Created a lovely world for builders.

[Grimaldi525190]

I originally uploaded it to thesims3.com and it was dl'd over 750 times in 2 days. After it had been play tested by me and numerous other people we found the problem areas which I was then able to fix. I wanted to share this world here, bc it had 140 lots, 96 residents (including lots for townies) and 44 community lots. And most of the lots are at least 30x30 and a good amount of them are also 64x64. I spent nearly a month working on this world, drawing my ideas out on graph paper first. I wanted to have multiple areas on this map, some for the ranches for the players with pets, some for the downtown community lots that were large enough to fit the larger community buildings for the night clubs and bars, a few beach lots, some wooded areas, a gated community for celebrities, of course I have an entire block and half dedicated to the townies, and even a nice natural looking community lot for a waterfall. It won't allow me to upload it to ts3 again and I believe it's a bit over the limit for uploads here. It's currently at 28.0 MB (29,447,148 bytes) in a zipped file. This lot was a Christmas gift for HarleyQuinn, a good and old (from the bygone days of ts2) friend of mine who builds lovely victorian style homes. Anyhow, can anyone give me any suggestions on how I can get this world under the upload limitations? I'll include a few pictures in case anyone is interested. I really did get a ton of positive feedback on this one, which really tickled me because it was my first real attempt at using this program. The only other time I used it was to create a small asian inspired world that thrived off of farming, with no rabit holes or business lots.

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd208/tgrimaldi525190/experimentalworld.jpg
overview

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd208/tgrimaldi525190/beach.jpg
beach

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd208/tgrimaldi525190/celebarea.jpg
celebrity gated community

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd208/tgrimaldi525190/lighthouse.jpg/img]
lighthouse and river

[img]http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd208/tgrimaldi525190/Screenshot-6.jpg
road from the bridge to the beach/ranch area

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd208/tgrimaldi525190/Screenshot-5.jpg
another shot of the river

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd208/tgrimaldi525190/Screenshot-7-1.jpg
ridge over looking the beach, the ranches being just over the ridge

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd208/tgrimaldi525190/Screenshot-8.jpg
the downtown area with the large lots, the town hall is only placed to show the size and give an idea of what area of the town this is.

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd208/tgrimaldi525190/Screenshot-4.jpg
another shot of the whole island.

Any advice or feedback is always welcome. OH, this was started on a medium flat map with a height of 300. If that helps at all. :/
I would just love to share this with builders, bc I think it came out quite lovely. :giggler:

[jonha]

Looks great. On the last screenshot you may want to rethink the grass/water transition mainly on the right side. Assuming it's salt water it's illogical, that grass grows so near to the water and even underwater(?). So you may want to make the transition area more muddy/rocky (like on the river in the middle) if you don't want a sand beach area everywhere.

[Esmeralda]

This is a great idea. I agree with jonha's comment about the grass/water transition, but aside from that I love the idea of a nice FLAT world for a change. Both EA's worlds and custom ones look lovely with loads of sculpting, rolling hills, etc, but I get frustrated with the many times I download a beautiful house or community lot only to be dismayed to find that wherever I try to place it, it's either sticking up from the lot like a cliff, sunken into the lot like a bunker, or, more often, half sunk and half sticking up. A world that's flat but still looks attractive is something I'd definitely download!

Re the problem with the file size and file size limits, what world makers do here is to split the file up into segments of 10MB or less, and then downloaders join them together upon download. See, for example, the Download tab for the latest world uploaded here to see how they do it: 'Jericho' http://www.modthesims.info/d/464250

[malfoya]

Love this idea aswell. What I missed the most in TS3 was the empty neighbourhoods we had in TS2. I know we can just delete all lots in Sunset Valley, but then if you regret it you wouldn't have a single town to just play in. It's nice to have a neighbourhood on the side to just build up. I also like that it's FLAT! I was trying to place some lots in SV that I downloaded and I had to make new lots for them which resulted in them looking really bad as the ground isn't flat anywhere.

From how I see it you've done a great job here and I honestly don't see anything else that needs to be done :)

[armiel]

Having flat lots does not mean the world needs to be flat ;)

There should be at least some variation on the elevation. I'm not saying you need to make huge mountains and hills, but an almost completely flat world does not look too appealing or realistic. Assuming you are about to upload here once you have the world finished, you do need to work on the terrain elevation a bit.

Same goes for the terrain paint. It's very good that you have some variation on it on the beachy/cliffy areas, but the rest of it is just flat green. Add a grass paint or two, to create more lively looking grass.

Finally, the vegetation. It looks like a lot of trees are rotated on exactly the same position, so work a bit with those.

The idea is really good, and I'm sure a lot of builders will appreciate it. But there is no sense on having a big build world unless you also intend to play on it, so it needs to be at least a bit realistic looking.

Did I come off too feedbacky? I hope you take it as help, not as an attack. ;)

[Craggles]

i like it, i also want it :D i agree with the grass paint being a bit flat looking, though i love the fact that it is physically flat!! i think its just the terrain paint that would need looking at in my opinion. though i'd download it regardless :P

[Grimaldi525190]

Wow, thanks so much for the feedback. And I didn't really think too much about changing the grass, bc I wanted it to be a lush looking island, but I think a change up of the grassy areas could improve it's overall feel. And changing the terrain near the ocean is also an awesome observation as well. As far as changing the terrain levels, I really want to keep it flat where the roads and lots are, which is most of the interior. Mainly because this was a gift to a lot builder, who does competitions and lot uploads regularly, so she really needed the lots to be flat. But I'm willing to do some more editing of the exterior of the island, giving it a more sculpted area around the lots. I guess I could remove a few of the lots to add some more sculpting through out the residential areas. Maybe part of the reason it feels so flat is because I did no editing of the lots. I left them completely empty. I know when I build in my games I do a LOT of terrain editing and painting of the lot I'm working on, along with adding loads of plants and trees. I'm sure most builders do the same, and this will help to give the world a better feel. But I want to leave that to the builder who uses the world. And I did rotate the trees. .. Maybe I need to add some more variety of trees and bushes to break it up? Also, because I'm soo happy with this world, I'm sure I'll be coming up with more in the future. ;) Still a bit confused about how to upload the world here. I'll try and figure it out after I've tweaked the world a bit more. If all else fails I'll try and contact someone on staff.

And I wanted to mention I try to make sure all the lots (with a few exceptions) line up to the roads, and that I used the grid to lay the roads as well. Outside of that, I didn't follow the site rules for uploads, and am unsure if this world would stand up to them. :/ But on the other hand bc I'm soo picky, I'm hopeful that my own personal standards would fall close to this sites outline. I did skim over the rules the other day, and saw nothing I didn't think of in my own process, other than taking enough pictures. I think I will double check the routing this weekend. Other than that, after a few tweaks, it may be up for download very soon. :) I am hopeful.

[Volvenom]

I use Armiel's DIY nabourhood a lot. The same person posting in your thread :)

This world of your has some advantages to her's.

Picturetaking in the DIY is hard because it's small and has a high mountain. It's more room around the lots if I want to take pictures in yours, perhaps a bit too much? I don't make hole nabourhoods of houses though. I just make a new DIY for a new house. Easier to keep track of, and I have to make a copy to playtest it anyway. The fact that it is empty means I can take good photos of back and front. I wouldn't want another house in the way then.

One thing the DIY has that you don't in yours though: I can place the lots myself and make them whatever size I want. I don't really need a road to take good shots or build a house. With the world lot size thingi in edit town mode I can pick my lot size. Another thing is the terrainpaint. DIY looks better. That's also important on a photo of a lot I want other's to download.

On the other hand you can of cause target people who wants to make hole nabourhoods if you have roads there. I would rather have something to house 1 lot 64x64 and some nice background :)

[Grimaldi525190]

UPDATE: HarleyQuinn is contributing some of the community lots for this world. She wants to help give the world a little more of a finished ready to play feel by adding a few of the necessary lots needed to start playing the game once it's installed. For instance the city hall, firestation, police station, park, library etc. Here's an image she sent me for her ideas on which lots to include.

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd208/tgrimaldi525190/communitymap.png

Here's a link to her pages, so you can see some of her other builds.

http://gnautylilgnomes.com/forum/index.php?board=351.0

http://www.thesims3.com/mypage/Heather3184

I'm so exicted that the person I actually started this project for is now collaborating with me on it. :) She said she has tried uploading lots here before, but she couldn't figure out why they weren't uploading.

[malfoya]

I don't know how much work it will be, but what about making two versions of it? One totally empty, so that we sould have to add all the community lots ourselves. And one with the base community lots/parks etc? Again I'm not familiar with world making for neither games :)

[jonha]

Just nitpicking, but I think you should move utility buildings like the police and fire station more to the border of the world. In reality central ground is quite scarce and expensive so you want to place there public buildings which can be used by many people and which generate much income like hotels, expensive apartments, and shopping centers. Emergency stations should be placed in a way that they can reach the central buildings fast but not in a way that the city consists of them.

Also a fire hall doesn't need a lot as large as a school or a town hall. Where I live they are rather small, just a few garages for the trucks put together with a small house for the people to work. Of course this depends on the available size. A fire station in the middle of a city needs to be more cramped (and possibly multi story) while one outside in a more residential area can be larger and more simply build.

[Grimaldi525190]

Not everyone is going to like the placement of the community lots when they are included. So it seems the easiest way to handle it is to upload one with the community lots and one without. Assuming they will allow that here... :/

[armiel]

There is no reason why you could not upload both versions, as long as both versions are up to guidelines. :)

[Grimaldi525190]

Yay! I am working on the terrain a bit more, trying to make it a bit more realistic. Although we are still leaving the majority of the lots flat. I am adding color and more trees, bushes and rocks.

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd208/tgrimaldi525190/mapedging.png

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd208/tgrimaldi525190/editingmap.png
^^^this was that side with the grass in the ocean

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd208/tgrimaldi525190/editingterrains.png
^^^this is what I'm doing to the majority of the flat lots... I also plan to edit a few lots, adding ponds and some gardens. This will hopefully break up the "flatness" of the map overall. Although for the downtown area, I plan on adding some sidewalks and potted plants etc.

I'd also like to mention Armiel, your island is very lovely. ;)

[Grimaldi525190]

Still working on this one when I've got the time off. Like today, I'm planning to check the routing.