Thursday, December 13, 2012

Friendly Circle cul de sac



It's been a really long time since I posted any lots, but I got a fun request from LeeLee to make a cul de sac.  It was a very enjoyable project, so I'm glad she asked me to build it.

























And this is how Friendly Circle got its name. ;)  It isn't always friendly, but there is at least potential for your sims to make friends on this lot.  I had fun play-testing it.  The houses in the cul de sac are rental houses, or technically apartments.  It felt a little more like Sims 3 with the four playable families that could interact.



House A


Upstairs - 3 bedrooms, nursery, 2 full bathrooms


Downstairs - living room/study, great room, dining area, kitchen, powder room, garage
Outside - swing set, dog house, basketball hoop, lemonade stand


House B

























3 bedrooms, 2 full bathrooms, living room, dining area, kitchen, garage
Outside - back porch, slide, soccer net


House C


Upstairs - 3 bedrooms, nursery, 3 full bathrooms


Downstairs - study, dining room, great room, dining area, kitchen, powder room, garage
Outside - soccer net, dog house, patio


House D


Attic - teen bedroom, art studio, full bathroom, study/music room


Downstairs - 3 bedrooms, 2 full bathrooms, living/dining/kitchen area, garage.
Outside - pool, basketball hoop, dog house

Important Information:

All 4 houses have fenced yards and a garage with a car.  The cars will teleport out to the main road instead of using the driveway. If you want to use different cars, make sure you go into the lot and make changes before moving in any sims.  Otherwise, I think your car may drive away on its own and not come back. ;)

Except for House C, the houses are built on foundations.  There can only be one (special apartment) door in apartments for the game to recognize them as apartments.  I got around that rule by using invisible fences on the houses that have foundations.  To save a lot of explanation, this thread on MTS2 has some pictures of what I'm talking about.  My point in bringing it up at all is to mention that all exits from the foundation (besides the front with the special apartment door) have an invisible fence around them.  You won't see them and your sims will walk right through them.  I'm just letting you know that if you modify the stairs or foundation in build mode, you could cause the apartments to stop working correctly.

House C is built on the ground and doesn't need any invisible fences, but can only have one door (except to the fenced-in area).  That is why the garage doesn't have a door that goes directly into the house.

The one trash can for the entire lot has been deleted, and in the back yards there are modern trash cans - one for each house so that they don't all have to walk across the entire cul de sac to take out the trash.

Cool Things:

The lemonade stand should be available to whatever family you're currently playing.  Also, if you have a vegetable garden, I think the landlord will tend it for you.  He will probably walk through your house uninvited, though. ;)

Not So Cool Things:

Sims in House B and House C have a long walk to the school bus and to their carpool.  My sims made it on time, but they need to start walking when the bus or carpool arrives.

Building is my thing, but decorating - not so much.  You might notice that my decorating talent, abilities, focus and logic are a bit lacking.  I am not consistent, and when I get bored enough I just quit and leave the rest to you. ;)


Also, rent is pretty high, so your sims might have to work hard and not be slackers to keep the repo man away.

Renting Furnished:

To rent the apartments furnished, type boolprop testingcheatsenabled true into the cheat box, then SHIFT - click on the apartment door and you can rent the apartment furnished.  If that feels too cheaty, or you don't want to download the fully-furnished with tons of CC version, I also created a "fixtures only" version.  You would still need to rent it furnished, but you would just have light fixtures, bathroom fixtures, and kitchen cabinets, etc. - kind of like when you buy or rent a real house.  The "fixtures only" version still includes the cars and the stuff that is outside.

CC:

There is a whole bunch of it unless you download the "fixtures only" version.  I would like to tell you every detail, but life is short. ;)  I did go through it with Clean Installer and remove hacks and some the the more pointless recolors, and as far as I know there are no pay items included.

Requirements:

All the EPs and Mansion & Garden.  Stuff packs may be optional.  I have Family Fun, Celebration, Kitchen & Bath, and IKEA



Download:

Friendly Circle cul de sac - full version (30.9 MB)
Friendly Circle cul de sac - fixtures only version (9.4 MB)
Friendly Circle cul de sac - less cc (2.3 MB) 
(this one has necessary files, plus a few files I forgot to remove)

If you want it, the grey roof tile with white trim can be downloaded here


19 comments:

LeeLee said...

So beautiful. Thank you so much. You added a pool to one of them! I hadn't thought of that. I agree with the sims 3 feel. The ability to visit neighbors was about the only thing I liked about the Sims 3. I love the sims 2 so much better. I can't wait to see what you do if you do more of these. I can't beleive they all have garages. I am thrilled.

Twoflower said...

LeeLee, I'm so glad you like them! :) I definitely plan to do more. I will start with my Small Street houses next. You had such a good idea. A cul de sac is more fun to play than I thought. I may do this sort of thing more often now - apartments that are several houses on one lot, even if they're not always in a circle like a cul de sac.

I hope you'll continue to stop by here, as well. I've really enjoyed your ideas and comments so much. :)

LeeLee said...

Had you not played w/ a cul-de-sac lot before? I love that you don't ever have a noisy neighbor you can hear through the walls. I'm so glad you are doing small street next. I was hoping you'd pick that next. I know I mentioned full house type row houses, and I would still like that, but your small street home is so cute. They are large enough on the inside to be comfortable and not feel cramped, but small enough that you can put a quite a few on the lot. Will you have a carport or garage for all of those as well?

Twoflower said...

Hi LeeLee,
I just wanted to let you know I'm working on the next cul de sac, and I almost have it finished. All the houses will have either carports or garages. I'll try to take pictures soon. I've just been kind of busy, so I'm not sure how soon it will actually be before I can upload it. I want to playtest it first, and then I have all this stuff I should be doing instead to get ready for Christmas. ;)

I had played with similar apartments before, but a lot of them had townies living in them. The playables in the cul de sac have big families and they seem to interact more. They go outside a lot, which makes it easier to make friends.

LeeLee said...

Thank you for the update! I hope I haven't made you feel rushed or pressured. I honestly didn't think you would complete my request until after Christmas, much less complete 2 lots. This is a busy and stressful time of year.

Twoflower said...

I'm glad you understand. :) I didn't feel rushed or anything - I was just in the mood to build stuff. I love it.

Unfortunately, I'm having a problem with the lot I'm working on, so it will probably be after Christmas when it's ready. It says there is an invalid apartment. I tried everything I could think of to fix it, but I finally started over on a new lot rebuilding the houses to see if I can pinpoint the problem. I'm only rebuilding the basics to see if I can get it to work - before I decorate again. :P The good news is that so far they are working correctly on this second attempt.

LeeLee said...

Hi!

I hope you had a great Christmas. I had another idea I thought I'd present to you. I think it would be neat to have cul-de-sac lot for the snooty wealthy sims. Houses that look like they would cost a lot. Obviously not too big because there's not enough space, but just expensive looking. There's a lot on MTS2 called "suburbia cul-de-sac." I don't like the inside of any of them or the diagonally placed home, but the exteriors look very wealthy to me like I'm describing. I hope you have a safe yet fun New Year!

Twoflower said...

LeeLee, sorry it took me so long to get back to you. I did have a great Christmas and New Year and hope you did too. I've still had some problems with the Small Street Cul de Sac, but I think I may have solved them. I'm still testing it, though. Here is a link to a slideshow to see what it looks like: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v135/2flower/Cul%20de%20sac%202/?albumview=slideshow

I like your idea of the more expensive-looking houses, and ironically, had already started building another cul de sac. I have 2 houses built on that one if you want to see them: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v135/2flower/Cul%20de%20sac%203/?albumview=slideshow

LeeLee said...

I love them both. The first slideshow looks like some of the homes in veronaville in style. That's funny about the second Cul-De-Sac you had started; theylook expensive. I really like them, especially the grey house. How many bedrooms/baths will they have?

LeeLee said...

I forgot to mention. I don't know where you get your ideas from, but I found this great website. www.houseplans.com

You can select how many bedrooms/baths you want, how many levels to the house, and how large the garage is and then a bunch of different houses come up and you can select "view floor plans" for the homes you like.

LeeLee said...

Hi,

I was just wondering if you were still planning on posting anything?

Twoflower said...

Hi LeeLee,

I'm sorry that I didn't say anything for quite some time. I got discouraged when my Small Street apartments wouldn't work after several attempts. I finally got them all to work as apartments, and then the school bus wouldn't come for a couple of the houses when I was playtesting.

So, my plan with those houses is to build them as a street - since it is Small Street - 3 or 4 houses per lot. I think the issue with the school bus may have been caused by the sideways garages or carports.

Anyway, I just got a little burned out. I also want to finish the fancier houses I had started. I would also like to try the Full House project. The problem is that I never watched the show enough to have a clear idea of the floor plan.

I'll try to have something new within the next few days. Even if I don't have it ready for download, I'll try to have pictures.

LeeLee said...

I am sorry things got so frustrating. If you are just making the full house homes because I wanted them, I don't care if you make up your own interior plan. I loved them mostly because of the adorable character outside. I posted a link to a pic below of row homes that I think are really cute.

If you want a good idea of how the house was set up, youtube has videos of some episodes. I searched all over the internet and I never found a website that give good floor plans for that type of house.

http://larrygetslost.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/images-san-francisco-2006-full-house-700x700.jpg

Twoflower said...

Hi LeeLee,

I feel bad that I said a few days, and it's been a month. I've had a lot going on lately, and have not been much in the mood for sims lately. It's Spring Break here now, so I have a little more time.

Anyway, Small Street 1-3 is mostly finished. Here is a link to some pictures I took:
http://smg.beta.photobucket.com/user/2flower/library/Small%20Street%201-3

I've decided not to fully furnish these so that you will get them sooner. ;) I got so burned out building these so many times and then they wouldn't work. I just put in the basic fixtures. If you would like to go ahead and download it and play with it, here's the link:
https://www.box.com/s/b89ljvca8enrcwiotrul

I don't want to keep you waiting any longer for me to get around to posting. Let me know if you have any problems.

LeeLee said...

I understand. I go months without wanting to play the sims and then I get in the mood one day and play for days, hours on end :) I love the new lot. Also, i was thinking, maybe it would be less stressful if you made any new cul de sacs without garages/driveways. You are the only creator I've found who takes the time to add driveways/garages. From the problems you've been having, I can see why now. I personally don't mind having my sims walk or call a taxi to get where they need to be. I asked for garages in the lot you made for me because I thought it would add to the All American feel of the home and I did not realize what a hassle it would be.

Sims2_4Ever said...

Hello!

I love this lot and think that it is quit creative. It also puts me in the mind of this one lot on TS2 that was called Block Party. Anywho..in the description you mentioned that there was a fixture version. I really want to download this lot but however the fixture version has like a tone of CC as well. My DL folder is already screaming bloody murder because of all the things I have in it. I know that with, Clean Installer you can disable a lot of the CC and install the lot alone...but I think that the Clean Installer isn't working to well. Is there another lot that has the apartment alone with no CC?

Twoflower said...

Thank you - I'm glad you like my lot. I made a "less cc" version for you. I will add it to the post. It has only 4 custom things in it that I feel are essential to the lot working. I have not tested this version, so if you have any problems please let me know.

Twoflower said...

Oops - fixed the wrong lot. But I will do what I can to make the less cc version today and upload it.

Twoflower said...

Okay, I uploaded a new version - only 2.3 MB. I spent several hours, and still didn't manage to remove all the extra content. There are a few floors and walls I missed, and some shutters. The files that you will need to keep are the outdoor trash bins and the invisible fence.