots in CAW is the tile size in-game - a 1x1 lot would literally exist 1x1 in-game tiles (wall segment length).

Y'all can place lots most anywhere equally long it is at to the lowest degree one tile away from other lots. You should not place them overlapping a road, and for residential and business lots, the front side of the lot should exist flush with the route. This will brand routing onto the lot from the street smoother, and will make it possible to create "patios" on the lots themselves using flooring tiles which look like the sidewalk. To make this easier, use the Grid mode equally described below in the Tips section.

The required one tile gap betwixt lots can exist annoying, only for urban areas you tin can fill information technology with a sidewalk (see the Roads and Sidewalks section below) for a nice finished expect. See downtown Riverview for an example of how this is done.

Placing Lots

Flatten Terrain: Unless you have a very specific reason otherwise, yous should always use the Flatten Terrain tool at a Strength of 100 all over the terrain where you're going to place the lot. For more than on this, come across the Tips section below.

Lots Layer Agile: Under Globe Layers, make sure your Lots layer is agile (bold). If you don't take a Lots layer, create one according to the instructions in the Layers department above.

Lots > Add together a New Lot

Place Lot: Click at i corner where yous desire the lot. Move your cursor over to where yous want the other corner, creating a blueish line showing the border of the lot. Click again to prepare the edge'southward length and rotation. Move your cursor to ane side or the other to set the width of the lot.

Gear up Lot Data: A window will come up. First, choose Lot Type (Community/Residential). If you choose Community you can gear up a sub-blazon (run into beneath for a listing of sub-types and what they're for). You can set an Boosted Property Value if y'all wish - this can exist a positive or negative number depending on whether the lot is in a nice or crummy location. Finally, you can set the Beautiful Vista buff from 0-100 to give your lot a nice view if it'due south in a great location. All of this data can be inverse subsequently so you don't have to worry too much virtually getting information technology perfect the outset fourth dimension.

Adjusting Lots

You tin can also use the Property Browser to change the community/residential type, the community subtype, position, rotation, additional value, and any Beautiful Vista buff.

Once a lot has been placed, it cannot be resized, but information technology tin can be moved, rotated, and its backdrop adapted. To do this:

Select the Lot: Under the Utilities tab, use the Select World Object button. Click on the lot you want to select. Y'all tin also select the lot in the World Layers list by clicking on the lot's name in the listing.

Move Lot: To motility the lot, employ the next button to the right, Move World Object, to click on the lot and drag it to its new position.

Rotate Lot: To rotate the lot, apply the next push button to the right, Rotate Earth Object. Click within the rotation circle that appears over the lot and drag to rotate the lot.

Yous tin also adjust the lot'south edges in relation to your world as a whole. On the Lots tab (same identify as where you make a new lot) you find two other useful buttons: Flatten Lot flattens an entire selected lot to the level of where you click - merely click to the level you want. Suit Edges fixes the edges of the lot to fit the surrounding world terrain. This can be useful if you're getting precipitous funky lines around lot edges. In any instance, you should even so flatten the terrain before y'all identify a lot, so these tools probably won't go a lot of use.

Deleting Lots

To delete an unwanted lot:

Select the Lot: Nether the Utilities tab, employ the Select World Object push. Click on the lot y'all desire to select. Y'all can also select the lot in the World Layers listing by clicking on the lot's name in the list.

Delete: Either printing the Delete key on your keyboard, or correct-click on the lot's name in the World Layers list and choose Delete. Say "Yes" to the confirmation question.

Tips

• Flat Lots: Y'all should almost always flatten the terrain where you're going to place your lot before putting information technology downwards there. This will requite you a nice flat base for your lot, and make it much easier to import and consign lots to that location. Unless yous intend to exercise something special with that lot that absolutely requires an uneven base (such equally a business firm built into a hillside, or a beach lot), then flatten start!

• Cancel Lot Placement: Press the ESC key to cancel placing a lot.

• Naming Lots: If you have something in mind for a item lot, it may be helpful to give it a name. In the World Layers list, click (slowly) twice on the proper noun of the lot to be able to rename information technology. Type something descriptive for the name of the lot.

• Previewing Lot Size: You can see the verbal size your lot will be as you draw information technology out if you await at the very bottom right corner of the screen - it'll say, for example, 20x20 (every bit shown in the moving picture to the left) to tell you that the lot you lot're making is 20x20. No guesswork!

• Round Numbers: For the most function, y'all really will want to create lots in multiples of round numbers - 10x10, 20x20, 30x50, etc., rather than numbers like 12x47 or 38x22. If you have a specific reason for creating an odd-numbered lot (similar a particular community lot to fit in merely the right spot) and then you can, but for residential lots, stick to multiples of x (or at least v).

• Filigree Placement: Use Snap to Grid to show the grid and help you lot marshal lots forth the grid. This will make placing roads against them easier, and will make your world seem neater and cleaner.

• How Many Lots? Brand certain y'all know how big the Rabbit Pigsty objects are that you lot desire to get out room for, and take into account how many customs and residential lots you'll want to have. Count them up now and make a notation of it - brand sure you accept room for all of them!

• Location, Location: If y'all want your rabbit holes in item spots (for instance, City Hall on the hill looking all majestic in the dusk) then make sure y'all place lots in those locations that are big plenty to fit the Rabbit Hole objects. See the Rabbit Holes section below under the Full Map section for a full list of the sizes.

• Lot Clusters: Try to place several lots on either side of a straight section of road, all lining up neatly with each other. This makes your world seem more than deliberately planned and realistic. Utilise Filigree Placement fashion to brand this easier.

Photographic camera & Sim Routing

Routing is what determines where sims and the thespian camera tin can and tin can't go. Good routing tin can mean the divergence between an enjoyable play experience and a frustrating one that makes players ragequit and uninstall your globe.

Painting Routing

The Routing tab allows you lot to paint the terrain to tell which areas are off limits to sims and the photographic camera.

Terrain > Terrain Painting Tools > Routing

Under Surface Type you meet the iii tools:

• Erase: Erase all routing paint from that location.

• Sims Non-Routable (Blue): Places that sims can't go. Areas that are also steep or craggy, or places that might exist annoying to navigate the camera (like thick forests) can exist marked as non-routeable. Y'all want areas that are non-routeable to exist obvious - painting them with a rocky texture or placing them beyond a clump of trees or boulders. Avoid "invisible walls" for no apparent reason.

• Camera Non-Routable (Yellowish): Places that both sims and the player camera can't go. The edges of the map should always be painted equally photographic camera not-routeable, also equally any areas like high mountains that y'all want to keep off-limits and so the camera doesn't bounce up and down as the player scrolls across the map. Make sure to go out a ring of Sims-Not Routable inside about areas of Camera Non-Routable, so the photographic camera can however manuver around areas that are accessible to sims.

Below Surface type is the Include Steepness checkbox. This will show any areas that are too steep for sims to climb in brilliant carmine. Brand sure that all areas that are too steep to climb are intentionally then - smooth any yous want sims to be able to climb, and any you want to go along off-limits, make not-routable.

The Routing Opacity slider lets you lot dim the brilliant scarlet, blue, and yellow overlay of the routing information to see the terrain paint underneath. This can be very useful, since you may want to apply unlike terrain paints to show whether an expanse is accessible or not - for case, sand and grass for accessible areas, and stone for inaccessible ones. By lowering the opacity, you can paint the routing over your existing terrain paint, right where y'all want it.

At the bottom of the console is Brushes and Brush Parameters which work pretty much the aforementioned as for terrain sculpting and painting, but without the ability to adjust opacity and falloff.

Tips

• Shine Edges: Proceed the boundaries of your sim and camera routing paint smooth and even. This volition keep the camera from bouncing around on boundaries, and will keep the cursor from flashing as the player moves the mouse across a routing boundary. The edges are fabricated of triangles then you won't be able to get information technology perfectly smoothen, but practise the all-time you tin.

Spawn Points

Spawn points are special invisible objects that control the creation of certain collectible items such every bit metal ores, collywobbles, and gems. Each spawn point object may create several different items in a certain category - for instance, 1 spawn point can only create from i category (such equally metals) but could create golden, silvery, and iron, with iron existence the most likely ane for information technology to produce. You tin place several spawn points within a short distance of each other to create a particuarly rich collection area (like the mines in Sunset Valley).

Placing Spawn Points

Spawn Points Layer Agile: Nether World Layers, make sure your Spawn Points layer is active (bold). If you don't accept a Spawn Points layer, create one according to the instructions in the Layers section higher up.

Tips

• Logical Placement: Spawn points for common and low-value items should be easier to admission than rare and high-value ones. Put really special spawn points in interesting places that will be fun to visit for players, and make it harder to go to. It may be tempting to brand a "cheat" area, just where's the fun in that?

Decorations

Distant Terrain

Full Map

A Total map is everything from the Basic map to a higher place then some. Y'all really need to have the Basic map complete (or very nearly and so) earlier starting on the Full Map.

Rabbit Holes

Rabbit Holes are the community lots in your neighborhood that sims disappear into - places like the supermarket, restauraunt, school, and the job locations. Rabbit pigsty lots consist of a regular blank community lot, plus a Rabbit Hole object (which looks like the whole building) and diverse other build and buy mode decorations such as flooring tiles, lighting, flowers, and trees.

Community lots are the other places in the neighborhood your sim tin can visit, which aren't rabbit holes - places like the gym, museum, park, and beach.

Residential Lots

Residential lots are the homes for sims to alive in - both your own playable sims, and others living in the neighborhood. You should have at least several residential lots for townies and several more for playable sims to make the place not seem also cramped - but you lot can certainly take much more for a bustling and decorated town.

Blank Lots

Yous may wish to leave several blank lots, mostly residential lots, scattered through your earth so that players can add their ain homes if they wish. But nil says that these bare lots have to be completely blank and blank - yous can always get in and practice a little bit with terrain painting, add a tree or two, a bit of fencing, maybe some former junk that someone tossed out. A little touch on of extra graphic symbol for your neighborhood.

Playing Your World

In order to play the worlds you volition beginning have to consign them. The exportation process can be equally simple every bit you want. What you have to exercise is correct click the .earth file name nether the layers section and click "add together/edit description" so follow these steps

1st: Name the globe - As uncomplicated as you want.

2nd: Give the globe a description - Again as simple as you lot want.

3rd: Giving the world a thumb nail - You demand a 24 bit PNG file. I establish that using paint is the easier style than screen shooting. This is considering I've spent several hours trying to use a screen shot and the having same error message come upwards "Requires a 24 bit PNG file".

Afterward those steps are complete simply click "Select earth to Export" and then choose the world you want to play. After that open up your Sims 3 Game Launcher after which click uploads and then choose your world and then at the bottom click the "Prove File" button. Then merely copy and paste that file into your "downloads" file in the primary Sims three file in "My Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3".

Disclaimer: This was the easiest style I found to play and test my worlds. If at that place are easier means to do it then please let me know especially with the Thumbnail role as I apply the programs Paint and Gimp

Sharing Your Globe

• MTS Creator Guidelines: Sims 3 Worlds

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Source: http://simswiki.info/wiki.php?title=Tutorials:Creating_Sims_3_Worlds

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