Basic Building Help

[Winterwalker]

Is there a way to combine a blue print with another building, or take elements from one building (such as copy paste) to combine them with another building? This link says yes, but I've tried it and can't get it to work. http://steamcommunity.com/app/493340/discussions/0/152390014798921735/

Thanks for that link because the answer is I think yes, even though I didn't think it was!
I've just tried the basics of and it works, but within rules.

So, you can't select two buildings and merge them together currently. (At one stage in alpha I think you could, so that may return). You also can't group scenery items UNLESS you add them to a building. You can add them to a building though so there's a workaround. Say you have some trees you want to group. Use a building piece (a wall, a flat roof, anything that classes as a building (not scenery) and creates it's own building grid). Bury this in the ground under the trees. Now use the group select box around the trees and the building .. you're given an option to add the trees to that building (the icon in the menu is a tree with an arrow next to it). After doing that you can now move them all aorund together (that is as a building though, so note one limitation is the trees now behave like a building so you won't have precise height control as even fresh buildings seem to work on a hidden height grid. And note; If you edit this 'building' and delete all the building pieces from it, the trees are no longer grouped together).

Now the interesting bit. Two separate buildings, containing multiple pieces, can you add one to the other? The answer is yes, with care. As mentioned in my first paragraph though, not by copying one building and hoping to add it to the other building.but following the rules given by your link, as follows;

Select the building you want to copy, edit the building. Select all the individual pieces (use multi selection box or ctrl) , use the copy option in the menu and then .. done. These PIECES are now in clipboard.

Make sure add to building option is ticked (lower right of screen) and hover over the destination building, it should say add to building x, in a tooltip near your mouse. Here the game is limited .. if you click to drop, the new pieces will add to the building wherever they happen to be and worse will generate a new grid offest and that doesn't fit with the destination building (that's bad, so devs please take note). Using x advanced move won't allow you to add to building either (also bad). However, if you line the pieces up by eye, as long as the add to building tool tip is active the new pieces will join the destination building when you click to drop, so ...

I tested with a couple of round walls, to make a perfect circle .. to help myself I built a couple of foundation stones, under the ground on the destination building beforehand so no matter where I hovered with the new pieces, the tooltip (add to building) was showing,.as some part of the destination building was always under the mouse while I concentrated on getting the pieces lined up. It worked, ended up with all the pieces part of a single building.

I don't think you could do this with a blueprint 'directly from the blueprint menu' but as long as the blueprint is one building, you could drop it down at random, go into edit mode, select the pieces, copy, done and then copy them down (as close as you can, by eye and freehand) to a destination building.

Hopefully a couple of devs might spot this thread and look at making it possible to add to building when using advanced move and / or look at reading the destination grid when dropping building pieces to it (edit: have added suggestion by way of a bug report) because then it would work much better .. You can do it now, but at a pinch.

 

[Huntn]

Thanks for that link because the answer is I think yes, even though I didn't think it was!
I've just tried the basics of and it works, but within rules.

So, you can't select two buildings and merge them together currently. (At one stage in alpha I think you could, so that may return). You also can't group scenery items UNLESS you add them to a building. You can add them to a building though so there's a workaround. Say you have some trees you want to group. Use a building piece (a wall, a flat roof, anything that classes as a building (not scenery) and creates it's own building grid). Bury this in the ground under the trees. Now use the group select box around the trees and the building .. you're given an option to add the trees to that building (the icon in the menu is a tree with an arrow next to it). After doing that you can now move them all aorund together (that is as a building though, so note one limitation is the trees now behave like a building so you won't have precise height control as even fresh buildings seem to work on a hidden height grid. And note; If you edit this 'building' and delete all the building pieces from it, the trees are no longer grouped together).

Now the interesting bit. Two separate buildings, containing multiple pieces, can you add one to the other? The answer is yes, with care. As mentioned in my first paragraph though, not by copying one building and hoping to add it to the other building.but following the rules given by your link, as follows;

Select the building you want to copy, edit the building. Select all the individual pieces (use multi selection box or ctrl) , use the copy option in the menu and then .. done. These PIECES are now in clipboard.

Make sure add to building option is ticked (lower right of screen) and hover over the destination building, it should say add to building x, in a tooltip near your mouse. Here the game is limited .. if you click to drop, the new pieces will add to the building wherever they happen to be and worse will generate a new grid offest and that doesn't fit with the destination building (that's bad, so devs please take note). Using x advanced move won't allow you to add to building either (also bad). However, if you line the pieces up by eye, as long as the add to building tool tip is active the new pieces will join the destination building when you click to drop, so ...

I tested with a couple of round walls, to make a perfect circle .. to help myself I built a couple of foundation stones, under the ground on the destination building beforehand so no matter where I hovered with the new pieces, the tooltip (add to building) was showing,.as some part of the destination building was always under the mouse while I concentrated on getting the pieces lined up. It worked, ended up with all the pieces part of a single building.

I don't think you could do this with a blueprint 'directly from the blueprint menu' but as long as the blueprint is one building, you could drop it down at random, go into edit mode, select the pieces, copy, done and then copy them down (as close as you can, by eye and freehand) to a destination building.

Hopefully a couple of devs might spot this thread and look at making it possible to add to building when using advanced move and / or look at reading the destination grid when dropping building pieces to it (edit: have added suggestion by way of a bug report) because then it would work much better .. You can do it now, but at a pinch.

Thanks much for the info. I'll play around some more! I have seen the trick of sinking a small grid item into the ground to create a grid so that no grid items can be grouped.

9. I'm discovering that items that don't have a grid offer a lot of flexibility when it come to melding/shoving them together into something new. However items with grids, if I understand it correctly, have serious limits... the grid. I'm trying to make to a large wishbone shaped building support that sticks into the ground and there are these "roof molding low curve" and roof molding high curve" which might just be the ticket, but (if I understand it correctly) with their grids there is no way to rotate them like you can with a non grid item. Is there a way to pull them off any grid so they will have the freedom to rotate 360°? Thanks!

 

[Winterwalker]

No, unfortunately not. The grid is really locked to the horizontal so you can rotate, 'building items' (360), but you can't turn them upside down. You'd need a different piece.

From what it sounds like, you could maybe build the wishbone with straight pieces but not with curved ones? Or you can make curves, the roof moldings we have, but limited to the wishbone angle they'd give you by putting them together. I think there's a low curve and a steep one so you have at least some choice, even if limited to two?

If you think the piece you need would be useful to other people you could maybe suggest it to the devs ... even as an art piece if it's a fairly fundamental shape.

 

[Huntn]

No, unfortunately not. The grid is really locked to the horizontal so you can rotate, 'building items' (360), but you can't turn them upside down. You'd need a different piece.

From what it sounds like, you could maybe build the wishbone with straight pieces but not with curved ones? Or you can make curves, the roof moldings we have, but limited to the wishbone angle they'd give you by putting them together. I think there's a low curve and a steep one so you have at least some choice, even if limited to two?

If you think the piece you need would be useful to other people you could maybe suggest it to the devs ... even as an art piece if it's a fairly fundamental shape.

I think curved building arches of different sizes and shapes would be helpful along with a feature of removing grid items from a grid. I'll put this in the Suggestion forum.

 

[PghBlade]

I"m a newbie so please forgive if this is a dumb question. I don't see anyone else with this problem. I successfully created a building with a roof, windows, door, etc.... I saved it as a blue print and I am able to then put it in my park. The problem I have is when I go to rotate the building in the new park, the building rotates, but the roof doesn't. It is though it is no longer attached, but it saved as part of the blueprint without issue. I don't understand what is causing the issue.

 

[Huntn]

I"m a newbie so please forgive if this is a dumb question. I don't see anyone else with this problem. I successfully created a building with a roof, windows, door, etc.... I saved it as a blue print and I am able to then put it in my park. The problem I have is when I go to rotate the building in the new park, the building rotates, but the roof doesn't. It is though it is no longer attached, but it saved as part of the blueprint without issue. I don't understand what is causing the issue.

My question has to be can two buildings be saved in a single blueprint? The building, and the roof. Does the roof have it's own grid? Once possible solution might be to combine them using the multi tool selector, then they should rotate, but you might be able to make a new blueprint? Not really sure, just guessing.

 

[Narad]

My question has to be can two buildings be saved in a single blueprint? The building, and the roof. Does the roof have it's own grid? Once possible solution might be to combine them using the multi tool selector, then they should rotate, but you might be able to make a new blueprint? Not really sure, just guessing.

You can combine buildings, but it isn't just a click of the button. The steps are:

1. Go into edit on the building you want to copy from
2. Select everything you want to copy (draw a box or control click them individually)<do not use multiselect, it will kick you out of edit mode>
3. Click copy or press control D
4. Click Done
5. hover over the building you want the items to go into and watch for the "add to building....." hint to show and click.
6. If you have grid items in the stuff you copied, you'll be able to move them as needed and they will be aligned to the copy to building grid. If you only have non grid items, they will be placed where ever you click and you may have to move them (M or control X).

It's not totally intuitive, but try it a couple of times and it becomes pretty easy.

While not what you asked.......if you have a building (say a house) and you've put shrubs and trees around it and they aren't part of the house building but you want them to be. You can use multiselect and select non grid items plus the building and there will be a little button that allows you to add them to the building. Doesn't work for more than one building.

Hope this helps.

 

[Huntn]

10. I've suggested a group command over in the suggestions forum, something that can be used to lock together the parts of a custom creation so these items can easily be selected for movement. How does that sound?

You can combine buildings, but it isn't just a click of the button. The steps are:

1. Go into edit on the building you want to copy from
2. Select everything you want to copy (draw a box or control click them individually)<do not use multiselect, it will kick you out of edit mode>
3. Click copy or press control D
4. Click Done
5. hover over the building you want the items to go into and watch for the "add to building....." hint to show and click.
6. If you have grid items in the stuff you copied, you'll be able to move them as needed and they will be aligned to the copy to building grid. If you only have non grid items, they will be placed where ever you click and you may have to move them (M or control X).

It's not totally intuitive, but try it a couple of times and it becomes pretty easy.

While not what you asked.......if you have a building (say a house) and you've put shrubs and trees around it and they aren't part of the house building but you want them to be. You can use multiselect and select non grid items plus the building and there will be a little button that allows you to add them to the building. Doesn't work for more than one building.

Hope this helps.

Thanks much! I'll incorporate this into my notes.

 

[Winterwalker]

I"m a newbie so please forgive if this is a dumb question. I don't see anyone else with this problem. I successfully created a building with a roof, windows, door, etc.... I saved it as a blue print and I am able to then put it in my park. The problem I have is when I go to rotate the building in the new park, the building rotates, but the roof doesn't. It is though it is no longer attached, but it saved as part of the blueprint without issue. I don't understand what is causing the issue.

To asnwer this question, I think you can move them as one .. without going the whole way of joining the buildings.

Use the multi-select tool (bottom right of screen) draw a box around both roof+building and I believe you can move them from the menu. Though of course, when you deselect, you haven't joined the buildings so would need to do the same thing again to move them a second time.

10. I've suggested a group command over in the suggestions forum, something that can be used to lock together the parts of a custom creation so these items can easily be selected for movement. How does that sound?

Sounds excellent. Thanks for doing that.

 

[Huntn]

11. I'm experimenting with terraforming and moving buildings to a new location. I see that there is "flatten to foundation" tool that will flatten the ground, I assume for building on. I've got a largish building that after I use the flatten tool, when I move the building to get it where I want it and back flat on the ground, either some of it ends up buried or some is floating slightly above the ground.

How do you all approach this? Can the terrain be told to fill in under a structure without engulfing it? Thanks!

12. My goal is to have some water flowing down the sides of rocks. Is this possible? In my brief experimentation, when I click on water tools, I can't get anything to happen. I see this water cascade: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=802861130. Is this type of water only found on a water ride or can it be made into a natural water feature? Any pointers at online guides would be appreciated.

 

[Bullethead]

11. I'm experimenting with terraforming and moving buildings to a new location. I see that there is "flatten to foundation" tool that will flatten the ground, I assume for building on. I've got a largish building that after I use the flatten tool, when I move the building to get it where I want it and back flat on the ground, either some of it ends up buried or some is floating slightly above the ground.

How do you all approach this? Can the terrain be told to fill in under a structure without engulfing it? Thanks!

When you first create a building, usually some part of it will be below ground level. This is no problem when you're creating the building the first time. However, if later try to move the building (or have saved it as a blueprint and create a new copy from the blueprint), the game will not let you sink it into the ground like it was originally, instead, the lowest part of the building, which was originally underground, will stop at the surface so the building as a whole will be higher above the ground than it was before. There are only really 2 ways to deal with this. You can dig a small hole for the underground parts then fill it back in after you've placed the building, or you can build a hill up to the building at its new height.

I find this extremely annoying. The same thing happens with coasters. But sadly, this is the way the game works these days.

12. My goal is to have some water flowing down the sides of rocks. Is this possible? In my brief experimentation, when I click on water tools, I can't get anything to happen. I see this water cascade: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=802861130. Is this type of water only found on a water ride or can it be made into a natural water feature? Any pointers at online guides would be appreciated.

The water created by the terrain tools is just a surface, totally static and perfectly level. It cannot be made to flow. You make waterfalls using scenery items from the special effects menu. There are a bunch of water jets of different sizes that you mount at the top of the hill and point them downwards. They spew out graphics that look like waterfalls, but these graphics only go so far and then disappear. Thus, if you want a tall waterfall, you usually need several tiers of these water jets.