These are very cute homes I love the colors and the basements,great work and thanks for sharing!

Great to see progress has been made on this. Hope you get lots of testers - can't play myself until I get a new graphics card.

Does anyone know whether this is the first no-slope basement upload? I know that V1IND1CARE has a "cave" upload, but I haven't been able to find any other no-slope basements, using either the original in-game technique or my simpler out-of-game technique.

This lot may end up being a test for both no-slope basements and for my new program, which allows new levels to be added to a lot.

aelflaed, I'm going to miss having you as a tester; you've always been good at finding problems. I hope that you get your new video card soon.

Wow these look great Are they exactly the same as the Maxis ones but with a basement? Anyways, i'll take it, and report back if there's any issues You're a star! Or, a rising star anyway

These downloads *are* the Maxis lot. I did not rebuild the existing lot. Instead, I used a new program to wedge a new level between the existing foundations and the rest of the buildings. Then, I used the TS2GridAdjuster to push the existing foundations underground, so that the new level became four separate no-slope basements. Added some walls, wallpaper, floor tiles, stairs and railings for the new basements. No other change has been made to the lot.

The entire procedure is documented here:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthre...160#post2187160

I should probably have taken pictures during the process, so that people could see just how simple this will be when the program is released.

I haven't seen any other no-slope basements anywhere, so far -- this might very well be the first one. Way to go! I wish I could test this, but I don't have AL. I'm looking forward to trying out the technique you describe -- it sounds incredibly simple indeed.

Have you been able to notice a difference between the way lot impostors look with non-sloped vs. sloped basements? I'm secretly hoping that no slope might also eliminate the horrible bomb crater appearance of lots with traditional basements.

So far, the simplified method for creating no-slope basements only works for Apartment Life or later. TS2GridAdjuster just changes the grid elevations, so it's clear that's not enough to get this style of basement to work with the earlier EPs. I've been hoping that someone would post a no-slope basement created using the original method with Open for Business, so that I could try to determine what else needs to change.

How about if I post a couple of pictures of this lot in the hood view, so that you can examine them? I tried adding a sloped basement to this lot for comparison purposes, but it was more difficult than I expected, because of the small buildings and existing furnishings. However, I'm willing to try again if you want to see the lot impostors.

Alternatively, you can use the simplified method on any lot, even base-game lots, as long as you don't care that the basement is ultimately unusable. Still, it would give you a lot that you could play around with, creating both sloped and no-slope basements and comparing the lot imposters from every angle. I'll post the most recent LevelAdder program in the private "dangerous" testing forum, so that you can fool around with it as much as you'd like. [Update: done]

May 15, 2009: Problem fixed. I am leaving this post for documentation only. Again, this problem no longer exists.

1) In the 8-click high and 10-click high foundations (8-click and 6-click underground), furniture once placed can be difficult to pick up again. This is not true with the 4-click high and 6-click high foundations (12-click and 10-click underground). Higher furniture can be picked up near the top, but lower furniture may be impossible to grab.

TBD:
- Is this a problem with the original no-slope basement method, the simplified basement method, or the level adding method? [Problem exists with simplified method; unsure about original method]
- Can this problem be fixed by moving the basement further underground? [Won't work for apartments, because they require 1-piece stairs]
- Can this problem be fixed by moving the pond water further underground? [No; moving the water level to -3.5 (-24 clicks) did not alter the ability to pick up low furniture.]

Hi Mootilda! I have tested the lot and found a problem. The floor is "eating" the furniture. I´m adding a picture to better explain.

I'm seeing the same thing as Freja. This floor is in the middair in the basemement. It can't be deleted or recolored to something invisible. Like it is a visual thing and not something real. It looks like the naked floor of the foundation. I have Radiance lightning in my game and this floor is pitch black. Can't be lit with anything. Though walls and objects in the room do get lit.

Hmmm... that's very different than what I see in my game. I wonder how I can reproduce your results? Did either of you do anything to the lot, other than take it out of the lot bin and place it into the neighborhood? Are you both using the Residential version of the lot?

Is the invisible tile correctly installed? Do you have custom content enabled? Can you see the invisible tile in your build catalog, under "tile"? If you place an invisible tile on the ground level of the lot, do you see the sky underneath? Do either of you have anything else in your downloads folder which might be conflicting with the invisible tile?

Freja, do you also have Radiance lighting or other hacks in your game?

Blackcat007, does the problem go away in a vanilla game with no hacks?

[Update:]

I confirmed that I can reproduce your problem by removing my downloads folder. I believe that you do not have the invisible tile installed correctly.

I was originally thrown off by the type of tile in the picture, expecting the tile to fallback to a standard ground level grass tile. Instead, what we see in your picture is the fallback floor tile for the invisible tile at the ground level of the lot.

The invisible tile is absolutely required for these no-slope basements.

shouldn't the ceilings be viewable in all 4 basements? i cant zoom in enough to view them in the green, white basements but i can in blue an red

If you want to change your ability to zoom the camera in-game, you'll need to download a different camera file. Since I don't usually try to view the ceilings, I don't have any suggestions. Perhaps someone else here has a suggestion?

Sorry Mootilda, I didn´t understand that I needed the invisible tile. Mystery solved! I´m reloading my game and reporting back to you.

I have playtested the lot. It works perfectly now. Thanks!
Btw the lot to the far left doesn´t let the sunlight in when windows are placed. It is probably too shallow.

Not a problem, I'm glad that it wasn't an issue with the lot itself.

I'll try to make this requirement clearer in the original post. There's a lot of text to read and they wouldn't accept the upload unless I also included some cutesy text to describe the lot itself, making it even more unwieldy.

I can at least reassure you that this isn't an issue produced by the LevelAdder. I have the same issue in an 8-click basement I made with just the GridAdjuster. That lot was built from scratch. Unfortunately, in my game I found that even sofas and tables were too low to grab, making this type of basement untenable.

Since I dislike dark basements even more than ugly slopes, I'm continuing my experiments to see if there's a way around this.

Yes, I just finished that test myself. I didn't see your post until after I ran the test.

Next, I'm going to see whether this issue is occurring because of the distance under the ground or the distance below 0 (usually the elevation of the road).

Have you tried the original in-game basement method?

[Update:]

Moving the ground down slightly and then building the basement allowed me to pick up objects on the floor, but windows wouldn't let the light in. So, this doesn't seem like a solution.

Then, I tried moving the ground up slightly and then building the basement. This allowed me to pick up objects on the floor and the windows let the light in. I've attached a picture with a -8-click basement with the ground up 2 clicks. If you can handle a slight slope between the road and the house, this seems like a solution.

With the ground up 2 clicks and a -6-click basement, I found that things very close to the ground were difficult to pick up. It helped if I zoomed the camera in close to the object.

With the ground up 4 clicks and a -6-click basement, I was able to pick up objects close to the ground and the light came in the windows.

My current theory is that it's difficult to pick up objects which are "too close" to the invisible tiles at the ground level. If this is true, then the problem may have nothing to do with either of my programs. My guess is that 8-clicks or less between the invisible tile and the object under it is "too close", but 10-clicks is fine.

The next thing that I'm going to try is to move the ground level up or down inside of the basement, while maintaining a 0-elevation terrain outside of the basement.

[Another update:]

That seemed to work well. For this lot, I used the TS2GridAdjuster to set:

Level 0 (ground level)
Depth 16 - 27 (just inside the basement walls)
Width 17 - 20 Flat Elevation 2 (basement floor is at -8)
Width 23 - 26 Flat Elevation 4 (basement floor is at -6)

This raises the invisible tiles to 10 clicks above the basement floor, except at the very edge of the wall.

I haven't tried moving the ground down under the basement floor, but that might be another option. In fact, that may be a solution to no-slope basements in the base game.

I'm going to try moving the ground underneath the basement, and then package up one of these solutions and replace the existing download, to see whether anyone reports any other problems.

I have uploaded a new version of both the Residential and Apartment copies of this lot. Version 2 has a fix for the problem where some objects were difficult to grab in some of the basements.

Please download the new version and do all further testing with this fix.

To fix the two higher basements, I raised the ground level inside of the basements by 2 clicks (for the -8 click basement) and 4 clicks (for the -6 click basement).

It's interesting that light comes into the basements depending on their relative elevation with respect to the sidewalk, and not the ground immediately around the walls! In principle, I guess you could build a day-lit cave by raising the ground around a six-click basement.



This is the tack I was on myself, before I read your post. I figured it was probably the invisible tiles getting in my way, but I don't really understand what you mean about incompatibility with earlier EPs. I don't have a basegame installation, but I do have a game in OS X which has BV as the latest EP. No-slope basements seem to work there about as well as they do in AL. Is there something I'm missing?

I believe that having the ground outside the basement "low enough" is also a requirement for daylight basements; if the window looks out underground, the light may not come in. Yet another test that needs to be done. V1IND1CARE's cave might be a good test for that one, since the main floor is above 0 elevation, but below the ground.

It's quite possible that compatibility is not just determined by EPs, but also by the elevation difference between the invisible floor tile and the basement floor. I'll have to do more testing; I did my initial EP tests with aelflaed's lot, which I believe had a -10 basement. However, I definitely couldn't fix her base-game lot by raising the terrain inside the basement, as I did with Bella's Belles.

Back when I experimented with that (in the Nightlife era I believe), I found that it depends on the elevation relative to street level -- the ground around the basement didn't seem to play a role. I tested with a couple of downwards- and upwards-sloped lots, building small "test basements" in various spots. My conclusion was: for the light to come in through windows, the floor of the basement must be 10 clicks below street level or less; for the light to come in through glass *doors*, it must be 9 or less.

I wrote up a little something called "Observations on basements" way back when .. here's the thread: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=113189
Of course, back then nobody knew about the possibility to move the ground above the basement ground level -- that may or may not play an additional part when it comes to lighting.

It might also be worth looking at the window portals to shed some light on it; they're defined in (AppFiles) TSData / Res / Lights / windows. But I can't see anything in there that I can relate to elevation in any way. The actual light (colour and intensity) that is used for windows is always the "skylight" as defined in (AppFiles) TSData / Res / Lights / Lighting.txt.

Mootilda -- having non-sloped basements is pretty exciting. One problem I encountered though (with the residential version) is that no light came in anywhere and it was completely dark -- not just the basement but the upper floors as well. Adding some lights didn't make any difference -- the only way I could illuminate the rooms was to remove one tile's worth of wall. I'm using Gunmod's lighting system by the way.

eta: Also, I did install the invisible tile.

I haven't seen this problem. The only lighting problem that I know of is that light will not come through windows into the two lower basements. This is a known issue with the in-game lighting.

Perhaps no-slope basements are not compatible wtih Gunmod's lighting system. Would something odd happen with his lighting system if the first floor is upside-down and below ground-level? Have you tried removing the lighting system to see whether that fixes the problem?

Is this what you're using?
http://www.modthesims2.com/download.php?t=290746

Has anyone else used this lot successfully with Gunmod's lighting?

Yes, that's the version I'm using. Rather than uninstall Gunmod, I think I'll wait to see if anyone answers your question.