Making Plains not Plain

[BigToastie]

Hi Guys.


So as I am doing a zelda style game in terms of how the maps link, I need to add "plains" (desert / grass etc.).


Has anyone got any good examples of plains done with the default tilesets? as I want to see how others have done it as a I want to create plains without them looking boring or empty (but they are plains so they can't be hammered with stuff!)


Cheers )

 

[SamGreen]

I think the best thing for people to do in order to improve their mapping skills is simply to look at other people's maps, see what they're doing, play some games, a couple demos etc, and study the maps in them. You see a lot of people in the game and mapping screenshots thread for example, that post their work completely and utterly only concerned with what they can do to improve, seemingly not caring about other people's work, by not commenting on it, and yet the answers are in the hundreds of pages of the threads. Look at other people's works, look at the aspects that you like, and the things you don't like, and make your own style from that. Like you said about Zelda, look at the plains from A Link to the Past/Minish Cap/Four Swords etc, and study how they've been mapped, how much, or how little detail has been added into them. Also, when it comes to mapping, for me personally, I'd rather be told to tone it down than to amp it up.


Tutorials are also a great bet, even if you watch a parallax mapping tutorial, just to get some ideas, even if you parallax or not.

 

[Ellie Jane]

For deserts, sweeping dunes are good. If you have a graphics editor you could basically have the map just comprised of one desert tile which is then swept with shadow into a dune like this:

National Geographic


It's still empty - but it's interesting.


Also, footprints, especially non-human ones.


For plains, you will want rocky outcrops (very shallow), not overused though. You'll want various different lengths of grass and blend between the two. And then any trees should be sparse but should be features.


Again as with the dunes if you can use a graphic editor to create sweeping hills using shadows.


Also plants like heather.

Khoras.net


Again it's empty but not plain (pun intended).


I don't have any examples because.. the default graphics are horrific for making empty maps with.