Following Floor Plans

"Anthonydyer;c-16765597" wrote:
I love how you bought books full of floor plans! I tried floor plans a little bit, but the floor plans can become a little overwhelming to look at. I tend to look at pictures of house exteriors, and I'll create something that derives from it. I am more freeform with the interior and I will create a living space with the space created by the exterior.

I find when trying to build a replica of a real life building, a grid unit is equal to 1x1 meters or 3x3 feet. Of course many real life houses don't follow the grid format. I've had difficulty trying to match stairs in the game, as many houses have steep or winding stairs. I've also had difficulty (more so in sims 3) to build garages with a foundation. Sims 4 is so close, but we just need a garage door that goes through the foundation. Sims 4 has also been much better than sims 3 with putting functional objects closely together, such as in a bathroom. Many times toilets are right next to a bath tub. It's also a nightmare trying to accommodate split leveling.

Haha, thanks! I don't know why I've never thought of it before. The main reason I bought some was because like stated above, most of the time my builds are pretty mediocre and sometimes repetitive. I wanted a bunch of different homes I could build. I have seen another post here on the forums about the 3 feet thing.

About the garages, I do wish we could make proper ones! Hopefully one day. I've only made garages maybe one or two times, lol.

"Dannydanbo;c-16765613" wrote:
With the upcoming patch, maybe detached garages can sit on the ground with no foundation while the house is on a foundation. We'll see.

And there's no need to spend money on plan books when those same pans are on the internet. That's where I find my info. When I wanted to build Hogwarts Castle for the magic school, I found a good plan online that I could rework to fit on a 64x64 lot. It turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself.

The books I bought do have a website, too. Personally I just feel that books are better because they're right there in my hands and I can just easily flip through the pages. I do have a strange feeling that in order to have different rooms on foundation, you can only to use the terrain tool to do that, but we'll see!

I just start building, using the right lot size and build-mode grid are helpful. I’ve only built a few things inspired by real homes/building; sometimes if I get an idea I also look up what other sim builders have done. Another thing that I think helps me is when I build I also place basic items like counters and bookcases in rooms just to see if an area is too big or too small, then can add or shrink the space. I think it helps to know all the cheats in building as well, for me anyway.

"RedDestiny92;c-16764954" wrote:
Start with something easy I had an older build as an example but I can't remember what plan I was using since I wanted to build anyways I did a new one I got close enough for my tastes.

Spoiler

https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1934/44444069774_b676427ab6_z.jpg
https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1961/45117347192_0c9c7a8c4b_b.jpg

See this is my issue with a lot of sims builds (including Maxis'), I feel like the scale is needlesssly big. I look at your original floorplan and to me the master bedroom is a 5x5 and the en-suite 3x2. At a rough guess your master bedroom is 6x7.
I understand that space is seen as a luxury, but when a sim takes one in-game hour to go from one side of their house to the other, I see it more as a hindrance.

The pathfinding of the game is surprisingly good in small spaces, and since I play in San Myshuno the most I have tested it thoroughly.

I.e, my favorite Culpepper apartments, a 2 bedroom and a 3 bedroom, that I find plenty big enough to play in but most sim players would consider them closet-sized:
https://i.imgur.com/1fTwt8Hl.png https://i.imgur.com/pJZlNyIl.png

I didn't have a floor plan but I had real life ref pictures to gauge the correct scale.

"Kerwinkle;c-16764774" wrote:
Ah, thanks everyone! I was afraid that maybe I wasted money on those books! I'm excited to try all of this. :) I actually used to draw out the floor plans of the houses in TS3 so I could build them in this game but it was easier because it was just another sims game, lol.

I bought a couple of floor plans books too. I never can get the outside or the roofs to look right; but for the interior, it really helps.

I've only recently started trying to plan out and build houses and I find floor plans very helpful, especially if I'm trying to achieve a certain style or look. I can't work off just a floor plan with no exterior, though; and I like to see photos of the interior (or mockups) to see how the decorating might look and how the flow goes from room to room. Also sometimes I like to see how close I can come to recreating whatever house it is. So I'm really doing more copying than creating at the moment, but it's also a learning experience that I can use if I get more comfortable with designing my own houses. Right now my "design" specialty is a rectangle chopped up into rooms. :D

I don't always use the rooms one to one - for instance a plan might show a huge walk in closet where I'd rather put a half-bath, or vice versa; or there's some kind of thing I just don't see the need for (like a "mechanical room.") But my houses are definitely getting better by using them.

The information about scale here is really helpful, thank you.

I usually go with "one foot equals one square". But dimensions aren't always written on the plans, so eyeballing is usually necessary anyway.

I guess I don't care about scale or distance the clock does seem off so I ignore it don't care how long it takes to do anything I mean I'm already just sitting playing a game and can speed up if I have to the more you try the smaller it can get this is better for me is all :smiley:

We are really close to having garages. What I do now is build a regular room which will be the garage. I like raised foundations. I delete the floor in the garage so that now the land is exposed. I place cement in this area. Then I take a platform and place it where my stairs will go. I place stairs and a door. The only thing that is missing is a garage door which sits at ground level and would go through the foundation.

I have design books owned by my dad. The first time I used the floor plans was when I start building in TS2. And, it's always ended up not satisfying... as some have suggested, you can create your own ratio for the tiles or simply based on the windows/doors.

But now, I just used google images & plan my own floor plan for inspiration.. If I don't have any... I'll play with my legacy family.. and once I'm bored with them.. I start building... I always find it's hard to follow a floor plan... :/

Floor plans seem to leave spaces for things like water heaters and built in closets not to mention fireboxes for fireplaces, with all that dead space I never seem to be able to do floor plans. Instead I used to start with open walls in an L shape to begin placing furniture then close the room when I get it placed.