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Basements

I'm just going to give instructions for a basic, foundation-only basement. In a starter, you probably won't have much money for one with walls anyway. Below my post is the way to make a basement that will allow you to include walls, too. It's a great tutorial. Thanks, Bonafied, for the link!

1. Using the foundation tool, build the foundation for your home. Keep in mind that your basement will be one square smaller on all sides than the foundation of your home.

2. Again using the foundation tool, hold down ctrl and create a hole in your foundation. Leave at least 1 square width on all sides. This will allow you to carve it out while maintaining a visible foundation for your home and walls for the basement.

3. Using the terrain tool, select the one for lowering. The new square option is very helpful, I think. Lower the ground in the new hole you created. Make sure you go at least far enough that there's "headroom" for your sims when they go downstairs and walk around. If there's not enough room, it won't let you place the stairs. So if you get them to work, you should be good. Conversely, don't dig too far down, or the drop will be too steep and the stairs won't make it to the bottom in a small floorplan like a starter.

4. Once you've confirmed there's room from that point to place the stairs, level the foundation to that level. You can find the level tool in the terrain section. You'll see a green square when you have the tool on. Click and drag it to the edges of your foundation walls that form your basement. Repeat until the basement floor is totally flat.

5. Place your stairs by clicking on the foundation edge or a floor tile. I recommend being at least one floor tile away from the outside edge of the foundation wall because it just gives a little more space for playability (in other words, I like a landing that's at least two blocks away from the wall). Hope that makes sense. Ask me if it doesn't.

6. Add flooring, wall coverings (if you have money), and objects.

7. On the first floor, you should be able to cover the whole floor with tile except the ones just above the stairs. I usually build a wall or fence around this hole so the sims don't "fall."

8. It's basic, but it works.

A basement with walls: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6oaIDSyn08

Carports
I'm going to include instructions for building a carport that is attached to your home that has foundation (I'm thinking people will need this if they're building a basement.) If you're not building a house with foundation, basically just skip the first step.

1. Build a foundation next to your house and make it the size you want for your carport with roof overhang. I would recommend at least 7 tiles wide (A car is three tiles wide, so this will give you a free row of ground on each side and then another row on each side for foundation.

2. Enclose the three open sides of the carport with walls (the other side should be your house and should already have a wall).

3. Decide what type of roof you want and apply it. If you have a one-floor home, your roof could extend to include the carport. If it's two stories, you could still have a traditional roof. You could also try a flat roof if you like that best. After this, turn off autoroof. It's just to the left of the roofing options. It will get rid of the roof in the next step if you don't do this step.

4. Delete the walls from the carport area (but not the wall that is part of the house.)

5. Delete the foundation from the center five tiles (three in the middle for the parking space and car, one on each side for a little area to walk.) You can use the foundation tool to do this by clicking on the foundation and holding ctrl.

6. You can either leave the foundation as a strip on each side of the carport, or you might just want to leave a square of foundation at each corner. Either way, I would put a column or some system of visual support at each corner to "hold up the roof." Remember that you can use patio foundation if you're low on money. Drag over the regular foundation square with the patio tool to create the first level. Click shift and drag over it again to get the "column" of patio that now supports your carport roof.

7. To create an entry to the house (per Cody's request), place a door on the house wall. This will create a floating piece of wood tile on the side of the wall facing/under your carport.

8. Place a piece of foundation where the door is and extend it one more foundation square against the carport wall.

9. Attach stairs to run along the wall. (You could build them straight out, but this will leave less room to walk around the car.)

This message was edited 5 times. Last update was at 06/10/09 03:52 PM

A few tips for starters
Here are just a few tips to get you started. If you know a few more and are willing to give them up to the competition , feel free to post below with more info!

Walls:
Are expensive. Use alternatives whenever possible.

Open layouts work nicely for starters. Just use natural transitioning and create "areas" instead (ie. the kitchen opens onto the living room, instead of being its own little room.)

Simple foundation basements are nice because they are made out of foundation, which is cheaper, and they add a whole lot of room to your house. If you leave them bare with brick walls, they cost even less. (I would at least cover the floor, though.) Attics can be good for the same reason. If you use a pointy roof and the house is big enough, there is some area under the highest point of the roof that's usable. All it costs to utilize this space is a set of the cheapest stairs and some inexpensive flooring.

Diagonal walls can be a little awkward, but because they can go from corner to corner and are wider than regular walls, you get a "room" out of one wall.

Foundation:
Whether you are going to use a basement or not, hollow out the middle of your foundation floors. You really only need foundation around the outer edge of your home so your walls aren't floating in outerspace. When you use ctrl with the foundation tool, it erases foundation. If the area is still closed in with walls and a border of foundation, you usually are left with a floating floor. If the tile grid "disappears," start from the outside and work your way in. Each new row of floor will add the grid for the row after it. Soon, the whole room is covered.

Deleting the foundation has a second advantage: you can create little sunk-in areas with a set of stairs. Kind of a fun design twist that's cheap.

Columns:
Also expensive. You know that carport? Instead of columns, you might consider using a two-level patio foundation (the one with the wood slats). Build the patio foundation. Then, on top of that one, hit shift and drag another patio foundation. They stack and become taller. High enough for that carport roof.

You also don't "need" all the columns. If you're trying to get flooring above a column, use the column, add the floor, and then delete the column. Voila! Floating tiles. I wouldn't have a massive floating object with no columns, but a few less than you need helps pinch pennies when you're talking starter.

Wall coverings:
This is something I've figured out in Sims 3. I probably shouldn't tell you if you haven't done it yet...find the cheapest wall with no built-in pattern you can find (I use Flat Wall in the paint section). Click on it with the create-a-style tool. Go to your brick or whatever other more expensive pattern you want and select it. Your brick wall now costs about $3 less per panel then if you just did it the normal way.

Floorplan:
Always go small. More walls=more money. They're expensive, and you have to cover them. Make it big enough that the sim can move around. But if they outgrow the house, they can always add on later. This is probably the biggest money-saver for starters.

Windows:
Check window prices carefully. Some of the double windows will be cheaper than using two of the smaller ones. It's usually not by much, but if you're doing a whole wall of them, it can add up.

Build and build again:
The cool thing about starters is you can build them pretty quickly. I usually find the more I build consecutively, the more I can get in and for less money.

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This message was edited 40 times. Last update was at 02/19/10 10:37 PM

Of course, not everyone knows HTML or has a photo-editing program like Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop in order to resize their photos. If there's a different way to do it, let people know.

In fact, some people may not know that above their box in the reply is how you change the size of your font.

NOW you know.

Me personally, I like posting thumbnails instead, even though I didn't do it with the first challenge. Granted, they may link to another site, but they get the point across. Though I just might try the story feature as well, it looks fun and I may get more hits.

Now all I have to do is put google on my website, and then maybe I can make some extra quarters. But that's a personal challenge.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 06/10/09 12:45 PM

Well, I'm not the best person to ask! Several other people posted thumbnails in the first Challenge thread.

However...with me....when I was uploading the screenshots to my website, I just clicked "Auto-Thumbnail" and it immediately created thumbnails. That was with Microsoft FrontPage. So in other words, house.jpg immediately became house_small.jpg or something like that.

Then by using the IMG tab above in the reply box, that's how I'd post the image on the photo thread. Example:



Although my problem is, heh, by using that particular picture, it only brings the small one up. No clicking, etc. Like I said, I'm not the best person to ask.

I still think I'm gonna try the story this time 'round though. Although Sinastra's option is awesome...and very user-friendly.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 06/10/09 01:02 PM