Can Sims 2 be used as an architecture design programme Basicly my idea is to apply the building mode in Sims 2, as a tool for designing a real life home? Would that be possible, why not if not, if yes, uhm... nothin' Cheers
yes, but the proportions might not be as exact as some of the software made specifically for designing homes/buildings. But it is close enough. I love designing my "dream homes". A lot of people actually buy the Sims2 just for the building aspect of things. If you want some ideas of houses we've created, just to see some of the stuff available, check out this thread.
Of course it can. Though that is merely a personal opinion. There are naturally some limitations in regard the restricted nature of the building tools, and of the limitations of the scaling up/down of elements like doors, stairs etc., which can make a perfectionist grind their teeth in frustration at being unable to achieve so-called classical harmonies of ratio. But the essence of architecture has more to do with functionality than with aesthetics as its primary consideration. As an example far too many modernist designs of the early 20th century went for flat roofs because the architects insisted that flat was a purely functional aspect of the internal horizontal ceilings ... refusing to amend their designs even when the builders found it difficult to impossible to make a durably waterproof flat roof! So their much vaunted ethos of function over form was very much a lie as evinced by their slavish rejection of good old-fashioned pitched tiled roofs. They were building for appearance and not for function but had not the grace or honesty to admit it. In short TS2 can serve as a valid test-bed for building design because the kind of bottle-necks where sims get all fouled up are not a lot different for real people. Try designing a kitchen that 2 or more sims can work in ... one that doesn't take up the area of a football field. Most small (real) kitchens can only accomodate one cook (maybe two if both are naturally empathic team players) ... but most small kitchen areas, when designed well, can accomodate two workers if the key components are not locked into traffic blocking corners. A great many modern homes would be a whole lot better designed if the architects put their floor-plans into action with a family of sims on free will ... most of them would be quickly ashamed to see how poorly the living space they provide is suitable for actually living in.
If only sims 2 had more 3d modeling capabilities, that would be incredibly useful, maybe a patch or a plugin to enable more small-scale editing. You can't have it all though... Functionality should be above all, but I always tend to think that aestetics is a part of functionality, but for the brain.
I suppose that if you take the Ayn Rand line perfect functionality has its own aesthetic It's certainly true that the fluting of Greek columns was an artifice designed to imitate the jointing of the wooden components of the wooden columns that were used before stone masonry was adopted. Long before I had heard of Frank Lloyd Wright (or Rand's Howard Roark) I thought it odd that the best that the Victorian's could do architecturally speaking was to build endless copies of the Parthenon and that when the art deco movement came along architects threw out all the accumulated wisdom of design (eg pitched tiled roofs) in favour of clean modernistic lines that had absolutely nothing to do with function and everything to do with aesthetic. As for limitations within TS2. I don't see many. Most of the aesthetic limitations are in realm of roofing. Like I said before TS2 is an excellent tool for testing the functionality of suite of rooms. There are a great many custom modifications, hacks and object sets (meshes) many are free, especially at sites like modthesims2.com (MTS2) In addition the game comes with a substantial built-in cheat code set. Some are based on a boolProp setting where a property is set by a boolean value: true/false; while others are based on an intProp setting where a property is set by an integr value. examples (for the builder) include: boolProp allow45degreeangleofrotation true/false (needs University EP) boolProp snapObjectsToGrid true/false boolprop constrainFloorElevation true/false roofSlopeAngle [value in degrees] is another "cheat code" option available with Open For Business EP The constrainFloorElevation setting has been used by innovative builders to make everything from domed roofs to split-level homes and spiral stairs. Again MTS2 has plenty of tutorials explaining how to manage some of these things. I even have a tute there myself on the subject of garages in basements ...
