This idea of a custom fountain just popped while i was building a lot and was so thrilled about it that i actually abandoned the lot in the middle to write the tutorial and share it with everyone!


A simple and easy to follow tutorial on how to create a custom fountain like shown in the picture above. (landscaping category)-(Note: all the descriptions are placed under the pictures)



These are the 4 types of fountains that are available on the game.Sure they look good but don't you wish you had a bit of variety?Well i did and that's where it all started.


Let's begin.All fountains can be found at buy mode>decorative>sculptures.I picked the biggest one.We will need custom terrains and we will be using these cheats:
boolprop constrainFloorElevation false(true turns it off)
moveObjects on (off)
boolprop snapObjectstogrid false (true turns it off).


Type in the cheatbox the CFE(abbreviation for the constrain floor elevation) cheat like that : boolprop constrainfloorelevation false.Then go to build mode > terrain> select raise terrain tool > medium size and click on the centre of the fountain about 4 times.It doesnt matter if it looks weird now we will fix it.


See, i am almost done, use the small terrain tool to hide the remaining parts of the fountain.Rotate with the camera to make sure none of the parts are visible.


Then use the smooth terrain tool medium size, and apply till it looks smooth and nice like this.While you do that the fountain parts might re-appear ,no worries, click the undo button and use the small size tool for details.If yours looks like that now , you're doing great.We will need custom terrains so if you don't have any you could download some.Water and rock/pebble terrains are what we will mostly need for our custom fountain.


Use the small lower terrain tool to form something like a cup in the center of our fountain.It is where we will paint with water terrain.Time to save!


Here in top-down view you can see which tiles you can level so you can add benches e.t.c without being on a slope , therefore not usable by the sims.I marked them with floor.You can't level the green area (7x7)inside this because fountain parts will re-appear.


Here i am leveling all sides around the hidden fountain.


Add a fence ( whichever one you like! it can even be a half wall which you can customize with wallpaper).


Add trees and benches


I have added lights, 2 lines of floor around the fence and 4 short hedges in the corners


Level these 6 tiles in the middle ( you need CFE on , dont forget to turn it off when you are done)

Add water terrain using the medium or small for details terrain tools.


Then a pebble/rock terrain around the fountain using the small terrain tool.From here on is up to you.Let your imagination go wild! Here are some tips you might follow though>>>


Add more trees in the surrounding and some flower and path terrains

Alternatively you can place these 4 fountains on top ( used the moveObjects on cheat to merge them like this) or..

this fountain for a nice water effect

Or you can use the low hedge and the flower bouquet which you can find in buy mode-decorative to make the effect you see on the back

Use this fountain to create a different base for the sculpture

Let's compare... both fountains..What do you think? lol

Extra tip: custom swinging set.looks romantic! Just merge 3 wedding arches with the swinging set and using the moveObjects on and boolprop snapObjectstogrid false cheats

You can actually place whatever you want (even trees or flowers or custom rocks) and decorate as you wish , the only limit is your imagination really...



That's the finished product and only an example of what can be done! I hope that you liked this tutorial and that it inspired you! I can't wait to see your own custom fountains and if you ind it useful please take the time to say thanks.
PS:If my english wasn't perfect i am sorry but it is not my mother language.


Thanks for reading

Corvidophile2




edit:Thank you so much Xanathon for converting this for me because to tell you the truth i had no clue how to do it lol ! You are so kind!
Everyone that wants to dowload this little tutorial now is available in pdf format :-) Thank you Xanathon!

An excellent idea and tutorial! I had a similar idea when I was building a lot a while ago. i was making a pond in an elevated area at the back of the lot. Also I had a sort of Gazebo and 2 arched bridges to the gazebo....I was wondering if a fountain actually IN the water would work....so I tried it and it DID work! There are lots of possibilities for the fountains.

Love your idea

fev

Fabulous tutorial and great thinking! Cant wait to try it out.

I tried something very much like this with the large round Uni fountain in one of my lots here at MTS2. Where you used terrain paint for water, I used the water in the base of the fountain just by carefully raising the terrain over concrete sides. Your idea appears to be better than what I did (you'll notice my emphasis on the word "carefully" in the previous sentence), because there was a certain square (or multiple squares) that would push the fountain back on top of the ground when the elevation was changed. If I remember correctly, I used plants to cover any part of the concrete sides which were poking up through the ground. I haven't tried this in my game yet, but from the pictures, it looks great. Thanks for the tutorial.

corvidophile2....

This was an excellent tutorial, and the fountains were so inventive and creative.

Sim Cities everywhere will have fountains popping up everywhere thanks to you. Certainly mine will have one soon!

Thank you for being so unselfish and taking time out from your project to share this idea with us.

What a fun game it continues to be!!!!!

Lovely decoration suggestions and a great use for the big fountain. Thanks.

Good idea and great tutorial, thanks for sharing your findings with us. :p

Thanks a lot for this excellent tuto,

It gives me a lot of ideas, I'm going to test ... now !!!

Very creative thinking and combining here. Applause!

Wonderful!!! I can't wait to try it.

I love building so much, thanks for the tutorial. Gonna try this out asap. :D

Thank you so much everyone,i am very happy that you found this turorial inspiring, it is my first tutorial but everyone has written almost everything, so i was actually waiting till something new "hits" me lol It's amazing what you can discover or do when experimenting hehe. If anyone encounters any difficulties ( although i think it couldn't be easier) just tell me.

Thanks

corvidophile2

(If a moderator thinks this should be moved to the tutorial section i would appreciate it since here it's the help section :-) Also i was wondering how you can attach this as a file, in case anyone wants it handy at their computer documents )

I was playing with it last night... I found trying to imbed the smaller fountains a bit more challenging (for some reason clicking one corner near it would raise the fountain itself instead of just the ground) but that's mostly due to my lack of experience in building. I was trying to play with putting actual water beneath it, instead of terrain paint (as I, well, don't have many useful terrain paints) and found the water level kept going up and down and up and down as I changed the terrain level around the pond I was trying, and finally I gave up, but I'll probably give another whack at it again today. Still, very inspired to try more adventurous landscaping, and I love the little tip for the swing.

If you want to attach it as a document, you'll need to convert it into a Word .doc or a .pdf, .zip or .rar that .doc or .pdf, and then Manage Attachments to upload it.

Wow cool...
Now sims can get into the foundation and really play there...! :D

Thanks i will try and convert that although i am not sure how to do this so i will look at the help section.
I have tried all these you mentioned and don't seem to work, you never know though, that's why they're not mentioned in the tutorial.Although you can do many other creative settings of fountains which i am working on now and might add to this tutorial on a later time, as i am very busy now.

:-)

Well, I don't know if the help will cover doing that specifically - really you need to get it into some sort of word processing software (like MS Word) to do it as a downloadable attachment.

I took the freedom to convert this into pdf for you. Please take the file from this post and move it to the first, after that I will delete it here.

Great tutorial,
it's given me plenty of idea too
thanks

This is nice! I did some thing like this byfore not with a fontein but with some antoher things! i thing i gane make also a tutorial with my things

I have read many tutorials. This is the first one that I've read and not said to myself "what?? wait a minute, let me read that again." It was very easy for me to understand and I might even try it. I seem to be tutorially challenged, get to the 4th step and Im usually clueless hehe.

Very well done, even if english isn't your mother language.

thank u soo much,,, will have it a try when i get home,...

Awesome!!!!

good turtorial

Thanks for writing this up Corvi.. I need all the help I can get Of course, I never was much of a builder, which is why I download YOUR lots in the first place. This is nice tho for if I ever get the urge to try my hand at it. Thank you for taking the time to write this up and share it with all of us.

I love it! I feel totally inspired and I'm going to try this on my next lot. Very easy tutorial to follow! Thanks for making it!