I much prefer the warning at the top of the screen.

"Your lot may not be able to be shared or placed in a neighbourhood" - this would make me avoid trying any of these features. A bit too strong? Maybe this is what is wanted.

How about, "Your lot may not be able to be shared or moved around in the neighbourhood." ?
How will people find out if their lot IS okay for sharing?


Pretty much. Same for the front/back, really - it means to move the lot across the street, or back from the street. I could work out what was meant, but it looks odd to those who are just trying to work out what will happen to their lot. I don't think a slider would be any better, possibly worse.

I've been building a new lot to upload, as a comparison to the rowhouses. I notice that it doesn't have the green border in n'hood view. The lot is built in basegame. The one I built in my fullgame had the border, from memory.

Plasticbox, I'm nicking chunks of your warnings and so on for my upload. Thanks.

I like this wording.

Update on my moved lots...

Park East - ran LE, checked portals and unchecked align to road. Portals remained missing.

Park South - made U10=0. After making a building change, correct lot size appears in hood view. Haven't tested placing lots in front again, as I have to move the lot further back to allow space.

Park North - Expanded right 1, forgot to use the advanced screen so went in for another pass. Unchecked road alignment.
This recovered the portals , phone and bin for this lot. Yay!

Maybe it should be impossible to uncheck the portal defaults if the lot is being shrunk? Or is it better to tell people to move the portals into the safe zone before shrinking the lot? With a link to Inge's buyable set, in case of accidents, or telling people to re-expand to recover them.

Still to do - move Park North back by one, change U10 = 0 and check if saved lots will place in front of it.
-Upload my terrace house.

Hi niol. Welcome back. You've got a lot of reading to catch up on.

I'm not quite sure about the context of this question. Normal lots can certainly share road space, unless their roads are very differently shaped. The moved lots should be able to co-exist with other lots in the neighborhood, until one or the other is moved. But, it seems that the moved lots are reserving additional space in the neighborhood that they aren't actually using, which means that other lots cannot be moved into the empty space next to the moved lots.

Do you have any thoughts on this?

I've submitted my shrunk terrace lot - now I just hope it doesn't get dumped by a moderator thinking I'm not authorised...assuming anyone has spoken to them on the subject as yet.

I just tried to figure out the 90° rotated walkbys, but I can't reproduce the issue.

What I did:

* Placed 4 blank templates facing in all 4 directions.
* Moved sims in all 4 of them -- walkbys appear correctly (with their back to the lot edge). Revealed all portals once to make screenshots. Portal placement looks identical on all lots.
* Quit game, shrunk all 4 lots in left+right (just like my row house lots), entered all lots, added a bit of foundation, put all 4 lots in lotbin and back in their *original* direction. Revealed all portals once to make screenshots. Portal placement looks identical on all lots.
* Moved sims in all 4 of them -- walkbys appear correctly
* Moved all lots 90° off their original direction
* Moved sims in all 4 of them -- walkbys appear correctly
* Added sideways driveways to all lots (because there is one in the Backdoor Lane lot)
* Moved sims in all 4 of them -- walkbys appear correctly
* Moved all lots another 90°
* Moved sims in all 4 of them -- walkbys appear correctly

I'm out of ideas what else to try. I did not touch the portals in my uploaded lots, except for the first one where I placed them manually .. but the issue got reported with the Backdoor Lane lot too (Rascal here: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthre...23#post1804023). What I haven't yet checked is whether it *also* happens in my game on that lot .. maybe it's just another stupid BV issue (I think Rascal is saying somewhere that she has all EPs .. her profile lists all EPs, in any case. Not sure who else reported this, aelflaed? Do you have BV too?).

I've a pile of screenshots if anyone wants to look, but they're rather unexciting. Bored sims on empty lots.

I did, and I explicitely asked them to please accept your upload even if they ban everything else =).

Thanks! I just want it to go through quickly...
I do not, and I was using your lot in the 'up to NL' BSG. I thought I had tried just picking up the portals and letting them drop back into place. It didn't work if I did. Have you tried that?
I don't think this problem is happening on my newer lots, so maybe it was connected to that version of LE?

Lots which have been built "over the road" cannot be shared or placed within the neighborhood because both of these actions require the lot to be snapped to a road, which regenerates the road and negates the "over the road" feature.

If the purpose of moving a lot is to disassociate it from the road and allow building on the area previously used by the road, then these lots cannot be shared or placed within the neighborhood for the same reason: snap to a road will negate the feature.

In addition, if we set U10=0 for these "disassociated" lots, then they will be unable to be snapped to a road because they do not have a road. Once the U10 value is restored, the lot will be able to snap to a road, but this will defeat the purpose of the feature.

Finally, I believe that the game may not be willing to place a lot which has had the road tiles removed and something built on the area which was reserved for the road. I think that there was a post recently to this effect, although I would have to look for it. I'm not clear on exactly what's allowed before the game refuses to place a lot.

Does that all make sense?

OK. I understand the issue, but I'm not sure what the solution is.

I keep trying to be brief, and keep down the sheer amount of talk on this thread, but I'm not communicating very well as a result. Go back to being long-winded.

Yes, I understand why some of these modifications make the lot unshareable, but I am asking more from the point of view of future users, who may want to know if they can share something - shrunk lots, for instance, ought to be safe, and at the moment they're all under the same warning.

Would you expect to put shrinking into a shareable category when the code is finally released? As I've said before, I never tried the 'over the road' feature in the original LE because I like to share lots, and didn't want to spend ages making something that would not be useful. There was also a certain amount of fear involved - not considering myself an 'advanced' user of any modding stuff.

I guess I've overcome that to some extent. Whether that consideration affects how you release it is another matter - depending how reliable the modifications are, and how generally you want them to be used.

Hope that explains things better.
One of my moved lots had a house built on the middle, after removing the road tiles. Then I snapped it back onto the road, which simply appeared in the original place, with the house on the footpath and the mailbox in the middle of the road. Is this what you're remembering?

I haven't tried cataloguing any of these moved lots, snapped or not.

About the left/right move thing, maybe it's best left alone - WE all understand it, so maybe it's user-friendly enough.

Later - just looking at the U10 tips for my tutorial, and noticed this:

Yes, it would be nice ;-). In all your copious free time.

I can't comment on the "over the road" think (or actually, I can: I think Mootilda is saying those can't be shared not because they're "unsafe", but because you can't *move* them. There is simply no point in sharing somehting that nobody can place in their hoods. Correct me if I'm wrong.) .. where was I? About the shrinking:

Shrunk lots, at the moment, aren't safe because they exhibit this stupid 7PM crash. Two other people have posted about it meanwhile (MATY thread). Right now, nobody knows what's causing it. I'd consider them unsafe until we find that either

* The cause of the crash is something in the lot package (caused by the shrinking), and Mootilda can fix it by fixing the LotExpander. That would be perfect, obviously.

* Or the cause of the crash is something that I do on my lots, it's always been happening but nobody ever bothered to report it. That would suck for me, but would still be perfect for everyone else. (I hope your lot upload will shed some light on this. It's not very likely though, seeing as I play exclusively with my own lots and can't remember ever having seen this crash.)

* Or the cause of the crash remains unknown but we manage to establish a fixed set of circumstances that trigger it. Maybe that would be something that could be worked around on our side (when building a lot), maybe it would have to be done on the player's side, but even then it could be solved by means of warning labels / instructions. Less perfect but doable, I would think.

* Or we don't find what triggers the crash, but do find a way to prevent it. Like, save the lot before 18:00 and it won't crash. Also doable.

* Or we find that the cause of the crash is something the game does, and someone writes a fix. No idea what that could be or who that someone could be but it's a possibility ..

If everything remains wide open, then I don't know .. I don't think the shareability of shrunk lots is directly related to the releasability of the code. What if we find there's nothing wrong with the LotExpander, the lot packages are 100% like they should be, and the lots still crash? There's probably a reason Maxis haven't implemented wall-to-wall building.

Mootilda, I am not sure if you read or commented on this idea?

To add my piece to the whether lots can be shared under certain circumstances, it's not accurate to say a moved roadless lot cannot be shared. It can be, but it just will have to be placed on a road initially and moved by its new user, using this very tool. It seems a shame to tell people not to share the lots rather than telling them how to share them. Same applies to the over-the-road lots. I am sure they can be made shareable with the right advice.

I suppose you could lay terrain paints etc on the roadless lot, then snap to the road and upload that...would the terrains etc still be right, underneath the road, afterwards? What about using uneven terrain? Have you tried this, Inge?

A lot of people still wouldn't want to download a lot that required fiddling before they could use it, but it would make it possible to share. I hope the shrunk lots won't suffer from non-share-ability in the end - I'm looking forward to them.

Plasticbox, what a lot of possibilities you have listed above for the crash issue. I hope it gets sorted!

[roads non-stand.]



lol, no worry, I've been reading the threads and posts (I didn't really run away ), and I just have to catch up with the latest only.

Actually, we need some tests on whether we can place lots around the whole area where the moved is located so that we can have a negative/fingerprint of the reserved space for proof or futher supposition.

I think that is where, for the moved and additonal surrounding lots, how the game shows their graphics departs from how the game reads their actual relative neighbourhood locations.
Surely, the road region appears to be considered differently for its overlappability. So, more to play with if we can identify the check(s) out of it.



I've been suggesting this, but I'm too lazy to write a tutorial for that. People can do them with the tool easily and fast or manually editting the lot "slower-ly"


[LA/LE - UI & versions tests]



it can't be bad, I think. Since it's made an advanced option, users wanting that feature and knowing how to use it can do their arts easily while those who don't want it need no fuss on it with the default way.




You're right, some uers just wanna have their certain build features to dance aside... when the lot plan is changed during the build process. So, maybe then, you can call it LotDancer showing all the amazing dancing styles...:D

Indeed, if there's a tool to handle grids as individual grid containers, and a user can move, rotate, clone, delete in an array way per selectable grid(s), row(s).
Building and modifying a lot would be much easier... this should also apply to the roofs. users can set them as a whole piece or customly defined parts as groups. But the individual grid container is the building block.

I know I was dreaming...coz it's too far.

yay, 1 more option for a higher manipulative power. :D




Lol, this actually clears up the potential confusions I just saw...
It may be clearer to state that the "this will enlarge the front yard only for over-the-road in solely a given run/pass/use",


[Lot -shrinking] - trouble-shooting

plasticbox,
hope you don't mind me asking if all your new row house lots are prone to the 1900 syndrome or just that particular one. Are they all designed the same ways even probably with the same materials?
I really tend to think it's the light that should not be placed over to the trimmed region coz this may affect the lighting data. The strreetlights have extra light maps to draw the light reflections from the particles in the air around the designed lighting region(s). Lol, that's the shrine we see.


[lot templates]

All,

For the normal lots, I think the lot template is for the portal positions and probably other things.

By the way, any report or comment about any problem on the 10x20 or 20x10 lots for both Residential and community I released a long while ago? If no, I'll make the desert series by switching the lot texture for faster production.

After all, I'm gonna fiddle crazily with all the new options for my excitement... :D


[beach portal buyable?]

lol Inge,
by the way you added the beach effect-holder ..., that's so cool... I now just wonder if you feel liketo make it and the beach buyable to use it in normal lots. :D

The wave effect can be used already in normal lots. The beach portal I will make a new one with different GUIDs, I think it might be a mistake to make an override on something this complex. But anyway there is a buyable one of the original for beaches that have been expanded or where you lost them accidentally

lol, I wanna add them into the normal lots in-game...

And you shall... This Lot Adjuster/Expander/Jiggler/Wiggler/Abracadabra seems to be moving so fast I haven't had time to do *anything* but test it lately I am sure Mootilda must be feeling pretty swamped too, but I feel confident it will be worth it and this is one of the huge breakthroughs that will be remembered in Sims2 modding history. I am proud to have played a small part in it.

[chit-chat]

N, I didn't update the shaders mods and other things as I planned... but I enjoy exploring the lot files... This chance to have a person to take up what Andi left and the co-operative effort to research and share findings here it has caused worths the postpones on some other mods .
Now, I'm balancing both for my own contention. I'm basically doing both things by turns...

Now, I'm reading pbox's thread.


[LA/LE - UI & versions tests]

Mootilda,

lol, probably the option to trim or add rows of tiles away in the middle can help make smaller beach lots as well as a new way to shrinking lots. I know there'll still be the border thingy, this should work for flat lots and probably a way to make cliffs :D

All of my lots are crashing, but apparently with newly made sims the crash is more likely, and when you replay the crashed lot it does not crash again. See in particular the last post by Simsample on the MATY thread:

Removing the street light before playing might be a way to test if that plays a role. Perhaps better, I should reupload one of the lots without that light (seeing as changing and saving -- when people remove that light themselves -- might affect the outcome).

ETA: done that, lot is attached to this post.

I'm going to be really, really embarrassed if it turns out the whole hubbub was my fault. =/

Plasticbox, at least one of the people who your lots were crashing for has had no problems with mine. I packaged mine completely unfurnished, but I also tested for myself with one I had shrunk with streetlights right at the edge.

Some posts which were incorrectly posted in the main LotExpander thread, moved here to ensure that the conversation continues in the appropriate thead:

Yes, it is possible to do this. Unfortunately, the game does not gracefully handle lots which are not a multiple of 10. So, you get a hole in your neighborhood, between the actual size of your lot and the larger size which the game believes that your lot should be. You may have seen pictures of this effect before - a large blue "disconnect" at the edge of your lot where you can see below the earth into the sky which surrounds the sim-world.

Because of this, I do not believe that it's likely that the LotExpander will ever support lots which are not a multiple of 10 tiles.

At this point, I don't have any plans to implement lots which are not a multiple of 10 tiles. However, once the other things in my to-do list have been implemented to my satisfaction, I'm certainly willing to revisit this issue.

So, I'll add this at the end of the to-do list. Is that OK with everyone, for now?

I tend to think requests directly for features in the LE would belong to the LE thread, because this thread looks from its title like it has a broader scope (eg it could support several other tools and mods that needed this range of information). But if you prefer to think of this as the LE development thread for now, then that makes sense.

Sometimes it's hard to know when a request for a feature becomes a technical speculation about feasibility

I don't want to jump to conclusions, but we *might* have narrowed down the 7PM crash issue -- see this post -- would be great if someone could confirm this.

Well that might be true of your lot, but I don't know if it's going to be a general rule, because it didn't give a problem on my lot. I used the same light as you, to make the test equal.

Yes, I already added that to my last MATY post .. it can't be the light alone, perhaps light + CAS sim + no save + what particular EPs are used etc pp. (It's a bit of a challenge to keep 5 threads at once up to date =).

I just think if we get a consistent result that this particular lot does crash with the light, and does not crash without the light, we'd at least have confirmed that the light plays a role at all. There might still be other factors -- other differences between my lots and everyone else's .. I can't open any of the other ones, unfortunately, except for aelflaed's.

Niol - I made the non-beach beach portal for you. You can get it from http://simlogical.com/slforum/index.php?topic=917.0

Well if it's any comfort it makes greatly more sense to share rowhouses unfurnished, because the idea is that people are going to plonk several of them in a row. They can't all have the same furniture in them. And in many cases they will leave a lot of them empty anyway just have them there to look right in the hood.

Plasticbox I have just had a thought. Was your light *on* when you saved the lot ready to shrink it?