mikeInside's Basement Tutorials There are lots of ways to create a basement, so I have written 3 tutorials on this page to show you how to do it. Try them all out, and see which one you find easyest.

Tutorial 1: Basements for Beginners. Tutorial 2: House on a Hillside. Tutorial 3: External Access Basement

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Basements for Beginners Tutorial

Creating a basement can be a bit tricky to figure out, but it is actually quite simple, here's how to do it step by step. 1) Dig a hole on your lot. 2) Use "level terrain" to make it a square hole, with a flat base. 3) Add foundations to the sides of the grass walls. NOTE: You have to start the founation from the top level of the terrain, and drag it to the bottom level, to get the correct height ;) 4) Finish it off. You now have a below ground room. 5) Make a hole in the roof, and use "Connecting stairs" to give your sims a way to get into the basement. 6) There you go! A finished basement! You can stop right here if you wish... but if you would like to learn how to build a basement that is only half covered by terrain, then read on!

House on a Hillside Tutorial

1) Create a hole, and then a foundation in the same way as before. Here comes the tricky part... you have to make the bottom of the hole the right height, so that when you put a wall there, the top of the wall will be level with the top of the foundation. This can only be done by trial and error. Experiement until you have something resembling the pic above. "Covered by floor tile" means the terrain is not the right height. 2) Level off the terrain, so that all of the lower level is the right depth. Finish off the foundation on 3 sides only. 3) Finish of the first level with a wall and door. Add some stairs to the top level if you want. 4) Carve out the hillside, until you are happy with the results. 5) Add a second story, deck, and finish off the house in whatever way you want!

External Access Basement Tutorial

1) Go into topdown view by pressing the green icon that you can see on the bottom-left of the screenshot above. Then use the connecting stairs and place one on the ground. 2) Do it again, until you have 3 sets of stairs, like shown in the picture above. 3) Using the stair tool, hold down the CTRL key, and click on each staircase to delete it. 4) Select the flatten terrain tool, and position it as shown, at the bottom of your slope. 5) Click and drag it, to create a nice big square hole in the ground. 6) Using the wall tool, hold down SHIFT and create a room that takes up half the hole, like shown in the pic above. 7) Using the foundation tool, click and drag a foundation that is next to one of the walls. 8) Repeat until you have surrounded 3 walls, like in the pic shown above. 9) Go into first floor view mode, and place a staircase somewhere. 10) Add a second level to the house 11) Add a deck somewhere on the second floor. 12) Use the connecting stairs to give the sims a way to get onto the deck, and add doors so that they can get into the house. Finish off the house however you would like, and you are done!

If you have any questions or comments, you can ask me personally by clicking here.

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