[NOT A BUG] Split levels/Lofts - trouble with Glass Roofs [ Edited ]

[BryonyRae]

Product: The Sims 4
Platform:PC
Which language are you playing the game in? English
How often does the bug occur? Every time (100%)
What expansions, game packs, and stuff packs do you have installed? All
Steps: How can we find the bug ourselves? Design a split level or loft structure, apply a roof, and select a glass roof pattern (details below images).
What happens when the bug occurs? If you delete the walls of the split level or loft area rather than replacing them with fencing, the area is no longer considered a room, and the ceiling is deleted. If you place a flat above the room in order to get the appearance of a ceiling, the glass roof does not override with or intersect the flat flooring in such a way as to make it invisible. The workaround is to replace the walls with fencing rather than deleting the walls. Note that you cannot use half walls if you want stairs to intersect the area.
What do you expect to see? We just need to make sure that we are approaching split levels / lofts as noted above, by replacing walls with fencing rather than deleting the walls, at least when we plan to use glass roofs. I will close this issue as it's not a bug, but the information will be here for others that used the old method.
Have you installed any customization with the game, e.g. Custom Content or Mods? Never used.
Did this issue appear after a specific patch or change you made to your system? Yes
Please describe the patch or change you made. New in the 6/19/18 patch

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Images of a split level structure - first image is with the flat in place, second is with the flat removed:

Images of a loft structure - first image is with the flat in place, second is with the flat removed:

Details on how to create these structures:

Split Level:

1. Draw at least two rooms at ground level.
2. Delete the flooring in one of the rooms.
3. Delete the walls between the rooms.
4. Page up to the 2nd floor and add a flat, sizing it to fill out the now missing ceiling.
5. Set foundation height to any height greater than ground floor height.

Loft:

1. Draw a large room at ground level.
2. Page up and draw a second room.  Within that room, in the location of your choice, draw a second room.
3. Delete the flooring in the second room.
4. Delete a wall in the second room.  The flooring will pop back into place; just delete it again.
5. Continue to remove walls around the second room (except for any exterior walls).  If you like, add a fence or half wall in place of the walls.
6. Page up to the 3rd level and place a flat, sizing it in order to cover the missing ceiling.

After creating either of the above structures, place a roof that covers them and select a glass roof pattern for it.  Observe that the ceiling (floor really) of the flat is still visible over the split level/loft, even though it disappears for the rest of the structure.  Delete the flat you placed, exposing the split level or loft to outside lighting.  Note that while the flat's floor/ceiling is no longer an issue, and artifact still appears, like a bar, around the split level/loft area. 

As noted above, the issue can be mostly worked around by replacing the walls with fencing instead of the old method of deleting them.

[Xinqun · Accepted solution]

I don't think this is an error at all. The problem in the split-level house is that, by deleting the wall between rooms, you essentially "explode" the floorless room so it is, instead, an open outdoor space with three free-standing walls around it. If, instead, you were to replace the wall with a fence, the floorless room will remain a room and the artifact will not appear. You can tell by clicking on any of the remaining walls of the floorless room: does the whole space get highlighted, or only that one wall?

It's the same story with the double-storey loft space. Deleting a wall will explode the room; that's what's causing the flooring to reappear. (Edit: that's not actually the flooring of your upstairs room: that's the ceiling of the room underneath.) Do NOT delete walls; replace them with fencing instead, or with spandrels.

[Xinqun · Accepted solution]

I don't think this is an error at all. The problem in the split-level house is that, by deleting the wall between rooms, you essentially "explode" the floorless room so it is, instead, an open outdoor space with three free-standing walls around it. If, instead, you were to replace the wall with a fence, the floorless room will remain a room and the artifact will not appear. You can tell by clicking on any of the remaining walls of the floorless room: does the whole space get highlighted, or only that one wall?

It's the same story with the double-storey loft space. Deleting a wall will explode the room; that's what's causing the flooring to reappear. (Edit: that's not actually the flooring of your upstairs room: that's the ceiling of the room underneath.) Do NOT delete walls; replace them with fencing instead, or with spandrels.

[BryonyRae]

Thanks, @Xinqun, replacing the walls with fencing or half walls rather than deleting them is a good workaround, except in the case where a builder wants a stair to intersect with a loft area.  On a ground level split, this can be done, but not with the loft for some reason.  Perhaps the devs can look into simply making that change.  I'll update the post accordingly.

[Xinqun]

It's fine for stairs coming up to the upper level if you have fences, because the top of the stairs renders the fence invisible/intangible the same way that a floorless room and the glass roof renders the ceiling below invisible/intangible. That's not the case for half-walls, where you have to break the wall to let the stair in, or when you want the stair to continue up over an empty space to a third level, because the bottom of the stair doesn't cut through a fence the same way the top does. For these cases, I use a spandrel to divide the rooms from each other instead.

While I do consider the spandrel a workaround, I actually think the rest is exactly how Maxis expects us to build double-storey spaces and split-levels.

[BryonyRae]

Yes, for some reason when I first tested the loft space, my stairs would not intersect the fencing, but on a second test they did.  So the method works fine all the way around, and we just have to make sure we're using fencing and not half walls for spaces that we want to intersect with stairs.  Thanks!

[StarryMight]

@Xinqun: I haven't updated my game yet (I'm waiting for the post-Seasons dust to settle first, among other things ), but I do know for a fact that the "room exploding" you speak of has definitely been the bane of my existence when it comes to stairs for a long time! (I remove a wall to make the stairwell more realistically open, and BOOM! FLOOR!) I've worked around it the best I can, but still!

I can't quite remember if I have finally figured out that's actually the downstairs room's ceiling or not that's appearing, though...it's been a while.