XIX's Three Mapping Tutorials From RPGarden

[XIX 30]

These tutorials have been merged and ported from The Old RPGarden, there will not be any more of them, my tutrials were for the development of RPGarden Alone.

 

The First thing You need to know about mapping is that You have to remember that Mapping is all about setting. The games maps are what you use to develop the setting and the feel of the game, It is an important part of how you introduce the player to your game. You want to make sure the player feels the setting and the Atmosphere.

But now Onto the Mapping.

I'm going to start by making a forest map and give some simple pointers as to how the map will structure.



This is a common place for people to start with when making a forest. and some people would leave it practically like this without a second thought.

But there is one major problem with this map giving that it is a beginning map. Relativity. The trees in the map do not match up in size or shape (give/take the term shape). So that is the first thing that needs fixed. But whether it is trees or buildings, Relative size is a must have to prevent the game from feeling sloppy.



This should be your improved basic structure map. It gives you an Idea of how the trees should have similar relative sizes to one another.

another thing to look at is what helps the map feel like the setting you want it to feel like. For instance I'm adding a river to help it feel more in tune with nature. and then I will add a few trees. (I am using my own custom recolored tree tiles get them here)



Notice the trees on the right are incomplete. I purposefully did that to show how my method is done so I spend less time on each map. I will now add extra colored trees and finish the current trees.



Now that the colorful trees have been added I will now add the final touches. Grass, thin trees, bushes, flowers, and paths. also be sure to make sure your grass and pathes aren't too squared if they are a natural occurrence! You want the map to look Natural!



Now we have a completed forest map. A few touch ups and extra details. And the map itself is complete. Though depending on how you want the map to feel could mean you need an event to set the map a certain color, like dark and green, or light and green. It's all up to you how that is played.

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The First thing most people so when they make a town is worry about all the places the player can go into. We will not worry about that here. All we will do is make a simple town that looks nice and natural. So we will start with a grass base.
(NO Screen Its a blank map of grass)
And Now We will Decide where the map is located to determine the borders of the map. Example: If we do a forest town we will follow my first tutorial to determine the forest, then we would add houses around and in it afterwards.
We will do a ruins town. I've constantly taken notice that people often don't know what to do with re-inhabited ruins. So now we will Map some cliffs and broken walls.

In this image I took some tome to shift click map, I will not be teaching you this. But notice the way the walls are, they are incomplete and look sloppy, but this is what walls look like when they are in ruins. Also notice the cliffs don't have shadows, I am not using auto cliffs in this map.

Next we have to add some buildings old and new. Try to locate older buildings closer to walls and try to incorporate newer buildings with some old buildings.

Now that we have our buildings we need to add Trees and other scenery objects. Adding natural occurring things like water and trees are covered in my first tutorial.

Sometimes in mapping you run into a situation where shift click doesn't help, in those cases you use an event as a map piece. Like at the top right of this map i used an event to map the tor corner of the roof.
Also Don't be afraid to add silly NPC characters to your maps, if the town is empty then it might as well not exist.

There you have it the Town tutorial. If you have any questions or suggestions for my next tutorial just ask.

Add Paths to your new ruins town. I'll do another town later.

 

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Caves can be some of the hardest and easiest areas to map in. I myself start most cave areas with the Built in dungeon generator. So we will begin with that.

Personally I hate the way these dungeons look, but they make for a quick start of most caved areas the player can explore.  What we'll do next is merge some of the mapped areas and make wider more cave like tunnels. this makes the area seem more diverse and less like a man-made structure.

Now that the caves are more rounded and merged they look more natural. These rounded caves make for good dungeon areas, if we made these caves more uniformed then we could easily turn these into mines(a tutorial to come.).

For now we are going to Tune up the caves with some natural and un-natural cave features including cave supports and a small spring. It is also a good idea to add an emptiness effect by putting holes in both the ceilings and the ground.

Between the last step and now a lot has been added but this map is far from done, if your cave has a fresh watersource then it will likely need some plantlife accompanying it. if you did what I did with the mine walls then you will need to use events to map some of the plants. and since we are eventing a bit you can add a treasure chest or two. and then return to add maybe a skeleton or two. anything added after that is the makers choice, I usually add the dark effect to the map.

due to the priorities of tsukihime's mapshots script the dark effect does not show.
Cave maps have hundreds of possible effects brought on by the makers to give each cave its own unique feeling, some will make things glow, some will make it near black, some might even make it rain for god know what reason but caves give the mystery that fuels an rpg. Some find Caves too generic so they avoid them, but if done right then caves can be the best part of an rpg's setting.

Enjoy!

 

Credit: Tsukihime, Me

[amerk 1,122]

Awesome! Thanks for bringing those here.

[+ LadyMinerva 998]

I really love this~ ^-^ The environment and the idea of immersing the playing into their settings is a very nice thing to have... I love the concepts you explained. Keep it up!~

[Dr3gon_M4ster 1]

Hey, Thanks so much for this tutorial. As someone just getting into RPGMaker, I love the simple reminder of making sure to keep the setting and player feel in mind with making map. It's true that the environment can do wonders to convey the feeling and setting of a game to the player(s). Great job!

[XIX 30]

So Glad I posted this here, just about every other RPG maker forum is gone now and only a handful remain. Seeing my old work helps motivate me to do more, and work harder.