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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#1 Old 3rd Jul 2009 at 6:11 AM Last edited by Lavandula : 3rd Jul 2009 at 6:26 AM.
Default Can't set door as front door on CFE wall
I have built a house with a sunken entry area like this

I have a feedback post from smauritz (thanks )saying they can't set the door built on the CFE wall be a front door. I have tried it in game and found that once I put the foundation back and build the door on it and it's fine.

Is anyone having the same problem?
Screenshots
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Test Subject
#2 Old 15th Jul 2009 at 12:47 AM
i read the guide and it says whichever door the mailbox is closest to is the front door

There are three sides to every story. Yours, mine, and the truth.
Me? Sarcastic? Never.
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#3 Old 15th Jul 2009 at 2:24 AM
I built a house with an entry just like that. When I set the door as the front door, my sim would just walk up the outside stairs then back down. I don't know exactly what the issue is, but I have not played the house long yet to find a pattern or solution.

I moved the mailbox to about 2 tiles in front of this door, towards the street. Where did you place yours?
Lab Assistant
#4 Old 24th Jul 2009 at 1:22 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Lavandula
I have built a house with a sunken entry area like this

I have a feedback post from smauritz (thanks )saying they can't set the door built on the CFE wall be a front door. I have tried it in game and found that once I put the foundation back and build the door on it and it's fine.

Is anyone having the same problem?


I've just run into this problem while testing a house I just finished (Gerdundula Drive, will be uploading it fairly soon), the whole ground floor is built on foundation in a kind of L shape.. one end is a livingroom and the other is a kitchen but there's a sunken entrance area with a raised stairs.

I have managed to find a work around of sorts so you can have a sunken entrance (technically) and still be able to set it as the front door! It's kinda hard to see on the screenshot because it's crammed in (I had to place the archway with "Moveobjects On" but it does function correctly) as I hadn't build the room like that.. basically you have to trick the front door into believing it's in a normal non-CFE'd room by putting in an extra mini room around the front door.

Here's the before shot..


and here's the after shot with the new mini room..


It may take a little restructuring with CFE but it's not too bad since you can use the minimum sized space to fit around the door's footprint and stuff an archway in with MoveObjects. After testing the one in my screenshots I have found the front door / arch room to function perfectly in both directions, it's not perfect I know but it's an alternative that at least lets the sunken entrance work and not look too terribly fuggly .
Screenshots
Test Subject
#5 Old 24th Jul 2009 at 3:49 PM
How'd you make houses like that?
Me? Sarcastic? Never.
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#6 Old 24th Jul 2009 at 4:47 PM
feldynn that is interesting. I would think most houses could be adapted then with either that arch inside to create a foyer or outside to create more of a portico.

lollyduncs - its done with imagination and cfe. You will find build tutorials with cfe (split levels) in the Wiki but you must provide your own imagination.
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retired moderator
#7 Old 25th Jul 2009 at 6:55 AM
Thanks for the info.

I believe in TS3, foundations are a lot more different from walls than they used to be -- I've noticed this with regards to light (rooms that are partly enclosed by foundations will be automagically lit, even when they have no windows -- just like the inside of a ts3 foundation), and with regards to the side walls of stairs (they will only appear when the stair is completely enclosed by real walls, with foundation walls it won't work).

I believe this could be the reason for the nonfunctional front doors as well: since the room it leads to is partly enclosed by foundations, the game probably doesn't realise it's a room at all. I think front doors have to have a room they lead to -- at least I know that one important criterium (perhaps even the only one) for a front door is the number of rooms that are accessible from the room it is in (and this would be zero if the room doesn't "count" in the first place). I've seen the effect of this in my own game too: in a house that had one door to a hallway that connects to kitchen and living room, and another door from the living room to the garden, the garden door "won" -- because the living room connects to kitchen, entrance, *and* a bedroom.

Stuff for TS2 · TS3 · TS4 | Please do not PM me with technical questions – we have Create forums for that.

In the kingdom of the blind, do as the Romans do.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#8 Old 26th Jul 2009 at 7:41 AM
Thank you very much everyone for the info, it helps a lot!
Lab Assistant
#9 Old 27th Jul 2009 at 2:05 PM
@ plasticbox: Silly question:
One of the nice things of TS3 is the feature, that you can tell - well your sim can -, which door is the entrance door.
Don't you have that in the english version or I'm now completely wrong?
Pettifogging Legalist!
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#10 Old 27th Jul 2009 at 4:16 PM
There is an in-game option to "Set as Front Door", available for teen and older. That's the topic of this thread. If the game doesn't recognise the door as a functional door at all, this option won't be available.

Stuff for TS2 · TS3 · TS4 | Please do not PM me with technical questions – we have Create forums for that.

In the kingdom of the blind, do as the Romans do.
Lab Assistant
#11 Old 27th Jul 2009 at 10:06 PM
Quote: Originally posted by plasticbox
Thanks for the info.

I believe in TS3, foundations are a lot more different from walls than they used to be -- I've noticed this with regards to light (rooms that are partly enclosed by foundations will be automagically lit, even when they have no windows -- just like the inside of a ts3 foundation), and with regards to the side walls of stairs (they will only appear when the stair is completely enclosed by real walls, with foundation walls it won't work).

I believe this could be the reason for the nonfunctional front doors as well: since the room it leads to is partly enclosed by foundations, the game probably doesn't realise it's a room at all. I think front doors have to have a room they lead to -- at least I know that one important criterium (perhaps even the only one) for a front door is the number of rooms that are accessible from the room it is in (and this would be zero if the room doesn't "count" in the first place). I've seen the effect of this in my own game too: in a house that had one door to a hallway that connects to kitchen and living room, and another door from the living room to the garden, the garden door "won" -- because the living room connects to kitchen, entrance, *and* a bedroom.


That's a good point plasticbox and I believe you are spot on, the foundation walls don't count as standard walls.. you can't hang wall lights or put in doors / windows into foundation walls (even if they're standard wall height) for example and they interact differently with the terrain too compared to regular walls. So the sunken area made with part foundation and part regular wall doesn't count as a "complete room".

I did a couple of quick tests and found if you build the sunken area using regular wall then use CFE and build the rest of the raised portion with foundation (and flatten / level the appropriate areas) the door option is available. The game just has to have a "complete room" made from regular wall on one side of the door, doesn't matter if it's CFE'd to different heights so long as it's all regular wall and not foundation.. that's why the foyer type idea I stumbled on worked.

Of course that does make building sunken rooms a bit more complicated if you want the "Set as front door" option in a sunken section, but at least there's a couple of options to get the door working right while not causing massive destruction to the building :D.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#12 Old 28th Jul 2009 at 11:22 AM
Quote: Originally posted by feldynn
That's a good point plasticbox and I believe you are spot on, the foundation walls don't count as standard walls.. you can't hang wall lights or put in doors / windows into foundation walls (even if they're standard wall height) for example and they interact differently with the terrain too compared to regular walls. So the sunken area made with part foundation and part regular wall doesn't count as a "complete room".

I did a couple of quick tests and found if you build the sunken area using regular wall then use CFE and build the rest of the raised portion with foundation (and flatten / level the appropriate areas) the door option is available. The game just has to have a "complete room" made from regular wall on one side of the door, doesn't matter if it's CFE'd to different heights so long as it's all regular wall and not foundation.. that's why the foyer type idea I stumbled on worked.

Of course that does make building sunken rooms a bit more complicated if you want the "Set as front door" option in a sunken section, but at least there's a couple of options to get the door working right while not causing massive destruction to the building :D.


I'll try that next time when I build a sunken entry area, thank you very much feldynn and everyone!
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