This is a quick and simple tutorial for creating sunken rooms with full-walled windows. The tutorial demonstrates the basic concept, which can can be applied and manipulated in many ways. The final result may look something like this:




Before you begin, ensure that the constrainFloorElevation cheat is set to true. If you haven't used any cheats, you won't need to do anything.

Step 1: Create an area of standard foundation to your size specifications.



Step 2: Enclose the foundations with walls.



Step 4: Cut out the area of foundation you want to be sunken.



Step 6: Cut out the corners of your foundation area as shown below (this is to avoid the error bubble you will get in one of the following steps if you leave that area of foundation around the edge)



Step 7: Wall in the area underneath your foundation level walls (don't wall in the edges you cut out).



Step 8: Fill back in the corners you cut out with the foundation tool.



Step 9: Create an outer section of foundation one tile away from your structure as shown below (you need to enter the cheat 'constrainFloorElevation false' for this to work). This ensures that there are tile guides for placing your windows. You may or may not need to follow this step.



Step 10: Place your windows as show below, making sure that the object placement grid is pointing outwards. Additionally, as feldynn and nedumaran have pointed out, make sure you paint your room before you place your windows. You will have a hard time painting them after you place the windows; you will also get the 'unfinished room' moodlet.



Step 11: Place the windows for the ground level as shown below, making sure the object placement grid is pointing inwards.



*Note: It's only important to have the object placement grids pointing in opposite directions. It doesn't matter whether you use inwards or outwards first. The windows above need to be positioned the opposite way to the windows below, otherwise you will get an ugly effect where the windows appear to intersect each other and create texture fragmenting.

That's it! Voila:



I hope this was easy to follow. Please post any queries and I will make an attempt to clarify them.

Thank you so much for the tutorial! It's very easy to understand!

That's a really interesting tutorial and building technique, Beefysim1! I'm going to have to give that a shot, thankyou!

I just wanted to inform you that I used your technique in my tutorial, and I did reference you for it. Thank you for the tutorial, and you deserved the credit

Cool and makes a new window look. Fabulous!!

Sweet! I'm definitely going to try this out. Thanks.

It was very easy to understand, and worked like a charm. Ok, like so many Sims building techniques, it's one of those, not what you do, but when you do it kind of things; well I got the order wrong first time, and it didn't work, but a quick reread and it worked a treat. Thanks a bunch.

Fido

Worked perfect for me, had to come back and thank you again. My self-sim have a beautiful sunken livingroom and master bedroom, with gorgeous views by the beach!

What a great tut, is the sunken room functional...can sims use it?
Thank you so much.

Yep they do! I love it, It should be great to showcase your creations Dee.

Thank you so much lewis...yeh,once we have a tool to make sims 3 objects...a setting like that would look stunning.

Thank you for the tut !
Sorry for my bad english, but is possible to build a sunken room without foundation ?

Thanks

oooh, nice tut thanks! Once question though... Would this method work for the floors above the ground floor (floor 1, 2 etc.)?

Just discovered your tute and didn't yet give a try,but reading the thread makes me happy,I already know that it works fine.You have paid a great contribution to the game.I enjoy in advance...Thank you so much.Big hug.

@Atmoz: I'm actually not sure; it sounds like it would be possible. You might have to start by digging a hole (of the correct depth) into the ground then filling it in by some kind of means of which I cannot even fathom. Sorry I couldn't be more of a help; try snooping around the 'Sims 2' building tutorials, I hear most are interchangeable with The Sims 3.

@ZimZ: 'This' method certainly wouldn't work, but it could be possible. I think you can put foundations on the upper floors with some weird method, so you could put foundations everywhere except for where you want it to be sunken, and you would have a sunken room (in effect). I'm really not sure, though.

@Everyone: Thank you for the positive comments! I'll see if I can integrate this into the chateau I'm working on; though, I can't imagine these solid windows fitting into the style of a chateau (we'll see, though).

^Beauty. Finish it!

Wrogn forum to ask, post it into CF

Great job!

One issue though, when my characters go to the sunken area, they get the negative "unfinished room moodlet, because the game treats the sunken area as another floor, and hence the the "floor above" will always be unfinished.

Any thoughts on this? Thanks.

I'm working on a house right now using this technique, I just dumped my test sim in to check and I think I've figured out what it is. With the full length windows it's easy to miss, when applying a wall covering you have to be sure that the bottom short wall that the windows are on also gets painted.

I applied paint to all the walls I could see (holding Shift to paint whole sections at a time) and since the side of the foundation is painted with brick it only painted over the brick area but left the short wall with the windows on it blank, I knocked out a window to see and paint the short wall and that cured the unfinished moodlet.

Thank you for taking the time to write this tutorial.

Very nicely done...thanks for the good work!!

@Feldyn:

Thanks for checking it out! It IS easy to miss out the window base.

Thank you very much! Will definitely try when I start up the game.

Hey, I'm kind of new to building stuff in Sims 3, first off. I tried your tutorial but I had a bit of a problem. When I went to delete the foundation on the outside of the house, that little wall in front of the windows... It wanted to build foundation all the way to the top of the windows. I did the constrainFloorElevation false code, and it didn't seem to help. Any ideas what I did wrong?

I don't see how it can build the foundation up if you're deleting it? Have you tried using the sledgehammer tool? Describe it a little more if you can, it might even be helpful to post a screenshot.