Creating Custom Skyscrapers?

[pirate_wolf_12]

I'm just wondering how one would go about creating their own skyscrapers in the game. I know you can build your own apartment buildings up to a few stories high, but is it possible to modify the shells? It's just that I have plans to create a built up city with a more gothic and art-deco style.

I'm also curious if it's possible to create world decorations, like elevated roads and monorails (they don't even need to be functional, just pure decorations would work). I checked the FAQ but I couldn't see any tutorials for it.

[tomomi1922]

I think this is quite new but they are just lot objects. You can always clone them and use different mesh. I really hate to have only 1 shell that I can put full size glass on it. I don't want half my city to have the same look.

Beware, I believe these shells have separate parts as we can view the cut out view when we are inside. I also wonder how I can build the double height wall like in all EA sky risers. They are not really double height but instead a stress of normal wall as you can see the shadows of the mailbox casted on the wall in a very ugly fashion.

[BenC0722]

I'm just wondering how one would go about creating their own skyscrapers in the game. I know you can build your own apartment buildings up to a few stories high, but is it possible to modify the shells? It's just that I have plans to create a built up city with a more gothic and art-deco style.

You just want custom shells? There's another method for skyscrapers.

There's the CFE method which doesn't require shells. Though just like the shells, only five above ground floors would be usable. Not sure how elevator numbers would work.

I also wonder how I can build the double height wall like in all EA sky risers. They are not really double height but instead a stress of normal wall as you can see the shadows of the mailbox casted on the wall in a very ugly fashion.

CFE

[tomomi1922]

Took me a bit to figure out what CFE is, thought it was some new program. Anyway, ConstrainFloorElevation ... I never tried CFE to build that high of wall. I mostly used it for garage or something else.

Well, you don't really need the shell to build apartments. The shells are just a riser and make it look good from the outside. In fact I just finished an apartment without shell. Here are the drawbacks:

- Only 3-4 floors. I think there is a cheat to go higher. If using CFE to achieve height, it would be a tall tower without any decoration.
- You have to decorate each and every floor with windows and wallpaper.
- Still no where close to the height of EA based sky risers.

I believe the reason EA uses shell is to minimize lags. They only need to decorate outside surroundings, build the lobby, and build the actual apartment unit floor. They dont even need to build the wall of other floors marked by hidden markers. So in another word, apartments are very small like a tiny starter house. But if we do it without shells, it will become quite big in size. Even with the hidden room markers we don't have to decorate other units, we still have to decorate the outside of the building with enough windows.

So in a way, having shells still have its benefit. Now I just wish there are more selections.

[pirate_wolf_12]

I thought the skyscrapers were shells? Well, I just want to know how I can create my own, whether building from scratch or editing the ones already in the game. I'd use them the same way as in the game, some for apartments where you see the lobby, a corridor and your own apartment as well as some for venues, clubs and offices (Could I give a private detective/architect sim their own office if I made a community lot area in a skyscraper and edited it so no visitors would come?). So, cloning them could work? I'm just curious as how you'd go about changing the external paint and adding decorations to them. I want to 'gothen' them up a bit.

Would ConstraintFloorElevation be of much help if I want to build higher than five stories? I thought it was only used for editing wall heights. I guess I'd also like to minimize lag if my city is going to be quite large, so shells would be the best way to go.

[tomomi1922]

I thought the skyscrapers were shells? Well, I just want to know how I can create my own, whether building from scratch or editing the ones already in the game. I'd use them the same way as in the game, some for apartments where you see the lobby, a corridor and your own apartment as well as some for venues, clubs and offices (Could I give a private detective/architect sim their own office if I made a community lot area in a skyscraper and edited it so no visitors would come?). So, cloning them could work? I'm just curious as how you'd go about changing the external paint and adding decorations to them. I want to 'gothen' them up a bit.

Would ConstraintFloorElevation be of much help if I want to build higher than five stories? I thought it was only used for editing wall heights. I guess I'd also like to minimize lag if my city is going to be quite large, so shells would be the best way to go.

You know Sky risers are not even 5 story high? Just count the floor. EA does nothing but to push certain floor ridiculously high to create an illusion that you have about 20 stories.

I have not gotten back to actual object cloning yet. But by looking at it, the shells are nothing more than another rabbit hole type of object. Why don't you try searching for them and see if you can clone them? I wonder all these time nobody bothered to clone these shells, or there are some obstacles that they have not passed yet. Google shows no hint of either way.

EA made shells are very crude and sloppy. They don't exactly line up right if you examine the pre-made apartments closely. I have been editing apartments so I know, and whenever I see this I just go "Oh come on EA, why leave such trash around?" It feels like they did all these in a hurry, like a student procrastinating his study until the last minute.

I totally agree with you shells is the way to go to minimize lag and look rather good from the outside and in world view.

[pirate_wolf_12]

So shells are the best way to go? I guess I'd use ConstraintFloorElevation in the internal part to create a large foyer for my more prestigious buildings? I think that's what EA did.

I guess I could try cloning the EA ones, but how would I go about editing them?

I'm still trying to find a tutorial on shells. At best I can find the mods to unlock them all for the other worlds. I swear I've seen custom ones in the Creator Feedback session for people's fantastically made worlds.

[faprod]

I'm looking for custom building shells too. Is it there a way to have custom meshes of them? That would be great as I'm creating a big city and I don't like how all my buildings look the same. :/

[Shimrod101]

The external walls and details on the shells can be changed by doing the _IMG .DDS images in Gimp or Photoshop. The files are in the Fullbuild_p06 in the Late Night installation in GameData\Shared\Packages folder. Sort this in s3pe by clicking on the top of the columns on Name and Tag to get the _IMG files together. Scroll down through these to the shellBldngblahblah resources. These are all the shell files.

The naming on them is unuseful; what one needs to do is check them one by one by using Resource --> View DDS and view them one by one to find the needed images. Then export them, keeping that longish filename all the way through the process, because these will be default replacements.

Open these in Gimp and darken them or give them a bit of color or whatever. A new image can also be copied and pasted in instead. Save these with the same filename, import into a new .package in s3pe which will give the correct Instance ID and all that bit, because you kept the filename on them.

There is a group of files titled shellBldngHero which is the Vampire Bar building and I guess one of the other buildings also. I darkened up 3 files (a bit too dark I guess) and got this result:

http://i873.photobucket.com/albums/ab299/Shimrod101/ShellDemoBlack.jpg

[faprod]

Yes, that I know. But what I'd actually like is to have custom meshes that can be used as building shells.
I know there are custom skyscrappers out there, but they are just decorative. It would be great if you could build an apartment in them.