Lot View of neighboring buildings - better quality?

[CRiz]

I guess this is how the game is but everything outside lots (hood deco/building/neighboring houses) are very low quality textures.
Is there a way to make it look better? It wasn't so bad when playing with my house (not many houses around) but going Downtown looks terrible. All the buildings around the lot I am visiting are such eyesores compared to the lot that I am on. I don't mind the plants so much but the buildings really kill the view. lol

I just recently got the game and it's expansions and it has been bugging me for some time. So I decided to ask and see if anyone knows anything.

Heck, today I just found sky projectors for Lot View and Neighborhood View. ;D

[CRiz]

Nothing, huh? No one is going to try to even bother responding with an answer? Not an alternative, or a trick or something!?

I'm not trying to be rude or anything but I at least expected 1 answer, even if it wasn't possible. :call:

[Bird]

I don't think any one has answered because we don't know either. Well, at least I don't know, and I have tried Googling it and didn't find anything either.

[joandsarah77]

If nobody answered it is probably because nobody knows. I have absolutely no idea if there is a trick, an alternative or if it isn't possible. My guess is it isn't possible. Seems little point in us all coming to tell you about something we don't know ourselves.

[CRiz]

Well, thank you for responding. I just wanted an answer on whether or not it was possible.

When I say alternative or trick. I mean ways to get around the "flaw" like using trees to cover up some of the "undesirables" or this lot thingy I found on here (even though I can't use it at this time), found the name, it's called LotAdjuster (http://modthesims.info/d/384656), it allows to change your house position on a lot or shrink and expand the lot and it also lets you put houses across the street. Which I take that as an alternative (along with 3 or 4 apartment houses using one lot (http://modthesims.info/d/481708)). Those are the things I consider "alternatives" & "tricks". I did find on the TSR a Neighborhood decorative (http://www.thesimsresource.com/artists/arenaria/downloads/details/category/sims2-sets-objects/title/medieval-village/id/1139187/) small pub, house, etc. that have very high texture qualities. I plopped it down on a empty lot across my sims house and it looks great. i even made a community lot and used the same building on it (cheat that allows Hood Decor go on Residential/Community lots) and entered the lot and the texture for the building is still very good looking, though when you get to close it becomes obvious that it's a Hood deco but if I could find a way to do that with the Trees and other low quality deco that could also help with getting around the Lot view flaws. :)

I know, I just pretty much gave answers to my own question but still. People can add to it. lol :P

[xSayuri]

I think it has to do with your graphics\video card too. I had a really bad one and the neighbourhood objects from the lot looked pretty bad, but after I changed it it looked different and better in my opinion. I never really noticed down town though.

[CRiz]

I think it has to do with your graphics\video card too. I had a really bad one and the neighbourhood objects from the lot looked pretty bad, but after I changed it it looked different and better in my opinion. I never really noticed down town though.

Here are screenshots of what I see in Lot View and the type of Graphic Card near the end of post.

Neighborhood View: Center Lots I'll be showing
http://i.imgur.com/bs4ZFs.jpg (http://imgur.com/bs4ZF)

Community Lot View: Fake Farm
Neighborhood Deco I downloaded - So pretty!
http://i.imgur.com/MMecPs.jpg (http://imgur.com/MMecP)

http://i.imgur.com/g6Z6Es.jpg (http://imgur.com/g6Z6E)
http://i.imgur.com/tSExCs.jpg (http://imgur.com/tSExC)
- The puffy trees, I actually don't mind. They are not that bad looking from Lot View.

http://i.imgur.com/FytuLs.jpg (http://imgur.com/FytuL)

http://i.imgur.com/9gHfLs.jpg (http://imgur.com/9gHfL)
- PlantSim house. Looks terrible.

http://i.imgur.com/fcdoos.jpg (http://imgur.com/fcdoo)
- close up

Residential Lot View: PlantSim House
Lot View from PlanSim House of the Fake farm
http://i.imgur.com/qH9Nis.jpg (http://imgur.com/qH9Ni)
- very painterly though

http://i.imgur.com/Xk6Gks.jpg (http://imgur.com/Xk6Gk)
- Actual view of PlantSim house

http://i.imgur.com/VLWUas.jpg (http://imgur.com/VLWUa)
- and the side view

http://i.imgur.com/QWCC4s.jpg (http://imgur.com/QWCC4)
- Across the street next to Farm (sooo bad)

http://i.imgur.com/DZkafs.jpg (http://imgur.com/DZkaf)
- Closer view of neighbor next to PlantSim house. Notice the tree next to the pond and bushes.

http://i.imgur.com/D6t9Zs.jpg (http://imgur.com/D6t9Z)
- This is descent since it is further away. So I don't mind it looking that way when far off.

Now for the odd ball objects that actually keep their textures.

Their names and locations:
http://i.imgur.com/LNLnIs.jpg (http://imgur.com/LNLnI)
- Shaky Bodies Coffee Plant - useable object from CS

http://i.imgur.com/jm9Ras.jpg (http://imgur.com/jm9Ra)
- Nature's Commode - useable object from CS

http://i.imgur.com/XLZRNs.jpg (http://imgur.com/XLZRN)
- Live medium shrubby shrub

http://i.imgur.com/1jPg8s.jpg (http://imgur.com/1jPg8)
- Tall Midbiscus Tree

Lot View of these objects:
http://i.imgur.com/BOMPQs.jpg (http://imgur.com/BOMPQ)

http://i.imgur.com/RVHZzs.jpg (http://imgur.com/RVHZz)

http://i.imgur.com/QUMELs.jpg (http://imgur.com/QUMEL)
---------------------

I play this on a laptop that doesn't have a very recent graphic card, so maybe that could be the problem. I just want to make sure whether or not it's supposed to look like this.

Nvidia Geforce GT 330M
RAM 4.0GB
Intel Core i7 CPU Q 720 @ 1.60GHz

I wonder about those objects that have their textures though. What makes them different from the others? If I could do that with other plants that would be nice. I haven't really decorated Riverblossom like some people do because I'm still new to this and because I don't want to give my laptop problems, which is why I only have 3 playable houses that I use in that neighborhood. I'm mostly concerned about the look of the nieghborhood because of my mom. When I was playing I had the camera mostly pointing at the house but when I let her play, I felt bad that I couldn't get the outside deco to look good enough when walls were down or when she went downtown/market (near by stores look bad). She plays Sims 3 on the PS3 so she's use to it looking a certain way and also being able to visit neighbors. ;/

Sorry for this being so long but I couldn't bunch the pictures together to save space. Anyways, just click on them to go to the full size image. Should be 1360x768.

[simmer22]

Looks like that in my game too - both on my laptop with a decent enough card, and desktop with a much better card, and quite similar on my really bad laptop that I bought in 2006 (that died on me because of too much sims playing - its graphic card was integrated and quite meh, but the graphics were alright enough even if some of the shaders and bump mapping didn't work) so I doubt you're alone.

Remember that the first TS2 games were made about 8 years ago, fit to work with the graphic cards back then.

[xSayuri]

There's also the fact that if all objects really kept their real textures it'd put more pressure on your game. I think that's why they made it like that.

[CRiz]

There's also the fact that if all objects really kept their real textures it'd put more pressure on your game. I think that's why they made it like that.

Well good. So it's not because of my graphics card :beer:

Anyways, I already figured that the quality was the way it is for the reasons you and Simmer mentioned above. I just wanted to make sure that is how it's supposed to look like. It's also why I asked for alternatives and tricks to get around the undesirables. I also wasn't planning on getting a bunch of High Poly objects and putting them all over the neighborhood. Just to cover any house views of neighboring buildings.

Anyways, I am still curious about those objects I mentioned. Those shrubs and trees that still had there textures intact even though I was viewing them from Lot View.

If this all turns out to be more trouble then it's worth then I'll just cut my lot view off and deal with a blue abyss. I'll have to check out that sky projector, it might help.

Thanks for the responses Sayuri and Simmer. I appreciate it. :)

[ShineShine]

New objects look absolutely better than Maxis' objects in the neighborhood-view. I have always wondered :) There is a way, kind of, but you already know :) In fact, the neighborhood is too corrupt for improving it. Every terrain paint looks terribly washed out in the view, altered seas appear black and some object's shadow are just a black quadrat. Roofs are illustrated as sunken in (but totally okay while playing the house) and every house's slope is just some quadrats, too.
In the neighborhood-view you can enter: "boolprop enablepostprocessing true" and then alter the complete potrayal:
filmgrain x Change softness (x = 0.0-1.0)
bloom r g b x adjust Blur-Effect (r, g, b = 0-255; x = 0.0-1.0)
vignette x y z adjust Blur-Effect z from a fixed Position x,y (x, y, z = 0.0-1.0)
Anyhow, in the house-view (when playing a household) I always wished to have some walls (or kind of), which just blurr everything, which is behind it. So I could place them behind my windows and the view would look quiet okay. This would be so helpful for filming. :) Those are all of my ideas regarding your topic.