It's pretty straightforward, and yet at the same time not entirely obvious... took me a lil trial and error, so I thought I'd share what I figured out. Here are the steps:

Enter Edit Town
In Edit World, place lot in ocean (it will pop out of the water)
Testingcheatsenabled true
Enablelotlocking true
BuyDebug
Change lot type to dive area
Unlock it by clicking lock icon on right
Enter Build/Buy on the lot
Flatten lot to sink it back to the sea bed
Place dive buoy (buydebug misc), set dive level (ctrl-shift-click the buoy)
PageDown or downstairs button to move camera underwater (this was the part that took me a long time to figure out :/)

Now you can decorate with coral and kelp (in BuyDebug on a new underwater tab), spawners (BuyDebug, fish tab) and whatever else you like.

You probably want at least one cave and/or treasure chest (sadly, treasure is limited to only 10 predefined sets of stuff from the existing chests; but that is probably moddable). Treasure chests and caves can have diving skill requirements, and caves can have destination caves (they work like uber dive wells: you have to name the destination and then point to it by name).

Can't build walls or even lay floor tile, sadly.

Made a lot I'm moderately happy with, Egyptian themed... takes a LONG time to place enough deco items to make it interesting, my lot is a lil less crowded than most of EA's. Hope other folks will upload some, so I don't have to make five more to fill out the dive skill leveling curve



Edit: tip from parazitgaga in the CAW forum: "light beams created by the code in fog generator : EP10OceanLightRays". http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=506055

Thank you for posting this, it will help me figure out how to fix the ones I placed in Sunset Valley. It was okay the first time I played the world, just minimal floating from the sharks. But after playing a second time the sharks and other fish were floating through the bedroom of my sim's houseboat. Hilarious but not really something you can like seeing.

I will try out your instructions and see if I can fix EA's lots. If not guess it's time to check out all I will need for each level to make my own.

This will only work in oceans, right? Meaning we can't do it for lakes?

No idea! Try it and let us know what you find out! I would expect it would work in a lake if it's deep enough (about 3 stories); in fact, I don't think the game knows the difference between oceans and lakes in the world.

Realized I left out a couple of steps, added em in

I tried to place a lot in a lake in Lucky Palms, near the stadium. We can't place lots there. It says either "Can't place lot on unroutable terrain" or "Can't place lot on lake". The game can really distinguish them. :o

someone said something about the lot needing to be at "sea level" or designated as such so maybe adding a salt water marker to the lot would enable making it a dive lot


never mind ^^^^

The can't place in lake or un-routable terrain are why I can't place a lot for a dive area in Twinbrook either. The game does know the difference.

Twinbrook's lake uses a "water plane" that's placed in CAW rather than the actual ocean so it won't work for that. Other lakes such as the one in Lucky Palms should still work fine as they technically use the world's ocean level.

Hm, when I tried this in Isla Paradiso I just got a blue lot where I could do nothing but place things, I couldn't paint the terrain, however.

Is there a trick to placing saved lots this way? I can get the lot flattened, I know I can place the underwater objects on it, but I can't place a saved lot there. Am I missing something?

My question is similar, if not the same thing!, as CarinaDanesi's. I've saved the dive lots from IP into my lot folder, can I place them in other worlds (for example Sunlit Tides!) using your wonderful tips?
And thank you for sharing your knowledge with us!

I'm trying to get a dive spot I made to work in Dragon Valley and it's given me nothing but trouble.
I can get it to be dive-able but the fish either don't spawn at all (except outside the lot) or fly in the air....

Some worlds, like Sunlit Tides, you can do this. The worlds need deep ocean spots for it (darkest water) and not all world have that. When they don't and you place one of those lots you will get a floating bouy and your sims won't be able to use the lot.

I've been trying it in Evansdale County, but I fear the ocean just doesn't have any deep spots for it in that one.

Most official worlds with oceans you can do it in, only Barnacle Bay not as far as I know.

Can you place things like a couch underwater, but shaped like a scallop to go with the underwater theme.

You can use the lower terrain tool to deepen the ocean.

Alternately, you can just create your own diving spot from scrach.

Yeah, this method works in IP, but for other worlds, YMMV. This thread on placing dive lots in existing worlds has more info: http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/689246.page, as does this one: http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/689285.page .

From the first thread:

The list of succeeded map:
Sunlit Tides
Sunset Valley
Lucky Palms

The maps that may cause problem :
Barnacle Bay
Bridgeport
Appaloosa Plans
Monte Vista
Dragon Valley
Starlight Shores

The maps that won't work:
Twinbrooks
Lunar Lakes
Riverview

ETA: Hidden Springs works too, per Dan Brunetu below



You can place stuff like that, but I am pretty sure the sim won't be able to interact with it... pretty much all interactions seem to be disabled underwater, except for the underwater objects that came with IP, and there's a good reason for it... the animations would be all wrong.

So the other, early nautically themed EA world Barnacle Bay, can't have dive spots?

No wonder they're giving it away for free to some EU customers who pre-ordered IP according to another thread in the TS3 forum.

I am happy about LP. Still my favorite world, and about to get a proper makeover.

Apparently somebody managed to get one to work in BB, not sure how One thing I notice in the other threads linked above is that using the ConstrainFloorElevation False cheat before flattening the lot may help, for those worlds where the water may be too shallow. You need about 3 stories of ocean depth for the buoy to appear on the water's surface.

How can you lower terrain before adding a lot to it?



That cheat does make it work, but also completely destroys the landscape of the diving spots saved from Isla Paradisa since it raises more than it lowers. All important stuff like caves and such then end up underground and ofc therefor unreachable.

I got my dive lots to work for the most part in Dragon Valley using the method in that TS3.com thread. The only problem I seem to have now is that the buoys fly in the air, and so do the sims when they come back up from diving. Haven't seen a shark yet in that particular save, but I fear they might fly too :/ Is there a fix for this?

I believe that's the water depth issue :/ What you might try (no guarantees!) is using CFE to deepen your lot... probably easier to do this if you start from scratch with an empty dive lot and then build it to suit. I guess it'll end up being a deep hole, but with suitable decroation you might be able to get it to look interesting

Edit: sigh I built my nice dive lot in Isla Paradiso, in a test game since I was experimenting. Now I'm trying to place it in another save in Isla Paradiso... and I'm running into the same issue others have reported with different worlds :/ Floating buoy, lot not fully sunk. Exiting and restarting doesn't help. This is more difficult than I expected!

Edit 2: OK, just had to try some different spots Even the IP ocean is not uniformly deep, apparently. Also had to remember to reset lot type after placing (for some reason lot type reverts after you do the place copy thing), and then exit to menu and reload. Anyway, success :D

Making a diving lot is easy. Making a diving lot that actually functions as it should is hard. I finally made one, after a lot of fails, and it's really ugly because I had to lower terrain a few times. It took me a lot of time to get it right and after I took another look at it I decided that it was just not worth the effort. My Sims who will want to dive will just have to travel to IP.

I just built a smaller dive lot in Sunset Valley and noticed the problem with terrain painting. So I thought before I sink the lot I will paint the terrain first then level it. That worked for the most part but when I went underwater to decorate the terrain paint still didn't show. I did decorate and left the game for now. I am hoping when I start it again the terrain paint will show. *fingers crossed*

Also noticed if you put your houseboat over the dive areas that have been placed in other worlds but was originally in IP, don't close your game before putting the houseboat back to port. The way things float over the IP lot will also affect the level the houseboat float and it will not be able to lock to port again.

Does making your own dive lot correct the teleporting back to land problem whenever your sim tries to explore the cave bug? I would remake all the damn dive lots just to find a way around that bug.

I saw a remedy for dive lots already created and placed, just go into the dive lot with the unlocking cheats and pick up the caves then replace them back. If you don't use MOO then it may not let you put it back, so pick it up and sell it, then hit the back arrow to put the cave back.

I created my dive lot in my Sunset Valley that I use for building, saved the lot to community lot bin, then put the lot in the played SV and still get the floating. I think I ruined the water levels for houseboats cause I can't move any of the houseboats from the piers, route failure and sim stomping. Regular boats work, just not houseboats. I need to do some research.

EDIT:

Found a remedy for my stuck houseboat. Taken from Graham's tutorial:



I think my ports/piers are not working because I didn't lock them back when I edited them. Off to get in the game and try these methods, if they don't work then I have to start over with a fresh Sunset Valley.

Terrain paint did show when I was in live mode, just not in Edit Town. WHY!!