Tutorial: Apartment Building

[Andrew]

Scroll down for the Tutorial or use this link.

Sims 3 - How To: Create Apartments (Tips)
https://www.carls-sims-4-guide.com/forum/index.php?topic=31745.msg505891#msg505891


How would one go about building apartments? I have I feeling it is a very complicated process. I imagine you would need to use buydebug to define certain rooms. Any ideas?

[TGBlank]

Apartments are like normal lots, with some extra bits. If you've ever built a WA tomb, it's similar.

There's a few things that are special: the public room marker is used on parts like the lobby so everything in that area doesn't count for lot price (and can't be edited normally on build/buy mode), the hidden room marker  is used to make rooms black and hide them, the doors of your neighboors have been set as "NPC" doors through testingcheatsenabled and shift-clicking. Finally, there's the call-box and the trash chute, they're not available even with buydebug, so you have to either use a mod or start from an existing apartment and avoid deleting those.

For doors to be set as npc doors, they need to lead to an enclosed public area btw. You can also set neighboor sound to them (pick the nearest to the playable apartment and set it in that one). The call-box needs to be in a public area or outside to work as intended.

As for the shell buildings themselves, they're not directly available, so you'll have to start from an existing building or use a mod.

EDIT: forgot to add, you may find the "rbbb off" cheat useful for editing public areas.

[MLBerry]

What is the "rbbb off" cheat?  And I am sure I have seen the laundry chute somewhere.  Also is there a tutorial anywhere that will walk us through this step by step?

[Joria]

Apartments are like normal lots, with some extra bits. If you've ever built a WA tomb, it's similar.

As for the shell buildings themselves, they're not directly available, so you'll have to start from an existing building or use a mod.

EDIT: forgot to add, you may find the "rbbb off" cheat useful for editing public areas.

1.  Sounds like somebody, (you), need to write a tutorial on apartment building.  (please?)

2. Shell buildings can be obtained in buydebug in the miscellaneous section.

rbbb off is restrictbuildbuyinbuilding on/off   This is case sensitive and I'm not sure I have it typed correctly but by playing with caps for first letters of words and adding spaces you'd soon figure it out.

[Jonna]

I made one apartment a few weeks ago, it was easier than I'd anticipated.  The idea was that the bottom floor is a "store" (I made a laundromat and placed a Public Space marker in it at the end) and that there are apartments available on the upper floors.  So I made a rear entrance to the bottom floor, a little room that I designated the lobby, with a callbox and elevator.  The elevator goes up a floor, to a hallway with two doors, one to the real apt, and one to the hidden apt.  You could always create more apartments to be hidden, just depends on how you want to design the building.  So anyway.  Place the walls you want first, then add the markers at the very end.  My building had the hidden apt at the very front of the building (so theoretically, the NPC who "lives" there would have windows facing the street), whereas the real apt, the one that sims can actually move into, has windows facing the ocean.  I made the apt three stories tall, and made a flat roof so I could have a "common" area.  I threw up a fence around the roof for safety (not that sims would actually fall off, thankfully), and added a hot tub, dance floor, buffet, etc until I was finished and I added a public space marker to the area.  Oh, to the ground floor, I added some dirt so that the sims could garden.  I was worried that I wouldn't be able to alter the area because it was "outside my unit" but thankfully, when I play-tested, the game let me garden there.

You'll have to play a little bit with the cheats (I only needed to use testingcheatsenabled and rbbb which stands for something like restrictbuildbuyinbuildings - I never get it right, I always have to check the cheats window - type in Help), but it's not hard to get the hang of.

[Jonna]

Here we go.  Hope this helps those who are interested in building apartments...:

First pick a lot.  I've chosen the lot in Sunset Valley next to Jared and Connor Frio.  You need to decide pretty early on how many stories you want your apartment, how nice you want it to be, and how many amenities you wish to offer the residents.



So the first thing I decide is that I want my building to have a garage, so that's what I build first, although that's really not necessary.  I also build the ground floor of the building.  It's not necessary to do it like I did, you can make the lobby area as big or as small as you'd like.  You can certainly decorate it, add a restroom, laundromat, etc.  The elevator is important, though!  Your sims need to be able to go upstairs to reach their home.  I also left space in the back for a yard.



So now I'm going to figure out how tall I want my building, how big I want the actual apartment vs. how much space the NPC apartment (or apartments) gets.  I decide that the apartment itself will cover two stories, and the roof will be a common area.  So I put down floors, then put up walls and figure out where the inside walls go.  I decide on a small hallway by the elevator on the second floor and then add two doors, one for my apartment, and one for the NPC apartment (shift+click on the NPC door, then click on Set as NPC to make an NPC live there).



Add the third story, put in some walls, windows, and doors (doors not shown), along with elevator shaft:


Then I'm ready for the rooftop area.  I put down the floor, add the walls for the elevator, add the elevator, fence it in, and voila!  Ready for Buy Mode.


Well, except for things like paint on the walls and different types of flooring.  Right now, everything is white tile!

Also, please note that at this time, I haven't used a single cheat.

[Jonna]

So now we have the basic outline of our new apartment.  Time to make it become functional!  And look pretty, except I'm not much of a decorator (or even builder, as far as that goes), so you'll just have to suffer with some boring screen shots.

Here I've thrown some items on the roof, you can choose whatever items you'd like.  Later we will make this a public space.  You can even add a hot tub, just make sure that you place it over your NPC neighbor's apartment, so your sims don't have to suffer with the bottom of it protruding on their living quarters!  NPCs don't complain about things like that.



So here we've got the third floor of the building.  I've added some furniture.



And then the second floor, where I've added very little and you're just going to have to use your imagination.



So then let's go ahead and add the backyard to the ground floor.  I've dedicated a patch of it to a garden.



Once you've placed everything you want your building to have (don't forget lights!), you're ready to start using building cheats.  Ctrl+Shift+C > testingcheatsenabled true and buydebug.

I want to place some plants in the garden, so I'll go ahead and do so:


Next we shall cover placing Room Markers!

[Jonna]

We're at the point where we've almost finished our apartment and we just need to add our room markers!  (Have I mentioned that you need to be finished making your building look how you want?  That includes adding windows to the NPC's apartment so that the building doesn't look strange with only half of it being windowed!)  It's fun to watch the price of your apartment go down with every marker you place.  Let's go to buydebug, which is in Buy Mode > Sort by Function > ?.  Go to the last tab called Misc. Objects, and scroll down until you see the orb called Hidden Room Marker.  Place this marker in every room that your sims will not be using - basically, the places where the NPC will be "living."

So I'm adding the marker to the second and third floors.  Once we get into Live Mode, these rooms will be blacked out.  I try to add the marker to the part of the room that is farthest away from the real apartment, because I've had trouble earlier with the marker affecting Buy and Build modes (that is to say, if it's too close, it might tell you that you can't change something in your apartment because it's outside your unit, even though it's really not).





Now it's time for the Public Space Marker.  This orb is in the same tab as the Hidden Room Marker, keep scrolling down until you find it.  This marker is for all the rooms that you want your sims to be able to use, but not own any of the objects.  For this particular building, this means the lobby, the second floor hallway by the elevator, the garage, the roof, and the yard.







So that's pretty much it!  If you realize that you've forgotten to do something once you've got your markers placed, input restrictbuildbuyinbuildings off into your cheats window, and fix what you need to, then you can turn it back on when you've finished.

Stay tuned for a couple more screen shots of the apartment in action.

[Jonna]

Now we're living!  Here you can see that the garden is fully functional (meaning you can plant on the ground!  No getting denied because it's outside your unit!).



We can also place a car down in the garage, in case you were worried.  Also, you can find either callbox in Buy Mode > Sort by Function > Electronics > Miscellaneous Electronics:



And here you can see that our Hidden Room Marker worked (not that you had doubts!):



So there you go!  Now have some fun making much nicer apartments than I!  This one only costs its inhabitants a cool $15,697 furnished (if you can even consider this furnished! lol), and $11,521 unfurnished.

[folcon]

Not bad.  I'm impressed.

[CharlotteDaBookworm]

The callboxes can also be found in the alarms section.

[RubyLovesSims]

That was really usful! I couldn't find  photos anywhere!

[MasterSiwel]

@Jonna The thing I like about those apartments is the spaciousness. Really I've had space issues with my last apartments. But for that one its big enough for changing around furniture.

[gerrr00]

Thank you Jonna, I love your tutorial.  I can't wait to try and build one now.  I didn't want to take the time to figure it out, so thank you, again, for all your work.    Maybe Carl can try to add this information to the guide in the building area.

[MasterSiwel]

Thank you Jonna, I love your tutorial.  I can't wait to try and build one now.  I didn't want to take the time to figure it out, so thank you, again, for all your work.    Maybe Carl can try to add this information to the guide in the building area.

I think we should have that as a tutorial. It was actually quite helpful!