Help With Terrain?

[LlamaMama]

I want to move the large dump lot to Sunset Valley, and I found a nice location for the lot. Sunset Valley is full of gently rolling hills, so it's hard to place a flat lot there.

Here's the original lot:


Here's the dump placed there:


And here's the best I could do to give sims access:


The lower opening in the fence is the only place it comes close to the street elevation for access. How can I avoid the sheared edges? I've tried to raise the elevation around the edges, but it comes out sloppy and gray. Should I have prepared the lot before placing the dump? How can I go about making this blend in better?

[Pam]

I ran into the very same problem when I tried to move any of the new Ambitions lots around Sunset Valley.  I came to the conclusion that the reason EA placed them where they did is because those are the flattest lots in Sunset Valley.  It seems to me that we'd need the ability to change the terrain on the lots adjacent to the target lot to make the edges smooth and flat.  It may be possible by using Edit Town and changing the slope of the adjacent lots so that they are flat on the side that touches the target lot, but I don't know enough about all of that to say for sure.

[LlamaMama]

I was wondering the same thing, regarding access to neighboring lots for smoothing. I'm not going to use the 3rd photo's configuration. The second one still gives access without the extreme edges, but if there's a way to make it nicer, I'd love to know about it.

[Twinmum]

What if you placed a lot that is bigger than the junkyard, then while it is empty, smooth the terrain around the edges to match the neighboring lots, then place the junkyard?
Norma

[LlamaMama]

Is there a lot bigger than 64x64? That's the size lot I created for placement of the 60x60 junkyard.

[Twinmum]

Oh, probably not lol. I wasn't thinking straight about sizes. Well it was a good idea in theory  

Norma

[Joria]

You know the thing where folks were building houses on slopes?  They put foundations in part of it.  I wonder if you could do that to "level" out some of the land?  Not sure it would work for something like the junkyard, (I haven't been able to find a 60X60 junkyard!), but it might be worth a try.

[LlamaMama]

It's the Bayless junkyard from Twinbrook.

[LlamaMama]

I'll try your suggestion, thank you!

[LlamaMama]

I might be doing it wrong, but it didn't work for me. Once I designated the lot type, I did testingcheatsenabled true, then ConstrainFloorElevation false, then placed the Bayless Junkyard onto the lot. The configuration was the same as in the second photo. For the heck of it, I entered buy/build mode at that point and tried it from there, but the lot didn't change. If there's another way to do it, I'd be happy to try.

[Joria]

I've been using the terrain tool a lot.  I do get the ugly sheared cliff effect but I just disguise it, or hide it, with vegetation.  Here is what I'm playing with in Twinbrook near the amphitheater.




The above image shows trees placed halfway up the cliff.  To further hide the cliff I'll move trees down under the highest one and then shrubs in front of that.  The trees shown are just temporary to give you an idea of what I mean.  I normally would have the entire thing hidden by vegetation.



The stairs go from the higher level to mid-level to ground level.  Sims can easily access the highest levels this way but it took a lot of finagling to get the first level of stairs accessible.  I had to start to flatten out the top first, then add stairs, then back to terrain tool, then stairs, back and forth with trial and error till I got it so ground level met smoothly and could be accessible to Sims.  I'd probably pull back the ground to the left making it a parking lot.

[LlamaMama]

Great suggestions! You're a lot more skilled and ambitious than I am.