I was hoping they would do something similar with blueprint swimming pools, I am never great at designing a pool.

Had the spaces look good and somewhat realistic, it wouldn't be as bad. I was actually expecting EA to put some effort into making the rooms look really good, but that's not the case. This is why we should have been able to make out own.

The quality of those rooms... *swoons*

Then again, the quality of some of those rooms. O_O *shudders*

One use I had in mind when I heard "blueprint mode" would be to design a modular bathroom. Every time you buy some park/fishing spot, you almost always need to build a bathroom to upgrade the property. I was hoping to design a nice 4X5 bathroom that could just be plopped down on the chosen lot. Add a roof, and you're done. Design once, use over. But no, I'm still going to have to pick out the damn bathroom tiles over and over again.

We WILL almost certainly be able to design our own rooms, yknow

It's like the tattoos that came with Ambitions. We never got a tool from EA, but it didn't take long for our mod tool makers to provide one. Now there are downloadable tattoos all over the place.

This is a tad more complex, but because of that I know it has already tickled the curiosity of some of our top people Have faith in them!

One of the things that make me excited about new EP coming in the game, the modding community! I have faith in them.

I have to agree with almost everyone else here, I'm disappointed that we won't be able to make our own rooms into blueprints and share them. My son was excited at the possiblity of being able to have me design rooms for him. But since we won't be able to share them. . .

I also agree with everyone in suspecting that EA will provide additional rooms via the Store and charge outrageous amounts for something so trivial.

Yeah, not only for this EP, though. Whenever an EP is annouced, the second thing I think about after the features are revealed is how the modding community will improve them.

Hey, here's a question about blueprint mode that just occurred to me while I was building on a small lot: can you stack rooms vertically, on top of each other? Or do blueprints have to be placed on the ground, so you're restricted to sprawling ranch houses? For that matter, can you place them UNDERground, to build basements?

Somebody with a twitter account should ask Graham

I Tweeted Graham.

BTW, there won't be any new houses in the bin with Seasons, they're relying on Blueprint mode... This is according to SimGuruMike.

I already asked that question to Graham a few days ago, but it never got answered.

They came with the patch, and they are amazing! I was able to build a house that wasn't a square and was actually add-on able! (unlike most EA premade houses :P) You can also place them anywhere with moveobjects on so this means you can place them diagonal and also with no support.

I'm doing some light research about blueprint mode. So far, it's a giant object that you plop down, but I'll keep going.

I tested. it's awesome!

Granthes is already working on a visual editor for custom blueprints Nothing remotely tricky about the file format, apparently. Shouldn't take too long

Wow, and here I thought it would take long Another thing to be excited for besides the release of Seasons.

I completely love it. It makes expanding households easier for lazy people.

Just checked and it turns out that you CAN stack blueprints, to make a multi-story house... and place em in basements (have to dig the basement first).

Just a little tip: You can overlap rooms using the moveobjects cheat, if you don't mind removing the extra walls afterwards.

That is just stupid that we are not able to custom the blueprints. Only by EA!! WTF??? I thought I was able to so I can alway move to each lots such like 64 x 64 to 60 x 60 which is hard part that you couldnt move back so blueprints helps. NOPE!! (

While in build mode and at the *home* page (don't know a better name) you can reduce the room size or increase it with the arrows, as long nothing is obstructing it. That is if you are not happy with the size of the rooms. The price is increased or decreased accordingly.

Is the *home* page in blueprint mode?

Come out of Blueprint mode or just click the hand mode and use the arrows to adjust the room size.

I can't get this to work on my laptop. Arrow keys (keypad, directional or the , . keys) just move the camera around. Tried this with it still being a blueprint (after clicking the hand) and in preview mode. I must be missing something.

I think you've got the wrong idea: go out of blueprint mode into normal build mode and hover the mouse over the wall you want to move. Green arrows should appear, pointing in the directions you can move the wall. Click and drag to shift it. It will move furniture (though not counters - you have to move them first) and add wallpaper to the extra bits of wall if you've created some, though you may have to adjust them if you wanted a different piece at the ends. If too large a section of wall is moved, try clicking from the other side of the wall.

I would like some custom blueprints - it would help when I decide I really like part of one house and part of another. Hopefully someone wonderful will manage it.

Blueprints are xml files, that point to the object IDs of the game's furniture etc, and specify location, rotation, and pattern preset. You can actually make custom ones right now if you know the rudiments of XML modding; it's just a text edit.

The blueprint utility Grant is working on would make this more interactive, with a graphical interface that will let you design rooms out of the game... by drawing walls, picking furniture etc from a list with thumbnails, interactively placing and rotating it, and then packaging the result as a mod. Creating the blueprint would be like working with a schematic outline, similar to how the blueprints appear in game.

Exporting a room from in-game to a blueprint file is another problem altogether. I don't know whether that's solvable or not... TS3 does not make it easy for a mod to write data from the game when it's running. So, while I think we may have an out of game utility to create custom blueprints soon-ish, the prospect of doing what folks seem to imagine... exporting a room directly from in-game, for the purposes of e.g. copying a house from one lot to another... seems remote. Though maybe there's somebody out there who has the knowledge to do that; I don't ever rule that out