How To Create A Sunken Room In Sims 4

One of the major improvements that The Sims 4 has brought to the franchise was the ease of gameplay. It's easier than ever to make creative, unique-looking houses due to how much build mode allows players to do. Moreover, buy mode and all of the special tools & cheats make it much simpler to make the perfect indoor design for buildings, without spending hours on it.

That being said, build mode has so many different tools to offer that it can feel pretty overwhelming to get into actually creating houses in The Sims 4. It's almost a skill of its own to utilize the game's mechanics to their advantage, but thankfully they're all pretty easy to master and will serve players for a long time. Here's just a few good skills to learn to get the maximum out of The Sims 4.

10 How To Make Sunken Houses

Recently there has been a new trend in the building community of The Sims 4, where a myriad of super talented creators have been making basement houses that have open, sunken areas and even use the terrain tool. Some houses are placed underwater in pools, which is even more impressive.

These sunken basement houses aren't that hard to make. Make the room in the basement floor first, and then go back up to ground level and remove the ceiling. This will create an open, sunken room which can be shaped however the player desires to create an infinite range of cool builds.

9 Moving Objects Up And Down

Paintings, shelves, and wall decorations are often overlooked when it comes to interior design, but the fact is that these details really bring a house together. However, using just the object mobility in the base game isn't always satisfactory, due to the limited scope of it. Using "bb.moveobjects." the player can get started.

To place items up on a wall and bring them further up, they can simply press 9 to go up or 0 to go down. Combined with the moveobjects cheat, this allows players to place a bunch of objects as close as possible to each other and create some natural clutter.

8 Quickly Undo And Redo Actions

The main challenge with building is that it takes a long time to create anything half decent for players who aren't used to using build mode in the first place. Without hotkeys or really knowing what each tool does, it can take ages to make even the simplest house design, which can put off players from actually enjoying building.

One of the best hotkeys is CTRL + Z to undo an action and CTRL + Y to redo an action. When in the process of building a room or furnishing, it's an excellent pair of hotkeys to remember as it allows the player to quickly fix any mistakes.

7 Copy An Object Being Held

Furnishing is another gameplay aspect that can take a surprising amount of time if the player just isn't used to it or doesn't know the hotkeys. When placing down objects and wanting a multitude of the same kind, having the copy hotkey at hand is a saving grace. When placing an object, just press SHIFT.

This doesn't concern items like chairs which will usually copy themselves automatically, but it can be insanely useful for other types of items like clutter or smaller decoration objects the player wants to use in abundance.

6 Place An Item Off Grid

Almost everything in The Sims 4 is based on the building and furnishing grid system. To toggle the grid on the ground, the player can simply press G. It's useful when building a house, but might be in the way when trying to furnish afterwards.

Even better, the grid system can be completely ignored by pressing left ALT when placing an object, which allows it to be freely placed off grid. Pair this up with the "bb.moveobjects" cheat, and any item can be pretty much placed anywhere the player wants.

One of the most unappreciated and misunderstood features of build mode is the room tool. Granted, it's a new feature that only appeared in The Sims 4, so it's no wonder many players even after six years of gameplay have yet to fully understood the scope of this insanely innovative and useful tool.

The room tool not only allows the player to change the dimensions of a specific room, but each wall can also be edited separately. Moreover, rooms can be dragged and moved around on the grid, as well as rotated. This saves a ton of time when building a house, and no longer requires players to knock down an entire wall.

4 Controlling The Camera Freely

Players who are truly passionate about their household might want to take cool photos or record videos while in-game. The camera controls in the game are simple and very free once mastered. To take a screenshot, press C and for a recording to start, press V.

Press TAB to enter free camera mode. The WASD keys can be used to move around. Q and E allow the player to move up and down, while Y and X zoom in and out. While in this mode, the player can move completely freely through the world and capture some pretty cinematic shots.

3 Live Mode Hotkeys

It's not all about build mode or buy mode hotkeys, although those are a big aspect that will definitely help the player and boost their quality of life. Live mode as well can get pretty cluttered, especially with a big family of eight Sims that all need to be tended to.

That's why hotkeys for live mode are just as important. Press Enter to center on the currently active Sim, and Space to pick the next Sim in line in the household. 1, 2, and 3 control the respective speeds of the game, with 1 being normal and 3 being super fast. P is for pause. The different panels are as follows: M to bring up the map, O for needs, Y for Simology, R for Relationship, I for Inventory, L for Skills, J for Career, and G for Aspirations.

2 Scaling Objects Up And Down

There just aren't enough cool objects in The Sims 4. Builders and designers in particular will understand this struggle, especially when the need for huge items like cars is growing every year. Luckily, there are ways to create fake cars without downloading CC and mods that might lag the game.

Any item in the game can be scaled up and down, so any minuscule decoration item can be turned into a giant statue if desired. To scale an object, make sure to select it and while holding SHIFT tap either Right or Left bracket to go smaller or bigger.

1 Rotating Items

The rotation of items in The Sims 4 feels a bit clunky and limiting, but there are ways to get around it. With The Sims 3 camera activated, it's much easier since it's naturally built into the camera mode.

To completely freely rotate an object, however, "bb.moveobjects" needs to be on. While pressing ALT, and the < > keys, the player can use their Mouse 1 to rotate objects freely without being confined to just a few different angles.

NEXT: The Sims 4: 10 Skills You'll Want Your Sim To Have

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