Hello, everyone!

First time poster here I have recently started to play around with CAW in order to build the Elysian Fields (a modern take on the Greek myths). I had never used CAW, so I read some tutorials and watched some videos on the subject and I think I have grasped the basics of it. However, I have encountered some issues that I can't even begin to understand and I was hoping someone here could help me out.

The first characters I decided to create were Arachne and her teenage son Closter. In Elysian Fields, I wanted Arachne to be the owner of Spider's Web, a small town general store struggling to stay relevant in this day and age. I created the community lot using CAW (I created it as a Consignment Store) and then I built and furnished part of it using EIG, making sure a Consignment Register was placed inside. I then saved my world, exported it and test-played with it. This is where I found several issues.

These are my two main issues:

1) The Consignment Register always gives a "Store Closed" message and no clerk ever came to work
2) I've watched dozens of NPCs go to the Spider's Web but when they get to the lot, they just fade out and vanish. They don't go inside the store. The only two exceptions to this were a Papparazzi who sat on the bench outside the store and some random dude who went inside to perform for tips, but Arachne and Closter can visit the store and the property shows up on the Purchasable Properties list.

Other issues that seem weird to me:

3) Only horses, deer and a raccoon constantly show up. Why no cats and dogs?
4) Why is no one available to chat online using the PC?

Issue #4 might be due to the fact that no one actually lives in my play-test Elysian Fields besides my sims, but it doesn't hurt to ask. I'm attaching some pictures of the building - maybe one of you more experienced people will notice something that is causing these issues.

I would think that most of your issues are due to the fact that your world is almost empty. Put your lot in another world that is fully build and test it there. I would also recommend to build your lots in such a world and only place them in CAW (and maybe adjust them in EIG). That way playtesting goes much smoother and quicker, you really don't want to export your world everytime you need to test a lot.
From what you write I understand you zoned the lot consignment store in CAW?

No. 2 is the standard behaviour for NPCs. They spend most of their time in Neverwhere. You will rather encounter townies (i.e. residents of your world) or role sims like Paparazzi or performers on your lots.

Thanks for the input!

So let me get this straight. I should create the lot (potentially with dimensions not supported in-game, like 16x23) in CAW, then I go into EIG and save it to the bin, then I exit CAW, go into the game, edit all I want and when I'm happy with it, I save it to the bin again, I go back to CAW, into EIG, place the lot from the bin in the designated place, save it and the lot will be editable in CAW as if I had created it there? If this is what you're suggesting, it will save me lots of work with play-testing.

It seems to me you have misunderstood CAW a bit. It's really a cumbersome, but powerful world builder. That means the world has to be made and then you build your characters.

You have to change focus a bit. As Norn says, make the world and then populate it.

The I would like to ask a question you might not want to hear, but it has tobe done. Building good worlds for playing in can take years and require some technical skills.

... is CAW really what you want? Do you have the patience.

I study 3D Graphics myself and this is a very important question. I'm not that interested in everything I can do. Somethings are just a pain in the butt, but has to be done.

CAW as I said is made to build the environment we play in, perhaps you just want to tell stories?

If you can keep it going the time it takes to be finished, what is your routing like? Routing is such a pain subject, but is a requirement for a good world.

Tips:

Like Norn says you need more people in your world for it to work. Build some houses for them and make the character to put in them, after you have installed a new beta in the game.

To install a new beta of the same world, it needs a new ID. What is that program called again? I'm on my mobile. Oh well, we will be here to help you out later as well.

Good Luck.

As long as you work with flat lots (you can still create a hill on the lot as long as the edges of the lot are flat and even) you don't even need to save them to bin in EIG. You can use any empty lot.

For odd lot sizes there is this mod: https://modthesims.info/d/471164/ad...01-16-2014.html which is a real life saver. It allows you to create lots of any size.

You can adjust lot zoning, vista or whatever else later in CAW, or make changes to the lot in EIG.

Another tip: It is very much recommended to always save a copy of your finished lot to the bin. You might encounter issues which makes it necessary to delete and renew the lot in CAW - your built lot will be lost in this case. You will have to plop the finished version in EIG again.

Have a look at my CAW tutorial, there might be some helpful information for you.

I have been discovering many more options in CAW and I agree that some of them are really, really strong. I'm a pixel-perfect-minded person, so the in-game CAW terrain tools were not doing it for me. I started playing around with Photoshop and after a couple of days, I've created a height map from scratch I'm happy with. The Sims 3 has become a Create a World game for me When I play, I usually build for some time and then I export the world and just play in it for a while, to admire whatever improvements I've done that day. For the last couple of days, I've been working on the beach area of my world, sometimes editing small details, sometimes working on zoning lots.

Routing is really weird. I wish I could edit all those lines and give my sims less options for routing. I've managed to grasp the basics of it: I paint the areas where I don't want them to go and such, but I wish had more control over it. I don't even know why some of them are purple, some blue, etc. Sometimes my Sims go around the lot when they don't need to, sometimes they get stuck and simply can't leave or enter lots and most of the time, I can't understand why. For some time, I was using lots of sidewalks to create paved areas, but then I realized it was cluster-effing my routing layer, so I did something creative and now I have a new problem. I imported the sidewalk image file into the terrain paint list, but now I have GIANT sidewalk tiles, when what I wanted were many regular ones. Any suggestions?

I have worlds I have worked on for years and have exported a few times at most. I only export when have a specific reason or quite far along in the process. You need to rescale that pavement image. I route extremely tightly in the worlds I do. If there is no reason to be there, I do not let Sims go there. Blue over red routing means the red area is unroutable as water or too steep. If too steep then yes you need to go over with the blue.

Also, never bunch sidewalks and/or roads. That is a no no and can cause problems from what I have heard.