Before you get started:

• Ensure you have 'moveobjects' set to off or you won't be able to lay your driveway.
• If you wish to build a garage, you must build a driveway first. You can not lay an extention without a driveway, and you can not place a garage door in the middle of the driveway.
• From all my testing, you can not lay a driveway on a Community lot.
• You can not place a driveway or extension on a foundation.
• When laying a driveway or extension on uneven ground, the game will auto-level it for you. (I didn't notice any difference in price)
• You can also place two driveways, extensions and garage doors beside each other to make a double garage if you wish.
• You can place mutliple driveway extensions to make a longer driveway - as long as your block will allow.

Let's start building!
Ok, before we get started, there's a few things you need to know...
To start with, at this stage your Sim always approaches from the right so if your placing the driveway on the right hand side of your lot, you need to ensure there are at least seven (7) tiles between the edge of your lot and the left side of the driveway. See pictures below.


Alternatively you can place your driveway quite safely on the left side of your lot. If you are laying your driveway on an already existing house, you need to ensure there are ten (10) tiles free from the street (eight from the footpath).

If you just want a place to park your car, that's all you need to do. Purchase your car and place it on the driveway, you're good to go. If however you wish to build a garage for your car to protect it from all those elements such as... well the sun, continue reading.

Adding a garage!
In order to build a garage for your car, you must lay the driveway first. Once that's down, you want to select the 'Driveway Extension Piece' and place it at the end of your driveway. At this stage it has to go directly at the end, and it can not be rotated, but I'm sure eventually all the wonderful modders will change that!


Ok, now we have the driveway extension added, let's put in a garage door. They come in a few different colours, so select which one you would like to place, and possition it where the driveway and the extension meet. See below:


Once that's done, it's time to hone into those building talents and place some walls and a roof. Much like building a regular house, you join the wall up to the garage door, but of course you only need to build three sides.


Here's an amusing fact : You can make the garage part of your house... literally! Instead of building three walls around to it to make it a self contained garage, you can in fact join your lounge room or bedroom around it and have the car park inside the house! But let's not go too crazy just yet...

Adding a roof to your garage is just like adding one to your house, and of course you could always place some tiles at the end of the extention, a stairway and place a second floor do your garage... rent it out!


Now comes the fun part - let's go shopping!

Your new car!
Once you decide what car you want to buy, haggled the price down and paid the dealer, it's time to place your car. If you have only placed a driveway down, then it's pretty obvious where you need to put it, but if you have built a garage, and you want your Sim to use the garage, you need to place your newly purchased car inside the garage. Doing so will ensure your sims return to parking inside the garage when they come home.


Placing a car is just like placing furniture, it can't intersect walls etc. And that's pretty much it! Paint some walls, place some garden bed outside and you're good to go. Happy hooning!

Some other building tips:

• 
  You can place a door (normal house door) to get into your driveway and Sims will use it, however it can not overlap your extension so make sure you leave room for an extra tile width. Sims may still use the garage door depending on where they are coming from.

This is very easy to follow. I will have to try this out when I go home today. Thanks for writing this up! (I've also moved it to the proper place.)

top notch tutorial, thanks!

Thanks for the feedback! (and thankyou for moving it daysies). If there's anything I've missed just let me know and I can add it in. :-)

Thank you so much...I was trying to figure this out in between trying to figure out why my adult simmies were not moving and their plumb bob was blinking.

I actually feel silly...after reading this it's really a no-brainer...evidently mine went missing yesterday.

Wow... Looks so great. I can't wait till tommorow to get nightlife!
And Tim said my username in the Podcast
Im so cool ;-)
Anyway, i'd give you bene's, but i guess i'll have to give you my thanks and praise

Thanks for making the tutorial, now I know how to make my lots to be more NL-compatible, thanks again for your clear tutorial.

I've 2 questions though.

1. What if a 2x2 lot is used, will the positioning of the driveway be of any difference? In other words, does lot size matter? And if so, how do they affect and so how to deal with it?

2. If a community lot has a driveway by building it with lot-type-changing cheat, will it be usable ?

Thanks in advance...

Nice days...

Hi niol,

With regards to lot size, I'm not 100% sure as I tend to use the medium ones, but I wouldn't guess that a lot size would matter unless it's smaller than the driveway itself. It less than 7 wide or 10 deep.

I tries using a driveway on a community lot, but so far every time they have just pulled up out the front near the phone / bin area. From what I have read, the Sim parks in the driveway or garage because we placed their car there, it's not like they see a driveway and realise they can park there... so a driveway on a community lot is just like some pathing.

That's just what I have experienced though, someone might have been able to get it to work, if so hopefully they will share! ^_^

One question how do i thaned you i try to days to do this i just gave up and pick a house with one all ready there so thank you

my game will not let me place the door between the driveway and the extension, it keeps saying "it must be between the driveway and extension and that is where I tried to put it, weird.

thaned = thanked? :confused: Knowing I helped is enough thanks for me (I don't think there's a 'thanks' option on tutorials *shrug*)



Are your driveway and extension touching? It should just slot straight onto it. Does it show as red that you can't place it? Or does it show as green (able to lay) at any point?

Has anyone been able to have a garage directly connected to a house that has a foundation?

I have using MikeInside's Split-Level House Tutorial, here is the link for the tutorial.
http://mikeinside.modthesims2.com/b...evel/index.html

You could try using the boolprop ConstrainFloorElevation cheat to see if that will allow you to put a wall flush against the outside foundation. I'm curious to know if you can use that to make the driveway slanted and will the sims still use it (damn work... or I would be home trying)

Is it possible to create a "circle drive?" I've tried this and there's no way to make the extention piece of drive turn "sideways" to cross in front of the house... I take it this is impossible?

Thanks,
Juju

From everything I have tried, I haven't managed to turn it sideways ><

Its a real shame, we cannot put driveways on the right side of the house, prior to the release of Nightlife, I was saving space on every house for a driveway, most were ready on the right side of the house. Only to discover driveways can only be placed on the left-side of the house.

Some houses I found adding a driveway completely impossible, cause I didn't leave enough room on the left-hand side, but unless I decide to do some really expensive demolish work, and demolishing some of the house.

Oh well, I'll leave some of my houses with no car, for the time being...

I'm not sure what you mean, the very first driveway I put down was on the right side of the house. I think you just have to have enough room for the "street" part of the driveway so it doesn't go past the right hand boundry of the lot.

Yeah if you have a really wide block you can have it on the right hand side, but you just have to have room for the long L part on the street..

Yeah what I meant it was the Long L Part that goes on the road which always points right that can make it difficult to place on the right-hand side of the lot.

If only if you could rotate driveways like every other object.

Hi Envious,

I have a couple of related questions I hope you can help me with or point me in the right direction.

1. I haven't been able to connect a garage to a house because of interference. I think there is a cheat code for this, but I can't seem to find it. I'm not much of a lot/house builder so this is my first experience.

2. The related problem is that even with the garage detached I have trouble adding a roof across the entire width with out running in to interference. If I choose the automatic roof the game engine will ignore this constraint but then will proceed to messup all the other pre-existing roofs. Waaaahhhh!!!!

As an aside I found that if I had trouble laying a driveway on a lot, I could I save the lot and then exit the game, then the next next time I entered the lot, I was able to proceed. To clarify, I had a problem on some lots where even if the driveway showed up all green and I pressed enter or clicked on the mouse, it would still not take.

Thank you for your assistance.

:2cents:

Sealion

In relation to question 1, if your house is built on a foundation, it will make it a little more difficult to add a garage attached as walls don't like being laid right beside foundation. You could try using the cheat : 'boolprop ConstrainFloorElevation' and see if you can get it that way, or alternatively, build your house on the ground (minus the foundation).

With putting a roof one, this can be a bit tricky if it's right beside the house, but if you leave two square's free, you should be able to just use the roofing tool (the one where you lay it like you do foundation, not the auto-roof) and it shouldn't interfere with your house.

If you're driveway is showing green, but not staying when you click, make sure you have the 'moveobjects' cheat set to off... that's usually the biggest culprit.

Hope that helps a little bit, let us know how you go...

For those having a problem on figuaring out how to make a garage easily,
you can view this new thread I just prepared for this purpose as someone asked for here.

An easy way to build a garage along with a house on foundation...
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthre...1095#post761095

Note, I haven't EP2 yet, but the point of that thread is to show how a garage is made connected to a foundation house in 10 steps.


Updates:

Jonesi has also made some great tutorials on this topic with EP2 garage
1. My simple tutorial for connecting a garage to a house with a foundation and adding a garage to houses already made pre nightlife
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=93917
2. My tutorial for placing a garage in the middle of a split level house on a foundation
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=93926


Linkage for garage or driveway tutorials or threads (alphabetically ordered in terms of username):

MTS2 Wiki
http://www.modthesims2.com/wiki.php...and_solutions_-

cwin1024
TUTORIAL: building a house on a foundation with attached garage (nothing to download!)
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=201764

cwirsing
Sloped Driveway tutorial
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=90496

dogman
How To Build A Backwards Garage
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=188960

eedgan
Sideways Garage Tutorial
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=164641
Sideways Garage Templates
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=200969

Envious
TUTORIAL: How to build a Driveway / Garage (Nightlife Only)
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=90174

hexameter
4 Modules of basement garages + Tutorial
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=99315

Jonesi(with EP2 garage)
My simple tutorial for connecting a garage to a house with a foundation and adding a garage to houses already made pre nightlife
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=93917
My tutorial for placing a garage in the middle of a split level house on a foundation
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=93926
Sideways Garage template :)
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=97235

khakidoo
Basements & Garages - I made some video tutorials
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1527988
http://video.google.com/videoplay?d...640064588&hl=en
http://www.modthesims2.com/showpost...3&postcount=122

mirelly
A Simple Way With Underground Garages
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=128450

Neveah223 @ sims2.EA
Slopped driveway tutorial
http://thesims2.ea.com/exchange/sto...asset_id=116775

niol (without EP2 garage)
An easy way to build a garage along with a house on foundation...
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=91504

shrekheatherbelle
Easy Tutorial for Connecting a Garage To A House on a Foundation
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=178018
Tutorial For Circular Looking Driveway
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=168860

SimsSherry2 @ TS2 exchange,
Nightlife Garage on a Foundation Tutorial
http://thesims2.ea.com/exchange/sto...ory&user_id=370

Sotalia
Sideways driveways & shadows - problem solved
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=97102

SteveUK
Nightlife garage and tutorial: {hint: about basement/underground garage}
http://www.insimenator.net/showthre...ghlight=SteveUK
http://www.insimenator.net/showpost...01&postcount=20
{Old or outdated:
tutorial for building a working garage on a downward slope
(downloads) http://www.insimenator.net/download.php?id=3227
or
(view threads) http://www.insimenator.net/viewtopic.php?t=1499}



Linkage for garage or driveway trouble-shooting-threads:

Method of returning the horizontal driveway back to normal
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=168266
Sideway Garage Problem + Boundary problem
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=167953

Hey,

Does anyone know if theres a tutorial for building underground garages anywhere?

I've seen a few available for d/l so i know it must be possible.

Thanks

Are your driveway and extension touching? It should just slot straight onto it. Does it show as red that you can't place it? Or does it show as green (able to lay) at any point?[/QUOTE]


I'm having the same problem of not being able to place a garage door. The driveway and extension are touching and wherever I move the door to, it is always showing red that it cannot be placed (and I have tried different style driveway and extension so that I know where the intersect is).
Has anybody with this problem soved it yet?