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The Sims 4offers many different ways to play. The life simulation sandbox has plenty of gameplay options tied to the life of your Sims, as well as opportunities to unleash your inner fashionista when you style them. Then there is build mode.
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Building in the Sims is a unique way to play, giving you a chance to construct, decorate and furnish a house from the ground up, or just simply furnish or renovate an existing lot. If you want to start learning how to build in The Sims 4 then this guide covers the very basics of resizing, moving, rotating, and placing furniture items in both PC and Console versions.
How To Enter Build Mode
There aretwo ways to enter build mode,using the world map, and through a household. Which way you use will depend on if you want tojust build, or if you want tocreate or edit something for a household.
Building From The World Map
Navigate to theworld of your choiceon the map, thenselect the lot you want to edit.When it is selected you’ll seethree icons in the bottom right corner. The person with and arrow next to them takes you to create a sim, the car lets you visit the lot, and thehammer and spanner takes you to build mode.
If you select the hammer and spanner on any lot you will be able togo in and build from scratch,or renovate any existing buildings. There areno budget restrictionshere, but thecost of the lot will changeto reflect your editsonce you save and exit. If ahouseholdlives on the lot, theneditingtheir house this way currently allows you tomake any adjustments you likewithout it affecting the household’s finances.
If yousave and exitbefore going back into the occupied lotvia the Play buttonyou cansell anythingyou added to the lot and therefund value goes into your Sim’s householdfunds, essentially creating analternative money cheat. Kaching!
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Building From Live Mode
If you want your renovations to be realistic thenenter the household using the triangle button marked Play. This will put you intolive mode.From here you may click the same hammer and wrench icon, but this time it is in thetop right corner.
You’llnow be in build mode, except this timeanything you buy is subtracted from your household funds.This means items youcannot affordwill have ared backgroundto indicate this.
Build mode functions exactly the same way,whichever way you enter it. The only difference is thatif a household occupies the lotalready, thenentering through the map directlymeans you cancheat the household finances.
How To Place Furniture
Placing furniture is super easy. All you need to do isuse your mouse or direction buttonstohover the cursor over the itemyou want in thebuild and buy catalogue.Once you’ve found itselect the itemusing theleft mouse button on PC, A on Xbox or X on PlayStation.
Selected items will stick to the cursor,so you canmove them around anywhere you like. You can even click on the buttons tochange floors with furniture in your hand. The furniture will be placed when youhover over a valid tile and hit select again.
Totoggle the grid displayon and off pressGon PC,press down the right stickon Xbox or hitR3on PlayStation.
When you are over avalid tilethere will be agreen box around the item, showing it can be placed there. If thebox is redthensomething is in the way.This system helps ensurehouses are designed so that Sims can path find around them more easilyby not allowing items to be layered together, unless designed that way, eg a shelf slot for clutter.
Topick up an itemfrom your buildhover over it, you’ll seea white glow around itonce you’ve got the cursor in the right place, thenchoose select to freely move itagain.
How To Move Furniture More Precisely
By default,all items will snap to the gridand be placed in line with it. However, you candrag an item around the immediate grid.This is calledlive drag,and allows you toplace items slightly off-center,closer to an item next to them etc. Using this mode youwon’t be able to drag the item out of the gridthat it’s in, but you can have more control.
Toenable live drag, firstselect the itemand thenhold down the appropriate buttonwhile moving itwith your mouse or direction keys.On PC, you’ll need to hold Alt, the Xbox uses X, and the PlayStation uses square.This allows you toplace the item more freely. It also allows you tomove doors and windowsfrom their default position.
If you wantcomplete free placementon PC you’ll need to use themove objects cheatwhichremoves the grid restrictions completely, allowing items to overlap.OnXbox, theleft trigger will toggle between grid, half grid, and free object placement, a function accessed by pressingL2 on the PlayStation.
Toenable cheats press control+shift+con PC/Mac orall four shoulder buttons simultaneouslyon console to bring up atext box.Type intestingcheats onfollowed by Enter/A/X. You should see aconfirmation message.In the same box typebb.moveobjects onthen Enter/A/X. Thisenables the move objects cheatand gives you more freedom to place and move items.
How To Move Items Up And Down
On PC, you canmove items up and down using the 0 and 9 keys. This is especially useful for things like mirrors. you’re able to also use it tomove clutter items onto shelvesat different angles and sometimes intoplaces you can’t usually put themif you also uselive drag.
Onconsole, you’ll need toenable the move objects cheatand then select your item. Pressingboth triggers and up/downchanges the item elevation onXboxwhileL2 and R2 as well as up/downdoes the same forPlayStation.
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How To Rotate Furniture
With yourfurniture selected, there are a couple of ways torotate it. On the PC the easiest is tohold down the left mouse button and then rotate the item by moving the mouse.However, thisonly works in Sims 3 Camera mode, otherwise it just moves the camera.
Thealternative option, available in both camera modes, is topress the comma and full stop buttons on the keyboard, with each onerotating in the direction of the triangle bracketson the keys. OnXboxselect the item and then useLB or RB to rotate, or if you are onPlayStation the buttons are L1 and R1.
For more precise rotation, if usingSims 3 Camera, you can alsohold down Altas well as the left mouse button. Those onXboxcan pressLB/RB at the same timewhile rotating with the right stick. ForPlayStation, it’s L1/R1 togetherand the right stick to rotate.
How To Make Furniture Bigger And Smaller
Some items look great butjust aren’t the right size. To change the size of items simplypress [ and ] on PC. If you are on console you need topress both triggers on the XboxorL2 and R2 on the PlayStation. You’ll then be able to
Just be aware thatunless you have the moveobjects cheat on the item will still take up the same amount of grid spotsso may clash with other items.Interactions and animations will also remain unchanged, so some items don’t resize well.
Thebest items to resize include: Rugs, Plants, Lights and other decor items. You can alsoresize the dolls housesas the animation mostly takes place outside the house and still looks ok with the size change.
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