GC's CFE Tutorials *Moved*

Learning The Basics

Introduction





This tutorial will help you understand the basic tools for working with 'constrainfloorelevation' turned off, and also give you a few tips for troubleshooting your builds.

There are plenty of excellent CFE tutorials out there already; but I intend to write a whole series of these, some of them explaining original ideas of my own, and I wanted a beginner's tutorial that I had written, and that would therefore be stylistically consistent with those more challenging tutorials I have planned.




Getting Started

Hit Ctrl+Alt+C on your keyboard to bring up the cheat box. Type 'testingcheatsenabled on' or 'testingcheatsenabled true' and hit enter.

http://i1146.photobucket.com/albums/o530/GreenCats1/CFE%20Tutorials/The%20Basics/testingcheatson.png

Bring up the cheat box again. Type 'constrainfloorelevation off' or 'constrainfloorelevation false' and hit enter. This is a powerful cheat, and you must disable it whenever you are not using it by entering 'constrainfloorelevation on' or 'constrainfloorelevation true'.

http://i1146.photobucket.com/albums/o530/GreenCats1/CFE%20Tutorials/The%20Basics/constrainoff.png



Your Tools


Terrain Tools

http://i1146.photobucket.com/albums/o530/GreenCats1/CFE%20Tutorials/The%20Basics/TerrainTools.png

Raise Terrain, Lower Terrain, and Soften Terrain cannot be used on any levels above the ground floor, but turning constrainfloorelevation off does allow you to use them on areas covered by walls, floor tiles, or objects.

http://i1146.photobucket.com/albums/o530/GreenCats1/CFE%20Tutorials/The%20Basics/RaiseTerrain.png

http://i1146.photobucket.com/albums/o530/GreenCats1/CFE%20Tutorials/The%20Basics/LowerTerrain.png

http://i1146.photobucket.com/albums/o530/GreenCats1/CFE%20Tutorials/The%20Basics/SoftenTerrain.png

Here I'm using the Raise Terrain Tool to raise the terrain under a structure I've built.

http://i1146.photobucket.com/albums/o530/GreenCats1/CFE%20Tutorials/The%20Basics/LowerTerrainDemo.png

http://i1146.photobucket.com/albums/o530/GreenCats1/CFE%20Tutorials/The%20Basics/RaiseTerrainDemoResult.png

With the raise and lower terrain tools, if you use the small square brush at the softest setting and click as gently as possible:

1 click = 1/12 the height of a regular wall
3 clicks = 1/4 the height of a regular wall (or the same as the height of a regular foundation)
4 clicks = 1/3 the height of a regular (or the same height as a frieze)
12 clicks = the height of a regular wall

Level Terrain is probably the tool you'll use most. It allows you to bring it to bring any tile to the height of any other tile. The only restriction is that the two tiles must be on the same level as each other - I'm using 'level' here to refer to the five levels or floors that the game allows you to build.

http://i1146.photobucket.com/albums/o530/GreenCats1/CFE%20Tutorials/The%20Basics/LevelTerrain.png

Here I've built a structure on top of a hill. I'm going to use it to raise the wall height of the structure I've built at ground level.

http://i1146.photobucket.com/albums/o530/GreenCats1/CFE%20Tutorials/The%20Basics/LevelDemo1.png

I click anywhere on the higher structure, and drag across to the lower one.

http://i1146.photobucket.com/albums/o530/GreenCats1/CFE%20Tutorials/The%20Basics/LevelDemo2.png

And here is the result.

http://i1146.photobucket.com/albums/o530/GreenCats1/CFE%20Tutorials/The%20Basics/LevelDemo3.png

This is an extreme example, and would make travel between the levels very difficult for sims. Because the walls are so tall, the stairs would have to be very long! However, this technique has other, more practical uses that we'll come to in later tutorials.


Stairs

http://i1146.photobucket.com/albums/o530/GreenCats1/CFE%20Tutorials/The%20Basics/StairTools.png

Stairs are the quickest and easiest way of lowering walls and floor tiles. Each set of stairs you place will lower the level by the height of 1/4 of a regular wall, which is also roughly the height of a regular foundation.

I'm showing you this technique on the first floor of my structure, but it will work on any level.

http://i1146.photobucket.com/albums/o530/GreenCats1/CFE%20Tutorials/The%20Basics/StairsPlace.png

Don't worry if your stairs look like those shown below: hovering over them with the Level Terrain Tool will get you the required result.

http://i1146.photobucket.com/albums/o530/GreenCats1/CFE%20Tutorials/The%20Basics/StairsFail.png

Once the area surrounding the stairs has been lowered, you can click and drag with the Level Terrain Tool selected to anywhere else on the same level, to bring other tiles down to the same height.

http://i1146.photobucket.com/albums/o530/GreenCats1/CFE%20Tutorials/The%20Basics/StairsFlatten.png

http://i1146.photobucket.com/albums/o530/GreenCats1/CFE%20Tutorials/The%20Basics/StairsFlattened.png

Assuming you start out with a level at the height of a normal wall, the first set of stairs you place will take you down to a 3/4 height wall. Levelling to the new 3/4 height and then repeating the process will get you a 1/2 height wall. To get down to 1/4 height, you'll need to repeat everything one more time.

Note that if you are working on the ground floor, to get a 1/4 height wall you can simply place a foundation, and level from the height that gives you.


Walls

http://i1146.photobucket.com/albums/o530/GreenCats1/CFE%20Tutorials/The%20Basics/WallTools.png

Placing new walls will bring any level back up to the height of a regular wall.

Here I'm making a gap in my 1/4 height structure and adding in a new wall.

http://i1146.photobucket.com/albums/o530/GreenCats1/CFE%20Tutorials/The%20Basics/WallDemo1.png

http://i1146.photobucket.com/albums/o530/GreenCats1/CFE%20Tutorials/The%20Basics/WallDemo2.png

http://i1146.photobucket.com/albums/o530/GreenCats1/CFE%20Tutorials/The%20Basics/WallDemo3.png

The level above has been pushed upwards by the new wall, so I'm going to use the Level Terrain Tool to bring it back down to the same height as the rest of its level.

http://i1146.photobucket.com/albums/o530/GreenCats1/CFE%20Tutorials/The%20Basics/WallDemo4.png