View Single Post in: LotAdjuster 2.8 (Updated Jan 31, 2010)

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#181 Old 17th Jul 2008 at 4:02 PM
Default Expand a lot "Over the road"
Quote: Originally posted by Man1968
I have a (probably) stupid question: when I expand a lot across the road, everything works fine when I load it, but it's not possible to move it in the neighborhood, since the game just spawns a new road in front and the lot snaps to it. Now, I know the LA clearly specifies that those lots might need special handling to move or share, and that is precisely my stupid question: what is that special handling?. I have not been able to find it in the threads. Thank you.
Not a stupid question at all. There are a lot of tutorials which need to be written and this is one of them.

Lots which have been expanded "over the road" cannot be moved or placed in a neighborhood within the game, and therefore cannot be shared using the normal Sims2Pack method. This is because the game doesn't recognize lots where the road is not at the edge of the lot.

Let me give you some hints as to how to handle these lots:

1) If you are going to be expanding such a lot to the left or right, as well as "over the road", then expand to the left or right first, including the step to snap the lot to the neighborhood road so that the game will regenerate the roads correctly on the expanded terrain.

Once you have the road correctly placed left-to-right on the lot, you can run the LotAdjuster a second time to expand over the road. This time, be sure not to move the lot in the neighborhood within the game, or the game will attempt to regenerate the road on the edge (as you've seen).

2) If you want to move an "over the road" lot within the neighborhood, then use the LotAdjuster advanced option "move lot" to do this.

3) If you want to rotate an "over the road" lot within the neighborhood, then you will need to edit the neighborhood package using SimPE. Choose "Lot Description (LTXT) in the left pane and choose your lot in the right pane. In the "Plugin View" at the bottom, you will see a field labelled "Orientation". Change this field to rotate the lot within the neighborhood.

Aside: hmmm, I wonder whether I should add this feature to the LotAdjuster?

4) If you want to share an "over the road" lot, you have to share the lot package file directly, rather than packaging the lot into a Sims2Pack. In order to place the shared package into a neighborhood, you have two options that I can think of.

Be sure to backup your neighborhood before trying either method, and keep that backup until you are sure that everything is working as expected.

I would also like to warn against copying occupied lots... the game doesn't handle duplicate or excess sims very well.

4A) Use the technique from my tutorial about how to copy an existing lot in Castaway Stories:

http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=275135

This technique works because Castaway Stories roadless lots have the same problem as "over the road" lots: you cannot move or place a lot in the neighborhood while running the game. Questions about this technique should be posted in the tutorial thread, rather than here.

4B) Lot Package Replacement method:

This is an advanced technique which some modders use, but which may never have been documented. Let me see whether I can give you a brief synopsis:

- Create a dummy lot which is the same size as the lot which you want to copy. You also need to be sure that it has the correct U11 (sun direction) value. Usually, this just means that the dummy lot has to be facing in the same direction within the neighborhood as the original lot, but this is not always sufficient. If you go through these steps and find that your lot is obviously oriented incorrectly, then restore from your backup and try again with the dummy lot facing in another direction. For more information about the U11 (sun direction) value, please see my post:

http://www.modthesims2.com/showpost...32&postcount=10

- Outside of the game, determine the filename for the original and dummy lot packages. Make a copy of the original lot package and rename the copy to have the filename of the dummy lot, completely replacing the dummy lot.

- When you run the game, the dummy lot should now be a copy of your original lot. If the lot appears to be rotated incorrectly, restore from backup and try again with a different orientation for the dummy lot.

- Once the new lot looks correct internally, you can use the move and rotate hints above to place the new lot where you want it in the neighborhood.

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I believe that this covers the "special handling" required. Please let me know if you have further questions.

If you actually work out any of these techniques in more detail, I'm sure that people would appreciate a detailed tutorial with pictures. If anyone writes a tutorial, let me know and I'll include a link to your tutorial here.