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Post by thelunarfox on Dec 24, 2009 4:19:49 GMT -5
Ok, I finally braved the update and am now playing with world builder. I haven't tried to do anything yet, but wow the stuff that is available that I can see already. You can even upload custom textures for your streets!
So here's a thread where we can help each other out. I hear it is pretty frustrating. I haven't really done much more than poke at the decorations and the shiny buttons.
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Post by rad on Dec 24, 2009 4:58:55 GMT -5
I'm struggling to get started with it; trying to get a sense of scale is hard, and I seem to suck at building hills and beaches...
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Post by thelunarfox on Dec 25, 2009 0:36:10 GMT -5
I can totally see what you mean. Scale is very difficult to gauge. I'm trying to think up ways I can be aware of it- like plopping down a large lot for comparison's sake.
I'm trying to build a hill and a beach right now. Yikes! I'm going a lot of smoothing as I go.
Also, I love that it says "edit in game" but you can't really really edit. Just test out stuff. Does it always take a long time to load? I tried it this morning and it took over an hour to load the town. Maybe I need to cut down the edges or something? I used one of their layouts, small sized I think.
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Post by girlyesterday on Dec 27, 2009 0:17:25 GMT -5
I came across a few links the world builders here might find useful. Placing Intersections. There's also the "official" stuff at the TS3 site (listed on the same page you download CAW) but I find it was pretty useless as far as "tutorials" go. It's quite disappointing really.
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Post by thelunarfox on Dec 27, 2009 0:57:10 GMT -5
Oh, thanks for that link. I never realized the thing about the light and dark blue boxes.
I will eventually work on throwing together a simple tutorial. What're you having the most trouble with? It might help direct the tutorial.
Also, isn't it awesome that you can assign sounds to the terrain paints?
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Post by girlyesterday on Dec 27, 2009 2:43:08 GMT -5
I haven't even got that far. I am still on the default map and trying to sculpt it but it's not turning out at all like what I wanted. I think I have this aimless wandering feeling because I have no clue what the hell I am doing. Plus it takes a lot of fiddling and I have no patience for fiddling.
A simple tutorial sounds great. The non-tutorial EA gives you is very very lacking.
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Post by raquelaroden on Dec 27, 2009 9:38:45 GMT -5
We've been traveling and visiting with family, and I'm far away from my desktop so I haven't even downloaded the world builder tool yet. It's too bad it's so complicated.
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Post by rad on Dec 28, 2009 11:27:21 GMT -5
It looks like it has awesome potential and I'm excited about the possibilities it offers. I'm just sucking at it so far.
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Post by thelunarfox on Dec 28, 2009 12:25:01 GMT -5
I did start my little tutorial here. I feel like a jerk telling other people how to use the program, but I might have something helpful to add. The fun chapter will probably be up tonight, the sculpting chapter. If anyone reads over it and has something helpful to add, let me know. I'm trying to keep it pretty simple.
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Post by Monday Morning on Jan 19, 2010 17:30:00 GMT -5
Has anyone accomplished making their own world yet? I made a tiny one overloaded with trees (NOT a good thing!), but I don't like how the roads turned out and were not for those trees, you'd be able to see the endless ocean surrounding the little world.
If, let's say, I wanted to make a desert world, but didn't want an ocean around it, is my only option to build it in a valley?
What have you done, Lunar, in your exploration of world building?
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Post by thelunarfox on Jan 19, 2010 17:45:13 GMT -5
If, let's say, I wanted to make a desert world, but didn't want an ocean around it, is my only option to build it in a valley? You could make it flat land. Then there'd be no ocean around it, but it would be surrounded by nothingness. For in game shots, I've set the draw distance to short to hide such things. But my village is surrounded by hills right now and a beach on one side. I've checked it out in game, but not made a proper run through yet. And thanks to Carnaxa, I did find out that if you remove the DCCache, the game will load up easily when you go to edit in game. I also found that I can then peek around while in build mode to see what my sims might see.
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Post by girlyesterday on Jan 19, 2010 20:10:19 GMT -5
Do you cluster your trees MM? I've found that tends to reduce the lag on the world. They say to put trees on their own layers and keep them separate from the objects.
Also, check out the Create a World thread over at the Sims 3 forum, you might get lucky and find out if someone is trying something similar.
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Post by Monday Morning on Jan 19, 2010 21:26:42 GMT -5
Thanks, Carn! My world for The Deal has trees all over, to be honest. I just needed filler to hide the endless ocean in the background. But, with this new world I'm starting, I'll keep that in mind with the trees. And to be honest, I don't check out the official site too often. I lurk over at MTS. But I'll stop on by to see what I can find. I just wish the worlds available on the official site showed more to them, you know? Also, I suppose this kind of goes along with the tree-issue, but lots. I assume it's not too big of a problem to clump a whole bunch of lots together as Riverview is pretty clumpy. CAW is so complex that I find myself intimidated-even with Lunar's awesome tute!-when I get in there and create. Especially since I'm creating worlds to meet my specific needs (ie The Deal, and a forthcoming idea I have involving a metropolitan-esque world). I don't want this to sound like I'm trying to snake your gals' ideas, but do you have any screenshots of your worlds? I'm curious what you've created.
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Post by thelunarfox on Jan 19, 2010 22:14:39 GMT -5
Don't worry, I doubt you'll take any of my ideas. My town is small. Mostly, that's from my playing around with it at the beginning. I changed the height map so that it'd be one of the smaller ones, but I selected the larger one first. So my little town is surrounded by water on all sides. Here are the early test shots where I loaded it up and tested it out. Edge 1 - This is before I really decorated it. I also fixed up the hills so that the road isn't driving unnaturally over the hill like that. Edge 2 - View from town out over the unmentionable. Edge 3 - another view from town over the unmentionable. Town mock up 1 The beginning of my town. More recent town picture.I'm further along now. The hills are decorated, more lots are plopped down. Mostly though, my town is meant to look good for screen shots. At some point, I'd like to be able to actually play it. I'm not actually at that point yet. I figure I have six more weeks to work on it
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Post by girlyesterday on Jan 19, 2010 22:43:37 GMT -5
MM, a bit off topic but wanted to say I totally dig your icon. It made me smile. Lunar, those caps of your world are great. I can't wait to see it crop up in the story. I love how you laid the roads. I did see that one of the roads was a dirt one. How did you get that to work? I tried doing that for mine but it just didn't do it. MM, I uninstalled CAW because of game troubles but I've been thinking of playing with it again and trying to create a proper world. Before the game decided to be nasty, I was working on a small island world. I'm at work at the moment but when I get home, I'll throw up some pictures on the bucket and post them here. My island had no roads though. I made my sims run everywhere but I did notice a lag issue with CAW after my world was created. Really weird. I do know what you mean by how intimidating the program is. I've had to really reign in my impatience to do the little I could and that was only because of Lunar's tutorial. Here's a link you might like: Neverglade by Pyronium3. The most developed world I've seen so far. It rivals EA's created worlds and he's been working on it since before christmas. He started off with a flat map (the largest) and bascially sculpted everything. The official site forums can be a bit of a headache to peruse through but I just mainly visit the CAW thread.
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Post by Monday Morning on Jan 19, 2010 23:04:24 GMT -5
Holy cow! That is a beautiful world! I can't believe he has had the patience-or time!-to do something like it. My connection has been running slow all day so it didn't like some of the pictures, but I am definitely going to ooh and ahh at it. And I agree, just by the few pictures I saw, it does rival EA's. I think China is beautiful, but for adventuring, it's just too hilly for my tastes. Pyronium's world looks like it's got a little bit of everything. And it's nice to see something creative and well put together on the BBS. I am not saying that everything on the Exchange is crap, but it is hard (and a headache as you said!) to filter through everything. I wish MTS had a bit more to offer in the way TS3. Yet for TS2, they're covered! Thanks for the link! I just started on my new world tonight and was mid-building in EIG when it crashed. So I might just have to lay the plots and actually build in game.
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Post by Monday Morning on Jan 19, 2010 23:11:21 GMT -5
@lunar: Are you saving different copies and testing it out in game? The hills look so nice. Mine always tend to look lumpy, and then lowland mesas!
Is the "unmentionable" part of Ruin? (I'm so sorry. I haven't actually sat down and read that yet! I just barely finished Stacy's after all this time.)
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Post by thelunarfox on Jan 20, 2010 0:06:05 GMT -5
Carnaxa, did you make the road active by right clicking on the road type you want? Did you use the right images in the right places? (The CAW "walkthrough" by Rain tells you what images to use where for the three basic roads.) I will add that I had issues at first. I guessed on my own, and I guessed right. But the first time I imported my world, the side walks were straight brown without the texture even though the road had the texture. The next time I installed the world, they were okay, so I don't know what is up with that.
And WOW... that world is amazing. If you spend time on it, you can seriously make something beautiful. I don't know if I have that amount of patience!
MM, I was at first until I found that trick about removing the DCCache. Now it loads quick and I can look around and not just have the game on the default.
And it's okay, lol. Yeah, it's the part I've spent the most working on because it'll be important. To me at least. So I can't show pictures of it though it's the best part! It's a silly little thing really. I think I'm being more superstitious than spoiler-ish. (Or maybe as Michael from The Office says, I'm not being superstitious, just a little-stitious.)
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Post by girlyesterday on Jan 20, 2010 0:44:31 GMT -5
Lunar, I think it's like writing, we don't want to talk too much about our stories cause then the magic might disappear, at least that's been my own personal experience. And yeah, that's the tutorial I followed, I was wanting a dirt road but for some reason, it just kept showing me the normal road. There has got to be an easier way for EA to enable that option. It's definitely not a user friendly program. Thanks for the tips though, I will try what you said next time I play around with it and see what happens. It'd be funny if my CAW was as stuffed as my game - well, not funny but you know what I mean! MM - got the pictures. Not much though. Where the World Tree wasSome legend about quicksand and soldiersBird's Eye View
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Post by Monday Morning on Jan 20, 2010 18:12:16 GMT -5
I like it! It's very remote looking! I especially like the first picture. That'd be nice to hang up in my sims' homes. Also, I was browsing the list of worlds at the TS3.com site and saw that someone made a New Mexico-esque world. It looked pretty interesting and gave me a little inspiration. Though, I have been going back and forth between Facebook and CAW all day because CAW is just so tedious! Honestly, why not give us something similar to the TS2 lots that were pre-made? Or at least make it an option to use the freehand tool or the pre-mades?
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