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Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 14th Jul 2019 at 3:21 AM
Default Issues with cfe roofs
First off, I tried to make sure I posted this in the correct subforum. Mods: if this isn't the right home for this, I apologize; please relocate it.

Lately I've been getting into building houses with more complex roofs via use of the boolprop constrainfloorelevation true/false cheat. For the most part, things work as advertised, and I'm not really having any problems regarding the concepts of "dummy floors" and things like that. However, I seem to be encountering an annoying recurring glitch. This glitch most often presents itself as follows:

* I build a roof or multiple roof segments on a dummy floor,
* I re-level the walls so that I can build a roof segment on the floor above the dummy floor, and then build that roof,
* I go to adjust the slope angle of the various roofs to make sure that they all tie together seamlessly,
* When actually adjusting the slope angle (either with individualroofslopeangle or with the built-in slope adjustment tool), sometimes the act of adjusting the pitch of one roof on my lot causes one or more previously-placed roof segments to "jump" out of position. Often this means that the "dummy floor roof" jumps up so that the bottom of the roof is aligned with the height of the regular wall instead of the dummy wall; sometimes it's the opposite, and the regular-height roof falls down to align with the dummy floor. Whether the glitch will occur or not seems to be controlled by something that I am not aware of. My only hunch is that perhaps the direction that the roof is drawn plays a factor, but I have yet to be able to say with any certainty that this is the case.

Does anyone else who has experience building roofs in this way have any tips for avoiding this problem?

Thanks!
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Theorist
#2 Old 15th Jul 2019 at 3:16 PM
You're going to have to post some pictures, as far as I'm concerned, because I don't understand what you're doing, or trying to do.
You can easily upload pics here and then put them into your posts. Or you can just attach pics to your posts.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#3 Old 15th Jul 2019 at 9:18 PM
The scenario I'm encountering works something like this:

I'll build the bottom floor of a house, and then start working on adding the roof. The goal is to have a gable roof that starts halfway up the second floor, rather than starting at the top of the second floor, and includes dormers poking up through the roof on either side. To achieve this goal, I turn CFE off, draw a wall on the second floor, then flatten the wall so it's only 8 clicks tall (The red wall shows the wall that has been adjusted):


I'll add the roof segments, using shed gables rather than a full gable roof so that the bottom of the roof segment doesn't "pop out" through the dormer wall. Then I set roofslopeangle to 36.87:


I'll draw the second-story walls and make sure that the ceiling height inside the second story is a full story tall:


I'll draw the topmost gable roofs using the gabled roof tool:


Where the top of the shed gables meet the full gabled roof, a visible break/seam between the roofs appears. In order to fix this, I set individualroofslopeangle to be slightly less than the main roofslopeangle of 36.87; past experience shows that shed gables and regular gables don't mesh perfectly even when mathematically they should, so getting the roof segments to fit nicely together without a visible seam usually takes a bit of fine-tuning. I'll set the individualroofslope to something like 36.5. But, when I go to adjust the pitch on one of the shed gables, this happens:


The shed gable nearest to the camera and the shed gable on the opposite side both "jump" up to the full height of the second story wall. As far as I can tell, there's no way to fix this other than deleting the offending shed gables, lowering the wall height in those areas back down to the height of the half-floor, redrawing the roofs, and then going back through the whole process again. Even worse, what often happens when I do this is that one or more other roof segments that have been sitting in place properly suddenly adjust their heights once I start changing slope angles for my roof segments. Sometimes it takes several tries before all the roof segments sit where they're supposed to. On more than one occasion, I've gotten all the segments to sit where they belong, only to leave the lot and come back to some of them jumping back out of alignment.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#4 Old 16th Jul 2019 at 3:27 AM
Quote: Originally posted by ScaryRob
Notice that I installed the floor tile on the dummy floor, mainly to help visualize the unevenness of the floor. Notice how the floor tile pitches up from the 8-click red walls to the full-height 16-click walls? That's why your shed roofs won't work the way you want them to, because you cannot place roofs on walls of different heights. You cannot pull a roof from an 8-click wall over to a 16-click wall (or any other height differences). The game will not allow you to do this, even if you do it before you do your CFE stuff.


I did encounter the "can't build roof on slope" problem, but I've found that if you set the walls to the same height (via cfe) before you build the roof segment, all is well. In fact, I do achieve what you describe as not possible (see attached).

So, if you were to level out that uneven dummy floor from your first picture (using the cfe false cheat) so that the entirety of the dummy floor (in that corner of the house) was 8-clicks tall, you'd be able to draw a roof. What I've done is then re-level the center of the house - the parts of the house that are meant to be useable space - to 16 clicks, and then built a roof on top of that. That does work. The problem I'm running into isn't one of not being able to do what I'm trying to do, it's an issue where things sometimes (but not always) break after I've set them in place. The fact that they only break some of the time, and not all of the time, leads me to believe that what I'm trying to do is possible but that I'm messing up something somewhere along the line. But given the fact that I can (with enough effort) actually produce a finished product that achieves what I'm trying to achieve, there seems to be a solution somewhere that I just haven't identified definitively .
Screenshots
Theorist
#5 Old 16th Jul 2019 at 8:18 AM
Well, I think you've exhausted my roof knowledge.
I don't know what else to tell you.
I' be interested to examine that house you show though, where you said your roof thingie works. Can I download it somewhere?
Echezzman Nwokeoma
staff: senior moderator
#6 Old 16th Jul 2019 at 2:38 PM
Will it be possible for you to share that building you just showed.am trying to fully understand how that was done because @ScaryRob was correct in his analysis. but if you said you got it right your way i will love to understand it too.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#7 Old 16th Jul 2019 at 11:21 PM
I wouldn't mind sharing the house, but I've never shared a TS2 lot before so I don't really know how to clean it up and make it "safe" for others to see. I'd hate to corrupt someone's game out of my own carelessness or naivety. I'm also not even entirely sure how to share a lot as, again, I've never done it.

Let me try a few more pictures from an actual example (as opposed to the test lot I posted in my first reply).

To help visualize the different levels, I've repainted the outside. Green is the first level (the level built immediately on top of the foundation); yellow is the 2nd floor, and red is the attic/roof. As you can see, the four shed gable segments (one on each side of the "jut-out" (the dormer) on the 2nd floor, two jut-outs total = 4 shed gable roofs) are treated essentially as being on the same level as the top-most roof sections. When you pageup/pagedown through the different floors, the shed gables don't appear until you're viewing the entire roof level, even though they appear to be within the second floor.


Here I hide the roof for a better view:


If you look here, you can see the transparent grid square under the shed gable roof; it's halfway between the grid on top of the green wall and the grid on top of the 16-click yellow wall


And here's the entire 2nd floor, top-down view. I've removed all the interior walls and objects from the 2nd floor to show the usable space. Green carpeting indicates usable space, red carpeting indicates areas where the roof above is too low to be usable by sims.


I doubt that I've stumbled onto anything revolutionary here, as it only took me a bit of time and work to get the result that I was looking for; odds are many others have managed to do what I've done in the past 15 years of this game being out. I think the issue is just not clearly explaining what I'm doing and what issue I'm running in to. I'm not opposed to sharing the house (provided I learn how to actually do that), but again, I doubt that this is really groundbreaking in any way for anyone but me
Theorist
#8 Old 17th Jul 2019 at 3:01 AM Last edited by ScaryRob : 17th Jul 2019 at 3:24 AM.
What is that wall segment that is about 7 clicks next to the dormer? Is that just a Maxis half-wall with black trim? Normally, that wall would be distorted.

I'm still duplicating your house and I can see what you mean by the shed roofs jumping up, although only the front two seem to be doing it with my house. The back two look good:

This is reasonably interesting. I will keep trying...

Addendum:

So I sledgehammered the two shed roofs that were popped up, re-leveled the nearby walls to 8 clicks and then reinstalled the two shed roofs. This time, they behaved and I was able to bring them down to 36 degrees to match the main roof pitch. Looked fantastic.

I then saved the lot and exited to the 'hood. Zooming into the lot in 'hood view showed that one of the shed roofs had popped up again:

I reentered the lot, fixed the shed roof in the same manner as above, saved and exited to the 'hood again.
Again, the 'hood view shows the same shed roof popped up again.

No idea why it's doing that.
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#9 Old 17th Jul 2019 at 3:20 AM
To share a lot.
Ensure your game is clean of the Super Duper Hug. You should be using No Sim Loaded + Smarter EP check to keep your game free of it anyway, they are on the essential mod list.

1.Build your lot. Do not move in a sim or it will need cleaning.
2. Go to hood view and package to file. The file will be inside your package lot folder.
3. Open the file with clean installer, going through and unticking any hitchhikers like CC mailbox recolours.
4. Do 'save as' a slightly different name. Even a tiny change such as renaming 'house' to 'House' will do. Open the file again to double-check. A cc free lot should only show the lot file.
5.Rar it and upload it on a file hosting site.

I have been watching this thread with interest.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Test Subject
Original Poster
#10 Old 17th Jul 2019 at 3:25 AM
The wall segments next to the dormer are partial walls created by a shed gable roof put in backwards It's just a little trick to bridge the gap, since the wall connecting the 8-click to the 16-click dormer distorts itself and pops up from under the roof. Walls produced by roofs are more-or-less immune to height distortion.

I have a suspicion as to what is causing the jumping. I'll load up the game and try my idea. My thinking is that it matters where the shed gable is drawn from. The shed gable roof (well, all roofs really) is a rectangle - two corners at the bottom and two corners at the top. The top corners aren't affected by the height of anything near them, but my suspicion is that one of the bottom corners is. In your picture, the shed gable on the top right corner of the house, I suspect that you drew the roof starting from that segment's lower left corner - the corner adjacent to the dormer wall. On the two shed gables that are not broken, I suspect that you drew them from the corner opposite the dormer wall. My hypothesis is that when the roofs on the lot are updated (which would include adjusting the RSL of any of the roof segments), the game checks to see where the terrain or building height is for each roof, and checks that by looking at the height of the corner where the roof was drawn from. I'll test it a little and report back.

Edit: @joandsarah77 I've been told by some that lots from inhabited neighborhoods are problematic. The house is from a neighborhood with sims living in it. Is that a problem? The lot itself has never been occupied.
Theorist
#11 Old 17th Jul 2019 at 3:42 AM Last edited by ScaryRob : 17th Jul 2019 at 4:02 AM.
Quote: Originally posted by LostInRiverview
The wall segments next to the dormer are partial walls created by a shed gable roof put in backwards It's just a little trick to bridge the gap, since the wall connecting the 8-click to the 16-click dormer distorts itself and pops up from under the roof. Walls produced by roofs are more-or-less immune to height distortion.

Clever, I like it.

Quote:
I have a suspicion as to what is causing the jumping. I'll load up the game and try my idea. My thinking is that it matters where the shed gable is drawn from. The shed gable roof (well, all roofs really) is a rectangle - two corners at the bottom and two corners at the top. The top corners aren't affected by the height of anything near them, but my suspicion is that one of the bottom corners is. In your picture, the shed gable on the top right corner of the house, I suspect that you drew the roof starting from that segment's lower left corner - the corner adjacent to the dormer wall. On the two shed gables that are not broken, I suspect that you drew them from the corner opposite the dormer wall. My hypothesis is that when the roofs on the lot are updated (which would include adjusting the RSL of any of the roof segments), the game checks to see where the terrain or building height is for each roof, and checks that by looking at the height of the corner where the roof was drawn from. I'll test it a little and report back.

You're right, I just tried it myself and the shed roof stayed in place.
I indeed remember that I had drawn that shed roof from the same corner the first two times, when it jumped up. This time I drew it from the other corner and it stayed in place. Here's the 'hood view:



Quote:
Edit: @joandsarah77 I've been told by some that lots from inhabited neighborhoods are problematic. The house is from a neighborhood with sims living in it. Is that a problem? The lot itself has never been occupied.

That wouldn't matter to me, because I have a hood just for examining downloaded lots. But I don't think I need to look at that house anymore, because the problem might be solved.

Addendum:

I saved the lot and put it in the lot bin. I then exited the game.
I then restarted the game and placed the lot in a different place, with a different orientation.
Everything's fine.

I think you've discovered a new method for making roofs, LIR. Very clever, and it creates a lot more space on second floors.
Maybe you should write a tutorial.
It's certainly possible that someone else has already done this, sometime in the last 15 years, but if they did, they didn't advertise it much.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#12 Old 17th Jul 2019 at 3:51 AM
I played around with a test lot and confirmed the hypothesis as well. I was even able to make the upper roof "jump down" as I've described before. If you adjust the roofslopeangle of a shed gable before you re-flatten the inhabitable portion of the story back to 16 clicks, the upper part of the roof can fall down to the height of the bottom of the shed gable (if you drew the upper roof from a corner that is now not at the correct level). I'd also guess that, even if everything looks A-okay when you save and exit a lot, the game performs a roof height check when it generates the neighborhood image and/or when you reload the lot.

So, the main thing is just to be aware of what corner you draw your roofs from, and you should be fine!
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#13 Old 17th Jul 2019 at 5:34 AM
Well if you want to be double sure use an empty hood, but you don't have to. Having a game free of the super hug (it goes invisibly in lots) No junk in the lot pack and no sim on the lot is good enough. You could clean the lot. Tutorial link on my journal here on MTS.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
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