Hey guys and girs!
I started working on my CAW project. It`s my first serious town. I have allways wanted to make one but I was discouraged by complexity of work required. Now I gave a try and after some issues I finally made some progress.
I am planning to share this world on MTS, but I red rules that it would be great to start a forum thread and post info/pictures about one`s world in progress before uploading. So I am doing this. I need your expert opinions about what I have to change or do differently. It is gonna be sotrry based town for players, not builders. However, I will include empty world (no lots) in a download if my world doesn`t get deleted by moderators. Here are first screens of early stage of my world. I must note that I had problems with distant terrain so it might be flickering sometimes. Twinbrook DT was the only one perfect for that world.
Dam and first corner of my world:

Another perspective:

Overall view:

Decorative metal mines (there will be lot there):

Density of foliage:

Highway tunnel:

Archeological site:

...and another overview:


Even if I put so many objects in there, I did not feel big decrease in framerate or performance. Hovewer, I`m gonna put a lot of lots so it might decrease performance for slower PCs. In Sims 3 case it is mostly about HDD; SSD would be great. But better quad core CPU and at least 6GB of RAM should be enough for better performance, but I don`t think this world will run very smooth on any laptop with 4GB RAM and integrated GPU with i3 processor.

Shuold I continue on this wolrd or should I scrap it?

I`m trying to put trees on distant terrain so it wouldn`t look bland.





Doing this via CAW is a pain in the A as I need to move every tree individually and adjust them with moving lines. Edit in-game does not work very well either. Playing in real game, hovewer, let`s putting trees without problems as far as game's view distance reaches so I`ll probably just add save file to my download. There will be 3 save files: empty, with all lots and populated.
Hopefully I`ll finish this by the end of summer....

Did you use the fake trees or real ones in the distance?

I have no idea where I could find fake trees. I used real ones.

Somewhere, there are fake trees, like a line of trees, but completely flat, making them suitable only for distant terrain. I don't have CAW installed at the moment, so maybe someone else can give more details on how and where to find them?

Edit: found this, maybe that'll help? https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/di...-you-using-them

It looks great! This world has so much potential. I'll be subscribing and looking forward to updates :-) I like the forest-feel you get from the pictures.

Thanx so much! But keep in mind that it is gonna be heavy on PC resources world.

Appears to become a rural/forest world. I'd suggest using different road types. A highway with a sidewalk appears kinda strange to me

I use max view distance settings in my game and those trees on DT will be visible as far as eye can see. Even though you can see where they end via CAW and EIG, in normal gameplay it will be an illusion of neverending forests. Unless you press tab. It is difficult couse I don`t use DT with high mountains.

Nah, it will be dense town surrounded by forests. I made up a story about this town and you will see why lively town is in amiddle of forests. Also it is based on my hometown. And in my country, no matter where you are, you just need to look around 360 degrees and you will see black pine forests all around.

I am still working on decorating distant terrains. It is such a pain in the A. I should have made a lot of scattered small forests instad of one big chunk of trees. But I don`t wannt so scrap this so this will take a whle to finish. Anyway, this is how distant terrain and world edges look in game:

Very pretty! Some of your trees appear to be floating above the ground. A less patterned rock texture - or additional textures - might be nice where you have the rocky area. In-game terrain paints are available here: http://www.modthesims.info/forumdisplay.php?f=625.

I have some floaties, but in screens they look afloat becouse of small view distance - fog covers part of trees. And thanx for advices, I will change rocky texture.

I am still working on this world. It is time consuming as I have 8 hour shift thing in my life. I hope to finish this by the end of summer. Here are screens of my world edges. I used camera-non-rouable paint, but it seems it doesn`t work very well or I do something wrong.



Do this difference of colours bother you guys or is it OK? Becouse that`s what you get if you don`t use high mountains distant terrain...

That doesn't both me anyway, this is a distant terrain so the quality can't be good as the "real" terrain. By the way, your world seems fantastic! <3

I agree, I'm not bothered by it

I am suprised of myself that I didn`t get demotivated by amount of work required. I am still excited about making this world reality.
This is area I have to fill with trees and it will take a looooong time:

Sure I could just do it in real game and make a game save, becouse this way placing trees on distant terrain seems to work better then EIG via CAW. But I want my world file to be completed. I will still have to make saves for people to downlaod, becouse there will be 3 versions of my world - empty lots, filled with lots and fully populated with lots.
Can`t wait to start working on world itself.

Is it wrong to listen to doom/death metal and work on CAW? I feel it`s wrong but I can`t help it I`m afraind my town will have gothic touch in it a bit.

I finally finished decorating distant terrain. Took so long. No I`ll start working on remaining world edges. Only after that I will be able to do world itself.

I am placing all theese weeds by hand. God that takes time... And patience. Didn`t know I had this in me.

I think it looks great, but I have to admit I'm very concerned with size and loading times, when you place objects like that.... Any idea how that will be?

I think objects don`t take so much time to load. They seem to be light on system. Lots, hovewer, do take time to load. I said my world will be for higher end PCs. Mine is not very powerful, but enough for sims. I have GTX 660 OC (though it is not very significant for Sims 3), 8GB of DDR3 1.6GHz RAM and i5-3570 (3.8GHz) processor. It runs pretty good, but it`s all about hard disk. I have no SSD but I think people with SSDs will benefit.
I will upload somwhere a version of my world with empty lots so people could start testing it. Every single TS3 world takes a lot of time to load for me. That`s why people use dual/tripple monitor setups so they could read/watch other stuff while waiting.
And guys, if you plan playing games, even not demanding ones, DONT`S use laptops... Unless you can spend money for Alienware/gaming specific laptop, get desktop PC for gaming and cheaper laptop for mobility.
And I think Sims look better not on small laptop screen, but at least on 19'' monitor. Mine is 23'' 1080p one and I feel closer to my sims.

P.S. Most of my world edges are already covered with thousands of weeds and trees but I see no performance issues.

Leaving loading items apart, make sure to also check the routing lines in this area. So many plants together can create isolated routing clusters, which are a cause of lag, make sure all the lines are connected

I`ve red that "not connected lines" is jus visual thing and has no impact on routing. I tried my world and sims don`t get stuck yet, except they go where I don`t want them to go since I still haven`t painted unroutable paint, but I`ll definetely check if routing goes well after i finish.

And sims won`t be going there, it`s just world edges.

I finally finished the most annoyng, hardest and most boring part of my project. I completed decorating world edges. Density of trees on distant terrain is not perfect, becouse it is very hard to move trees out of borders. I attached some screenshots and world itself if someone wants to take a look. World is still empty.