Roof building in The Sims 4 would greatly benefit from an overhaul

Throughout the decade of this game’s lifespan, roofs have received their own share of improvements. Round roofs, polygonal roofs, glass roofs, etc. Despite these well needed features, I do still think that roofs are one of the most outdated tools of The Sims 4’s build mode.

Roofs and the way they behave deserve a bit of an overhaul. The current customization is great, of course, but there a few key areas in which roofs are quite lacking. Especially when compared to the previous entry in the series, The Sims 3.

Let’s get on with it…

INTERIORS

The above image demonstrates a type of interior that The Sims 4 is unfortunately still incapable of producing without glaring issues.

The first obvious thing that comes to mind is the white undersides of roofs. Apparently some roof types from newer DLC have the same texture on both sides, but that is still quite limiting. Older roof textures haven’t been updated anyways, as they continue to have the same white undersides. So yeah, I would love to have the option to change them like with interior ceiling tiles.

I would also suggest that players should be able to change the texture of a roof’s interior ceiling and the underside of outside eaves separately. That way the interior ceiling of a roof piece could be made of wood and the exterior eaves be metallic on the bottom, for example.

Either way, the unpaintable undersides are only a single issue out of many when it comes to these types of interiors.

Key area number one: Roofs are not treated as interiors by the game, and therefore do not have the same indoor lighting that normal rooms do.

This leads to the following problem:

I wanted for this living room to have an open, angled ceiling. The unpaintable white texture wouldn’t have even been a problem for this specific build. But alas, because roof pieces do not have proper indoor lighting, the idea ended up not looking that good.

If only it was as smooth as it is with normal rooms…

This problem is also why attempts at building attics with angled ceilings does not end favorably.

Here’s what it currently looks like in-game:

The interior of the roof and the objects along with it are baked in outdoor lighting, even though it is meant to be an enclosed space.

Here’s a mock-up of what the lighting SHOULD look like:

Ignoring the unpaintable undersides and their glitchy lighting, of course…

So the suggestion here is simple: turn roof pieces into proper interiors. Or at the very least give them the same indoor lighting that rooms use.

I cannot speak for whether implementing all of this is simple or not. I can think of a few crucial aspects in how roofs currently work that might end up getting in the way of things: the fact that roofs can intersect with rooms and how roofs can be made taller than the rooms on the same level.

How would this situation look like in this new system?

However, I am not sure if all of this is actually that big of a problem. I wouldn’t necessarily expect roof behavior to change all too much, only the incorporation of indoor lighting and better wall customization (which I’ll talk about later). Either way, I am not a developer of this game, so I do not know for sure.

But what I can say is that solving this issue of interior lighting would open up more possibilities with building in The Sims 4. Proper attics being the most obvious one. But also second floors incorporated into the roof of a house, which is very common in real houses.

Obviously simmers have done what they can in terms of creating those types of second floors, but the way in which we are restricted to using only full rooms greatly limits the amount of usable space. It leaves us with either very narrow and small interiors, or very huge roofs that try to encompass the full interior rooms of the second floor…

Sims can already route into roof spaces and objects can be placed around in them. I can’t really think of it being that resource intensive to give roofs the same indoor lighting (and weather/seasons behavior) that rooms have. And I’d argue the long-term benefits of such a rework would be great enough to justify the work needed to get there.

ROOF WALLS

Now, let us take a look into key area number two: roof wall customization and how it is lacking in The Sims 4.

For this section I have turned towards The Sims 3 for demonstrative purposes:

Roof walls in The Sims 4 appear to follow the same tile-by-tile texturing that normal walls have, and so it would behoove us to have the ability to paint the individual pieces of a roof’s wall, rather than be restricted to painting the ENTIRE wall only one single wallpaper at a time.

By turning roofs into proper interior spaces, the interior and exterior surfaces of a roof’s wall could also have different wallpapers (just like with normal rooms).

And in turn, it would behoove us to be able to delete specific portions of a roof’s wall:

Or maybe even delete the walls altogether and have only the roof floating on its own:

All three of these things were possible in The Sims 3, and are such basic aspects of roof customization that I can only be confused as to why the fourth iteration in this franchise has restricted us this way, and for so long.

HEIGHT CONTROL

And at last we arrive on the most ambitious section of this thread, key area number three: the ability to pull roofs up (change their height).

Now this feature would be something brand new to the series, and in my opinion would also push building forwards in The Sims 4 by allowing more variety in roof designs and better usage of roofs as interior spaces.

To demonstrate what I am suggesting, here’s a few mock-up images that I’ve made:

This ability would be amazing to have. Right now we are unable to place roofs on top of half walls or platforms. Because of that, many styles of roofs that rely on these sort of uneven heights cannot be replicated in The Sims 4.

Half walls cannot be turned into rooms, so I imagine placing roofs on top of them would be finicky. Platforms aren’t hollow and can’t have wallpaper textures, so having roofs be placeable on top of them would only solve this problem halfway.

But being able to change the height of the roof like this would be a complete solution. It allows for more variety in roof design, while also allowing more room for Sims to route in. And that’s why having roofs be treated as proper interior spaces is such an important first step to take if the game was to implement this specific idea.

This type of feature would also breathe new life into hipped, octagonal and round roofs. Wallpapers can already be placed on them in-game, but we never really get to see them!

Pentagonal and hexagonal roofs may prove to be a little tricky because they do not line up with the build mode grid, but I’m sure something could be figured out..?

Wouldn't this be so nice?

All in all, foundations used to be more restrictive. Platforms did not exist before. Terrain tools were only a dream in the minds of builders, never mind pond tools.

And all of those things have been updated and/or added to the game, each time revolutionizing building in this game.

So why not greater roof customization, too?

I believe that roofs are the one major thing holding back The Sims 4’s build mode from reaching its greatest potential.