Howdy guys, recently I've been toying around in the editor, after not using it for a while (other interests), and I wondered if I could get some feedback on a certain section of a new map I have been building. It's this factory. I myself think it turned out O.K, but would love any criticisms/ideas to make it any better. It is positioned in a small Terran camp withing a forest.
Note: map is early in development - the forest isn't even there at all.
Building looks good to me. I mainly think the (concrete) area around it could use some flair. There's no logical path to the front door and not a single tree within its borders. For a tight-packed highly-populated industrial city that would be fine, but I think a small town factory next to a forest would have a somewhat cleaner looking outdoors area, no matter how polluting the thing itself is.
Ok, update. Added some forest, and tried to make the 'entrance' more obvious, and I tried to keep the rubble doodads in, but contained them behind walls.
I also experimented by adding that section of the factory to the south. Really just to fill in space and give some reasoning to the factories purpose (which I suppose is processing things like wood, rock, etc. into resources like water and food).
ATTACHMENTS
factory_v2.png
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I do terrain stuff.
...
And in a Starcraft haiku,
...
That's all I can do!
Well I can't really think of anything other than maybe arranging the machinery in the south portion to look as though there is some space for factory workers to navigate the area. Personal working at the factory would need to be able to move from work station to work station. If that is a no access zone then I guess it wouldn't matter though. Also the concrete portion is rather large without serving any apparent purpose. Moving or expanding the parking area might make it look more practical. Looks pretty sweet though.
Edit: I might also make the road larger or the vehicles smaller for proportions sake.
At this point I'm not sure if you misunderstood me, are ignoring me or simply worked on something else first. For posterity's sake, anyway: when I talked about plants, I meant within the fence of the factory's territory. Just some parking area decoration as you see in the average city. And in regards to the front door: I think that's fine as is, but it needs a path leading up to it. Some texture play or ground prop doodads... or really just anything at all.
Oop, yea I didn't realize you meant plants within the walls. I'll mess around with that and check the results. I've been thinking about what to use as a path, and I think I'll use some Korhal dark concrete (black), and some edge decorations.
Yea, I've moved the stuff around to get more of that effect (won't post pic yet until I edit the parking lot (see above reply to Moz)). Also, the trucks can't be easily resized, since they're units (as opposed to the 'cars'), but I think it's alright, so they can look like proper, huge military trucks beside the small cars.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I do terrain stuff.
...
And in a Starcraft haiku,
...
That's all I can do!
Ok, update. Added some bushes in the compound. Moz, I tried to keep them subtly around the edges of the factory, but they're there. Pathway was also tested out, and cars were shrunk (not trucks). Also added workers to the south area of the factory.
ATTACHMENTS
factory_v3.png
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I do terrain stuff.
...
And in a Starcraft haiku,
...
That's all I can do!
That's a lot better already, looking less plain. Regarding plants, though; what I was talking about were actual potted/man-placed plants. Take a look at this picture of your everyday parking space, or this one or this one. While it isn't obvious at all, company parking spaces are seldom only concrete with lining (this is generally only the case for very big mass-parking areas). There's a lot of trees, patches of grass and small hedges to form borders and generally subtly prettify the area. This is what I'm missing in your map.
You need to be careful not to overdo it since the 'worn-down' feeling of your factory insinuated the employers don't care all that much about prettification, but you definitely need some of it. Just a couple of patches of grass or trees surrounded by ground props in the right spots will do; use them to logically 'guide' people from the factory entrance to the parking area and to the way out, or to hide fences and corners. Just a couple of patches and trees (a total of no more than 7 or so) will make the entire area seem less flat and more vibrant.
Ok, I added some green areas in the lot, and some misc. Barrels around the entrance to give some flare. I think I might start to work on the other parts of the compound, unless you see something that I don't. Thanks a lot for the feedback, It's already made this area look much better.
...Just a couple of patches of grass or trees surrounded by ground props in the right spots will do; use them to logically 'guide' people from the factory entrance to the parking area and to the way out...
From an artistic point of view i think props along the path from the parking lot to the factory might guide the viewers eye through the terrain and define the path a bit more. It seems quite vague atm. I think small planter props would be the best for this. Maybe the store front ones. If you made them too big it would look overdone since there isn't much space to work with. Maybe just 2 or 3.
Also, I didn't necessarily mean to say that the factory needs workers but that making space in areas that people might work in makes the factory appear more natural (as natural as factories get). It looks good with workers too though. If you just leave empty spaces surrounded by objects that look like they are intended to be interacted with it gives a very deserted feel. Depends what setting you are going for.
I like how this is turning out though.
I should probably mention that i have a tendency to over do detail with doodads so use discretion, lol.
Here's the first look at the next structure in the base. Now, I'm having a hard time balancing between a detailed look, and a cluttered look. Any help on that would be appreciated. Oh, and try to ignore the vista below it; it's not detailed yet.
ATTACHMENTS
overview_v1.png
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I do terrain stuff.
...
And in a Starcraft haiku,
...
That's all I can do!
Personally, I think it looks good. However, I'm not sure how those crates got there or how the terrans plan to remove them without a helicopter. That might be contributing to the "cluttered" look.
If there were some obvious pathways and doors large enough to fit a forklift through it might look a lot cleaner and more natural.
I would recommend paying attention to the relationship between objects and space. I usually think about what ratio and placement I want in order to get the affect I want. A high amount of objects that aren't placed with some kind of conscious grouping and a relatively limited surrounding space gives a very junk yard like feel. In contrast a 1:1 ratio of objects to space and some carefully placed groups of objects makes for a much more organized feel and gives the player a feeling that there is some intent in why things are where they are and creates the illusion of a story through personal interpretation. You can experiment with how much space you want and how tight you want to group your objects together.
There is quite a bit of space around this highly detailed area so it still looks quite good as it is.
This is basically a more general version of what I was going to reply:
Make sure that your 'filler doodads' make sense. Take for example that area on the right side of the building in that last picture, where you've got the 3 sets of 4 green barrels. If you make those smaller and push them into the corners a little bit more, then do the same for the crates, and then add a small door onto the building with the red exhaust on it, you've got a little bit of an outdoor storage place. It'll still look filled, but not completely cluttered with stuff at random. If you still feel the need to do some more about it, use decals to make it look more interesting.
I think your main issue is that you aren't using any focal points at all. The main way to make stuff look good in terraining seems to be to, when working from a completely flat and 1-texture area, place a 'network' of larger doodads with smaller doodads 'radiating' from them. This screenshot from my rendition of Blizzard's Terrain Tutorial kind of illustrates the point I'm trying to make (even if it's not exactly the best terrain I've ever done). If you look at it carefully you'll see that the entire Terran camp is littered with larger doodads - the garage, the gas tanks, the trucks in the parking spot, the Tarmac, the garage in the bottom right and the cloth-covered crates above the parking spot - that are all in turn surrounded with some smaller doodads - pipes, barrels, crates, water tanks, more crates and some plants. This careful spread is, in my own 'philosophy of terraining', the key point of balance that makes or break a terrain. Too much spread and your terrain will look empty. Too little spread and your terrain will look cluttered. There needs to be just the right amount of larger doodads to subconsciously grab the players' eyes without completely overwhelming him with stuff, and the smaller doodads are used to improve the looks of the larger ones by filling up the area around them.
For custom buildings, having few focal points and lots of small doodads isn't a terrible thing because they are generally 'large doodads' by their own that kind of look cluttered by default. Which is why your buildings look as good as they do, even if they are cluttered like mad. I do however think you can improve them by adding a few relatively empty focal points. Stuf like the three exhaust pipes in the back, or the main blue-glowing 'tower'. These are the things that make your building feel like a building as a whole. One or two of the earlier mentioned storage areas can work, but some parts sticking out that aren't otherwise filled up with stuff won't do it any bad.
Thanks for all the feedback! Ok, so I have an update. Made boxes / etc smaller, attempted a PoI at the top of it, and some other stuff. But, I'm having an issue: I can't decide which of the following images looks better. The only difference is the light in the bottom - right area. When it's lit, it reveals more detail with the dynamic shadows, but without it, it helps to not make the area stand out too much.
What do you guys think?
EDIT: added another variant, which adds a small white omni light to accent the left side of the entrance to the bottom - right area. It's very faint.
I'd say with the light is better. The reason it currently looks worse is because the storage room doesn't really look all that nice yet. I think you overdid the resizing on the barrels and crates - now they literally seem coca cola bottle size. Also, the storage area needs a little bit more; it looks kind of vaguely empty now. Try maybe bordering off some of the sides with decals, or adding a small version of a building/computer/something that could be interacted with.
Yes, that seems loads better. I think if you do a similar decal-shape next to the crates beneath the doorway, it'll be perfect. On another note, in regards to the other side of the building; have you thought about, instead of the rubble, placing down one of those landing pad doodads to make it look like there's a helicopter landing pad? You could then make a bit of a decal-walkway to a door on the other side and fill the sides of that up with some crates, barrels, and perhaps a 'shed' for mechanics to store their stuff in (I'm thinking the Rooftop AC buildings).
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Howdy guys, recently I've been toying around in the editor, after not using it for a while (other interests), and I wondered if I could get some feedback on a certain section of a new map I have been building. It's this factory. I myself think it turned out O.K, but would love any criticisms/ideas to make it any better. It is positioned in a small Terran camp withing a forest.
Note: map is early in development - the forest isn't even there at all.
Building looks good to me. I mainly think the (concrete) area around it could use some flair. There's no logical path to the front door and not a single tree within its borders. For a tight-packed highly-populated industrial city that would be fine, but I think a small town factory next to a forest would have a somewhat cleaner looking outdoors area, no matter how polluting the thing itself is.
Ok, update. Added some forest, and tried to make the 'entrance' more obvious, and I tried to keep the rubble doodads in, but contained them behind walls.
I also experimented by adding that section of the factory to the south. Really just to fill in space and give some reasoning to the factories purpose (which I suppose is processing things like wood, rock, etc. into resources like water and food).
Well I can't really think of anything other than maybe arranging the machinery in the south portion to look as though there is some space for factory workers to navigate the area. Personal working at the factory would need to be able to move from work station to work station. If that is a no access zone then I guess it wouldn't matter though. Also the concrete portion is rather large without serving any apparent purpose. Moving or expanding the parking area might make it look more practical. Looks pretty sweet though.
Edit: I might also make the road larger or the vehicles smaller for proportions sake.
@HydraMannequin: Go
At this point I'm not sure if you misunderstood me, are ignoring me or simply worked on something else first. For posterity's sake, anyway: when I talked about plants, I meant within the fence of the factory's territory. Just some parking area decoration as you see in the average city. And in regards to the front door: I think that's fine as is, but it needs a path leading up to it. Some texture play or ground prop doodads... or really just anything at all.
@Mozared: Go
Oop, yea I didn't realize you meant plants within the walls. I'll mess around with that and check the results. I've been thinking about what to use as a path, and I think I'll use some Korhal dark concrete (black), and some edge decorations.
@EntityEnigma: Go
Yea, I've moved the stuff around to get more of that effect (won't post pic yet until I edit the parking lot (see above reply to Moz)). Also, the trucks can't be easily resized, since they're units (as opposed to the 'cars'), but I think it's alright, so they can look like proper, huge military trucks beside the small cars.
Ok, update. Added some bushes in the compound. Moz, I tried to keep them subtly around the edges of the factory, but they're there. Pathway was also tested out, and cars were shrunk (not trucks). Also added workers to the south area of the factory.
@HydraMannequin: Go
That's a lot better already, looking less plain. Regarding plants, though; what I was talking about were actual potted/man-placed plants. Take a look at this picture of your everyday parking space, or this one or this one. While it isn't obvious at all, company parking spaces are seldom only concrete with lining (this is generally only the case for very big mass-parking areas). There's a lot of trees, patches of grass and small hedges to form borders and generally subtly prettify the area. This is what I'm missing in your map.
You need to be careful not to overdo it since the 'worn-down' feeling of your factory insinuated the employers don't care all that much about prettification, but you definitely need some of it. Just a couple of patches of grass or trees surrounded by ground props in the right spots will do; use them to logically 'guide' people from the factory entrance to the parking area and to the way out, or to hide fences and corners. Just a couple of patches and trees (a total of no more than 7 or so) will make the entire area seem less flat and more vibrant.
Ok, I added some green areas in the lot, and some misc. Barrels around the entrance to give some flare. I think I might start to work on the other parts of the compound, unless you see something that I don't. Thanks a lot for the feedback, It's already made this area look much better.
Ooo that's lookin' pretty spiffy. I liked what Mozared said:
From an artistic point of view i think props along the path from the parking lot to the factory might guide the viewers eye through the terrain and define the path a bit more. It seems quite vague atm. I think small planter props would be the best for this. Maybe the store front ones. If you made them too big it would look overdone since there isn't much space to work with. Maybe just 2 or 3.
Also, I didn't necessarily mean to say that the factory needs workers but that making space in areas that people might work in makes the factory appear more natural (as natural as factories get). It looks good with workers too though. If you just leave empty spaces surrounded by objects that look like they are intended to be interacted with it gives a very deserted feel. Depends what setting you are going for.
I like how this is turning out though.
I should probably mention that i have a tendency to over do detail with doodads so use discretion, lol.
Update. Added some detailing to the entrance like you suggested, Entity.
@HydraMannequin: Go
Wow, that sure does make it pop out a bit more. Nice job.
Here's the first look at the next structure in the base. Now, I'm having a hard time balancing between a detailed look, and a cluttered look. Any help on that would be appreciated. Oh, and try to ignore the vista below it; it's not detailed yet.
Personally, I think it looks good. However, I'm not sure how those crates got there or how the terrans plan to remove them without a helicopter. That might be contributing to the "cluttered" look.
If there were some obvious pathways and doors large enough to fit a forklift through it might look a lot cleaner and more natural.
I would recommend paying attention to the relationship between objects and space. I usually think about what ratio and placement I want in order to get the affect I want. A high amount of objects that aren't placed with some kind of conscious grouping and a relatively limited surrounding space gives a very junk yard like feel. In contrast a 1:1 ratio of objects to space and some carefully placed groups of objects makes for a much more organized feel and gives the player a feeling that there is some intent in why things are where they are and creates the illusion of a story through personal interpretation. You can experiment with how much space you want and how tight you want to group your objects together.
There is quite a bit of space around this highly detailed area so it still looks quite good as it is.
@EntityEnigma: Go
This is basically a more general version of what I was going to reply:
Make sure that your 'filler doodads' make sense. Take for example that area on the right side of the building in that last picture, where you've got the 3 sets of 4 green barrels. If you make those smaller and push them into the corners a little bit more, then do the same for the crates, and then add a small door onto the building with the red exhaust on it, you've got a little bit of an outdoor storage place. It'll still look filled, but not completely cluttered with stuff at random. If you still feel the need to do some more about it, use decals to make it look more interesting.
I think your main issue is that you aren't using any focal points at all. The main way to make stuff look good in terraining seems to be to, when working from a completely flat and 1-texture area, place a 'network' of larger doodads with smaller doodads 'radiating' from them. This screenshot from my rendition of Blizzard's Terrain Tutorial kind of illustrates the point I'm trying to make (even if it's not exactly the best terrain I've ever done). If you look at it carefully you'll see that the entire Terran camp is littered with larger doodads - the garage, the gas tanks, the trucks in the parking spot, the Tarmac, the garage in the bottom right and the cloth-covered crates above the parking spot - that are all in turn surrounded with some smaller doodads - pipes, barrels, crates, water tanks, more crates and some plants. This careful spread is, in my own 'philosophy of terraining', the key point of balance that makes or break a terrain. Too much spread and your terrain will look empty. Too little spread and your terrain will look cluttered. There needs to be just the right amount of larger doodads to subconsciously grab the players' eyes without completely overwhelming him with stuff, and the smaller doodads are used to improve the looks of the larger ones by filling up the area around them.
For custom buildings, having few focal points and lots of small doodads isn't a terrible thing because they are generally 'large doodads' by their own that kind of look cluttered by default. Which is why your buildings look as good as they do, even if they are cluttered like mad. I do however think you can improve them by adding a few relatively empty focal points. Stuf like the three exhaust pipes in the back, or the main blue-glowing 'tower'. These are the things that make your building feel like a building as a whole. One or two of the earlier mentioned storage areas can work, but some parts sticking out that aren't otherwise filled up with stuff won't do it any bad.
Thanks for all the feedback! Ok, so I have an update. Made boxes / etc smaller, attempted a PoI at the top of it, and some other stuff. But, I'm having an issue: I can't decide which of the following images looks better. The only difference is the light in the bottom - right area. When it's lit, it reveals more detail with the dynamic shadows, but without it, it helps to not make the area stand out too much.
What do you guys think?
EDIT: added another variant, which adds a small white omni light to accent the left side of the entrance to the bottom - right area. It's very faint.
@HydraMannequin: Go
I'd say with the light is better. The reason it currently looks worse is because the storage room doesn't really look all that nice yet. I think you overdid the resizing on the barrels and crates - now they literally seem coca cola bottle size. Also, the storage area needs a little bit more; it looks kind of vaguely empty now. Try maybe bordering off some of the sides with decals, or adding a small version of a building/computer/something that could be interacted with.
Is this what you mean? Shifted some stuff around, added some stuff, and whatnot.
@HydraMannequin: Go
Yes, that seems loads better. I think if you do a similar decal-shape next to the crates beneath the doorway, it'll be perfect. On another note, in regards to the other side of the building; have you thought about, instead of the rubble, placing down one of those landing pad doodads to make it look like there's a helicopter landing pad? You could then make a bit of a decal-walkway to a door on the other side and fill the sides of that up with some crates, barrels, and perhaps a 'shed' for mechanics to store their stuff in (I'm thinking the Rooftop AC buildings).