Forests

[Blackwolf89]

I hope I post this in the right section...

Hey guys!

I'm wondering, how are you usually handling forests? Do you have it all in one big area or do you create several smaller maps for it? I tend - in my project - to divide the forest, where a big part of the plot happens, into 3-4 sections. What do you think?

 

[Soulrender]

Faster way would be creating several small maps with different forest sections. The only issue i notice on this method is you can get lost in your project when that forest will have large amount of sections, but it can be easy fixed with naming maps with some pattern. I do it like that:
- Forest 1-1
- Forest 1-2
- Forest 1-3
- Forest 1-4
- Forest 2-1
- Forest 2-2
etc...

Wich means... Player start at Forest 1-1 - first number is representation of level number and second number is section number of current level.

Making one big map can be pain in ass, because sooner or later all sections in one-big-map will look similar. Of course smaller maps also, but you can use different tilesets... So concluding... It's better to have several smaller maps - at least for me.

It's also strongly adviced to make documentation of your progress and use comments in maps in case you actually get lost in that large amount of maps.

Another good tip... To make good looking map on screen set size map with this formula:
Map width = (GameResolutionX / 48)
Map height = (GameResolutionY / 48)

So, if your game resolution is 1280 x 720 (like mine) your map size would be
Width = 27
Height = 15

therefore map will fill whole screen and there will be no black margins.

 

[MushroomCake28]

There are usually 6 to 10 parts in my dungeons. I usually name the maps "forest part 1", "forest part 2", etc.

 

[Aesica]

Yeah, I always break my dungeons up into pieces. I can't really think of any game where each dungeon was just one huge room. To make mapping easier, I tend to sketch the basic layouts in photoshop, so I can see how each part is supposed to connect. I just finished a rather elaborate cave network that would've probably exploded horribly without some sort of pre-planning.

 

[Phenax]

I personally prefer larger outdoor maps. I think it's not very beneficial to the immersion to have small outdoor maps. Unless it can be avoided, I also prefer natural borders. When the player cannot go somewhere, I think that should always be because of the natural shaping of the world, not artificial borders.

 

[TheoAllen]

If it's a forest themed dungeon, you can do as Aesica said.
Here is a good analysis of a dungeon design in an oldschool game

 

[lianderson]

With the ridiculous amount of forests I've made over the years, I've developed different styles to keep them interesting for development reasons. And, so far, they all work. As long as you got a main path of some kind, especially one that has little to no battles, the player won't complain about its size. (unless it's so big it lags)

 

[Wavelength]

I recommend following suit with whatever your other dungeons/locations are doing, whether that's breaking them up or presenting them as one large map. If the forest is so big that it presents technical problems to do it as one big map, you could split it up, but you should also consider whether that map is too big to be enjoyable.

 

[Kupotepo]

@Blackwolf89, I am not methodical as some of the other people here. So here my thought: if I want a forest, I just map it. It is like creativity it is so weird sometimes it is pop out from my brain. However, if you are talking about a forest as a dungeon, I advise switch between a town and a forest often because I do not want to fight an endless battle, plus the characters need to recover their health.
It is your game whatever you want to happen it will happen. When you playtest, you will know immediately which part is annoying and boring.

 

[Ksi]

I tend to make a main path with some offshoots that lead to other areas. If people travel through the forest I'll usually have an easy path to follow through it, since human habitation means clear-cutting and road-making. I'll have little branching paths that aren't easily visible sometimes - grassed over edges of the map and such that are hidden by trees, which become animal paths that lead to other areas. Usually I block off all edges that don't teleport you to another map in my maps, so the player can see that if there's a part where they can touch the edge they're likely able to find another area that way.

Cabins or caves for resting in if the forest is longer. Maybe even a small town or village in the middle of the forest (or a camping spot), so that there's a safe place to sally forth from.

Sometimes if I want a more maze-like forest (untouched by human hands for thousands of years, for example) I'll make it very overgrown and loop in on itself at times. You'd naturally find shortcuts here and there, though they'd likely be guarded by harder enemies. Also making a shortcut is fun - say there's a cliff part where you can jump down to a lower layer of the map that is closer to the entrance or the like. I also like sharing screens with different parts of the map so you can see that there's a path that you'll get to in the future and can kind of map some places in your mind (oh, I saw that to the south there was an area past the river I could get to but I haven't found a path to that going east. Maybe if I go west I'll find it instead.)

Lots of dead ends, small clearings, and sometimes even incorporating things like cliffs, caves and other different kinds of landscape helps a forest feel a bit different and interesting too. Landmarks (or at least recognisable areas) so that the player can orient themselves based on what they remember (like, oh, this is the part with the lake. if I go north from this area it'll lead back around to the waterfalls and west of there was a cabin).

Depending on the game there might be hidden paths.

Oh, something else I always (or almost always) do is have small cutouts of trees. See I usually use the canopy forest to map forests with, but a sea of just black is boring, so I make little parts that show the trees breaking up a bit to add variety.
For example:

The blue are the different exits. You can see that the southern one is a bit harder to figure out as an exit than the other two. On the left you can see an inaccessible cut-away of the forest to give the feel of there being more than just the path. Overall, the red is the only part you can walk, making a larger map feel more cramped by cutting off areas to go.

 

[mishakoc]

I personally prefer to make the forest by using several smaller maps, at least at first. Something like 35x20 tiles is the most comfortable since it's only a bit bigger than the resolution I'm using. I've found it helps with making the maps more focused. I always make sure the map is bordered by natural borders - trees, cliffs, water etc. so the player can usually guess where the next map is connected. Of course, sometimes there's a hidden route here and there.

It's great and almost necessary to make sure every single of these "minimaps" has something interesting to see and do, otherwise it's kind of meaningless. Sometimes I will copy all the maps into one/several bigger ones when they are all finished, to make more seamless transitions.

The problem with making a huge map from the start is, I've found out, that I tend to have the "bigger picture" in mind when making them like this. The maps lose the focus for the player, they can get lost much easily and not all places are that interesting. Everything is more chaotic.