Game objects that I can't find.

[Seabody]

I had read somewhere that there is allegedly a way to get the food trucks without using mods, but anyone I've ever known who has tried it has not been successful.

Placing a lot with a food truck spot on it down, bulldozing everything on the lot (bar the parking space), rezone it and build should work.

@ladydragon76 Try googling floor plans. ←That link takes you to google images results. They can be hard to understand, however. Split everything up into sim area. eg if there is a loveseat, that is 2 simsquares, so use that to reference to find area. PM me if you need me to explain more.

[ladydragon76]

  I've been using dreamhomesource.com for floorplans thus far.  I've found a few others too today based on suggestions and search ideas.  I figure that say a room is 10x12, that would go to 5x6 Sim squares. Thus far it's been working pretty well, though the more sprawling house plans get a little ridiculous in Sim size, but I just adjust from there.  Now I need to work on learning style, and working out colors, and researching interior design.  These are all places where my natural talents do NOT lie. LOL.  It's a learning experience, and I'm having a blast with it.  I'm seriously in awe of many of the creations I've seen here.  I think I need to get braver with the place friezes and constrainfloorlevel cheats.  I've hardly touched on those.

*oops!Edited to add:* That's a good idea about deleting everything except those picnic spots.  I know I can move them and eyedropper them ON the lot, I just can't place them on my own.   

[BellaClo]

Ladydragon76, I've found just a post on the official CAW forum explaining how to have access to the 'special' picnic spot for community lots without any 3rd party content. I thought you might be interested  . I haven't try this trick myself, but the explanations sound promising.

Here is the link: http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/358402.page

Since the forums are not always easy to access, and the post is not too long, I copy/paste it here:

I have found a way to place the invisible public picnic spot on a lot without using 3rd party software. I was unable to find a way to do it on the forums here or anywhere else so I think no one has thought of this before. It seems to work from my testing.

It's fairly simple 

1) Create a sim and move him into sunset valley. I called my sim picnic basket 

2) enter "testingcheatsenabled true" in the cheat console without the ""

3) enter "buydebug on" in the cheat console without the ""

4) use edit town to change the lot type of Central Park to residential

5) use familyfunds to give your sim enough simoleans to move into the Central Park residential lot and move the sim there.

6) once moved in you can enter buy mode and move the public picnic spots into family inventory

7) enter edit town and save a copy of your sim to the library. the public picnic spots remain in the family inventory.

When you want to create a lot with the public picnic spots you can first make it a residential lot and move your picnic basket sim in and place the invisble public picnic spots on the lot from the family inventory, then evict the sim, and change the lot to a community lot type.

(This was originally shared by Simlarr on EA forum/CAW section)

[ladydragon76]

Ooo!  Clever!  I will definitely try that and post if it works.  Thank you!

*hugz!*
-LD

[Hosfac]

That is rather ingenious.  And scarily enough, it sounds like it might even work lol. 

I wonder if you can put mailboxes in family inventory....

[ladydragon76]

@BellaClo who said:

Ladydragon76, I've found just a post on the official CAW forum explaining how to have access to the 'special' picnic spot for community lots without any 3rd party content. I thought you might be interested  Wink. I haven't try this trick myself, but the explanations sound promising.

Here is the link: http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/358402.page

Since the forums are not always easy to access, and the post is not too long, I copy/paste it here:
Quote
I have found a way to place the invisible public picnic spot on a lot without using 3rd party software. I was unable to find a way to do it on the forums here or anywhere else so I think no one has thought of this before. It seems to work from my testing.

It's fairly simple

1) Create a sim and move him into sunset valley. I called my sim picnic basket

2) enter "testingcheatsenabled true" in the cheat console without the ""

3) enter "buydebug on" in the cheat console without the ""

4) use edit town to change the lot type of Central Park to residential

5) use familyfunds to give your sim enough simoleans to move into the Central Park residential lot and move the sim there.

6) once moved in you can enter buy mode and move the public picnic spots into family inventory

7) enter edit town and save a copy of your sim to the library. the public picnic spots remain in the family inventory.

When you want to create a lot with the public picnic spots you can first make it a residential lot and move your picnic basket sim in and place the invisble public picnic spots on the lot from the family inventory, then evict the sim, and change the lot to a community lot type.
(This was originally shared by Simlarr on EA forum/CAW section)

I want to let everyone know IT WORKS!   

Thank you again BellaClo!

*hugz!*
-LD

[BellaClo]

This is very good news Ladydragon.

Thanks to you to have taken the job of fearless tester 

[ladydragon76]

LOL!     On the contrary, I really appreciate you finding that info.  I definitely wanted to add picnic spots to a couple of the ponds in Sima Sima, and just couldn't figure it out.  I'm getting Sooooooo close to done with this island it's making me itch. Just need to build enough houses, and do a few of the community lots.  Of course I keep thinking of new ideas to try, and things to do.  Maybe another month?  I can't wait to post it up for everyone to test out.

*hugz!*
-LD

[Anushka]

I'll thank both of you for finding the info and testing it i real game

Ladydragon, I've been working on tropical island too, only small flat map for Simstar, and I build everything on it. Still there is lot to do, but more than half buildings are done and all landscaping minus trees and spawners - it's a small map so there won't be many space for all. I opened the topic about building comunity lots for that same reason, ideas for custom lots and solutions for unique touches.  At the moment I'm collecting paintings (have more than 120 of them) for gallery and other lots, and will share the collection soon, as well as the island. I'm still not shore about residential lots as there is so many of them and it is hard to chose those who I like and those that fit the theme! Join us on that topic to share some nice ideas

[ladydragon76]

I posted about this on... uh, somewhere, I'll go look for the link.

But I discovered an issue today, I wonder if you're having it too?  In CAW my houses are how I want them, but then I export and patterns are changed, and the one house, a mansion worth 915k is completely mangled, most objects missing, and only worth about 120k.  Since it's all game and store items, I don't understand why it's doing this.  Have you had that happen?  Heard of it happening?  I know I'm still a total novice to this.

*hugz!*
-LD

[Anushka]

No, I haven't had something like that happening, but I haven't tried much with residential lots. Only issue I had is with harvestables missing (game move them into household inventory) and transforming them (deathflowers into deathflowers seeds). Not shore about patters eather, specially if you haven't uninstall any CC you used. Is furniture saved? Maybe all objects were removed in household inventory, or lot is saved in bin without furniture? Are patterns completely different or just in different color?
And I'm not that experienced in this too, but we are learning

[ladydragon76]

The only "custom content" I have would be patterns, ones I've made myself with the Pattern Maker EA gave us, and some I've downloaded here from the swap shop.  Here's the odd thing.  I can boot up the test game, demo the lot, replant the mansion from my bin, and everything is fine.  Likewise with the other lots.  However, that isn't going to help anyone that downloads the island once I have it's ready to share.  Not unless I figure this out.  I avoid 3rd party CC like the plague, so I am 100% sure that everything in that house is EA approved and made.  For all other lots, the patterns change seemingly at random.  They hold the basic color, but default to something else entirely.  I have a fabric, for example, on a set of lamps that defaults to a stone.  

And I saw about your fruit stand!  Ingenious idea!

edited to add the link to my topic

http://www.carls-sims-3-forum.com/index.php/topic,4347.msg86045.html#msg86045

[grimsoul]

On about the same subject as the picnic spots is I hadn't noticed until a couple days ago that's there two different picnic tables.

Awhile back I made a big park in the Riverview town I'm playing sense it don't have anything but the small parks around town. When I put in the picnic table I went to buy mode to place them. Later I got to noticing that the picnic tables I placed wasn't never being used even tho I had sims running around the park complaining about being hungry and was wonder way they didn't just use the tables I provided.

A couple days ago I was in build mode doing something and went under the community objects and notice that there is a community picnic table there I hadn't noticed before. I went back to my park and replaced the tables I had there with the community picnic tables and my sims are happily having picnics there now.

Just thought I might mention this in case there's other like me that don't do a lot of building on community lots and don't realize there are two different types of picnic tables. The one in buy mode you use at home and one in build mode for community lots.

[ladydragon76]

Ooo!  Really good point!  I stumbled across the community picnic tables, the grill, and the trash cans while digging for those picnic tables, but I didn't know about them before then either.

*hugz!*
-LD

[Anushka]

Well, I tried this but not shore what I did wrong. I used SV Central Park, change into residential lot, move in Sim, demolish everything but picnic baskets and blankets and create a large fishing spot. In live mode, picnic baskets were usable only once, and my neat Sim cleaned them right away, and no more have spawned. In build mode with buydebug empty blankets are there but no picnic. I also added comunity picnic tables, but no picnic is happening and it is very beautiful place to have a picnic.. Help!