Someone asked how I converted a regular house into an apartment building. Late Night style apartments are still designated Residences in Edit Town, but there are some differences in setup. Hope this isn't too confusing. It's more difficult to explain, I think, than to do!
This is the apartment building I created in Al Medina. It was just a single family home previously.
The apartment aspect comes in when you use Hidden Room and Public Room markers. And in order to make changes to what will be public areas and hidden NPC apartments (rather than just the furnished apartment), you will need to use the restrictbuildbuyinbuildings false cheat. After you're done setting up the apartment, you'll change the cheat back to restrictbuildbuyinbuildings true.
You will also need apartment style mailboxes (found in Buydebug) and a call box (two styles found in Electronics: wall and free-standing).
The apartments can look anyway you like. The main thing is to have one or two (or more) empty rooms for the "fake" NPC apartments and one (only) furnished apartment for a resident sim to move into. Your own sim or another townie sim can live in the furnished apartment space. All the "homeless" sims move into the other empty apartments.
For example, in the house I converted, I kept the downstairs as the main furnished apartment. I just separated a public entry way from the private apartment areas.
You see the silver ball by the stairs? That is a Public Room marker from Buydebug. You can only see that while in Buy mode when Buydebug is on. NPC residents can enter the public entryway and use the stairs, but cannot enter the furnished apartment without an invite.
All residents can go up to the balcony area and into the small hallway, but not everyone can enter the Hidden Room NPC apartment where the once-homeless now live.
There is a Hidden Room marker (from Buydebug) in that empty room. Notice there's a Public Room marker in the small hallway and one on the enclosed balcony too. In order for you to designate a door for NPC use only, you have to have a Public Room on one side of the door with a Hidden Room on the other side. In this case, I wanted a small covered room upstairs for a rocking chair that all residents could use, so I added an extra Public Room next to the Hidden Room.
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Below are screenshots of another apartment building in Al Medina showing more about room markers, public and private areas, and NPC apartment doors.
As shown in the picture below, a Hidden Room marker is in the empty room while a Public Room marker is on the other side of the NPC door.
While in Buy mode, you CTRL-Shift click on the door into the empty apartment room and choose Make NPC Door. That automatically creates the apartment for homeless sims and locks the door to others. The picture shows that this has already been done since the option now says "Unmake" instead of "Make NPC Door."
In this building, the apartments are two-story townhouses, but the Public Room and Hidden Room markers work the same way. Notice this builder also put Public Room markers outside, but I don't think that is necessary unless the area is enclosed in a way considered to be a "room," like an upstairs balcony.
And note that both the bathroom and laundry room also have Public Room markers in them so they can be used by everyone in the building. The builder has also put the mailboxes and call box inside in a Public Room instead of placing them outdoors.
I didn't have enough room for those in the entryway of the house I converted, so I left them outside. BTW, you have to place the apartment mailboxes before the regular mailbox can be taken out. I think the regular mailbox may disappear automatically, can't remember for sure.
You can see the furnished apartment and the empty NPC apartment side by side here, separated by different doors. This is the first floor.
Here is the second floor showing the two Hidden Room NPC apartments and the top floor of the furnished apartment, with a Public Room balcony furnished for everyone to use.
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If you've never accessed a call box on an apartment building, here's a pic of what the action looks like. Have your sim click on the call box. Choose Call Resident.
You'll get a list of all the once-homeless sims "living" in the hidden apartments and any sim living in the furnished apartment. Choose who you want to talk to, and the NPC will come down to meet you. Or, if a townie sim lives in the furnished apartment and you call them, they will invite you inside (if they're home).
