More Awesome Than You!

I have this problem with "internal" gardens.

I built a house with an enclosed (but no roof) area which I wanted to reserve for gardening, however, when I tried to plant, I get rejected by the message "must be outside".  Is there anything I can do to make the exposed plot be recognized as "outside"? Or is there any debug command/cheat or mod that I can use to plant stuff "inside"?  Or is it even possible to be changed via modding?

Any helpful info/advice will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

Can't you knock a piece of wall out so it's not completely enclosed, then plant, then put it back on when you are done or something like that? If that doesn't work then maybe try that and taking the roof off?

One of the tricks used to create an "exposed" enclosed courtyard is to first, jack the entire house up on a foundation, then blow a hole through the foundation, so that on the ground level, it is unwalled, but the house appears visibly enclosed.

Yep, this.  Exact;y the same trick I used on the current piece of property I'm building.  Has a basement level for the manor that has both a pond and a sunken garden.  Sinking the garden a bit was necessary so that trees planted there didn't show up through the floor above.

thanks all for the replies.  It confirmed that what I am attempting is atm impossible.  The foundation trick is good when the hole can get covered with stairs, but unfortunately, it does not work for houses without (the theme I am using will be spoilt by foundations :) ).  I guess I am only wait for some greenhouse expansion.  In the mean time, back to the design plans to see if a "hole or two" can be introduced discreetly.

thanks all again!

We'll always have moveobjects.

I can confirm that using the moveobjects cheat works. One of my sims has a completely enclosed greenhouse, and it works fine with moveobjects on.

Thanks for the tip.  If I understand correctly, does it mean that if I turn moveobjects on, in Live mode, I will be able to plant whatever plant "indoors"?

Sims 3 toasted my notebook.... display totally dead. sent it for repair... prob overworked the gfx card (nvidia 7000+ GO series I think)...  Notebook users out there, beware!

No, but you can plant them outside, then move them inside with the cheat.

Hmm, I could have sworn I have planted stuff into an area which was completely enclosed by a foundation and walls, but no roof. No cheats used. I may have been dreaming.

Then I think I should rework the design of the house such that the garden can be logically "outside" but visually inside.  I'll just take that as a challenge :) as opposed to planting outside then moving stuff in... well.. partially because for this particular house I'm building, there are no bare terrain squares outside... lol.

But then, no Sims 3 for me till I get by notebook repaired... wish I had some "Handiness" skill so that I can fix laptops within a couple of hours at home by myself...

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,15585.msg451058.html#msg451058

In reference to that link, If you graphics card running a game without VSync is enough to kill it then you have far more serious problems as your not allowing for enough airflow through the case. With a laptop this is difficult to fix and you probably will need to adjust your driver to force VSync and limit your time playing games (Laptops aren't really designed for games anyways, even if they call it a gaming laptop). For most common PC cases you can easily achieve this by ensuring that you have a fan blowing out of the case as well as into the case from back to front or back to top, and ensure that the exhaust fan is more powerful then the intake fan in the case of a typical graphics card's fan assisted heatsink, or if the heatsink is fanless then the intake fan should be stronger then the exhaust fan. This of course means that if your silly enough to have to have the latest and greatest graphics cards then you need the biggest and baddest cooling fans or fork over the money for a decent water cooling system.

I have a suggestion for your enclosed garden, which worked in Sims 2 for me - I used the model from the EA/Maxis elder Monty's Spanish style house in Veronaville, sometimes putting the fenced and gated opening to the rear of the house so I could have the appropiate front entrances I wanted. I created both Spanish Villa's with enclosed gardens and Japanese style Pagoda houses with oriental gardens which looked and worked fine.

I have not tried building these styles of homes in Sims 3 yet, but I can't see any reason it wouldn't work. If i recall the house was actually easier to do in houses at ground level than those on a foundation.  I'd also suggest you may want to get your Sim to plant the garden before you enclose the court yard with the Gate and 2 section fence, and maybe the roof as well. I seem to recall the Sims didn't seem to cooperate sometimes if I waited to move them on the lot until after the house was finished and instructed them to plant. I never took the time to find out if it was the gate or the roof making them refuse to plant in any enclosure but a green house - I just know they would cooperate when the roof and the fence/gate weren't on the house yet.

I blew the foundation base out of the Goth Manor garden room and ran a wall around the base to cover the hole - works a treat - plus that greenhouse/chess room is no longer a massive suck of undecorated moodlets.

Isn't there an EA house in the neighborhood with some sort of "outside" room.. its a modernish one with the pool.. and it is completely covered by walls.. bah I'll have to get on and tell ya the address.

If you are referring to the "Pondcentric - 2br, 1ba" house, that uses a foundation to surround its outdoor pool.  It then attaches this "interior pond" to the outside by leaving a hole under the house.  As previously noted in the thread, this is works properly.

Good Day. :)

When I built a greenhouse, the main house had a foundation, with no holes in it, but the greenhouse was on flat ground. Using the moveobjects cheat allowed me to have my sim plant directly inside the greenhouse, on top of a "dirt" floor (sims will complain if there's no floor in an enclosed space). I didn't have to use any special tricks to achieve this.

I think Batman referred to Modernehaus. It has a small, enclosed, sand-covered area with some plant and benches.