I'm just playing the stock Sunset Valley, but I want to add a couple of empty lots to the town. Is it possible to do that without making a whole new town/starting over and losing my sims?

Adding lots can be done if you have the Ambitions EP - and probably if you've updated your base game to at least version 1.12. Of course, finding a flat spot to add a lot to Sunset Valley is the hard part...

The beach is pretty flat at all, but you can bulldoze bigger lots and put smaller ones on that space.

Aww, see, I haven't gotten Ambitions yet, and I'm at 1.11. Is the feature included in 1.12 or in Ambitions? Also, is there no way for me to just load my town as is into CaW and edit it there?

No. The files for the worlds are read-only. You can't edit them in CAW. It is included in the patch for the base game.

i am wondering the same thing because im trying to turn sunset valley into a custom town but its soo full of hills that everytime i try to lay a building down or something there is like an insane canyon there where i literally chopped the mountain. Is there any way to level the terrain down to make flat areas?

I've been experimenting with the new edit town features, and I suppose that you could cover the mountain in lots and flatten it down that way, but that seems like it'd be tedious, ineffective and above all else, ugly.

So, the new features do pretty much all I wanted, but I didn't find a way to make new roads. Is there?

No, as far as I know, you can't make roads in World Edit: just in CAW, and if you don't have the files for the world, then you can't load them into CAW.

this is exactly what I was thinking about doing. but the land in sunset valley is sooooo hilly i bet there would be messed up terrain. And there is also the whole problem with the roads not being able to be placed. xD

I've had success bringing a world into CAW from doing what they did in this thread,
http://linna.modthesims.info/showth...5#startcomments

You can get the default version of the world into CAW, but you can't get your currently played town in CAW with any changes you've made to it by saving as those are stored separately. Only the version you get if you make a new game is editable.

Here I am!



You have to find the file of the world, while in the game, and then copy it,


Then, you must paste it into the worlds fiile in CAW.

Erm... what? Care to clarify? There are two places where installed worlds are stored. Ones that come with the games are in Program Files, installed with the base game or the EP they came with. Worlds installed through the Launcher such as Barnacle Bay or custom worlds are in Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\InstalledWorlds

The contents of these .world files can be put into a .world file created with CAW to edit a default version of a world that came with the game or EPs, or a custom world.

However, the information in these .world files is not the same as the actual -played- world. That data is stored in Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Saves\ and does not appear to be mergeable in any known way with the .world file itself to make a played version of either a default or custom world.

If it -is- mergeable, please provide MUCH more detailed information on how to do so - exact steps to take to import the pieces, etc., as this is not something we have any known documented method on, and vague instructions don't really help get us any further on this, y'know?

is there a way to crate a .world file of a saved game?
I created a city world (Simadelphia) and overall its ok but I added some things and now w the new generations ep I wold like to add more stuff in CAW any way possible. But there has to be a way, I remember seeing a world DL for riverview but it was it was empty so he must have DL it then created a file edited it in CAW to delete all the buildings, No?
or is there a way to export a saved game to upload it then DL. that should create a .world file in the installed words folder?

then just un-check 'read only' :D

Hi, so sorry just to jump in when it's been dead for a bit but I think I might possibly have worked out how to do it...

Basically I followed the instructions to open the custom file which are posted in this thread: http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=416989 (this is the above mentioned thread but I thought I'd put it in again)
But, before I opened the new world file in CAW again (after importing the other world - step 4) I also found the .nhd file for my world which was in Local Disk>The Sims 3>Saves>Name of world and imported that into a different folder (I think that that means you can change the landscape without worrying about stuff but I am writing this as I do it for the first time...)

I then opened up the original version of that world that I made in CAW and removed the Lots layer when doing Step 4 (I've changed the sizes of some of mine and moved them around, although I don't know how much of a difference this makes)
Then I imported both folders into the new world file in S3PE, (hopefully) effectively combining the houses, sims and households with the landscape.
(The .nhd file definitely works because I imported that first and opened it in CAW, only to have trees and lots floating in mid air, so fingers crossed the landscape will work too!...)

HOWEVER, I don't know whether this will work for the pre-made worlds, because the one I was doing this with was a world that I had already made in CAW (EA's programming might mess around with this...)

I don't know if anyone still needs it, but I will post again saying whether it works or not...

Either way, hope it helped!!

OH MY GOD I DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT WORKSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!! MY PRECIOUSSS!!!!!!!!!!!
(Sorry, just ignore my little freak out! I got a little excited there!)

Ok, I really hope that people still need it because I have cracked it! Just follow the instructions in my previous post and you will have your previously made world available to edit in CAW!!!!! (I hope they're understandable!!)

I'm still not sure about worlds like France, but it definitely seems to work for mine (whether I'll be export it is a different question).

Great work, CassieJ!

I tried this a while ago but had no luck:
http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/po...09.page#8089579

I think the key is probably that you removed the lots (the blue lots issue in my picture is most likely caused by duplicates). I'm curious- were the sims carried over?

So well done for figuring this out, maybe you could write a tutorial and we could put it in the CAW tutorials section.

Great work, I will be trying this for sure!

Why not just download Sunset Valley (2nd Edition) by LynxAQ? He added many lots and also placed Ambitions and Late Night community buildings in the town. This town has become my favorite world by far.

Any progress on this? I've been trying myself with the steps mentioned but I constantly get corrupted CAW files and if I do finally get to export a world, it crashes the game to desktop upon loading it.

Moving to CAW forum, since that's where you're more likely to get help

This is very interesting. I too tried this once, with not much luck, but I'm always up for a challenge

Tonight when I'm back at my caw computer I'll try it again. Now that someone has said they got it to work, I want to do it too!

I'll update this post with my findings.

Ooooh, I'm very interested to hear how things went!

@Nukael- perhaps you could try it too, the more who test the better!

I did quite a number of tests, but none of them worked... my CAW file would always get corrupted (unable to open in CAW). And unable to export.