Mapping Improvement Thread

Started by KRoP, October 25, 2008, 10:24:44 pm

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Trainer Zydragon

Might be tomorrow until I repost, I have work later haha

And that 'wow harsh' bit was :V

Trainer Zydragon


Landith

Better than before but I would add more pathways leading into the forest besides 1 and a dead-end. That way it makes the forest seem a lot bigger and it would make for a better forest imo.

Trainer Zydragon

Ah dont worry, this is one screen of more. It's meant to be a sort of transition screen from the first riverside map into the forest itself :)

Sase

March 11, 2010, 11:05:26 am #244 Last Edit: March 13, 2010, 05:12:31 am by Sase
@Zydragon: Some things I noticed:
This needs more flexible autotile usage. There's only some big portions of the darker green. You should use all of the autotiles and use them a lot more varying than only random areas. Add some darker grass near trees and the others in deserted places (longer grass) or used paths (road-like tile).
Another thing is the leaf roof. It looks really unnatural, looks out of place. Looks more like it's on the ground than on the trees (I'll come back to them later). The random holes in the leaf roof also look quite random, especially when there's a random part of a tree under it.
The plants (yellow flowers) seem to come in a group of 2-3 (near each other). This looks better if you add it to a place where it's expected that they'll grow (not under the shadow of big trees), for example add the long grass under them. Using this you can also make the road to walk a lot clearer.
Now on the trees. The fat bigass 3-tile wide trees look really unnatural when they cut like that with the leaf roof. They seem to go on for like a tile or two and then the top part of it disappears (because the leaf roof looks so horizontal).

My suggestion would be to use the bush-like autotile for the leaf roof, only recolor it to be a bit darker. Add clearer pathways for the player to walk in (or add none and alot of grass and plants if it's a forest nobody passes through). Also I'd suggest to lose the huge trees, and instead add a lot of the normal trees under the leaf roof.




On a side note, here's a map of my own. It's about 3-6 months old, but I haven't been doing anything during that time so my current maps wouldn't be that much better looking.

It's supposed to be  a dried up river.

Spoiler: ShowHide

(Hexamin)

Does that cobblestone road grow?  Or did someone build it in obscure areas for a reason? *scratches head*

Not a bad lookin' map overall though, just confused about the road/cobblestone/whatever it is, placement.
Max 1111101000; characters remaining: 1110111000

Trainer Zydragon

tis just a bunch of stones XD

Sase

March 13, 2010, 05:39:57 am #247 Last Edit: March 13, 2010, 05:43:07 am by Sase
Quote from: (Hexamin) on March 13, 2010, 05:19:44 am
Does that cobblestone road grow?  Or did someone build it in obscure areas for a reason? *scratches head*

Not a bad lookin' map overall though, just confused about the road/cobblestone/whatever it is, placement.
I haven't actually thought about stuff like that much. :D
It could be remainings of very old road, but then I'd have to remove it from the hills.

I tried replacing the road stuff with the dirt, and replacing the original dirt with a second long grass autotile and it certainly made the map look more fresh (considering there was a river nearby not so long ago).

E: The screenshot should be updated (if not right click it and choose the option 'Refresh image', if your browser supports it)

(Hexamin)

The road coming out of the cave going to the bridge wasn't bad.

The updated map is a bit better though, it's more believable that dirt would be on top of a hill, rather than a man made pile of rocks.  ^_^

I don't know if you've tried keeping the road going from the cave down to the bridge and across the cobblestone, and the rest the dirt like you have it now, but it might do some good.  *just a thought*  I like that tileset by the way.
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Sase

March 13, 2010, 09:31:36 am #249 Last Edit: March 13, 2010, 09:40:02 am by Sase
Quote from: (Hexamin) on March 13, 2010, 09:19:03 am
The road coming out of the cave going to the bridge wasn't bad.

The updated map is a bit better though, it's more believable that dirt would be on top of a hill, rather than a man made pile of rocks.  ^_^

I don't know if you've tried keeping the road going from the cave down to the bridge and across the cobblestone, and the rest the dirt like you have it now, but it might do some good.  *just a thought*  I like that tileset by the way.
The problem is that to get the rock road on only some parts I'd need to have an extra spot for autotile (or remap most of the 1st layer, because all I did was change two autotiles in the Tileset in the Database, not remap it :D).
The Tileset is Inquisitor's "Outdoors" tileset, which is normally made for Towns and such but it works well for this kind of stuff too.

To add some more purpose to this post, below is my first RTP map in quite long time (in RMXP).
It is a map "spine" (landscape without the secondary layer additions like plants and trees), which is unready itself (still some landscape and height fixing + some parts still unaccessible).
Btw Ignore the graphic bugs of turquoise at some points. The background was originally still transparent (turquoise on my rpg maker) so I just colored it in Paint to brown.

Spoiler: ShowHide

The Niche

May 28, 2010, 03:55:49 pm #250 Last Edit: May 28, 2010, 06:26:14 pm by Blizzard
Absolutely gorgeous. Is there an explanation for the piles of stones?

THis is the heart of a volcano from my game, I'm quite pleased with it, but any suggestions?

Spoiler: ShowHide


by Blizz: Use spoilers.
Level me down, I'm trying to become the anti-blizz!
Quote from: winkio on June 15, 2011, 07:30:23 pm
Ah, excellent.  You liked my amusing sideshow, yes?  I'm just a simple fool, my wit entertains the wise, and my wisdom fools the fools.



I'm like the bible, widely hated and beautifully quotable.

Dropbox is this way, not any other way!

G_G

I'm trying to improve my mapping skills. Its a little bit difficult mapping on a laptop but oh well. I'm taking a break from programming until I get my new computer which will be in a month or two. Anyways I'm working on a space map. And I need floating rocks and I'm trying to make it look more smooth and natural. Here's the problem I ran into.
Spoiler: ShowHide


I need to make it look better. And right now its weird. Any help on making my islands look better would be appreciated.

The Niche

The shadow effect you posted in the other thread was a good idea, but there's only one light source in space so you might want to think about that. I'm not sure how to say it but putting a wall on the rock? Sorta like this:

                                               /|
                                             /  |
                                           /    |
                                          |     |__________
                                           \                     /
                                             \                 /
                                               \________/
Level me down, I'm trying to become the anti-blizz!
Quote from: winkio on June 15, 2011, 07:30:23 pm
Ah, excellent.  You liked my amusing sideshow, yes?  I'm just a simple fool, my wit entertains the wise, and my wisdom fools the fools.



I'm like the bible, widely hated and beautifully quotable.

Dropbox is this way, not any other way!

The Niche

Level me down, I'm trying to become the anti-blizz!
Quote from: winkio on June 15, 2011, 07:30:23 pm
Ah, excellent.  You liked my amusing sideshow, yes?  I'm just a simple fool, my wit entertains the wise, and my wisdom fools the fools.



I'm like the bible, widely hated and beautifully quotable.

Dropbox is this way, not any other way!

Sase

The mine cart rails don't need a wooden bridge under them.
There is a rock on the "wall" in bottom right corner (but in-game priorities should fix it).
The rails seem very random and "unpractical" (in realist kind of way).

The map also seems very empty at some points, and a little too "free" (big empty areas) to be fun to navigate in. This mine-tileset is shit (no actual autotiles), so you might want to consider adding some yourself (from the ones you can put on 2nd layer, like the rock road etc.). Also the graphics don't go well in the wooden structures at the bottom midleft part of the map (poorly made tileset by Enterbrain..).

I made a fix for that long time ago, if you're interested: http://rpgmaker.fi/files/reso/xp/047-Mine01_sase.png

So in short: Make the map more claustrophobic, spend some time thinking about the rail positioning etc. It might be good idea to overuse the rock piles, they can add pretty much detail if you use them right. Good luck.

stripe103

Here is some maps I made a while ago.
Woods: ShowHide

Ice Cave: ShowHide

Mountain: ShowHide

The Niche

Please provide zoomed in shots. From what I can see, which isn't much, the map looks bare.
Level me down, I'm trying to become the anti-blizz!
Quote from: winkio on June 15, 2011, 07:30:23 pm
Ah, excellent.  You liked my amusing sideshow, yes?  I'm just a simple fool, my wit entertains the wise, and my wisdom fools the fools.



I'm like the bible, widely hated and beautifully quotable.

Dropbox is this way, not any other way!

Subsonic_Noise

Quote from: The Niche on July 09, 2010, 05:06:03 pm
Please provide zoomed in shots. From what I can see, which isn't much, the map looks bare.

*click on pictures*
*archievement unlocked*

G_G

Gotta a map that needs an opinion.
Spoiler: ShowHide

Silentknight72

Cool, BTW, what proj is this?
Sigs: ShowHide