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    3-Building a world Part 10-12 by Stw402

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    3-Building a world Part 10-12 by Stw402 Empty 3-Building a world Part 10-12 by Stw402

    Post  Archivist Wed Feb 08, 2012 5:20 am

    Archived from the original TS3CC
    Building a world Part 10-12 by Stw402


    3-Building a world Part 10-12 by Stw402 Stw40210


    Stw402 wrote:Guide 11

    I've moved this to a new post, due to the last thread getting rather full.
    You can find parts 1-6 here:-
    http://builders.forumotion.net/caw-101-f122/building-a-world-part-1-6-t1007.htm

    & parts 7-10 here:-
    http://builders.forumotion.net/caw-101-f122/building-a-world-part-7-10-t1060.htm

    Guide 11 & 12 are the final stages we will clear up all the loose ends in building a world, plus we will also have a look at Holiday Worlds, I understand this is a little out of the Caw range and not much to do with your world, but I wonted to cover some other aspects of world building.
    By the end of this part your world will be 95% complete

    Rebuild the routing data for your world

    Kicking of part 11 with something easy, to do this click on view and click rebuild routing data, between now and the end of part 12, I will probable remind you to do this several times, nothing wrong in the final stages, doing this a number of times, just to make sure that everything is in full working order.

    Come up with a memorable names and description for your world

    Did we not do this in part 1?

    Yes we did do this in part 1, but that was very long time ago and you will find that you might have added new idea's to your world. So there is nothing wrong with giving your world description that will be showcased in the final media of the world a little face lift.

    EXAMPLE

    My recent world had a very weak description, this was it's description at the start

    Story-time Write a story about the world
    Hope Island Resort on Hope Island is a picturesque development on the northern end of the Gold Coast. Hope Island has easy access to Coomera, Ephraim Island, Sovereign Island and Sanctuary Cove. It is located 35 minutes from Brisbane’s Central Business District, and 20 minutes from the famous and beautiful Gold Coat Beaches


    Now from this I made a new description that will be included in the final upload, this description as not been spell checked yet or tweaking I will do that just prior to release of the world:-

    Hope Island Resort on Hope Island is a picturesque development on the northern end of the Gold Coast.
    In 2012 hope Island broke away from the gold coast, and became to the locals the Exotic world.

    YEAR 2020

    The Coast area

    Here summers are warm, or even hot, with a three-month period when rain rarely falls. When it does rain in this season it is heavy and often associated with thunder. Sunshine is abundant, as much as eleven to twelve hours a day in summer and five in midwinter.
    Winters are generally mild and sunny but this pleasant weather is often interrupted by very changeable cold and blustery weather brought by a northerly wind called the mistral. This blows with particular strength in the Exotic valley and around the coast area.

    The Mountainous Regions

    These areas are the wettest and coldest regions of Exotic World and much of the winter precipitation is snow. Winter sports are best developed in this area and Pyrenees but can be pursued for a shorter period in the other mountain regions. The weather and climate of the is very similar to that found in the Swiss Alps. Plans for a special Xmas Exotic world are already in the planning stages of the local Sims.

    Central Eastern Island

    Summers also tend to be a little warmer. Rainfall is generally low and tends to fall in summer when it is often associated with thunderstorms.
    Winters become colder towards the east and they are not any warmer farther south. In winter occasional very cold spells can occur. There is a definite increase in summer warmth in the south and an increase in sunshine from an average of seven to nine hours a day. This is also home of the main city area for exotic island, most people come here for jobs.
    On the north end of the island, a oriental housing zone was established, this was attempt by the city council to introduce a higher cultural level to the island.

    Western Island

    This is mainly a lowland region, winters are generally mild and cold spells do not last for long.
    The summers are significantly warmer and sunnier than in eastern Island. They can be rather wet, particularly towards the border, but the rain tends to be heavy and of short duration. Summers have more sunshine and longer spells of settled weather than farther north.
    This area also contains a small french rural area and a medieval castle. Also home for the main science and industry area and boast some great nighttime shopping area's

    North Island

    Low-lying and rather flat area, there are some high mountain regions around the small island. Since 2015, the military have used this area, still some people live in this area and rumors that several archeologist have set up camp to explore some new ruins, brings this place some interest.


    You can see this time I've gone into much more detail about my world, even dropped a hint that I will doing Xmas special version of exotic world.

    Beta testing part 1 general test

    Beta testing, is right pain in the backside, lets be honest few people enjoy looking for errors and correcting mistake.

    A large world could take upto 2 weeks to fully play test, a very small world might be done in a few days or less. Warning, should you be the type of person who enjoys playing with other peoples worlds and you follow the previews, look out for worlds that take very little time to beta test, avoiding beta testing can be the downside of any world and you should avoid worlds that have had very little beta testing. Would you purchase a game from a shop that was never tested?

    The way I'm doing beta testing will be done in stages, yes I'm fully aware that people will help you with beta testing and I will show you how to get other people to help later in the last part of beta testing, I will also try and give you a few links to advice about beta testing.

    For this guide, I will be presume that you are beta testing on your own, so the first thing to do will be to export your world to the game.

    Custom content and beta testing sub-section

    I highly recommend you do not use custom content while building a world, also I would stay away from store objects, this is a general rule I follow.
    If you fully understand the workings of custom content and how to upgrade custom content, should the custom content need upgrading after the release of a new EP and you have permission to use the custom content, then you might not feel the need to not follow my general rule. For the sake of this guide I will presuming no custom content is being used or needed for beta testing, if you have the experience to use such objects in your world, the odds are you will not need my help to beta test them object anyway.

    Beta testing part 1 general test continued

    Now that we have got rid of the custom content people, only kidding, your more than welcome to stay we will continue.
    What I do first to beta test is set up MY documents EA folder, my current folder contains all my store objects and custom content I use in the game, I cut and paste this folder onto my desktop, I then load in the game and let the game generate a new folder. I do this, just so that I'm 100% sure that when I install the beta version it will be a completely new game folder with no addons etc.

    Next extract the world in caw and remove the world from the my documents EA folder, export section and place the file in the download and install the world.
    At this stage should you be using Custom INI file or graphics installed into the world file, I'm not that worried about them at the moment, you have probable already tested them anyway, we can add them later.

    Load the game and place a test sim in the world, you should either have pen and paper ready or open notepad on your desktop so you can list any errors you find, you can always alt out of the game to list any any errors you find.

    You should then go into each area of your world one section at a time and start to list the errors. Some errors will be tricky to see, so keep the camera close and it will help if you have a active sim. Also another tip, don't just jump into error looking, let the game run for 24 hours game time, that way the spawners will kick in.

    This example I'm showing you is the beta test from my own world, thou the description of the error is very small, if you are beta testing for somebody else you will need to increase the description so they understand what your saying:

    EAST ISLAND

    Ingame CAW EDIT
    Military base
    Correct library house
    Engel house needs a edit
    Mystical lodge grass near road
    smooth out school

    CAW EDIT
    Delete wave southeast corner
    Smooth out rock in sea area
    Conform edges Around southeast houses
    Smooth out road north of the lake with the flowers
    Smooth out mountain near river
    Move plant near northeast pond on road & smooth out pond
    Plant on road china area
    Smooth out sidewalk china area
    Edit bridge china area
    Smooth out road south of china bridge
    Smooth out road east of science bridge
    smooth out road north of school
    conform edges business lot
    delete wave west of town near billboard
    Major EDIT -Remove salvage spawners from the main map
    Military base terrain level needs to be flat rear of lot
    Check house names
    Raise South bridge

    West ISLAND
    Ingame CAW EDIT
    Water mill, lower emitters in water
    Flatten science lot out
    CAW EDIT
    West of south bridge, smooth road and remove plant from road
    smooth road around large south pond
    remove flying boulder in south pond
    terraform around fountain south pond area
    remove plant in south pond area
    Smooth out road south of french area
    Lower terrain near north bridge
    Correct the small pant south of water mill, north of bridge area & lower terrain around bridge.
    cluster all trees


    FIXING CAW & INGAME ERRORS

    A few points of interest, with that example, notice that I split my world up into sections that was to remind of the area, also notice that I use Caw Edit and Ingame Caw edit. I do this so I can get all the ingame edit done in one go, by this stage of the world building ingame caw edits and can take a good time to save, so I want to do them all in one go.

    Most of the errors will only take a few seconds to fix, others might take a long time, when you have checked for errors and fixed the problems you will ready to move on. You have finished the general beta test. Later we will need to do some more beta testing, but for now we will move on.

    Try to reduce size of the world

    I will keep your mind fresh and focused by moving away from beta testing, I will keep returning to beta testing, from now until the end, the reason I'm doing it this way, is to stop boredom, nothing more and nothing less

    This is a very scary section and I consider this a optional section, first goto the following section-

    C:\Users\Your name\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\InstalledWorlds

    Remember that beta world you installed, what size is that world in KB?

    If the size of the world in over 70,000KB, you should really consider doing this section, if it's less than this, consider this a optional fine tuning process, that you might consider doing.

    Consider this a tricky difficulty level, so please make a backup of your world folder found here:-

    C:\Users\Your name\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3 Create A World Tool\UserToolData\Worlds

    You will also need S3pe for this guide, you can find the latest version here:-

    http://dino.drealm.info/den/denforum/index.php?PHPSESSID=cb8ulufhsjjrjb2u8oeesu17c0&topic=189.0

    After you have installed S3pe make a folder called images and load s3pe, when it's loaded to need to load in your world found here:-

    C:\Users\Your name\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3 Create A World Tool\UserToolData\Worlds

    Don't panic we have a backup.......

    Right now click the tag tab at the top of the screen, so everything is in order next you can the use ctrl+shift to select all the images and right click on the highlighted image files and export to file.

    3-Building a world Part 10-12 by Stw402 Pic1-3

    The next step is to close s3pe and load in CAW, you will also need to place another folder in the image folder, call this completed.

    In the Image folder you will need to cut and paste the non named image files into the completed folder, for this guide we will not edit them (some testing I've made it is possible to edit them and reduce the size, but usual you will have about 300+ of them files it will take take 4 hours plus to edit them, plus I've not fully tested if this will damage your world so for now, post them in the completed files)

    3-Building a world Part 10-12 by Stw402 Pic2-3

    Now we are left with your terrain paints, we are going to check, you do not have any terrain paints tagging along with your world. The number of tests I've made, I've found sometimes deleted terrain paints tag to the world, this will bulk out the size of your world and increase the loading times.

    Now go back into CAW and load in your world, what we are going to do is go look each terrain paint in your world and match the image of the terrain paint with the image file in the image folder, if you find the image file, you will then place the file in the completed folder.

    So lets do the first terrain paint, goto edit terrain sub section and right click on the first terrain, this should give you the texture name, this pic should help you, I've highlighted the name:-

    3-Building a world Part 10-12 by Stw402 Pic3-3

    The name of my file pelouseA.dds, now if I go back into the Image folder, I'm save in the knowledge that this file is being used by the game, so I place this file in the completed folder.

    3-Building a world Part 10-12 by Stw402 Pic4-2

    You should repeat this for all your textures, it does not take long when you have done a few.
    Right when you have completed the texture for the world, you need to do the road textures, the best way to do this is in CAW, goto edit road and just view the file name for each road section used, like so:-

    3-Building a world Part 10-12 by Stw402 Pic5-1

    Again place each texture used in the completed section.
    Close and exit CAW

    By the end of this you should have zero files left in the Image folder, if that is true, you have passed the texture test and can move on, if not then what you need to do is this, delete all the extra files, they are not needed by your world and are just increasing the size of the world.
    Open s3pe and your world in s3pe, highlight all the image files, right click and delete all your image files. Next you need to import all the files from the completed section of your image folder. To do this click resource and import from file, select all the files and import them to your world. You should at this stage test your world and make sure all the texture are good to go. Remember you still have a backup, should you mess up. If you world size increased when you placed the image files back into your world, just enter Caw and save your world once and this will reduce the size to lower than before

    Junkyard spawners & Spawners in lots

    While you are beta testing this is something you should consider, Junkyard spawners do not work well outside lots, your sim cannot interact with the spawners and they become nothing more than a decorative objects. Probable for most people they will not be worth keeping out side lots, you should consider this while beta testing.

    BETA TEST 2

    For this beta test we should repeat the general beta test you did in beta test 1, check all the locations you edited from that test. DO NOT FORGET if you needed to lower terrain, all objects also need lowering, this is a common error.

    You will probable find less errors this time and good tip is lower the camera to the eye level of your sim and zoom around the world.

    When you have hopefully have a much smaller list of errors, you should then check the Rabbit holes, make sure your test sim can enter and leave each rabbit hole. Much of my errors at this point where more to do with conforming edges and simple tweaks.

    It also a good idea to open a file called Beta test 3, I will return to beta testing one last time in part 12. Any errors you find from this point on, you should place them in the Beta test 3 document, you can then fix all the errors together in the beta test 3.

    Sim pack

    The one thing about world building, you very often need to be pretty good at everything to make a successful world, from designing your world, to building lots and populating your world. I did give some idea's about how to use Sims in your world, in a early guide. So you should also check your Sims and if your Sims are in a pack, downloaded separate, make sure some of the Sims have money so they can populate the world, without the need for the downloader having to use money cheats every 5 secs to get your Sims to purchase the house's. You should at least test that all your Sims work and if possible custom content free, if not all the links and download instruction are included in your sim pack. Having a corrupted sim in your pack, can do more damage to your world than good.

    Edit Holiday places

    Thou this is nothing directly to do with your world, unless you wish to upload holiday worlds with your current world. I wanted to go into this a little, the first reason was to give you a break from beta testing and all that world building and second reason this can be very great time saving advice for the players of the game.
    Anyway, players fall into many different brackets, if your a designer and nothing more, skip this section.
    If your a player or you design worlds to play with, then this section is for you.

    THE BASICS

    When you start a new save game and enter a holiday world for the first time, a saved version of the holiday location is saved in your save game folder. Currently this will be box standard world France, china and Egypt. If you spent some time editing them worlds, going on the exchange download premade house's for them locations, or possible upgrading some location to include objects from future expansion. This entire process might take several hours, longer if you build up some lots yourself. When you have completed the process, it's very possible to move the holiday locations between save games. You will no longer feel the need to upgrade them locations after each new save you make.

    First you should upgrade all the holiday locations.

    Next make a folder called Holiday resorts and goto the following location:-

    C:\Users\YOUR NAME\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Saves\WORLD NAME

    Copy and paste the files into the Holiday resort folder, now when you start a new world you no longer need to edit them holiday resorts to your playing style, just place them files into the save game location and away you go.

    3-Building a world Part 10-12 by Stw402 Pic6-1

    Set New Base Camps

    If you have played the game for a little while it can be fun to setup new base camps in holiday worlds, to edit a base camp:
    Go to the country you want to edit and use Testingcheatsenabled true then use the cheat Enablelotlocking true

    You can then lock and unlock lots, this is very useful to stop playersmessing about with lots that might contain hidden secrets, dungeon are the best example, if your world contains any dungeons consider locking them.

    Tombs

    "How can I reset the tombs?"

    This is the million dollar question, with any worlds you download, it will be good practice to make a backups of any dungeons should you wish to explore them more than once.
    Apparently this issue is by EA design and not a bug/glitch. When you consider the opportunities associated with tomb exploration are limited to a One Time Only scenario. With this in mind, it seems that tombs are to remain in their unopened state until a Sim explores them, and then they will remain in an opened state for any other Sims which you choose to explore the tombs.
    There is no known solution for this issue, as mentioned above, it appears to be by EA design. So it amounts to one Sim per game, if you want another Sim to explore an unopened tomb, you must start a new game.

    The following link will give you some more info about possible Workarounds

    http://www.simswiki.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:Sims_3_Reset_Tombs

    For world builders there is very little we can about this, but should your world contain dungeons, you should be aware of this knowledge, it will make it easy to answer any questions about any dungeons your world contains.
    For the players of the Sims 3, it will be good practice to spend a few hours making copies of the world adventure dungeons, to replace if needed.

    This link might also be useful for the player who wishes to play Unlimited Adventures for WA, download link:-

    http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=380248

    XML upgrades

    I can see it could be possible for a world builder, to take building a world into the realms of what usual is left for modders to explore. Building a custom world can sometimes need a little extra. Perhaps you might provide the XML's as optional download or something, but like having the knowledge of how dungeons work this can be assist, if used correctly. To read more about XML tuning you can read this tutorial:-

    http://www.modthesims.info/wiki.php?title=Tutorial:Sims_3_XML_Tuning_Modding

    Seawalls, spillways and other Hidden Ambition items, get them working

    I need to cover this in the guide, even thou I'm not 100% sure at this time on how to add the objects to CAW, but I do have a workaround.
    Lets have a little look at this in action:-

    3-Building a world Part 10-12 by Stw402 Screenshot-2-34

    If you have read any more of my guides you might understand how I did this, I cheated of course, if I can't work something out, I look for workaround.

    I used the objects inside tiny community lots, you would need to understand the LOST & Found guide, found here:-

    http://builders.forumotion.net/useful-tutorials-f10/lost-found-t1125.htm

    If you battle your way throu this tutorial, you can find all the hidden ambitious objects in the following place
    C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3 Ambitions\GameData\Shared\Packages

    Make a backup and then edit the object like you would in that tutorial and you can then place the extra object in lots, thou this is not the perfect solution, this is the best I can do at the current moment.

    I will update this should more info become available.

    How to give Credit

    Difficulty Level- Easy

    So what is this guide?

    In simple terms, when you use a lot made by another person when making a world you can find that giving them credit for the work can be tricky.
    This guide will show you how to give credit inside your world by using the World Adventure Plaques.
    It's very simple to do and I recommend that you take the time to do this for downloaded lots.
    First load in your world in Caw and edit the lot in the ingame edit mode.
    Enter the lot, and press ctrl+c and type the following cheat Testingcheatsenabled true.
    Next type Buydebug on.
    In the object menu select sort by function and select the ? menu, in the new menu select the tomb objects and scroll down until you see the Inscription plaques, select this and place the plaque near the front door.
    Next hold down Ctrl+shift and move your mouse over the plaque, it will turn into a star symbol, so press the left mouse button.
    A new menu will open up, just click, the enter description menu and type in the person who made the lot.
    You have given the person credit inside the game, well done, you can save and exit.

    3-Building a world Part 10-12 by Stw402 Screenshot-65

    Here end part 11, the last and final part coming soon.

      Current date/time is Thu Mar 28, 2024 10:08 am