Laqrosta
TUTORIALS
Some tips on making World Class Facilities
Hi all!
This is a little text on some tips and tricks I use to build my own facilities. Some things I keep in mind whilst building them, what I do... Basically, just a breakdown/formula on my style of building equestrian facilities. Hope you enjoy! :D
TIP 1
Fill in the gaps
Where ever there is space on your lots, where paddocks or roundabouts or arenas or stables haven't filled space, put path. Lots and lots of path (as you can see in the images to the right). If you don't want to put path in some areas and you want to break it up a bit, you can put little islands (usually I surround them with rocks) with trees or bushes. I personally love doing this and it makes it look so much better!
If you want to curve the path and not fill in some areas and just leave it grass, either put a small paddock (that fits against the side of the path) or line the edge of the path with hedge or fence. Behind that do whatever you like, add trees or shrubs or something else.
See how the gaps have been filled? Also, along the edge I've placed hedge & fence.
Also, an idea is that in paddocks make little groups of trees and place fence around them.
This happens in some equestrian facilities and in Sims it makes an aesthetic look.
SOMETHING I MUST POINT OUT:
Don't fill the place with path right to the edge of the lot! It makes it look weird and ugly. Instead line it with something else - like hedge or fence. Using Eldervines Dark Ranch fence (which is an object, not like your typical sims 3 fences) is the best idea as you can make curves etc.
Islands have been placed around to break up the area a little (lined with rocks) and paddocks have been surrounding it.
TIP 2
Make a mess
Just place stuff everywhere! Make it looked lived in, if you get what I mean. Just chuck stuff everywhere, chuck it in random corners, place random stuff on counters. It actually looks good!
Another thing to remember - detail, detail, detail! The more detailed you make it the more amazing it looks! And if you're building it for someone like I do you always want it to look amazing. Everything down to the beams, the ivy, the colour scheme - it's all so important.
TIP 3
Lighting!
Lighting is super important. I myself suck at lighting and am trying to improve it, but here are some tips anyway.
Invisible lights are the bomb. Like, they save me sooooo much! If you want these lights, do Shift+Ctrl+C and a cheat bar up the top will pop up. Write in there bugdebug on and in buy mode a new category should pop up! It'll be a question mark, and if you go through the categories of that one you'll find some lights! In buy mode they're visible as squares of circles, but in live mode they become invisible.
TIP 4
Shapes - keep it interesting!
Keep the building shapes interesting, keep the roof lines interesting! Boring, basic roof lines like the image you see to the left aren't nice and aren't very aesthetic.
There's one tutorial by Carls Sims 3 Guide which I really like and could be useful, so here's the link.
Also, keeping different shapes and doing different things with the walls makes for a more, interesting place.
The construction of this building was really hard as there was lots of walls and different rooflines, but it looked really cool when I'd finished it. Stuff like that is really good and makes it more exciting and cool rather than just a big peak roof.
TIP 5
Keep it in the middle!
Honestly, I absolutely hate it if the entrance is off, or if it's not in the middle.
It seriously grinds my gears.
A tip to fix this is place down the arch you're using for the door (or figure out how wide you want the entrance to be) and count how many squares wide it is. Then, when making the section you want to place it in, make it so there are two squares either side of the doorway. Perfection!
For example, if I have an arch that is four squares wide, I'm going to make an eight square long section of wall so when I place my arch it will be perfectly in the middle!
Notice how the arch is in the middle? It is so ugly and frustrating when it's not. If you do the tip above before you start building it makes it so easy to build. If not, and you place the arch and its not in the middle, it's seriously annoying when you have to rebuild the whole thing. Trust me. I've been there.
Well, that's it!
If you follow these tips, hopefully, you'll have an amazing facility!
Thanks for popping in!
