How to design a City?

[Ich-wusste-es]

Hi,

Well, I'm new to the Hive Workshop, so I'll, first of all, introduce my self a little bit. The reason why I'm here is, that I decided to make a RPG in Warcraft together with some friends. And now I have to design a terrain for the map, it is my first terraining project and the tutorials and threads in this forum were very helpful, I'm nearly done with the landscape itself, but know I've to face serious trouble, because I can't create any good looking cities, no matter how hard I try, they all end up looking too symetrical or not symetrical enough. I hope you can help me with this one!

To show you what I mean I've taken a screenshot of my latest try, it's not really finished, but you can already tell, that it's going to suck hard.

Thank you already, and another quick question I had to face: Are there any invisible borders units/heros can't pass? I would have to use those for example on the shore of my river.

 

[Bob27]

In Doodads go to Pathing Blockers, and then use Pathing Blockers (Ground). They are invisible in game and units can't go past them. Then you can use Pathing Blocker (Air) for air units and Pathing Blocker (Both) for air and ground units.

One thing you should try in your city is adding some variation in the buildings, as they are the same with just 2 different colours, and then the Tavern. You should maybe try adding a Cathedral and a Town Square in the center of the town. Also remember that you can create a custom doodad, and set the model to a building, so you can use Wc3 buildings as doodads in your city.

 

[Ich-wusste-es]

Thank you for that advise, I didn't know you could use WC3 buildings as doodads! I tried those pathing blockers earlier today, well they didn't work to well, but I'll try it again.

 

[Hawkwing]

You can use any model for a doodad. You could use a footman for a doodad, a Great Hall, a Altar of Storms, a rock, a Zepplin.. Basically anything.

 

[AmadiTheGreat]

You can use any model for a doodad. You could use a footman for a doodad, a Great Hall, a Altar of Storms, a rock, a Zepplin.. Basically anything.

Some buffs (Faerie Fire for example..) make great doodads too.

The things needed to remember when designing a city:
Variation (Not making it repetitive)
Focus (Some places draw your eye better than others.)
Density (I mean, if there are houses every 200 meters, can you call it a city?)

 

[Ich-wusste-es]

I always wondered why i couldn't find those little colorful flies, thank you for telling me it is just the fairy fire animation I never would have thought of that, it's quite a creative Idea, I'm sure to include some of those in the map.

Edit:

Here's a little update, this is the newest Screen of the City, it sure isn't a masterpiece, but it's good enough for the first little village, I thought of including a cathedral, but in the end the town is too little for having it's own cathedral.

As you can see there is a little more variation in the buildings, but the main type is still the normal blizzard style building, those farms around the factory are meant to be the workers homes, well, this will show off more clearly when the townspeople are added finally, but as far as I am i hope you see that I've taken care of your advise and I used it as well as I could.

 

[Volvox]

How big is your rpg terrain? (small, medium, large, epic)

 

[Ich-wusste-es]

Epic, that's the reason why I try to keep the doodad count low, well it's already over 12.000, so I really have to be careful regarding the map size.

 

[Volvox]

Nasty. I would help you but an epic terrain is way too much for my time budget..

 

[Belgarath]

A clue for the town hall, lower it into the ground until only the walls are visible. Gets rid of all the grass etc.

 

[Gilles]

Nasty. I would help you but an epic terrain is way too much for my time budget..

I wouldn't call it nasty, but it's a work in progress.

These aren't bad terrains, they just aren't complete. You need to add more to them, and fix things like the tile variation. Don't make your tiles look squarish and blocky. Give it a more natural feel. Of course you can make designs and have blocky tiles in cities, but these aren't cities so make sure to keep everything looking natural.

 

[Volvox]

Nasty stood for the map size, Gilles, i am sorry for possible brain damage caused by misunderstanding my sometimes weird posts

 

[RunningAway]

I can help you out if you want I like designing cities. Or at least show you some of the ones I've made for my maps, to give you some ideas.

 

[Ich-wusste-es]

Thanks for your tips Gilles, I'll keep them in mind and I'm going to look over my terrain again, positive criticism from your side is quite rare as I saw in the postings on this site, so I feel really honoured.

It would be very nice of you to show me some of your cities RunningAway, but I think I'll design the ones for the by myself, because I need to learn a lot and it will be a good practice for other maps I plan to design, but thanks for your offer!