I have the castle kit. Now, how do I build a decent castle?

[Ambiesboy]

The "walls" are actually under the column tab. Because of this the walls are difficult to contruct. You have to do piece by piece, PLUS because they can't sit next to eachother without a gap you need to use a cheat to make them connect. (moveobjects on) Anyways, how would I do the roof, as you can only do roof's with actual walls?

For that matter, what's the best way to build a castle using this kit. I've seen a couple youtube videos that display a castle but doesn't show how to make them..

Here's a nice one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PELZPa9bBj8
He has a link to a tutorial but it's not a very good tutorial..

My wish is to become good at building in general (with castle's or not) I would love to build a Castlevania inspired Dracula's Castle.
I'd also like to make beautiful mansions just like the one's I see in video's. People are so talented at the construction in this game, I want to be able to do this as well. Any suggestions at all would be great. Thanks.


Here's a picture of my starting castle. I'm hoping i'll be able to do this on a bigger scale.

Ground floor so far: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v129/sith_slayer/Screenshot.jpg
Side view of bridge: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v129/sith_slayer/Screenshot-2.jpg
Outside complete (no furnish) http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v129/sith_slayer/Screenshot-3.jpg
Top view complete (no furnish) http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v129/sith_slayer/Screenshot-4.jpg


Any suggestions or addition's I could make to this?

[Pam]

Have you seen the building section on the Guide?  That would be a good place to start.

[gerrr00]

I really like your castle.  I also bought the castle kit but have given up.  For me, building a castle is extremely hard and I do not have the patience.

For a roof on the castle, I believe all you can do is put flooring on the next level up.  Giving it the look of a flat roof.

The link Pam gave is really helpful for building.  I am still on the small houses.  I am not a master builder and do not plan on building a mansion, ever.  But the guide article gives some really good tips.  Have fun and good luck. 

[Hosfac]

I, too, bought the castle kit, but I have yet to do anything with it so far.  My original intent was to use it for my Immortal Dynasty challenge, but I had to nix that idea after I found out it required cheats to actually use.  While I was rather disappointed with this, I still like the concept.

Maybe I'll play around with it some to see what I can come up with.

Edit:  I spent a few hours playing around with it on a 60x60 lot.  And I've come to the following conclusions:

• Castle building is a lot of work.  And when I say "a lot," I mean a lot.  It's an unbelievably, painstakingly involved process that requires a high endurance and the patience of a saint.  This is not something for attendees of the "Short Attention Span Theatre."
• For you to have any manner of a playable house, you will absolutely have to use standard building techniques in conjunction with this kit.  As the pieces are pillars, the "walls cut away" option has no effect on them.  It was definitely not intended to be a stand alone.
• Building a castle on any significant scale will require a horrendous amount of money.  On the bright side:  Simoleans do grow on trees.
• Despite all this, the effect is rather dramatic.

Here's what I came up with:



And to give you an idea of just how expensive this process is:  this lot is now worth $106,338...and it's just the outer wall.

[Pam]

@Ambiesboy:

The pictures work better if you use the image code from Photobucket.  We also have a Gallery that members are welcome to use free of charge for Sims 3 images.

[Ambiesboy]

@Ambiesboy:

The pictures work better if you use the image code from Photobucket.  We also have a Gallery that members are welcome to use free of charge for Sims 3 images.

Thank you Pam, I'm still new to this site. I haven't fully explored the forum's features yet.

[Ambiesboy]

Hosfac (sorry if I mispelled) I like that design. It actually looks better then mine. Mine is kind of cluttered and bunched together. I have no idea how mine could properly be lived in. I really don't.

[Hosfac]

Like I said, I'm relatively certain that this kit wasn't intended for stand alone use.  The real trick to making such a home livable is to combine this kit with standard building techniques.

In my picture above, I only used it to design the curtain wall of what would become a castle.  If I had decided to continue with that particular lot, I would have built the keep using standard walls, and more than likely incorporated several different structures.  Once this was at least partially built (if not completely finished), I would have continued to use the kit pieces for decorating by finishing off the flat roof of the main building with parapets, adding a few towers to it and possibly even increasing the height of the curtain wall and making a multi-tiered battlement.

What I choose to do instead was to actually create a sim, move in a few townies, and started building a livable castle.  I picked the same lot, but changed the design of the curtain wall to include a gatehouse and several postern to allow access to the larger areas of the moat I created in the corners of the lot .  And I figured out a couple of things:

The first thing I noticed is that it's much easier to build a castle on a large lot.  The larger, the better.  I used my favorite 60x60 lot in Sunset Valley, but Riverview and Barnacle Bay both have these sized lots.  Twinbrook and Bridgeport are lacking in lots this sized, so you could run into some difficulty using it there.  But it's entirely possible if you can think of a way to scale it down.

Another thing I've learned is that the texture on the kit can actually be copied and applied to a normal wall covering in order to give the keep itself the appearance of being of constructed of the same material as the curtain wall.  Likewise, the texture can be changed to something else, for example:  wood planks, in order to simulate a palisade (a wooden curtain wall).

Also if you turn moveObjects off after the wall is placed, you can fill in the moat so it goes right up to the wall.  Afterward, you can use the soften terrain tool to give it a more natural look.

And finally, placing the kit pieces at an angle, especially the doors, is somewhat tricky.  There ends up being a great deal of overlap that causes some texture shifting as you move the camera past it.  I learned that the best technique is to place the door first and fill in the area around it.

Another idea I will be experimenting with will be stocking the moat with crocodiles and piranha.  That should help keep those pesky paparazzi away!    Actually, it's more to satisfy my personal taste in aesthetics.  I've designed the entryway to allow for an electronic gate to handle those guys, although it's not in place just yet.

Once I've built something substantial, I'll post some pictures so you can see what I'm talking about.

[Ambiesboy]

I tried to copy the texture color from the castle walls to the plain walls but they come out looking different. And great, can't way to see, thanks!

[Hosfac]

I tried to copy the texture color from the castle walls to the plain walls but they come out looking different. And great, can't way to see, thanks!

When you copy the texture, put it on any of the ones called "Flat Wall," since those don't have patterns that it forces the texture into (like most paneling and tile walls do).  Even the flat wall coverings with baseboard and crown molding look good if you copy the texture to all 3 spots.  There is also one called "Mottled Dirt Wall" that doesn't have any moldings.  While these pictures are not from my castle household, I used the texture on the outside of the crypt that I placed on (or under) Ophelia's Fishing Hole for my Immortal Dynasty:




As you can see, it's just a standard building.  I used the Mottled Dirt Wall finish that I applied the texture from one of the kit pieces (using the square along the edge of the Create-A-Style panel)  Along the top, I edged the roof with the Monorail Fencing and used the texture on the the rail part of fence.  For the posts, I used a standard concrete texture, and copied only the color (the circle part in the Create-A-Style) to the texture to make it match.  The door is the Tomb Passage Deluxe that came with World Adventures that I recolored in the same way I did the posts.

[Ambiesboy]

When you copy the texture, put it on any of the ones called "Flat Wall," since those don't have patterns that it forces the texture into (like most paneling and tile walls do).  Even the flat wall coverings with baseboard and crown molding look good if you copy the texture to all 3 spots.  There is also one called "Mottled Dirt Wall" that doesn't have any moldings.  While these pictures are not from my castle household, I used the texture on the outside of the crypt that I placed on (or under) Ophelia's Fishing Hole for my Immortal Dynasty:




As you can see, it's just a standard building.  I used the Mottled Dirt Wall finish that I applied the texture from one of the kit pieces (using the square along the edge of the Create-A-Style panel)  Along the top, I edged the roof with the Monorail Fencing and used the texture on the the rail part of fence.  For the posts, I used a standard concrete texture, and copied only the color (the circle part in the Create-A-Style) to the texture to make it match.  The door is the Tomb Passage Deluxe that came with World Adventures that I recolored in the same way I did the posts.

Sorry i'm still new to this game, I don't really understand what you mean by "flat wall." :/

[danefaith]

Go to build mode, and go to the wall covering section.  Choose the "paint" styles and scroll to the bottom.  Choose the white, textureless one.  It'll be called, "flat wall."



But wait a sec, how do we make a brick wall from a wall covering we got from the paint section?  By applying a brick texture from Create a Style.

The trick to good wall covering is pairing up the "covering" styles and the "texture" styles.  The covering styles are essentially the framework of the wall, while the textures are the intricate details, designs, and colors of the wall.  Picking the right pairs between the two can give you a plethora of styles that can't be accomplished relying on just one on its own.



Here you see four wall coverings.  Number one is the flat wall with a paint texture.  Number two is a flat wall with a brick texture, which looks like a perfectly natural brick wall.  Since flat wall is essentially the "no framework" covering, the texture is doing all the work.

However, number three is actually the brick wall "covering", with the previous brick texture, and we can both agree it looks incredibly silly.  The covering style and texture style are counterproductive to one another here.  Consequently, the fourth wall, which is the brick wall covering with the paint texture from number one looks a bit better.

In your instance, you want to use the flat wall covering to create a "no framework" situation, so that your castle texture can shine out.  There's a lot of playing around to do in order to master wall coverings, but hey, that's learning as you go for ya.