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Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 12th Sep 2009 at 5:33 PM
Default Problem with foundation as planter boxes?
Well it works well I'm in the game, but as soon as I exit and restart, my plants fall to the ground below the foundation. Does anyone have a solution for this? or should I try to clone these specific plants as objects to solve the problem by giving them different properties.

Here is what I'm trying to do:



and once I re-enter the game, here is what it looks like:



Any help would be greatly appreciated!
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Pettifogging Legalist!
retired moderator
#2 Old 12th Sep 2009 at 6:26 PM
This is a known issue, other people have posted about the same thing. I'm not aware of a solution, but that doesn't mean that none exists – try searching the forum, perhaps somebody already figured out a workaround.

One thing you could try is to make a bump in the terrain first that is the correct height you want the plants to be, place the plants, move the terrain back down, and then build the planter underneath. In other words, exploit the fact that objects currently don't move up/down with the terrain. There is an article in the tutorial section about "acrostacking" that describes this.

But be aware that this is only an exploit … it may not work forever (when EA decide and "fix" this feature, your plants may end up underground or in the air nevertheless).

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
#3 Old 15th Sep 2009 at 8:30 PM
My experience has been that any outside plants that you place like that (using moveobjects on) will fall through unless they are the flat, tile-able ones like daisies, clover, etc. It's pretty annoying, but you can achieve some of the effect that you want using only those. Rocks will also stay.

If you do find a workaround, post back and let us know.
Field Researcher
#4 Old 15th Sep 2009 at 10:11 PM
someone said you should turn the cheat off 'moveobjects off' before saving it.

There are three sides to a story:
Your side, the other person's side and the truth.

The Sims Cubed
Lab Assistant
#5 Old 17th Sep 2009 at 5:57 PM
That has not worked consistently for me.

I've also noticed that this glitch works in reverse -- let's say you put some plants at the bottom of a swimming pool. On reload of the lot, they're all floating on the surface.

It seems to me like these are just things that EA will (hopefully) notice and fix. You know. In a year or two. Or in an expansion pack.
Field Researcher
#6 Old 18th Sep 2009 at 8:33 AM
I think there's a solution for this.

When you place your foundation, also place a floor tile on it BEFORE you place your plants. You can then colour the floor tile to look like dirt but in the screenshot below, I've left it red to show you what I mean.

I tested this by having my sim move out, then I quit the game. Re-entered, went into build mode on the lot ( while no one lived there), quit again, and had my sim move back to that lot. I also bulldozed the lot, closed the game, opened it again and placed the lot back.

All plants stayed in place. Flowers, shrubs and trees.

I've uploaded the file here so you can place it. If the plants are on the foundation, then we have a fix!
Screenshots
Attached files:
File Type: rar  Plants on Foundation Tester.rar (653.6 KB, 158 downloads) - View custom content
Lab Assistant
#7 Old 18th Sep 2009 at 9:32 AM
Do you think it makes a difference wheather you use a fence on the foundation or not?
a-wenzel used one, Sims3Addicted didn't.
Perhaps that's the solution, because I always place tiles before placing the flowers and they sink ...
One horse disagreer of the Apocalypse
#8 Old 18th Sep 2009 at 10:27 AM
Hmm well I have had plants fall through floor tiles too

"You can do refraction by raymarching through the depth buffer" (c. Reddeyfish 2017)
Lab Assistant
#9 Old 18th Sep 2009 at 4:02 PM
Sims3Addicted, I wonder if this works for things placed on floor tiles on top of foundations, but not for floor tiles on top of normal floors?

Because in this house, I consistently had everything fall through, even though it was all on floor tiles. I've started and abandoned several underground houses for the same reason.

Even if this only works for foundations, it's big news though. Surely the most annoying build bug in the game.
Field Researcher
#10 Old 18th Sep 2009 at 4:13 PM
That's possible, Krisensis. I remembering trying this once, and had the plants fall through so I moved onto learning something else. This was back when the game came out. I haven't tried since but when I read this thread, I played around with it, and found mine didn't fall through at all when placing a floor tile first.

I am wondering now though, if they would fall through if the foundation had walls around it since the game would read it as "indoors" then.

I honestly don't know why mine didn't fall through since they do for everyone else is seems, but as you can see above, they definitely stayed put. That's not to mean, if my testing lot above was installed, they'd remain that way for the downloader. That remains to be seen.

It's interesting.
Lab Assistant
#11 Old 21st Sep 2009 at 7:25 PM
Using a foundation and putting floor tiles on it does work fine, you can also place small fences, such as the low wall (forgot he name, but the brick one for instance, any probably), and they don't fall through. I've been doing this for an attempt at my own house, the garden has quite a few levels, so I think I might have problems as others have found with the garden. It is I think to do with levels, rather than indoors or outdoors.

For instance, if you build a house with no foundation and say two floors, then do a raised bed on a foundation, (with tiles on the foundation), it will look fine if you are on the top floor, when you drop down to the bottom floor level of the house the floor tile on the raised bed has gone and the plants are floating.

If you build the house on a foundation, when you drop down to the bottom floor, everything is fine, the raised bed is on the same level so the floor tiles are OK, and the plants look fine.

I have tried this a few times, gone in and out of the game and bearing in mind the provisos on levels, the plants don't fall through, just might float as in the first example.

I have some screen shots of the example's but I suspect you all probably know what I mean, so hav'nt cluttered up the site with them.

Changing terrain heights is interesting to achieve this, will give it a try, but I suspect there will still be level problems, but hey, what do I know, there's a lot of clever folks out there.
Lab Assistant
#12 Old 22nd Sep 2009 at 7:20 AM
Quote: Originally posted by a-wenzel
Well it works well I'm in the game, but as soon as I exit and restart, my plants fall to the ground below the foundation. Does anyone have a solution for this?


Put a nearly-perfect pedestal (the white cube found in decor) under your flowers and they will stay put.

Just build your planter as normal, then move a cube INTO the foundation block under the flowers. The cube sticks up a bit, but with you building a planter on top of the foundation, and then putting flowers atop it, and giving it a dirt color it looks good.

I got the same result when I did the same thing with a regular wall since the cubes are stackable. That would of course only look right when the walls are up.

I tried other heights using the terrain tools but had no success.

I've put the cubes on each side of my front steps and colored them to look like cement, then put house plants on them which is an easy way to get a bit of the same effect.
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