Tutorial: Basements Under Foundations

[Twinmum]

So you want something under the house, without the garage doors but retaining the functionality of the cars that are there?

[LlamaMama]

Norma, thank you for wanting to help, but I don't want you to bother with looking up notes or going to any extra effort.

I hope to place it away from the house, like the garage at the bottom of the first photo and in the second photo, maybe at a right angle to the driveway leading up to it, so the garage doors are less visible from the front of the lot. At first I'd hoped to have grass cover the top, as you'd described covering up the stairs hole in the house, but it seems like since I'm not building an actual basement, I'd need a roof.

I've been watching videos that dimple the ground, then level it, to make the progressively lower ground level. Some videos show the use of stairs in some incomprehensible way to create a slope then they delete the stairs. I'll fiddle with it and holler if I hit a big hitch. Thanks again!

[Twinmum]

Norma, thank you for wanting to help, but I don't want you to bother with looking up notes or going to any extra effort.

Actually, I'm having fun. Building is one of the things I have loved doing since the original Sims came out. I enjoy trying to do things just a little bit different from the norm. You have me intrigued about this dimpling of the ground. Did they use any cheats to create it?
Anyway, I'm still going to have a play with the whole idea and if I have any breakthroughs, I'll give a yell 

[LlamaMama]

Here's what I came up with, bearing in mind I've tried my hand at building for exactly 2 days now. I don't know if I'm allowed to link to the video that showed me how to create a slope using steps, so I won't for now. I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with, Norma!

[edit: I forgot to test it out with a car, to see if it's actually usable! Cross your fingers!
another edit: It didn't work. But after I changed the driveway to asphalt, it worked fine. It's not as pretty, but I was at least able to use brown not black asphalt. It's past bedtime, or I'd re-take the screenshots.

I tried to make the garage blend in with the surroundings as much as possible, with variations in color due to difference in materials used.

The garage is to the left of the house:




To show the slope (steep, to save space):


I couldn't get the top edge of the foundation surrounding the garage painted, so to distract from the bright white, I decided to place a fence over the edges and use the ground level space as a deck, just the right size for that fun new outdoor game.

[Twinmum]

[edit: I forgot to test it out with a car, to see if it's actually usable! Cross your fingers!
another edit: It didn't work. But after I changed the driveway to asphalt, it worked fine. It's not as pretty, but I was at least able to use brown not black asphalt. It's past bedtime, or I'd re-take the screenshots.]

You've done well.
I'm surprised that changing the surface of the driveway would alter it working or not, they were both just terrain paints weren't they?

[LlamaMama]

No, the asphalt was tiles.

OK, I know what happened. It did, in fact, work as originally made! The first time I tested it my sim had her toddler with her, so she called a cab. I thought that was because she couldn't get her car out. Ugh!

[Decima]

Help!

I've used this method before, but I did it before building the rest of the building around it, this time I did the building first, and now trying to put stairs through a foundation to a basement. I got the stairs to the basement ok, but the (in theory easier) part of putting the stairs from the top of the foundation to the ground won't work. It says 'place on floor' or something similar.

Here's a screenshot -



As you can see, I've tried deleting the foundation out towards the edge of the building, I've experimented with deleting parts of the foundation around where I want the stairs to go, but nothing will let the stairs click into place. 

Any other ideas?

Edit: eek, I seem to have posted in the wrong place, I thought I was posting in the sticky topic about this. D'oh.

[nicstriumph]

YAY! I've been battling with this! Thank you Norma for this tutorial! All this helpful information on the forum will make a builder out of me yet

[Lilygirl]

(...) It says 'place on floor' or something similar.

Here's a screenshot -

Decima, if you're still having problems with this try covering the ground with floor tiles. My game never allows me to place stairs down onto the grass when it's within walls like in your picture. Something about it being indoors or something is my guess. The floor tiles can be deleted after the stairs are placed.


@ Twinmun: There is a thread somewhere (I'll see if I can find it and attach a link for you) where it shows - I think I did the pictures - that you can place stairs from a foundation down into the basement in one piece by holding down the 'Shift' key while placing the stairs. I haven't done it since then so I don't know if a patch has changed that.

[Decima]

Thanks, I'll give it a go! 

[Sita]

Something else that can help with Decima's issue is to alter the height of the terrain - you've put a basement beneath there, so you cannot make it lower, but you can raise it just one or two clicks and then can place the stairs.

[fivine]

That's quite a necrology!
Well i was happy to read all that again anyway.

I want to add on this topic that i stopped some times ago to build this kind of underground garage because they sadly always get flooded! (On the  lots near water). But i t s nice to experiment it at least once.

[Sita]

Sorry for the late reply. I thought it might be useful to someone who does still build in S3, like me.

[folcon]

Will this work with elevators too?