I was going to put this in WCIF, but I realised that I didn't even know if it was possible.

I love the swimmable lakes and I was wondering if it was possible to make a river swimmable or if the space required would be too big? I mean rivers made with the water tool. Is it even possible to make a swimmable lake without the giant deck structure?

As I understand it the swimmable lake stuff is done using the pool objects - basically the diving board and ladders put the sims into swim mode. Using the ladders again takes them out of swim mode. The stuff about using the deck structure is, I think, about the level that the animations take place at - in a strict sense, they're not necessary to the success of invoking the animation but might look odd with your sim swimming above the surface (or indeed under it). The only thing you actually need is the pool objects because it's the interaction with those that invokes the animation. I'm not sure exactly how it works animation-wise because I've never done it.

Also, there are techniques people use when they build these things to prevent the sims getting out of the swimmable area. That's because if you don't prevent it, you run into the danger of the sim never getting out of swim mode. You need to put them in a swimming situation where their only route out of the area is via the ladders so that they stop swimming and start walking again. Does that make sense?

Anyway, what I would say is experiment. In a test hood, try out various builds and see how sims behave.

I don't see a functional difference between "lakes" and "rivers".
That said, I haven't made swimmable lakes for years, precisely because of the rigmarole involved, as described above by Maxon, so someone else needs to elaborate on the minute technicalities.

I tried sticking a pool ladder leading into a river once, but the sims refused to use it, so it isn't just the presence of pool equipment. I've never seen a swimmable lake without the scaffolding, so I wonder what that does.

There are at least two or three tutorials on making swimmable lakes/rivers in the Building Tutorial Forum: http://www.modthesims.info/forumdis...25&daysprune=-1

There's a lot on this site if you search "Swimmable Lakes"... you could just download it and mess with it.

The only time I got the ladder to work, I had to use the diving board or slide, too. But that was only from a dock on a beach lot. I always thought the tiles in the swimmable lake had something to do with them being able to swim in a lake.

Yes, you need a deck or tiles under the lake water, or they will get on the diving board and back away .. complaining.
Tried forever to make a decent swimmable lake or something like it --used tutorials as well.

There's a pretty good lot called "Gardenia" here at MTS, that has a house on a deck surrounded by a swimmable lake, for the most part.
It's fun to keep the house ; or remove the house and fiddle with the rest of it--- closest thing to a swimmable river ; in my opinion. Unless someone has built a better one !!

Went to look and I still have it in my game.

I'm sure there was swimable lots back in the early days, well before Maxis put them in. I'm sure I got it here at MTS, use the search tool for "swimable" and it'll probably come up. Then you can see how they did it. Sorry, just can't remember the creators name cause that was 10years ago.

Yes, I did say that was the essential point - sorry I wasn't clearer - there are also calculations for whether the sim has space to move and if they don't the action aborts. I guess that's what the problem is and what the scaffolding is about in the facsimilie pools (i.e. ponds).

As I understand it, the pool objects do several things: put the sim in swim mode, define the surface they are going to sim on and work out they have space to do it. It's perfectly possible for them to swim in the ground - you can see that in many UTube videos of 'hilarious glitches' in my Sims 2 game' where the code to take them out of swim mode has failed in some way and they swim all over their home lot. I think - I guess - the coding for the pool was done in such a way as to define the pool as a swimmable area and that that pool surface is not contiguous with the ground surface, hence the sim is restricted to the pool. There's a similar issue with recognising basements (and building walls). A similar thing is being done with the water of the open water pools - I think what the scaffolding does is force the game to recognise the surface of the water as the swimmable surface - hence they don't keep swimming on land and stay in the water area. As that's what you want your sims to do, that's not a problem and the only issue is to see whether it's possible to get the game to recongise the water surface without the scaffolding. I would guess the scaffolding is about defining a level which is above the water surface much as putting the ladders/diving board on the ground surface helps the game define the water surface of a regular pool at a lower position on the lot. Not sure that makes sense but I think that's how it works.

Isn't that implicit in what I said?

Not to me. I appreciated the clarification.

Wow. Holy crap Lovely !! Is this lot available for download ?? I want it !!!