The do's and don'ts of map making.

[coasterkrazy]

Very nice! Maybe you should consider doing one about world maps? I have yet to see one.

[Meiscool-2]

World maps are really the only thing someone can't tell you how to map. World maps are entirly up to your plot, and what's in your game. Plus, I don't use world maps. But, I guess I could do a breif summary on what I do when I did make them:

 World Maps : The basis of many RPGs. Depending on what your game has to offer is how it will look and be. It's hard to decorate a world map in some ways, such as the 'you can look here but not walk here' way, because with boats and etc, there's always a way to get to places. But, I personally make things like this:

Caves- Caves need to have moutains surrounding them. And, I'm not just talking about a little bity mountain range, I'm talking about a lot of moutains. Caves should be linked, meaning that if a cave goes one way into a mountain, then the mountains should spand all the way to the exit of the cave on the world map.

Waters- Shallow waters should always be around the land, and deeper waters farther from the land. World maps should have plenty of rivers flowing through the land, and a water fall or two on it as well.

Forests- I hate seeing forests that go on forever. Forests are nice to have, but I'd rather see them in small bunches. Put a bunch of ten tiles there, 13 here, and 15 way over there. Don't group them up in a 30 tile clump.

Grasses- Darker grasses should outline the forests if possible, and thick grasses should be near any ponds or lakes you've got. Again, having a different color grass then the grasses around it makes a path in a person's head, so use that to make any paths you want.

Deserts- Again, don't have your deserts go on and on. There's really nothing else to say about deserts.

Snowlands- Put some events here. You'll want snow and maybe a cloud or two. Do this just like you would any other part of a map, outline forests with darker snow and etc.

That's it for the world map. Again, because I don't make them, I'm sorry to not have pictures and stuff. I mean, I could make one for this.... but I'm to lazy.

[Meiscool-2]

Oh damn, my bad on the double post, but it's my topic so no one should care.

 I will now take requests on questions on how to map special areas. Example: Someone could ask me what I do for a cave. I would then write a tut here on how I do it. Don't ask anything impossible from me, and don't ask anything small either, like how you map a bathroom (toilet.... bout it... see how short that was?) and etc. Don't ask something that I've already told you, or something similar to something I've already said (Like, don't ask me how to map a jungle when I've already done forests) Also, don't ask me something with a different generic (like, I've already done forests, so don't ask me how to do a snow forest). You can however, ask me what I would put in a snow climate, because I haven't yet done that.

I will be doing the eventing/overlaping and adding part of this tut soon... so yeah, just hold your horses.

[Black Massacre]

Ok, how bout a space ship? Thats not small is it?

[Meiscool-2]

Interior or exterior?

[MrMister]

Caves don't need to be surrounded by mountains. Half of Vagrant Story is underground.

[Moosetroop11]

I like this. But remember that these people have to get hold of the right resources first. Plus the coding for certain weather, etc.

[MrMister]

How about beach and farm things.

[Meiscool-2]

Originally posted by Moosetroop11
I like this. But remember that these people have to get hold of the right resources first. Plus the coding for certain weather, etc.

Well, everything I described is custom... so yeah. People have to find their own ways of doing things, I just point them in the right direction.

Farms- See plains and town.

Beach- A beach would be just like a river bed plain, only instead or trees you would have rocks, and instead of grasses you would have different colored sands.

[Black Massacre]

Originally posted by Meiscool
Interior

[MrMister]

Originally posted by Meiscool
Farms- See plains and town.

Bitch are you fo' real?!? Farms are nine-hundred per cent different!

[Archem]

Very good, Meiscool. Now I can make maaps just that much better! Truly the difference between a good game and a great game.

[AsakuraHao2004]

Viix. Very good, I suck at towns and forests, but Ill keep this tut in mind when I have to make some.

[DarkFlood2]

Good work!

[Meiscool-2]

Adding On

Alright, I’m going to start the adding on section. Also, I’ll be doing an interior design to houses and castles, as well as caves soon enough.

Shadowing and Fading This is just one small add on that I want people to see. A lot of people have boring maps like this:



This makes me cry people. With only a few extra seconds of work, you can make it look a million times better. Let’s start with the most basic of add-ons, Shadowing and Fading. By adding a darker grass to places, you can make a shadow effect. By adding sand to the water there, you can add a water fading to land effect. See here:



However, you will easily notice a bit of a problem there. The fact that the shadows and fading don’t line up. This is where a key that not some many people know about comes in. It’s called THE SHIFT KEY. By holding down the shift key and placing the tile where you want it to be, the ground tile you selected will take up the whole square. Example:



OH NOES! They don’t fade in now. That, however, is a solvable problem. Simply by going back over the tiles next to the places where you want the tiles to fade in, you can create the fading effect that you want. Example:



Now, you’ve got a much nicer looking map. It’s not nearly as boring as it was, even though it’s still pretty boring. Now, we can add more to it.

Objects are the second layer of a map, and are very important. Simply be placing a few random objects on a map, you can make it looks loads better. Example:



As you can, the map is beginning to look a lot nicer. Now, what you’ve got to do is link the objects together somehow. By reshadowing, drawing paths, and refading, you can achieve this. Example:



By adding more and more objects and changing the map some to suit the object placement, your small area can begin to take a new shape, much like this:



However, if you’re like me, you’ll notice a few problems. First, because objects can’t overlap, there’s some spots that are missing things. Also, a few rules have been broken, like the squaring of land and the crowding of space. Some things will still have to be changed, but this is all we can do with just objects. Now we need… EVENTS!

Eventing is the most important part of all. By adding second layer events over objects, you can get the image of two objects. By adding birds and animals, you can give life to your maps. By adding people, you can purpose. Check out this fully changed and evented map.



As you should be able to see, the change from beginning to end was drastic. That’s all it really takes, and isn’t that hard to do at all.

I will go deeper into eventing in my next post, but this will give you the basics of SOME of the things Add-ons have to offer maps.