I've been playing around with dummy levels, like RalphaelNinja and MikeInside have used on some of their lots. Made some cool U-shaped stairs with two landings. Looks awesome in my game. They don't look so awesome in my friends' games. Whole sections of wall were replaced by the iron fencing. ::dumbfounded::

Attached are two sets of pics - two that show how it should appear, and two corresponding pics that show how it appears in the game for a couple of my friends. I've had the houses up for download on the Exchange for a couple of days, and no one has said anything to me about this problem, and I can't recreate the problem in my game, even when I go in under a separate WinXP user account.

I don't know how many people are building with dummy levels, so I have no idea if anyone has ever come across this problem before. Anyone have any ideas???

Jen

I would suspect that your friends had made changes to their walls.txt file? or some other file? definitely a mystery.

Yep, I've seen some people that add a new wall style to walls.txt with require flat bottom and top set to false. I tried this. Easier building, but when I removed that wall style from walls.txt any walls built with it reverted to iron fencing.

Moral: don't add a new wall type and then upload the house.

Aha. So it's not that my friends could have added something to their walls.txt file - because I know they didn't. It's because I *did* add something to my walls.txt file. Crap. I love the way it works too, with the flat bottom and top set to false, but my regular wall tool still available too.

What if I temporarily changed the main wall style so that flat bottom and top are set to false, then switch it back when I'm done building that type of wall? With it being the main wall style, it would seem less likely to cause the walls to revert to iron fencing after I change it back, wouldn't it? I wouldn't be attempting to add a *new* wall style. Any experience with that?

And *huge* thanks for responding... :bow: I wasn't sure anyone would know the answer to this, especially after RalphaelNinja's reply. Figured if anyone would know it'd be him. Or MikeInside, but I believe he's busy with a server move.

Thanks again. Off to return my walls.txt file to normal and rebuild the offending areas of my houses.

Jen

Ah glad you were able to work out the problem.

I have not added a new type of wall to my walls.txt file, but I did modify the exisiting one. Will this cause the same problem? I dont think it will, but I would like to confirm this if anyone knows.

mike, what the **** is wrong with your site???

I'm not Mike, but:
http://forums.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=42407

MIKE LIVES !!!!!!

Damn, I thought you died or something dude !!!
Anyways, I've heard that your site is moving here, coool !!!! Now I only have to frequent one site I do have a question though, will you be adding any new tuts (i.e. short walls) when the new site comes up ???

Jen, after reading your message above, I'm wondering something.... Your modified walls.txt file, did you add some additional changes to this file other than what was in Mike's Easy Wall tut ??? If so, I'd be intereted in finding out what you've done and how it impacts build mode. Seems to me that some pretty cool things can be accomplished by tweaking this file. Just curious if you have experimented with anything new ..... Thanks

Well, after learning that adding a new wall type wasn't good, I did some further testing on modifying existing wall types. As far as setting flat top and bottom to false, I've been able to switch them back and forth and everything loads fine and behaves fine. More on this later.

I did try to *add* something to a wall type. I wasn't thrilled with walls poking through my floors that have been deformed as roofs, so I thought "Hey, how about that "floor to floor based ceiling" as a wall height. So I modified a wall type by entering a new characteristic with the new height and proceded to try to enter the lot. Crash. So apparently you can modify existing wall characteristics, but not add new characteristics. I suppose the same thing happens if you delete a characteristic.

I've been trying to make a conical roof for a octogon tower that sits on a foundation and has 2 of the 4 intermediate floors at less than full height (which blends in with the rest of the house). It's been keeping me busy. The game doesn't appear to be able to decide if those 45 walls are level or not and it keeps changing it's mind on me. I've started using only flat top false, flat bottom is still true. The walls seem much more stable this way. There may be cases where you need flat tops and bent bottoms, but I've gone to only setting one of them false.

Thanks Jack that was very informative Im glad now I didnt change my tutorial to the other method of editing the walls.txt file.



Unfortunately no... I tried to get them ready for the new site, but ran out of time. I should have them (short walls, dummy walls etc) online by the end of the month at the latest... hopefully much sooner.

Yeah, I was doing something different. I obviously should have just used Mike's Easy Wall tut, but I didn't. One of the other members of Mike's forum suggested adding a new wall type to the walls.txt file that had flat bottom and top set to false. This meant that I had two wall tools and two room tools. I could use whichever one was needed for the situation. But any wall that was created with the new custom wall type has indeed turned into iron fencing for anyone who doesn't have that same modification to their walls.txt file. Which is almost everyone. So don't do it. LOL :Slap:

You should be fine if you're using Mike's Easy Walls tut, or as Jack suggested, only changing one of the two features to false.

Jen

Jack, you are my new hero. :bow: (Don't worry Mike, I still adore you too!) I really appreciate you sharing all of your experimentation with us. Saves me a lot of time and hassle.

If you succeed with the conical roof you mentioned, I'd love to see the finished product. Sounds fascinating!

Jen