I was wondering how we did this, this something I could never work out.

Hi, I tried every way to import this and I don't understand. Can someone do a tutorial please? Step by step? I do exactly what Simsample say: I open the .world file in S3Pe, import the resources (overwrite duplicates, not compressed) and save (not save as). Then I try to open the world file in CAW, but doesn't work! Says:

Unable to load file. 'C:\Users\Usuario\Documents\Electronic Arts\Ferramenta Criar Um Mundo The SIMS 3 \UserToolData\Worlds\nOVO mUNDO.world': Cannot load a Packed File {0} in The Sims 3 Create a World Tool – Beta

I create a new world to do this. And by the way, I'm Brazilian, so sorry my poor english.

That error usually means that CAW cannot find the layers correctly. Is there a folder called 'nOVO mUNDO' in C:\Users\Usuario\Documents\Electronic Arts\Ferramenta Criar Um Mundo The SIMS 3 \UserToolData\Worlds?

Simsample, you are a real 'CAW Wizard'!

Although I'm not anywhere near performing this kind of voodoo and using those objects, I have a few questions.

First, can we move these water objects in CAW? Are they like the3 pieces of clear water that came with WA?

Then, how does the routing behave around them? In the picture at the top of the page, there is a lot on the ground raised above a corner of the 'square' of water, there are fish spawners too. Can I assume that the sim can walk to the border of the ground next to the water?

If the answers are yes to both questions, this opens up loads of shiny possibilities.

Thanks a lot Simsample.

No, they are not like the river objects- they are not objects at all. They are planes, exactly like the sea but on a different level, and not extended to the edge of the world. They cannot be picked up, to move them you need to edit the code. Technically we can move them, but I haven't figured out what numbers to put in yet. See my conversations with Delphy above, and please let us know if you can figure it out!


Again, they behave exactly like the sea, in that sims cannot route into the water. The fishing spawners function exactly like they do in the sea, and the sims walk to the edge like they do to the beach in Sunset Valley.

Argl! It would have been too easy.

If ever I can figure anything out, be sure I will let you know. But honestly, I think you shouldn't count too much on me for this!

Now, the good thing is that, it should be more versatile than the WA water objects for routing. I haven't used them a lot, but I think they have a red non-routable footprint like most objects, meaning sims can't walk really close to the edge. So WA waters are mostly decorative, when those water 'planes' are fully functionnal.

Thank you again Simsample, and good luck with the tricky code editing.

If they behave exactly like the sea, then would changing the sea height affect these planes of water as well - possibly allowing vertical movement of the planes? Just curious as I would really like to make a world with multilevel water, but not be bound to what has been offered.

I am completely interested in this topic now; I might do some snooping around as well!

No, they are tied to the absolute coordinates of the world- meaning you would have to edit them to change the height and position.



You can actually make the sea level higher than the water levels:

If you look at the files it's easy to find hex equivalents of the absolute coordinates in there, but when I've attempted to change this position I've only succeeded in making a hole in the world! It needs more testing and experimenting.

Oh, bummer! I was really hoping that I had some awesome hunch that everyone overlooked...but I was wrong

See, I was hoping you had found out how to move them! :D

uhm, do you think this would work without having NL installed? A 380 volt surge killed my sims computer and while I have a laptop, my NL CD is still in the broken computer as I couldn't get it out *facepalm*
That said, I finished my exams yesterday so I want to build a world!!!

Simsimillian, as long as your basegame and other EPs are updated then it should work, as these water levels first arrived with Ambitions.

By the way, if you stick a bit of wire (like a bent paper clip) in the little hole on the front of your disc drive, you should be able to open it without power (assuming it's a tray loading drive).

ratz... wish I'd known that before I took it to the shop
anyway, all EP's wouldn't work on this laptop anyway, it's very basic. I'll try it now with just the base game, as my Ambitions was an EA download and I'm not even sure they'll let me re-download that :/

edit: yup! works with just the base game! huzzah!

Is it possible to change the location (x,y,z) of those “fake water”?

Felix, if you read the rest of the thread you'll see we have attempted this without much luck. I need to work on this more when I get time, but if you have any ideas then please feel free to post them.

The co-ordinates of two opposite corners for each level are encoded in hex in the resource (indicating you can only have a square water layer), but when I have attempted to change these co-ordinates I've only succeeded in making a hole in the world.

Right. So I'm using 3 of the bridgeport waterpools (00, 01, and 05) + the bridegeport resource that tells the world there is water in it (both bridgeport and twinbrook seem to have one of those, only the twinbrook one seems to say 'there can be only ONE!', heh)
I renamed the twinbrook water resource to 002 (since it would over write the other 00 I am using) So far so good, I have these water levels. I can edit my world and all, but at some point when I save (it seems totally random, as I've toroughly tested all kinds of ways to edit my heightmap and I can't find anything specific that causes it) the bridgeport water pool just dissappears on me. If I then re-open my world in simpe, all the info on the water resources has changed (name, instance and so forth) so I'm guessing when I save the world something changes in the resource info (gets rewritten or something), and the twinbrook pool gets deleted because it is not accounted for in the bridgeport 'master resource', which 'protects' the other ones.
So I'm looking for any way to 'read' those files that isn't looking at a screen full of binary code, heh, if that's possible, so I can somehow integrate the twinbrook water into the bridgeport 'master file'.

Programmers?

Hmm, tricky one- I'm thinking about this. Could be that we have to import the resource last thing- since we know that CAW corrupts some imported information, like certain ini files.

I was thinking of going about it that way, since it's true that after it dissapears I can simply re-import the twinbrook resource and the water pool is there allright, that is, until I sculpt something and save, then it's gone again.
So I could work around that and add it last thing, but that means I can't "eat away" at parts of it (like you showed is possible with the bridgeport ones, and also works with mine) because that only takes effect after a save. Ah well.

But you said you were able to modify the water resources in such a way as to create a hole in the world? Did you do that by editing the 'raw' hex code? Or is it possible to translate that into some sort of coding language I can understand?

edit: rofl, I just tried transcoding one of the files with a hex editor and managed to generate a page full of random ascii symbols... oh how I entertain myself

Yes, if you take a look at the co-ordinates I quoted for Delphy above, you can find those co-ordinates (at least, two corners of each square) encoded in Hex in the resources. You just have to have a hex converter to convert the decimal to hex, and then search the resource for it. However, if I change those figures it doesn't quite work as planned, so there is obviously more to this that first meets the eye.

Huh. I think I've found the root of my problem, after some experimenting. All I said before about the resources being rewritten was wrong, but I found this out: when I look at the hex for the Twinbrook water level, it's waaaay longer than the Bridgeport ones. What happens is that when I import this resource in my world, edit something and save, CAW deletes nearly all of this resource. The resource is there all right, when I re-open the world in SimPe, but all but the first 2-3 lines of code have been deleted. So that must be why my water mass disappears.


edit: I did my first successful export and install, and so far haven't encountered any problems with the water mass. As long as I stick to Simsample's advice, and import it at the very last before I export my world. CAW is weird. :p

Simsimillian, sounds like you're making progress! Have you had any luck with editing size/ position of the water layers yet?

Sorry, I haven't tried that as I'm already in way over my head
But using only 3 of the Bridgeport levels for my mountain lakes and waterfalls, and then submerging most of the Twinbrook one for my main level rivers seems to work (using only the Bridgeport 1kb 'master' resource), as long as I keep in mind what you said, and put the Twinbrook level in at the very very last before I export.
(see screen below for insanely messy draft world )


PS: Ignore the cathedral. It's not mine. I just put it in for mass reference

Wow, that looks great! What an imaginative way to use the Twinbrook water, it shows what can be done. Great work!

So can this be made into am object of sorts?

Alundra, no- these are actually vectored planes, the size and position is determined by co-ordinates as opposed to being a physical mesh.