Feels flat/Boxy

[JaiCrimson 22]

Hey everyone, I'm not really the best mapper around but I try my hand anyway. I'm on maybe my third town and I just feel like I'm recreating the same bland box of stuff time and time again. Does anyone have any advice on how to improve? (before adding lighting and really detailed stuff, I mean)

 

Map 1 - Gildenvale; Not many people actually live in Gildenvale. This town, if it can even be called so, is the merchant hub center touching smack dab right in the middle of a cluster of farms. The only person who truly lives in Gildenvale is it's mayor! There are few but mighty places within Gildenvale. On the right hand side of the map you have the three head guild centers, which are the major guild root houses of all guilds across the land. On the left side of the map you have the marketplace, where the farmers come to display and sell their products. In the center of the map you have the Golden Nomad, a titan of a establishment. The Golden Nomad serves multiple functions. It acts as an Inn, a Tavern, a storefront for those who don't have organic goods, and the mayors office, where farmers and more can purchase their permits to act within the town, all in one. The many tents set up precariously close to the toxic river are a chaotic mixture of aspiring merchants looking to find good deals and mercenaries who are currently staying in town as they await their orders.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Map 2 - Sinister Falls; A village hidden deep within a forest, the origin of the toxic river. Very rarely does a human discover such a place, for this is the resting place of monsters. Many would be surprised to find that these supposedly primitive and savage creatures have founded such a civilized home for themselves. The monsters central to this location thrive through the toxic waters, as it is to them as regular water is to us. In fact, one monster - the chief - is forsaken as he is the creator of the waters and the organic origin of the toxicity that the humans despise so much.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Map 3 - Farmaria Farms (Probably gunna rename); Not much to say about this little place. 'Tis just a humble beginning for a hero that you might not expect coming. =D

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And as per usual, anyone who helps me gets some love sent to them via mental powers =3

Edited July 3, 2015 by JaiCrimson

[Seriel 830]

I like the bottom one

Just curious, why did you put it on event view?
The grid makes it kinda hard to see

[Tarq 746]

Things are boxy 'cause you're making them so. Try experimenting with some L shaped houses. Then try n shaped ones. Maybe add additional floors to the buildings.

 

Then give up and start parallaxing :3

[+ CVincent 234]

It looks flat and boxy primarily because there's so much unused space and no height variation. You have no hills or ledges and the edging around the map is all square instead of it being more natural and random. You also don't have any or foliage around except in small patches that are mostly too boxed together or linear.

 

You should experiment with making smaller maps and putting more detail in them. Ever notice that in most of the old RPG games the maps were small but were memorable in almost every step?

 

In the first picture, the whole map is square and has an over-sized marketplace. There are too many unused stalls as it seems most of the stores are just in that massive building which doesn't much fit the scene. The house to the right of that building doesn't seem to be accessible either, which might be an issue. I'm not sure what all the tents are for but they look a bit out of place; to put it in perspective there are more tents and stalls than houses. The shadow pen at the side of the tents are also really strange looking, there's even one tent with an extra block of shadow on its side.

 

You should consider building the map on a hill of some sort. People always say that they want the city to be in a "flat" area, but complain that their maps don't pop out enough. This is an issue that can be solved if you build the land before the city. The river looks very strange and unnatural. The lack of a defined pattern in the river is something to improve upon. The paths and roads are also inconsistent which really makes navigation awkward.

 

The second map is clearly unfinished, but there are tons of room for improvement. The bridge sizes are strange because some are four tiles wide and some are three. It also looks as if the player can't walk out of that space, which makes all of that unused flat green space make your map look more like a box. The usable floor space is built rectangular as well with the houses on it. Try using different house shapes and make ones with multiple floors.

 

Your third picture needs to not have a wall of trees surrounding it. Either that or make it look more natural by making the tree line thicker with random patches of space in it. You could also add some cut trees to make it seem like the land is continuing to be expanded. Again, there's a lot of strange space usage here. In comparison to the other homes these houses are super small, there's a lack of consistency that should be looked at. The red home on the top right side of the map looks flat because it has three tiles of roofing and only one tile of wall, the perspective has changed here.

 

As Tarq said.. Start parallaxing. The sooner you get into it the better quality your maps will end up being. I'd recommend downloading Tsukihime's Map Screenshot script, which not only is good for showcasing your completed work but also for parallaxing.

Edited June 30, 2015 by CVincent

[+ Lanakainea 22]

Way to much empty space. makes it look void.

[+ Takeo212 1,079]

As stated above, you have to much empty space. Try reducing the large open areas, or even add in walls and empty houses just to fill in some ground to look less void.

 

Also, I have no idea what's happening in the second map, and I can't really zoom in to much to see. It all looks weird (thats not saying it is though, I just can't make out whats happening).

 

The farm should maybe be spaced a little better. If you have that much open space, it would imply there are quite a few animals wandering the open space. If not, it'll look empty and bland. Try either using trees to round off the space or try eventing some random animals to make it more lively.

 

As for buildings, as stated already, try experimenting with shapes to increase your look. Some houses can be small blocks, but bigger houses, you should definitely try doing L or N shapes to make it less blocky and plain.

 

When in doubt, google "RPG Maker Houses" and it may give you some ideas or inspiration. Also keep in mind consistency. If you have a massive 6 block high building, then it'll be assumed that building has atleast 1 or 2 floors. Try making it more homely, and if you have space, add a few NPC's to give the player a sense of life. 

 

 

I hope you update with any updated maps so we can see :3

[JaiCrimson 22]

Hey so my PoliSci teacher decided I would be in the first speech group this week so I was pretttyyy busy as summer classes are all the work of regular classes just done in 1-2 less months (depending on the class). Anyway, to the maps!

 

As some of you have probably noticed I followed Jackus' comment and turned it into a suggestion and took the event view off. So to answer your question Jackus... I was in a rush and didn't really think about it xD.

 

Everyone's comments have been taken into account and some of you have REALLY poured it on me! Which makes me happy, because I have no idea how to map... I was actually planning to eventually have someone else do it for me. However it's probably better if I can make a solid project myself and allow the true artists to take it over from that point.

 

So to recap, I have taken all your suggestions into consideration, I have stayed mindful of all the advice and have been thinking about how I can implement it all and properly improve my maps without completely killing myself. Over the weekend I'm going to do what I can to improve these maps (although it might take longer) and as soon as I make strong improvements I will keep you all updated! And as per usual... SENDING YOU ALL LOVE!

 

Also, here are some different scale screenshots of the second map (I got tsukihime's mapshot script but I didn't see anything about using it for only capturing parts of maps as opposed to the whole map). So, this place is supposed to be a like... a toxic/radiated lake. The platforms are supposed to be floating raft things for houses and whatnot, although I guess they need more work... another thing to note is that alllll the stuff in these maps are placeholders. I just want to build a solid framework with the rtp, fleshing out everything as much as I can before I move on to the higher steps. so, yeah, here's them screenies.

 

1/1

 

 

 

 

 

1/2

 

 

 

 

Edited July 3, 2015 by JaiCrimson

[+ Takeo212 1,079]

Ahhhh, from the big screenshot, the green looked like grass. I didn't know it was a water tile. (The helpful-ness of still images lol).

 

I would say however to increase the map a little, try adding a little bit of level to it, maybe even 1 tile? Add the cliff tile to the edge of the map to give your island/section a bit of leverage and height. If your over radiation, I know I wouldn't want to be that low to it incase of spills or splashes.

 

Though I do admit, now that I understand that map, I think it is interesting and could prove to be a very nice map if you touch them up

[JaiCrimson 22]

Okay so I'm still working on updating the maps themselves but I've come to realize how much weirder some of the maps would seem without any kind of explanation! (Takeo you helped me realize this and going back reading through people's posts I've noticed more so how the lack of description has affected some of the advice! so thanks xD <3). So, I've edited my first post once again and added in descriptions of the locations. Doing so has actually been helpful too as I had some oversights in story creation. I will probably remove the toxic river from Gildenvale and just put running by the side of the town on the world map instead. I mean, what kind of quasi-intelligent human beings would literally build a town around a toxic river?!?! xD.

 

If anyone happens to read the descriptions and finds themselves brimming with a new suggestion or two, just lemme at it! I ain't afraid of no criticism!

 

I'll make sure to update as I move along! Thanks everyone!

[+ Takeo212 1,079]

As long as there higher up from it, you could always class it as a " we have to live here coz we cant afford it/we had to retreat here/we work here to get rid of it" type of thing.

 

Besides everything, your mapping and ideas are great, you just need to reduce the free space. I think everyone has the problem at first to be honest - I know I did/still do.

Pretty obvious, yet still helpful tip = Once you make a map, test it. Run around a little without the sprite. Does it feel to spacious? Empty? Buildings seem to small/big?

I testrun my game constantly to make sure everything feels right.

 

I re-read the first post, and it helps imagine what you want more. Hope to see updates from ya Jai :3

[JaiCrimson 22]

So I've been working on Gildenvale slowly all day and so far this is what I have come up with.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My biggest problem as of now are changing the house shapes and the shape of the border of the town itself. The only houses whose shapes I want to change are the bigger ones, yet I can't seem to find a way to properly make different shaped buildings with the resources I have. When it comes to the border of the town, I'm just not sure what I can do for that. Vincent, you mentioned the borders weren't very natural... did you just mean the farm and the lake? For this town, the fences are, I imagine, constructed by human hand and placed square-like on purpose. Or is that not very accurate/creative? I'm just not sure ! xD.

 

Other than that, how does this basic format look so far?

 

Edit: I made a separate version because I wanted to raise the mayors house even further. Which map do you guys think is better? The one above? Or this modified one?

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 4, 2015 by JaiCrimson

[Tarq 746]

Few pointers:

-Buildings need doors, even public ones; No-one likes a draft :3

-If you're going to be working with varying heights you need to pay attention to your shadows.

-Not every buildng faces in the same direction (the one directly by a cliff is particularly bad for this, it seems to have forced you to add that rope ladder just for easier access).

-Dont neglect NPCs in the mapping process, they add a lot of life.

-Experiment with different but similar floor tiles to add some texture.

 

Keep it up, there's been a lot of improvement.

[+ Takeo212 1,079]

I made a quick example of some shaping houses. Its not a "you must do this" but it does give an example of shaping your houses and such.

Note: I have the market stall tileset, just not in my project so just ignore my make shift stalls - yours are fine as they are.

 

Example:

 

 

 

 

Note: I haven't fully decorated the outside, so it looks fairly bland, but it was just a building example.

 

 

As for the second version for the mayors house being raised, I like it. It adds depth and doesnt make it flat (I made the example before seeing that version).

 

 

Also Tarq is right. Try using paths to lead players to other doors that arent visible. I done that with the yellow roof building in my example, where theres no visible door, but there is a path, which the playr will assume they can access the building.

 

Also, the big shopping area. I dont recommend so many signs. Try having one sign that looks like an "all" sign (my example shows a few basics" and instead add a sign. When a player reads the sign, it'll tell them "shopping district, we have everything you need right here" kind of thing. It helps tidy it up and looks less cluttered.

 

The map does look alot better than the first version though, its so much less deserted

Edited July 4, 2015 by Takeo212

[+ CVincent 234]

The improvements are a big step in the right direction, there's still a lot you can do though. I'd highly recommend taking a good look at Takeo's example, it has elements of the things we have been talking about in this thread.

 

 

 

Vincent, you mentioned the borders weren't very natural... did you just mean the farm and the lake? For this town, the fences are, I imagine, constructed by human hand and placed square-like on purpose. Or is that not very accurate/creative? I'm just not sure ! xD.

 

Notice how the borders of the town are shaped more naturally in Takeo's example based on the surrounding environment? Although it's easy to say that a town or city is man-made, chances are it never would be a perfect square. In some of the older RPG games the town had a square shape but had smaller shapes built in to make them look nicer. Here's picture to pick at for example:

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see, the town is square but the walls have certain features to them. There are different lengths of wall extending into the town (1-3 long in tile size) mostly based off of how you want to draw the player's eye to different locations.

 

To explain further, notice how the exit at the bottom of the map has extending tiles that are slightly larger than the one at the top, and the one at the top has more extended tiles than the ones to the West and the East? This tells the player that the true entrance to the town is South and that the North exit leads to an important location (the castle). The West and East paths lead to other parts that aren't necessarily important to the town but are meant for travel.

 

Next I'd like to talk about the path tiling. Takeo has an amazing example of this in the example picture, Paths will sometimes change tile size based on the form of the land and the closeness to structures. This "rule" of mapping takes away total randomness and adds a formula to the strategy of path mapping. In the picture above you can see that the houses closest to the market have bigger path space than ones that are further away. Your market square will likely consume the largest amount of space while making efficient use of that space by putting stalls and stores close together. This also draws the player into knowing straight off that this are is a marketplace.

 

The tiny river that passes through the city has some important elements to discuss. Not only does it look nice, it flows well with the rest of the map. Coming from North to South allows the flow of water to appear much more natural. Based on this picture alone you would assume that there is a bed of water somewhere to the North of the city and that the water is flowing somewhere South. There's a watermill at the bottom-left side of the map which puts the river to use in the town. Water is important to a settlement because one would not usually prefer to travel to water. Having an Artesian well or fountain can add a water feature to a town without needing a whole river.

 

A point my friend brought up was that most merchant towns are very accessible. They would generally be built on or around a main road leading to multiple areas. The Silk Road from India, for example, was a major trading route in which people eventually temporarily settled on to have people come to the merchants along the way. You could have a similar structure in this town.

 

Another point to make, old RPG maps generally didn't have too many hills or drastic height variation. In the picture I linked you might have noticed that the town is only built on two levels of height. At the middle-right side of the map you get added depth by layering a house on the second layer of ground as well as on top of the house on the lowest layer.

 

I might not recommend Takeo's map as a trading town because there are still design flaws with what I mentioned in mind. The market is now spread to different parts of the town and is not central to the natural trading route the town would be built on. There's still a lot of unused space and travel time to get from point A to point B effectively isn't very efficient. 

 

A town or city should be functional before it should be pretty, if done correctly the two will end up working together nicely.

 

 

Edited July 4, 2015 by CVincent

[JaiCrimson 22]

Trying to balance everything while keeping the flow and atmosphere all concurrent is pretty tough. I'm worried I might have accidentally taken a step back on this one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

today has been a busy day. Also, doors don't show up on mapshots.

[+ Takeo212 1,079]

Actually, that looks alot better! Your centralised the market area and reduced the icons and size off the shopping building, as well as shaped it off. It looks alot better.

In truth, you can get away with small square houses if they're that size so they look fine, and since the bigger ones are shaped, not everything looks blocky.

Plus, you shaped off the boundary fence and the houses are nicely spaced out.

 

Two things to point out and I think you have a great market town.

 

1. The grassy areas all have flowers. try removed some and just have grass. It looks more natural if not every patch of grass is covered in flowers. Go between floral and natural~

2. Top-left blue market stall, you out a basket at its left-bottom post and its removed the shadow/post a little. You'll need to event that basket in so you can keep the bottom of the stall~

 

This map would be alot nicer to walk around now, and I'm sure once NPC's are added (maybe a "crowd noise" BGS) and this map will be lively and fun

Great work! Sorry for the nagging xD

[+ CVincent 234]

I still have a few things to pick at, although this is a step in the right direction again. Good job so far!

 

I've thrown together a super rough idea of what I think needs to be improved on, here's an image for reference:

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.) The marketplace, although more central to the map, does not allow for easy access on the Western side of the map. This means the player will have to walk all the way around simply to get to the market stalls. Even having a path from the store up on the top left side of the map would be fine.

 

2.) The markets are way too symmetrical right now. The stalls shouldn't be in a perfect 3x3 line and should vary in design. The middle stall should be either replaced with a public grouping place that would often be used by the public such as a water fountain. Alternatively keeping the space mostly empty or by adding outdoor rugs works well too.

 

I might recommend having multiple road tiles just to break things up a bit. You can even use dirt paths for roads less traveled, not everything must be stone.

 

3.) I don't see the need for the fire pit here. It's unused space that I don't think NPCs or the player will end up interacting with at some point during the game. Remember, a map should be functional before it is pretty. This ends up being a waste of space and could be used for more functional purposes, for example a well could be placed there instead.

 

4.) The mayor's house would probably have a short rough path leading up to it, I've marked out where I think would be nice using red rectangle shapes.

 

5.) More unused space here. The wall could be brought in more to fit to the rest of the environment, but you could also substitute some of the grass patches for a tent.

 

6.) Same issue as number five, There's hardly enough of a gap in the road to the market to need a square looking plot of land. You could fill this in or fix up the area a bit to prevent having too many unused roads. There's a lack of depth above the 6 as well, as ou can't really tell where the hill begins on the road.

 

7.) Needs more road space here, I feel that it'd be one of the more traveled paths. Most of your paths are a single tile and you should experiment with multiple sizes.

 

8.) There was a lot of sign repetition here, you could easily move the signs to create stalls with varying purpose. The house becomes an Inn/Pub and the stalls are given stores.

 

Overall I think you should take a look at the function of the map. You have enough stores but the stalls are becoming unused. A couple of tents near the markets would add a bit more color and life to it. The roads need a bit more work and so does the grassy patches with flowers on them. Market accessibility from all entrances of the map is also key to having a good trader's village.

Edited July 6, 2015 by CVincent

[+ Takeo212 1,079]

A few of those comments did come to mind Vincent, I was just unsure how his NPC's react to the enviroment was all (maybe someone uses the campfire, for instance).

 

Though I do strongly agree with the stall set up. Adding a variety, even remove a few stalls and add in features, carpets and such (as Vincent said).

Assuming you have a variety of races/people coming to town adds as well.

 

Desert people would usually prefer carpets to sit on.

City people prefer stalls due to support and sheltering.

Travelling merchants using tents for practicality and convenience.

That sort of thing.

 

You are definitely getting there though.

 

For future mapping, I suggest plotting out the land first. It helps me alot, and it might help you too

If your building near a mountain, the land will be full of different heights and pathways. If its near a river, it'll have lots of floral and a possible big river and lake.

Plan your scenery, then build on it. It helps me anyway~ (alot of people do both and the maps looks off, thats why I say it lol)

[JaiCrimson 22]

Alright well thanks for all of the advice and help but I think I'm going to switch modes for now and work on progressing my game forward with more basic maps and getting the basic story and events in. Gotta get that skeleton all connected. I'll definitely be back here with updated maps in time, though. Thanks so much for everything!

 

MIND TRANSFER: LOVE BARRAGE :wub:

Edited July 5, 2015 by JaiCrimson

[+ Takeo212 1,079]

Hah, no worries :3

Goodluck with story progression, maps are a thing I linger on and keep deleting because of "its not perfect" so its best to take your time.

 

Aww, so sweet :3

Happy eventing and such!~

Edited July 6, 2015 by Takeo212

[+ CVincent 234]

Good luck with things! You've made a ton of progress in your mapping quite quickly. I really like the new design for the main building, Will be looking forward to seeing your future work. ^^