Suggestions for an improved Build Mode

Question

(I can't find the old thread for this one, sorry)

I'd like to throw out a few suggestions for an overhauled build mode. It's a little ridiculous to think that one would have to activate cheats and have mods to achieve the best results when building a house. Thus:

1. Telling the game which walls are outer walls

A tool to select walls and tell the game 'these are the outer walls of the building' to avoid wonky friezes and similar.

2. The mousewheel is your friend

There are various wallpapers, friezes etc that come in a number of designs (not color-wise, we'll come to that), like e.g. the timbered walls, or other walls with a border. Now, some of these do automatically set the borders on the edges, but sometimes the issue of #1 interferes with that. The option to scroll through the designs of one kind of wallpaper/flooring,frieze etc with the mousewheel or the page-up/down key (or shift + scroll or somesuch) would be nice here.

3. Bring back the colorwheel

I think this is one of the most requested features to be brought back from Sims3, the option to individually pattern and color furniture, fences, clothes etc.

4. Half-length walls without cheats

5. Free object rotation without cheats

6. Diagonal stairs and different stair foundations.

Noticed this when building an L-shaped stair outside, that it'd look nice if I could put the stilts-like look on it instead of the solid walls or nothing. (maybe i missed the option somewhere).

7. More and finer adjusting options for roofs

Especially the 6 and 8 cornered roofs look a little weird at times, adjusting roof size in more ways would be nice. E.g. being able to finetune the edge, or the tip of a roof. Or removing the walls of a round glass roof.

8. Adjusting inside platforms without affecting the foundation

It'd be nice to be able to make various levels inside a house without having to raise/lower the foundation and remove the floor (This would be especially nice for several venue builds)

9. Better collision boxes on wall objects

A small object on a wall should not prevent one of placing a small table underneath it just because the lamp is 'too low' when it doesn't touch the table.

Please?

puglove888 · Answer

@MeltingPenguins, yes I would love to be able to change the color of part of the object separate from another part!&nbsp; Of course in TS3 we could change many aspects of an object with the CASt color/pattern wheel, but even in TS2 we could change a bed frame independently from the bed cover! 🙌❤️ Sometimes I want to use a certain color wood in a room but I hate the color of the couch or bed cover, etc.&nbsp; Or I love a certain furniture pattern or color, but the frame doesn't match what I want for that room!&nbsp; TS2 was better than TS4 about this!&nbsp; ❤️&nbsp; I wish they would bring this capability to TS4! 🤞

sherigr · Answer

@MeltingPenguins&nbsp;Thank you for your reply.&nbsp;1. I'm not sure I'm following you entirely on this one. I have also found fidgety or unworkable applications for the friezes, so I feel your pain. Frankly, I rarely use them, and oftentimes even when I use one that looks like it it's a frieze but is actually an exterior trim. If it's a fussy area to get them to apply right, you could try that trick.&nbsp;https://sherigr.com/sims-4-building-tutorials/how-to-build-roofs/#flat&nbsp;I know that even if that works for you it's not much consolation, and is only a workaround. I like your suggestions. Also, if you would like to upload the lot to the gallery I could have a look at the area, since I'm not understanding the issue fully.4. Oh my gosh, I didn't ever notice that any Maxis builds were able to use a half-tile length for walls!! Wow, that would be awesome!! I'm not aware of any cheats that allow building on the half tile. If you find any I would love to know!5. I completely agree. At the very least it would be nice if it functioned on both 'Sims 3 Camera' and 'Sims 4 Camera'. Well, which would mean always. Lol!6. Completely agree that there are some hard-to-work-with-creatively restrictions with the stairs. I love the new bendable stairs, but they really don't seem to save space, either. Maybe I'll just keep dreaming of spiral staircases that have a smaller footprint than my clunky faux spiral bendable one with a large footprint. But I can't really complain, as I now have many more creative options that I'm so happy about, between the ladders and bendable staircases. Counting my blessings atm.&nbsp;🙂7. I agree about the 'gap' on the octagonal roof edge that is not filled by a normal trim. You have to go to a thicker trim just to fill it if you're not pulling out the eave. Good point.8. Sounds good to me!&nbsp;🙌9. You've got my vote!I'm adding my 'XP' and 'Me Too'!&nbsp; You have some great ideas here!&nbsp;🙌

sherigr · Answer

@MeltingPenguins&nbsp;Hi! I know that your wish list items are (nice!)suggestions, but I had a few times when reading them that I was considering a comment, if you don't mind. I apologize ahead of time if nothing is helpful here...1. I was wondering what issue you were having with wonky friezes and similar? I have had an issue with wall trims sometimes coming inside the house (such as on a stair opening against a wall), exterior wall trims, etc not placing over stairs in areas, and times when these items would not place on an outer wall for no reason that I could figure out. Is this what you mean or something else?4. I'm not sure what a half-length wall is, but there are half-walls?5. You don't need a cheat to free-rotate an item. Just enable Sims 3 Camera, hold down the alt/option key, hold and drag the object with your mouse and it should spin freely on the tile. Directions here if this doesn't make senes.6. I think this is probably not what you mean, but certain stairs have an open under-area, and on stairs with the wall under them you can use the sledgehammer to remove the wall that auto-places under them. You could experiment with adding adjustable-height columns under the end of the stairs if you want a 'stilted look'? (If you experiment with this you may need MOO enabled to place them in certain spots, and you would want to thoroughly placement test and play test them afterward.)7. I'm also unclear what you are asking for with roofing adjustments? I absolutely agree that the 5-8 sided roofing is a real pain to use in most cases, and if it would evenly drag to resize that would at least help a bit. I actually have the least issue with round roofs (out of the special dimension roofing). Could you clarify what you mean about removing walls of a round glass roof? The ceiling automatically becomes transparent/deletes where the glass roofing is added.&nbsp;&nbsp;8. I absolutely agree that being able to make a sunken room without an imperfect and temperamental workaround would be wonderful! I'm not positive what all else you're referring to with adjusting levels more easily inside (doing bi-levels, etc), but it sounds great to me!9. I also agree 100% that it would be wonderful if there was a review of objects and the way they occupy 'slots' on surfaces, walls, etc. so there would be a more logical amount of space needed per object for items the sim doesn't need to interact with. Wow, this would greatly reduce my use of MOO and my need for so much placement and play testing. 😉

puglove888 · Answer

@MeltingPenguins,&nbsp; the reason that we don't have the color and pattern wheel from TS3 (which was called Create A STyle or "CASt") is because if you actually used the tool a lot it would cause massive loading times every time you opened CAS or Build/Buy Mode!&nbsp;😞 People who didn't have too many swatches didn't have this problem, but I was addicted to CASt so I had a huge amount of color and pattern swatches!&nbsp; Almost every swatch I had multiple color variations for.&nbsp; Yes, the lagging was partly my fault since I had so many swatches, but the CASt wheel was my favorite part of TS3 (I was disappointed with TS3 from the beginning compared to TS2, so the CASt wheel was the one thing I thought was an improvement early on, so I played with it extensively.)Apparently I wasn't the only one who did this, since I've heard others say the same, and also since EA has stated that that is why they didn't include a CASt wheel in TS4, so that more people would be able to play the game, since most people had trouble running TS3!I guess you can say I'm ambivalent on the subject -- I desperately want the CASt wheel back because it is a wonderful tool and soooooo much fun!🥳&nbsp; But I also really don't want it back because I don't want my game to get hung up for 15 or more minutes every time I want to go into Build/Buy Mode or CAS!&nbsp;😠 😢 &nbsp;Hopefully, if they ever bring something like that back, they can have it so that you can store tons of swatches and it not mess up your game.&nbsp;🤞I don't build much, so I'm sure I would like some of your other suggestions, but I can't comment on them 😳 , with the exception of the diagonal stairs!!!! 🙌❤️ I really would love those, especially since we already have diagonal rooms in the game!&nbsp;😉

meltingpenguins · Answer

@SheriGR&nbsp;1.&nbsp;This is what I meant with wonky friezes. I was trying to build an art deco nightclub, and the frieze would be perfect, if I could adjust which form goes where instead of the game checking for... i don't know... space between them? corners?Another issue with friezes:same building with a different frieze, on the right is the result of me trying to build bathroomstalls with the half-wall tool (the university stalls are just too large)4. Take the above V-shaped parts of wall on the pics above. they are one grid-square in length. I'd like to be able to have walls be half-a-grid square (there are some houses that come with the packs that do that, so I assume it can be done with cheats)5. Good to know (though part of the issue: It's not easily accessible knowledge if one has just the game)6.&nbsp;It'd be nice to have something for the intermediate landing to rest on. Also for stairs: The open area ones/ones with the wall removed are nice for 'stacking' stairs:but I'd love to be able to put a 'proper' (as in not the build in one) wall under it to have the stairs down behind a door or such (think how certain basement doors and stairs with stairs up above them go)7. I checked a gain with glassroofs (hadn't used them in a while) and seems glassroofs were fixed already &lt;3 (when making the 8 corner one glass I had the issue of seeing the walls that held up the roof). But as for roofs in general:On the left a plainly placed roof with one of the smaller trims, on the right a 'pulled down' roof to close the gap... this is... frankly ridiculous.8. &lt;3 In the Nightclub build above I tried to have some elevated seating area and an elevated stage (higher than the seating area) not possible)9. &lt;3 like... there's a dish shelf in jungle adventures that by all means should fit between a counter and cabinet, even on low walls... it doesn't.@PugLove888&nbsp;Yeah, figures it'd be a resource muncher. Alternatively: seperate e.g. bedcover patterns from the frame design? Sink-colour from frame colour? something like that. Cause like... I reckon there's hot-pink zebra bedcovers, but not on a white bedframe... (very extreme example)