Mapping thread and critiqing

[railfan101 0]

Considering I'm not the best at mapping, I was looking for a thread where I could post my screenshots and have someone look at them and critique how well i'm doing.  Not having any such luck, save for one old thread where someone tried to make a big thread where you post screens and critique others.  That one didn't go very well, so I wish to try again here.

 

Requirements:

I shouldn't have to have a section for this, but I saw a couple issues in my searches and I want to address them here.

 

1. When you want to have a map critiqued, don't make us download your game to find said map and critique it that way.  Just take a screencap (print screen on pc's or mac equivalent works fine) and use your favorite image editing software to edit it to your liking.

 

2. Screenshots should be large enough for us to actually see what you're trying to show.  No thumbnails please.

 

3. Constructive criticism only.  Saying something like 'oh that's really good' or 'that's bad' and nothing else doesn't help the person who made the map.  Also any obscene or vulgar posts will be reported(not a mod so I can't delete them on the spot). NO EXCEPTIONS

 

Screenshots

And now, for my screenshots.

 

Since the file limit only let's me upload 1MB of files, i have to resort to my old mediafire account to upload them

 

http://www.mediafire.com/view/314qoj9k37sbcki/Luna.png

beta image of Luna Village

http://www.mediafire.com/view/aalvanzuatwapts/home.png

alpha of a home (was previously deleted from my game, but I can put it back if anyone can tell me what to improve)

http://www.mediafire.com/view/46opebnvgq7t2zq/armory.png

an armory

http://www.mediafire.com/view/vjc5vvnvxa6mvv9/lab.png

early screenshot of a lab in the first act

http://www.mediafire.com/view/9sw26oviy6jab6k/labcafe.png

pre-alpha cafe

http://www.mediafire.com/view/9yjptt18opco5bt/pub.png

alpha pub

 

Let me know what you think of these.

[Ardaceus 21]

While I give you credit for making a pretty good script for the game, I can't say that I like these mappings as much.

 

Luna Village looks pretty generic, keeping to a very simple design, and also having less houses than people occupying it. And I see that the graphics are RTP, which don't look as great as if you used custom graphics. Also, I would suggest to look for a less brighter colour for this city, like a calm darkish colour.

 

The home doesn't even look like a home. I take technological design, and I have studied house designs, and whoever designed that house would be fired. I have never seen a hallway continue on into nothing, the bedroom is too spacey, and would work better as a living room, which is not even in the house. You would usually hide a storage room at the back of the house, near the bedrooms at the end or in the middle of a hallway. The dining room has only one entrance, and that is through the kitchen. All rooms besides small rooms and bedrooms should have two entrances/exits as far as I know. And the fireplace doesn't even look like it is on the wall, it looks like a worm that is squigglying into the bedroom like the movie Tremors. Then there is the fact that there are no windows in the house, and speaking of the walls, who the heck uses a castle walls for their house, it looks unnatural. Finally, I don't know a single residental house besides castles and very very rich people who have floor made of cobblestone. Wood or carpet would be a better alternative. Speaking of carpet, this person has no sense of decorating a home, as there are no carpets on the floor, the bed looks to be attatched to the upper part of the lower wall, the person seems to love have 3 of the same wall hanging (shield and painting), this person also seems to hate having any table besides a dining table which doesn't have chairs, like the piano, and there is no decorations in the entire foyer. I would redo the whole house because the only redeeming value of this house is the kitchen which looks pretty normal in terms of appliances.

 

The shelves and cabinents look okay in the armoury, but everything looks weird scattered, and the counter looks tiny and out of place.

 

That lab looks amazing, but I just have one question...

WHAT ARE THOSE!!!?!?!?!?!

 

That's not a cafe, that is a very unorganized cafeteria.

 

But on the bright side, that pub looks alright, but the wine bottles on the tables look kinda like they are floating on the side.

 

 

 

That's what I think.

[Polraudio 122]

Alright just a heads up. My post may seem VERY rude but keep in mind that its not meant to be rude.

 

Ill be looking at your maps as a player and a project manager/game designer. So think of my post as how i would judge your map as your boss.

 

 

VILLAGE:

 

First ill say you did a good job with the map just by looking at it. Now for whats wrong.

 

A: The windows on the left can be put a little more to the right by a few pixels so it matches the window on the right. Yes i know thats VX's vault buy keep in mind you are making a game and are a game developer so don't give me this crap "ohhh but its how VX is" Bullshit in my mind because you have all the tools you need to make edits. Once again sorry for my rudeness as i dont mean to be rude.

 

B: Im going to assume every B spot is a door since you did forget to put them in. Make sure when you make a screenshot for feedback that you put everything in that you want in becasue sometimes a little door can make a HUGE difference when judging something. Overall look or something like that.

 

C: In real life a path will not have a gap like that between. instead it will have the dirt look like its going under the stone path(or the stone path going over the dirt....all depends on your logic).

 

ONE MAJOR thing id do in all of your towns is make sure theres a house for every single NPC. Find out who is related to who and make sure inside the inside of the house matches the outside also and how many people live there. EX: Your houses look wooden from the outside except the inn and the pub so make all the interiors of the house wood AND MATCH THE DOOR ON THE INSIDE WITH THE DOOR ON THE OUTSIDE. Sooo if your door is at the center of the house on the outside make sure its at the center inside the house also. The pub matches just fine.

 

HOME:

Ok now for the house i was really confused. Is this a house or a basement? IMO its a basement so where are the stairs leading to the house?

 

A: The bed is apparently floating in the air because its on top of the wall and not in front of it.

B: Not really something bad but id suggest something with black borders to make it look a little better maybe.

C: Why are there teddies just sitting on the floor? I can understand if it was carpet or something but it really makes no sense. If its a little girls room sure there will be teddies but why in the hell are there book shelves? Does this little girl or boy read ALOT and live alone?

 

Id consider completely redoing the home since it looks like a basement instead of a home and its a little to big for just 1 person. The kitchen doesnt look like a kitchen, the table is missing chairs and it doesnt really look like a dinning room.

Why is there a random piano in the hall and a bookshelf at the end of the hall and thats it? Judging by the amount of books this child or person really loves to read like a shit ton and must be rich to afford all those books so why dont they have carpet if they are rich enough to own a piano and tons of books?

 

TIP: One major factor to think about when designing homes is to think about how much wealth the family has, how many people are in that family, and what personalities does each person have? Make it look and feel like a real home. Maybe Timmy likes books and Lisa likes her teddy bears.

 

"ARMORY":

Ok so this ones a little done randomly and it shouldnt be since its an "armory". An armory is usually a place to store mmilitary goods and not setup a shop. Either way theres not much you can do but id suggest grouping stuff together since its just 1 piece of clothes per holder thingie. Also why is there random helms on the floor? The helms should be put on stuff like tables and not on the floor.

By grouping things id put all the armor together in a section, all the hats in another section, etc..... Id also rename it to a shop with a unique shop name instead of armory. like Timmy's Wears.  Main thing tho is to keep the helms and hats off of the floor.

 

LAB:

So only a few things wrong with the lab.

A: Why are those things on top of that freezer/fridge. It would take some kind of latter to get up there to get them down.

B: If this is a lab does that mean its a food experiment lab because no lab is going to have that much food unless its a shop but it looks nothing like a shop. The most you are going to see from a lab is one fridge for the employees to store their lunches in for the day.

From my information gathering by looking at the map it is a lab where they do experiments with food and people. They prob feed someone some food and see how the body reacts to it. If so thats alot of computers and room for that kind of work.

 

CAFE:

The cafe has some work that needs to be done. It doesnt feel like a cafe at all. Usually in a cafe theres a room where the food is made and not out in the open. Id also make a counter for people to get their food from the kitchen. Most of all where are the chairs? The whole place looks like a food contest place gone wrong instead of a cafe. In a cafe you will have tables for the people to sit at with chairs instead of counters.

 

PUB:

The pub has a few things wrong with it.

A: Remove those things so you can extend the counter and add more places to sit.

B: Extend the counter so the merchandise is behind the counter(that's how bars/pubs work).

C: Add a few more tables and chairs. Add chairs to the counters because there are chairs/stools at the bar counter in a real life pub/bar.

D: Make sure you don't have any floating stuff or it will make people laugh at your game and call you a noob. Like i said earlier.. You are a game dev so be one by editing stuff to make them fit.

 

---

 

Few tips for ya.

Always make sure every single NPC in town has a place to live whether its in a different town or not. If the player talks to someone at the bar and the NPC says they live in [insert town name], make sure they have a house in that town.

 

When making the interior of houses make sure you make a room for every single person in that family and make the rooms to fit their personality.

 

Most of all. If something doesn't fit right together make sure you EDIT it to make sure it fits.

 

Always think about the purpose of the building and where things should go inside it. The lab is a good example of what to not do.....unless its really a food testing/food research place. Think about the place as if you were really going there and question every single thing you place.

 

People will think of every possible reason to bash a game so make sure everything makes logic sense. EX once again is the lab. I had so many questions about things there and couldn't really figure out what the lab was for because a food testing/food research place just doesn't make sense but its the only thing i could think of.

 

Hopefully all this info was helpful in some way and opened up your eyes to think a little more about building places instead of being random and in a rush.

 

NOTE: Id highly suggest imgur for the future.

also use hyperdesktop to upload stuff to imgur. It also has a selection tool where you can select an area to take a screenshot and it will automatically upload it to imgur and give you the link.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/0jobbx9b1xq1l0l/Hyperdesktop_v1.0.3.9.exe

[railfan101 0]

Thank you both for your criticism.  I wish to address each of the maps with my own reasoning, in the hopes of clearing up some confusion.

 

Luna Village:

 

I'm confused here.  Ardaceus said the map looks generic, but Pol, you state it's ok given I fix the flaws with it, which i will.

Also for the gap I was using autotiles for that.  I'll try to think of a better way.  And i know i'm missing doors.  I have hardly any interiors to link the doors too.

 

House:

 

both of you missed my footnote on this one.  I deleted this map from my game.  I had posted it here to ask if my judgement was correct in getting rid of it.  obviously it was.  the new version is getting worked on.

 

Armory.  

that's a very old map.  I was hesitant to redo it, but I guess i have to.

 

Lab:

Its supposed to be a hospital, with a side lab for creating new medicines.  This is an older beta of the lab before i changed it.  

 

cafe:

horrible mistake on my part to even post that.  i know it's bad, and i have no excuse

 

pub:

i have no explanation for this one.  meaning i can't think of any reason why that one is designed the way it is.  i just have no argument for it

 

I must ask though, for my game, it's really the story that i believe is the driving force behind the idea i have.  If my mapping skills are distracting so much from the story, is there a point at all for me to even continue?

Edited October 8, 2015 by railfan101

[Ardaceus 21]

Well, Pol pointed out some things I didn't, but I want to give you an idea on how a house should look, so I pulled up a picture of a hotel room in my game.#don'tmindthebinnexttothetubbecauseI'mrearangingthebathroom

#Ialsonoticethestoolatthetablefixingthattoo

 

Indoor houses should have a similar look to this, but have a more housey feel since this is just a hotel room. Mine is not perfect, but it is at least the standard in my opinion.

 

Me and Pollywannacracker said that there should be room for everyone in a town/city, this can be done in two ways depending on what you are going for. If you are going for a fantasy town, kinda what you are going for, I would suggest you look at some of the example town maps that come with the RTP of the maker. There are a lot of houses, and the flow looks great. And then there is a city kinda setup, which I can explain by this:

 

 

Lots of space everywhere, lots of homes, just like a Residential area in New York.

 

 

Also what I meant by generic is simply stating off the RTP and the size of the buildings are completely unproportionate to the character models.If you want to try and make an inn that looks proportionate I would try something like this:

 

That is an inn in my game, keeps to a large size. But if you want to make an excuse for making a place bigger than it should probably be, you can have the architectural design going down a level into the basement, like I did in my inn, having 3 levels of the pub, and 10 rooms on the top.

 

(Also a side note on that map you are looking at, that is the day time of the city, not night time. The night time looks even better... Welcome to Ecilave, Capital of the Dark Elves.)

 

 

 

Those are some tips I have to give on VX Ace Design.

[railfan101 0]

let me ask you guys something.  I know i'm not the best at mapping.  if i screw up the maps badly, will that end up being the only thing talked about, and nothing else, story, other nick nacks, etc would be completely ignored?  I do not wish for my game to be chastised solely based on how the maps look.  I do believe this is the best and easiest way for me to tell the story i want to tell but I'm starting to wonder if all of my effort so far is for naught if my maps are as bad as it has been stated.

[Ardaceus 21]

While mapping is something that won't make your game horrible, having good map planning and/or unique map planning will make your game more memorable for the more work you put into a game. The point of a game is to impress your audience, and while a good story is good enough for a game, adding elements to add to the game can help effect the story being told.

 

Invest some money and permissions into obtaining resources and look at some mapping tutorials on YouTube, I'm pretty sure if you were to do those things, the story I've read (along with some nice music) would make for a great game I would play through.

 

It's just a suggestion, while there is nothing wrong with using just RTP graphics, I would tell you that you need to improve upon some map building skills. Don't let it wear you down, you just need to learn a bit more about the 2D RPG mapping procedures. That is all, don't think you are failing just because you made some bad maps, every single developer knows that they have made something they have redone a billion times.

[Polraudio 122]

The RTP is perfectly fine. The only thing you need to do it make the world believable. If i go to a town and see 6 NPC's in the bar and 10 NPC's outside and theres only like 3 houses in the entire town its going to feel unrealistic and will take away from the immersion.

 

All you got to really do is plan your places out to make it feel like its a living breathing town. You dont want the player to walk into a house that is for 3 people but only see 1 bed. You will be surprised how far the little things can go and what people will think of when playing games.

 

When i create a game i think of all the little details like does this person like to play the piano, does this person like books, or even does this person drink coffee(then i put a cup on the table).

 

When making something ask yourself why that item is there and if you can think of a reason then that's good.

Mapping doesn't have to be perfect. it just has to make sense^

 

Were not bashing your mapping, your mapping isn't that bad. Just a few details you need to think about. were trying to help you become a better game developer. Also keep in mind that im looking at your maps as a person who would be really into your game and want to figure out each little thing like omg this guy has 3 coffee mugs in his house on 1 table and he lives alone HALF-LIFE 3 CONFIRMED!!! XD

 

Game development is all about learning. I find myself constantly learning new things and having to redo my game 100+ times to make it perfect. I went through like 300+ learner projects in rpg maker xp before i learned it. i spent hours on each one trying different things.

[railfan101 0]

Thank you.  I know both of you are trying to help me and I appreciate it very much.  After looking back at some of the other projects i've done and what was accomplished in them, I think it's safe to say in my opinion, mapping is my weakest area, and eventing might be my best area, though that's questionable.  My game thread i posted in the game development area will be updated in due time with updated maps, which hopfully will be better than what i've shown so far.

 

I am taking time away from this for awhile because I'm getting promoted at my full time job, and I don't know if i'll have time to do this in between my sudden increase in workload.  I'll see though

[Heretic86 25]

I think Lighting adds a whole lot to even basic maps and tilesets...

 

 

 

 

 

NOTE: These are all animated gifs so give them a moment to load..

 

Do you guys think that Lighting Systems can make even a simple map look better?

[Ardaceus 21]

Well, it should be a no brainer that lighting makes a map look better. Even the simple shadowing feature of any maker makes the map look far better.

 

But the one thing that turns me off from those photos is the character sprite. Using the RTP sprites for playable characters is a sin in my book, and should be avoided. Take a look at Hollow Creek Stories: Felix's Nightmare (http://www.gdunlimited.net/games/hollow-creek-stories-felixs-nightmare), it uses shadows quite well, and an environment that looks amazing, plus the mack sprites look pretty good.

 

If you are to make a map, make it look as best as you can, or want to.

[Heretic86 25]

I wasnt trying to show off character sprites or tilesets, just the lighting effects.

[zahraa 26]

of course the lightning effects are awesome, They make the maps look very realistic (btw are those pics from moonpearl's lightning system?). I believe it's worth the time to add lightning effects to every map in your game. I haven't ever played an RM game featuring a great lightning system so I guess it's kinda unique. and I think it'll be even better to combine it with a day/night system.

[Heretic86 25]

of course the lightning effects are awesome, They make the maps look very realistic (btw are those pics from moonpearl's lightning system?). I believe it's worth the time to add lightning effects to every map in your game. I haven't ever played an RM game featuring a great lightning system so I guess it's kinda unique. and I think it'll be even better to combine it with a day/night system.

 

Not from Moonpearls, from one I was working on for XP (hence the default tilesets and characters):

 

http://downloads.chaos-project.com/heretic86/LightingPreRelease.exe

 

Adding lighting effects is only as difficult as the script is to use.  For example, pre-rendering everything, then producing a light map of sorts to overlay can be very time consuming, which is why so few games have any sort of Light Effects.  I tried to make things a bit easier for everyone.

 

Instructions:

 

Put in a comment that says:

@>Comment: \light[]

 

All done!

 

Of course, there about a bazillion more features to it.  In comparison to Moonpearls, which does look very nice, it doesnt run very well.  This one appears to run fast as crap so it can be used for real time lighting just about anywhere, with a high degree of compatability to boot.

Edited July 15, 2016 by Heretic86

[railfan101 0]

I wasn't expecting this thread to still be active after this time.  Considering the last post was in October, I had thought it was going to end up lost in the forum.  But if this is still active, I would like to post a few updated maps i have made in my game.  I'm trying not to show off most of the game, since I still want people to be surprised by what is seen within the game.  

 

I will say first off, nearly all maps in the intro of my game have been redone since I last posted here.  I had about 7 maps I redid, and added 3 new ones.  And I did fix and improve Luna village a bit.  

 

So far this is coming along nicely, and as such it is my first game(the first one I'm taking a serious crack at getting complete), I'm hesitant on trying to add too much at once.  I feel I just want to tell my story and try to get the game done, instead of worrying about so many little things like lighting scripts.  

 

I am hoping to finish the game by Christmas this year, but at my current rate, I don't think that's going to happen.

[Heretic86 25]

 

Aluxes in Doom 3! :tease:

 

 

Same exact map without Dynamic Lights...