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Field Researcher
Original Poster
#1 Old 3rd Jan 2010 at 5:31 PM
Default Please help: How to make grass in a desert world in CAW
Hi. I'm trying to make a desert world with just a little grass here and there for oases. How can I do this, since I only can choose 4 patterns, sand, light sand, dirt and shale rock.

Also, how do I make the desert roads and sidewalks, I only get the normal 'urban ones'.

I've got CAW figured out a little bit but I can't find anywhere how to do this.

(()) Pass the ribbon around if you know someone that
//\\ has survived, died, or is living with cancer..

Grandpa Joost 1996 †
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Lab Assistant
#2 Old 3rd Jan 2010 at 5:38 PM
I haven't tried this, but why not make a gigantic lot and use the in-game terrain paints on it? I assume you want the oasis to be a park or pond of some kind, right?
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#3 Old 3rd Jan 2010 at 6:03 PM
Quote: Originally posted by McNum
I haven't tried this, but why not make a gigantic lot and use the in-game terrain paints on it? I assume you want the oasis to be a park or pond of some kind, right?

Well, of course I'll have a few of those littered across the desert, so that sims can set up camp, harvest food from wild plants, fish etc all very survivalist. But there's also a river that I want to be a little grassy on the edges, like in Al Simhara. It would be rather fake if I had an enormous world and only concentrated grass on 64x64 lots. When you consider how small they are compared to the entire world, I couldn't line the river with grass using lots.

(()) Pass the ribbon around if you know someone that
//\\ has survived, died, or is living with cancer..

Grandpa Joost 1996 †
Lab Assistant
#4 Old 3rd Jan 2010 at 6:35 PM
Ah, right. That's what you're trying to do.

I just booted up CAW and I think I found the button you're looking for. In the Terrain tab, open the Terrain Paint tool. Under the Paint tab on the right, below the preview of the terrain paint is a button labeled "Add Layer". Try that.

It lets you add a new texture to the terrain paint palette. Choose a name for it and what sound it makes when stepped on, and you have a new color. The files beginning with "grass_" look relevant for you.

Sorry about the useless advice before, I should have checked it first.
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#5 Old 3rd Jan 2010 at 8:59 PM
Quote: Originally posted by McNum
Ah, right. That's what you're trying to do.

I just booted up CAW and I think I found the button you're looking for. In the Terrain tab, open the Terrain Paint tool. Under the Paint tab on the right, below the preview of the terrain paint is a button labeled "Add Layer". Try that.

It lets you add a new texture to the terrain paint palette. Choose a name for it and what sound it makes when stepped on, and you have a new color. The files beginning with "grass_" look relevant for you.

Sorry about the useless advice before, I should have checked it first.

It's okay, I could've been a little clearer myself.

I did find this before, but it didn't work out for me. Maybe I didn't have the feeling for the tool that I have now. It's still pretty sucky, but better than when I didn't even know how to make lots.

Thanks for your tip because I had forgotten all about that tab!

(()) Pass the ribbon around if you know someone that
//\\ has survived, died, or is living with cancer..

Grandpa Joost 1996 †
Theorist
#6 Old 3rd Jan 2010 at 10:02 PM
How to add terrain textures is in the manual. What isn't in the manual is how you can remove textures from the list if you end up with some you don't want to use them. Right-click and choose Delete and it will be removed from your texture menu.

I am finding it very useful to keep a printed copy of the manual beside me while I use C-A-W and as I go along read the section about what I am currently working on.
Eminence Grise
#7 Old 4th Jan 2010 at 2:09 AM
Martine has just posted masses of textures we can use as terrain paints in CAW: http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=385025

If you don't find exactly what you need for your slightly-grassy sand, you can make your own, or edit one of the existing ones, and bring it into your game.

It's also possible to replace all instances of one texture with another texture in CAW... by right-clicking and changing the image file associated with the texture you want to replace. That means you can use placeholder textures until you decide exactly what you want your terrain to look like.
Field Researcher
#8 Old 23rd Jan 2010 at 6:09 AM
Another good way to make even the base terrains work is to play with opacity and the falloff a LOT. I've worked a bit on some terrains where I didn't want the grass too lush, and while it takes more work, if you keep experimenting with layering the textures repeatedly at different opacity, you can come up with very nice looking combinations.

For example, sparse grass on rock:

Start with base rock, very opaque and solid

Get your neighborhood's "Dirt" terrain paint up, set the opacity to 10 and the falloff to 2 or some other very low number. Lightly brush this around, if there's spots that will be more lush or trails that are trodden, increase opacity or just go over those areas more.

Get a grass terrain paint up, at the same settings as the dirt above, and brush it around, or even sometimes I just do lots and lots of clicks instead of holding down the mouse button, and watch how the color spreads.

Go back over the grass with the dirt at low opacity if there's spots that look too green and dense.

...You can go over layers and over layers as much as you like, and the longer you play around and learn how they look when you stack them, the more realistic your terrain painting will wind up, even without using a lot of different KINDS of textures.
Top Secret Researcher
#9 Old 23rd Jan 2010 at 6:14 AM
I am making a desert world as well and found it difficult to find the right color of grass or vegetation. Everything is very green..rather than the brownish sage color you need in a desert.

Layers are the way to go but remember to limit it to only 8 per section or you will have lag.
Field Researcher
#10 Old 23rd Jan 2010 at 6:24 AM
I wound up getting a plugin for working with .dds in Gimp or Photoshop and opening up the EA grasses and playing with hue & saturation for some desert looks I'm testing. Once renamed and saved they can be a lazily-invaluable way to get terrain colors right. And the layering I talked about above doesn't affect the 8 per section rule as it's just three texture layers, that are switched between to just add a bit more of one or the other.
Top Secret Researcher
#11 Old 23rd Jan 2010 at 6:48 PM
I did try that, Bakafox, but couldn't get the right colors. I guess I should try it again.

It only affects it if you already have 8 layers in that block..then adding three more would add layers. For example, I have a base layer and an overlying layer for my desert terrain. They I have grass and mud layers along the river. That makes 5 layers that pretty much impact most of the camera-routable areas in the terrain. I can add three more to layer on top of some places but no more than that.
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