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LotAdjuster 2.8 (Updated Jan 31, 2010)

by Mootilda Posted 19th Apr 2008 at 4:40 AM - Updated 27th Nov 2013 at 3:31 PM by Nysha
 
488 Comments / Replies (Who?) - 479 Feedback Posts, 8 Thanks Posts
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Pettifogging Legalist!
retired moderator
#26 Old 20th Apr 2008 at 6:06 AM
The smaller beach lots are here:
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/s...ic,10456.0.html

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.
The Great AntiJen
retired moderator
#27 Old 20th Apr 2008 at 8:05 AM
ooo nice new version of the LE with Lot Shrinking back in - well done Mootilda, glad to see it's coming along.
Scholar
#28 Old 20th Apr 2008 at 11:52 AM
Wow!! We are spoiled today.Thank you -SO MUCH- for this precious mod.Big hugs.
Test Subject
#29 Old 20th Apr 2008 at 3:49 PM
what is a corner lot? how can I do it?
Site Helper
Original Poster
#30 Old 20th Apr 2008 at 4:17 PM Last edited by Mootilda : 21st Apr 2008 at 4:36 AM. Reason: How to create a corner lot
Default Corner Lots
Quote: Originally posted by SimSamBol
what is a corner lot? how can I do it?
Take a look at the EA/Maxis-created Broke house in the Pleasantview neighborhood which is shipped with the game. If you try moving the house, you will notice that it requires two intersecting roads before you can place it. There is a road at the front of the house, which has the mailbox, and another road on the left side of the lot (as seen from the front).

Each lot has the ability to have up to 4 roads on the lot, one in each direction. Each road takes up a row of the lot which might otherwise have been used for building, but can now be used for vehicle and pedestrian traffic.

Update:

Sorry, I missed the question about how to create a corner lot...

First, you need to have space for the additional road on the right or left side of the lot. If your lot doesn't have adequate space, be sure to specify that you want to expand by 1 the side with the new road.

Now, to add a road to a lot, click on the "Advanced" button on the lot information screen. Click on "Add and remove roads". You will see that the Road checkmarks become enabled. Usually, the road for "Front yard" will be checked, and all of the other roads will be unchecked. Click on the road checkbox for the right or left side of the lot. (See attached picture.)

Click on next and the LA will expand your lot (if requested) and add the new road.

Be sure to edit the lot and move it in the neighborhood, as specified in the old LotExpander tutorial.
Screenshots
Pettifogging Legalist!
retired moderator
#31 Old 20th Apr 2008 at 4:19 PM
A corner lot is a lot that has two roads, e.g. in front and on the left side.

(Mootilda explained it better .. we crossposted)


Mootilda: maybe you shoud say more explicitely in the OP that the LA supports lots with *multiple* roads? "Add and remove" perhaps sounds too much like "add/remove the one road there is" because people can't imagine a lot with more than one road (can't blame them -- this is new) .. for example,

"Add and remove roads; create a roadless lot; create a lot with two or more roads: corner lot, alleyway, service road, square .."

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.
Site Helper
Original Poster
#32 Old 20th Apr 2008 at 8:46 PM
Quote: Originally posted by plasticbox
Mootilda: maybe you shoud say more explicitely in the OP that the LA supports lots with *multiple* roads?
Good point. Done.
Instructor
#33 Old 20th Apr 2008 at 9:42 PM
Quote: Originally posted by The Lot Adjuster
Invalid ROOF:
Roof is in an invalid location

Remove everything from the area to be trimmed, plus one additional tile at the edge of the new lot. Then rerun the LotAdjuster.

..uh what? D:

I built everything 1 click away from the last tile, and then i added a roof.. can it not be built to the last tile?
Site Helper
Original Poster
#34 Old 20th Apr 2008 at 10:41 PM
Quote: Originally posted by poplers
I built everything 1 click away from the last tile, and then i added a roof.. can it not be built to the last tile?
You should be able to build a roof to 1-tile away from the new edge of the lot. However, you cannot build a roof on the outer tile.

If you'd like me to take a look at your lot, please attach the pre-shrunken lot here and I'll see whether I can figure out what the problem is.
Instructor
#35 Old 21st Apr 2008 at 2:32 AM
Nah, I got it, it turns out.. that it was a very very silly mistake. The lot in-game is 2x3 and the lot as told by the Lot Adjuster was 3x3 (because it counts the road), so i clicked -1 on each of the things and it kinda freaked out because I made the lot.. just the lot, without a road. xD

No problem with the Lot Adjuster, just with my brain. :p
Lab Assistant
#36 Old 21st Apr 2008 at 9:26 AM
Um, when I open the lot adjuster I can only see the left half of the screen and there's no way to drag the frame or expand it. Have I done something wrong? (I've re-downloaded twice and am still getting the same thing)
Alchemist
#37 Old 21st Apr 2008 at 11:15 AM
If you want to do shrinking (or the other more risky features), press the button labelled Advanced - that will open up the other half of the screen.
Lab Assistant
#38 Old 21st Apr 2008 at 2:41 PM
Thanks! Got it now
Forum Resident
#39 Old 22nd Apr 2008 at 12:03 AM
Wow, this seems like something really cool to play with, now I can have houses up on a tall hill, with a dirt road leading to it. Thanks so much for this, it looks like it took a lot of hard work to make. I don't know where some people just get the brains for starting a full blown project like this, you're pretty smart, Mootilda!

In this case, I do have a question. When I opened up the zip, there were all kinds of plugins and things. What do I do with those plugins? Do they go into a special folder of some sort?

Please come check out my SIms 2 Story "Love Child" Caution: Must be 18+
Site Helper
Original Poster
#40 Old 22nd Apr 2008 at 12:43 AM
Just create a folder somewhere on your hard drive and unzip everything in the zip file into that folder. Run the EXE file from that folder and it will be able to find everything that it needs.
Alchemist
#41 Old 22nd Apr 2008 at 12:45 AM
Sparklesim, it's best to unzip into a subfolder. You don't need to do anything with all those files, just keep them together. When you want to use the LA, click on the exe icon. You might like to make a shortcut to that file, and then you won't even have to open the subfolder to use the LotAdjuster.

I see Mootilda is on the ball - crossposted again.
Test Subject
#42 Old 22nd Apr 2008 at 12:46 AM
Mootilda, I love you! I always wanted to build lots away from the road (rural lots just don't work next to a public road).

I was just wondering, if you package the lot which is away from the road in your game, will whoever downloads have to use this program to set it away from the road?

Thanks in advance, Wil xx :D
Alchemist
#43 Old 22nd Apr 2008 at 12:47 AM
Wil, you'd have to give the downloaders direction on what to do with the lot, yes. They would need to install the lot normally, then use the LA to shift it themselves.
Test Subject
#44 Old 22nd Apr 2008 at 12:55 AM
Ooh OK, Thanks Aelflaed!
Site Helper
Original Poster
#45 Old 22nd Apr 2008 at 1:36 AM Last edited by Mootilda : 22nd Apr 2008 at 3:27 AM.
Wil,

Because the LotAdjuster has so many advanced options, it's a bit difficult to answer your question without knowing specifically what you intend to do to your lot. Are you leaving the standard road unmodified at the front of the lot? If so, then the lot should be shareable in the usual way. If people want to move your lot away from the road, then they can use the LotAdjuster to move it, just as you did.

But, if you are overwriting the road with a "country road" texture, or removing the road at the front altogether, then the lot may not be shareable in the usual way.

Above all, you should be sure to test this yourself and make sure that things are working the way that you expect them to: ie, package your lot, create a new test neighborhood, install the packaged lot, and then try placing the lot into your test neighborhood. Make sure that it can be placed and moved in the way that you want.

Before sharing any lot, you'll want to go through the experience that the people who download your lot will have, so that you know that it will work and so that you'll be able to answer their questions.
Mad Poster
#46 Old 22nd Apr 2008 at 6:48 AM
Wil,
may also take note on the values you used for the lot to be away from the road, and notify downloaders about it.
Site Helper
Original Poster
#47 Old 22nd Apr 2008 at 5:40 PM Last edited by Mootilda : 13th Jan 2010 at 10:16 PM. Reason: Intermittent OS X (MAC) crash-on-load
Default Known Issues
Bugs:

1) When moving a pool with rounded edges, the rounded edges will not move. For now, just delete the rounded edges before expanding or shrinking the lot and add them back to the pool in the new location once the modification is complete. If you accidently expand or shrink a lot without removing the rounded edges, the lot can be fixed using the normal build tools; however, it is more difficult than just removing them beforehand.

2) If a lot is occupied during expansion or shrinking, you may notice that your sims are not in their expected locations on the lot. If your sims are using an object, such as sleeping on a bed, the object may also appear in an unexpected location. If you run the game, the sims (and associated objects) should "jump" back to their correct locations on the lot after a few seconds. I am investigating this problem.

3) There is an intermittent MAC OS X crash-on-load with shrunken lots which meet BOTH of the following criteria:
1. The lot has a perpendicular wall on one edge;
2. The lot has a length of 4 units (including the road).

Which edge the wall has to be on in order to crash depends on the U11 value of the lot:
U11 = 0: left
U11 = 1: front
U11 = 2: right
U11 = 3: back

U11 corresponds to the sun direction:


Here is plasticbox's report of the issue:
http://www.modthesims.info/download...585#post2128585


Other Issues:

1) Expanded terrain takes its form from the terrain at the edges of the existing lot. This does not always produce the desired result, especially for hilly terrain and beach lots. I am investigating whether the LotAdjuster can use the actual neighborhood terrain for the additional land. Resolved.

2) Shruken terrain takes its form from the existing lot terrain. If the edge of the newly shrunken lot is located on bumpy terrain and the "Keep Lot Edges" option is selected, then a blue tear or disconnect can result at the edge of the lot. Resolved.

3) Some of the advanced options can modify your lot so that it requires special handling. For example: roadless lots and lots which are built "over the road" cannot be picked up and moved in-game, and cannot be packaged and shared normally. This is because the Sims 2 game requires a neighborhood road for the lot to "snap to". Be sure to keep your backup until you are certain that the modified lot is functioning as you want it to.

For more information, please see this post:
http://www.modthesims2.com/download...971#post1984971

4) Restrictions on Shrinking: The LotAdjuster will not allow you to shrink a lot if there is anything in the outer tile of the shrunken lot, because shrunken lots with walls at the edge of the lot (rowhouses) have proven to be unsafe. After shrinking, you should be able to add fences and objects to this outer tile from within the game. I am looking into minimizing the restrictions on shrinking, while still ensuring that shruken lots are safe.

If you want to share a shrunken lot, please tell people that your lot has been shrunken using the LotAdjuster, and give them a link to this upload thread. Although the shrinking feature has been well-tested and I believe that these lots are safe, I would like to be able to track any future problems.

5) Beach lots have special EA-imposed areas within the lot, such as the beach area and the water area. Because of this, there can be issues with beach lots which are shrunken in particular ways. For example: the water occurs on the side of the lot furthest from the road; if you shrink a beach lot at the back, you will obviously lose the water. The beach area is the row next to the water, if you shrink a beach lot too much at the front, you can remove all buildable areas.

As well, beach lots are very finicky about their placement within a neighborhood; shrunken beach lots are equally finicky. Be aware that you can shrink a beach lot so that it has different requirements than the standard beach lots.

Another issue with beach lots is the beach portals. There is one beach portal on every tile at the water's edge. Before shrinking a beach lot, I recommend that you use the Portal Revealer to remove unnecessary beach portals from the area to be trimmed.

Please see the research thread for further information on shrinking beach lots:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=250693

6) A new driveway may rotate when you try to place it after an adjustment. To solve this, be sure to snap the lot to the road in the neighborhood view after an adjustment.
Site Helper
Original Poster
#48 Old 22nd Apr 2008 at 5:43 PM Last edited by Mootilda : 6th Apr 2009 at 11:45 PM. Reason: Rowhouse tutorial now available
Default Tutorials Ideas
Some of my thoughts on tutorials which might be helpful:

- How to expand a lot, similar to the LotExpander tutorial:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showpost...3&postcount=410

- How to shrink a beach lot, special restrictions and recommendations. Be sure to include all of the advice in this post, so that everything will appear in one place.

- How to make a corner lot, alleyway, service road, square, etc, using the Portal Revealer and buyable portals to enhance the usefulness of these additional roads. Here's a brief post to get you started:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthre...458#post1931458

- How to make a functional roadless lot, using the Portal Revealer and buyable portals to maintain sim's ability to use the lot, even though there is no road. Notes on special handling:
http://www.modthesims2.com/download...971#post1984971

- How to move a lot away from the road. How to make a park to fill the blank spaces between houses in your neighborhood.

- How to build a lot on both sides of a road.

- How to build above a road, one floor up.

- How to share roadless lots and lots which are built "over the road". Special handling required for lots built "over the road". Here's a brief post to get you started:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showpost...1&postcount=181

- How to unlock the tiles on a lot, and why you would want to do this.

- How to adjust a lot created on a MAC:
http://www.modthesims2.com/download...763#post2035763

- How to flatten the edges of a lot:
http://www.modthesims2.com/download...408#post2122408
Site Helper
Original Poster
#49 Old 22nd Apr 2008 at 5:46 PM Last edited by Mootilda : 9th Dec 2009 at 10:45 PM. Reason: Links for buyable mailbox.
Default Useful Links
Here are some links to other useful downloads:

Portal Revealer:
This tool allows you to see, move and rotate portals on your lot: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=251392

Buyable Mailbox:
http://daydream.etowns.net/S2hacked.htm

Small Lots:
Now everyone can create lots of whatever size they wish with LotAdjuster. Here are links to expandable lots which are 1 wide or 1 deep, and which have the sun shining on the back of the lot:

Residential: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=195469
Community: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=195467

If you prefer the sun to shine from the front of the lot, take a look at aelflaed's brand new sunnyside lots:

Residential: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=251798
Community: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=251800

And here are some North- and South- facing 2XN lots: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=250096

15 Levels in a Base-Game Lot:
http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=104058

Pseudo Rowhouses:
Here is a tutorial on how to build a pseudo-rowhouse:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=286909

Here are some pseudo-rowhouses which were created using LotAdjuster 1.1:
aelflaed: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=286511
plasticbox: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=285485

Shrunken Test Lots:
Here is a list of the original test lots which were created using LotAdjuster 1.0:
aelflaed: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=282179
niol: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=282280
plasticbox: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=281667

Empty Shrunken Beach Lots, created with an early test version of the LotAdjuster:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthre...440#post1839440

Elsewhere Neighborhood:
If you want to see some things that you can do with the LotAdjuster, take a look at plasticbox's Elsewhere neighborhood:
http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=319898
Site Helper
Original Poster
#50 Old 22nd Apr 2008 at 7:29 PM Last edited by Mootilda : 23rd May 2013 at 9:20 PM. Reason: Version 3.6
Default LotAdjuster Release History
This is the release history for the LotAdjuster:

Release 3.6:

Bug Fixes:
- Handle custom paintings.

New Features:
- Remove furniture.
- Make lot hidden or visible.
- Change between beach and normal lot.
- Remove unused terrain paints. This may solve a problem where lots would turn blue without custom terrain paints.
- Override the base terrain paint for a lot, with the neighborhood terrain. Sometimes your lot will be changed to a beach terrain because it is too low or too close to the beach. This will change the base terrain paint back to the standard for your neighborhood.

Other:
- Code cleanup.
- Better final message when not changing lot size.
- Better error handling:
- - Deal with bad or missing neighborhood package.
- - Handle errors parsing FAMI record.

Release 3.5:

Enhanced Functionality:
If the LotAdjuster finds a corrupt Vertex record which is causing problems when shrinking the lot, the Vertex record will be deleted. Lots with a corrupt Vertex record will now be able to be shrunken correctly without any intervention by the user.

This will have a slight side effect: you may be allowed to place objects on gird points even though the location is already occupied. There is no evidence that this has any serious side effects, since it is functionally equivalent to using the "moveobjects on" cheat.

Release 3.4:

Bug fixes:
- Resolve "Unknown error" problem.
- Fix up/down value changed event handler issue.
- Remove (unused) code which allows walls along the edge of the lot.

Release 3.3:

Enhanced Functionality:
- New option to regenerate roads. At this time, only straight roads will be paved, but the game should regenerate the corners. This option is particularly useful for lots which cannot be moved in the neighborhood, such as lots which have been expanded into the water.
- Family name is now appended to lot name in the lot selection screen.
- A limited number of changes are now allowed for occupied apartments, including the ability to change the lot class.

Bug fixes:
- Fix more problems with non-standard hood names.
- Road-only lots are now disallowed, because they will crash the game.
- Fixed a problem where portals were sometimes incorrectly placed on lots with side roads.
- Flattening of roads has been broken since version 3.0. Instead of flattening the entire road, only the edge was being flattened. Fixed.

Release 3.2:

Bug fixes:
- Adjust vertex layer. Resolves "can't intersect other objects" error which could occur even when there is no such object. Lots with this problem that were adjusted with any previous version of the LotExpander or LotAdjuster can only be fixed by deleting the VERT record in the lot package; this should cause no problem since the record will regenerate for all new objects added to the lot, and for all existing objects which are moved.
- Avoid a crash when resetting default values which can occur on exit.

Release 3.1:

Enhanced Functionality:
- Allow hood prefixes which are not 4 characters long or which otherwise do not match standard naming conventions.

Release 3.0:

Enhanced Functionality:
- Sizes are now specified in lot-sized tiles, rather than neighborhood-sized tiles.
- You can now expand one side and shrink the other in the same session, allowing the existing lot to be shifted right, left, forwards or back.

Bug fixes:
- Handle an EA bug where pool surface is not correctly resized, resulting in an inability to shrink an empty portion of the lot.

Release 2.7:

Bug fixes:
- Fixed a problem which occurred when updating the neighborhood terrain from the lot terrain.

Release 2.6:

Enhanced Functionality:
- New option to update the neighborhood terrain with the lot terrain.
- If the LotAdjuster has access to its installation directory, it will maintain the "Versioned Backups" setting across sessions.
- Better error message for empty lots.
- "Keep current lot elevation" option is now the default.

Bug fixes:
- Fixed a conflict with pond water on a lot which is flooded with neighborhood water.

Release 2.5:

Enhanced Functionality:
- Change the file extension of the LotAdjuster backups from ".BAK" to ".BKP", to avoid a conflict with SimPE backups. This is especially important since some versions of SimPE will unnecessarily delete .bak files.

- Add a new advanced option "Versioned backups" to allow multiple versions of the backup files to be kept. If this option is chosen, the neighborhood and lot package backups will have a unique number associated with them, so that these backups will not be overwritten the next time that the LotAdjuster is run. Because two new backup files will be generated with each adjustment, you should be sure to cleanup backups when you are finished with them.

Release 2.4:

Bug fixes:
- Fix crash which occurred with very large lot class values.

Release 2.3:

Now works with EPs / SPs through Mansion & Garden Stuff.

Enhanced Functionality:
- Allow user to force class value of lots.

Release 2.2:

Enhanced Functionality:
- Change last "Next >" button to "Finish", to let people know that changes will be committed if they press the button. (requested)

Bug fixes:
- Resolve x64 issues using the information in this section: "1.44 References to 32-bit COM components may not work in VB and C# Applications running on 64-bit platforms" of this link:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vs2005/aa718685.aspx

Release 2.1:

Enhanced Functionality:
- Occupied apartments will no longer appear in the list of lots.
- An error message is displayed if an occupied apartment is selected using the "Browse" button.

Release 2.0:

Now works with EPs / SPs through Apartment Life.

Bug fixes:
- Fixed a problem where large fonts would cause the text inside of the window to be cut off.
- Warn user if road is not at a relative elevation of 0 - the game may not handle these lots well.

Release 1.1:

Bug fixes:
- Fixed an intermittent problem where the pool surface would become out-of-sync with the actual pool.

- Restricted ability to remove road at the front of the lot, if any other road exists on the lot. TS2 requires that a road exists at the front, unless there are no other roads.

- Fixed an issue with 7 bit strings which contain multi-byte characters.

- Fixed an issue where the position of the portals did not reflect the existence of additional roads on the lot.

Enhanced Functionality:
- Reduced restrictions on shrinking, to allow pseudo rowhouses:
a) Walls can now touch the lot edge, as long as they are perpendicular to the lot edge.
b) Roofs can touch the lot edge, but attic walls must follow the perpendicular rule.
c) Fence posts can exist at the lot edge, but fences must follow the perpendicular rule.

- Expanded terrain now takes its shape from the neighborhood terrain.

- Roads will be flattened automatically. New advanced option to allow uneven roads.

- New options for lot edges: smooth, flatten, and match neighborhood terrain.

- Change elevation of portals to the standard elevation of the road. Portals will not be at the correct elevation for uneven roads.

Release 1.0:

Initial release.
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