Map ideas

[Wildcat67]

What are your ideas for custom maps that you will create?

I was thinking something like a couple of rivers with 3 islands in the middle. The rivers would actually be connected and make essentially one big river. Hard to explain.

 

[zorkman]

What are your ideas for custom maps that you will create?

I was thinking something like a couple of rivers with 3 islands in the middle. The rivers would actually be connected and make essentially one big river. Hard to explain.

You will need connection to the outside, & your starting tile will have to have a road connection.

 

[Wildcat67]

You will need connection to the outside, & your starting tile will have to have a road connection.

Yeah there will be land outside the rivers so that's not a problem.

Essentially it will be rivers in the shape of a ladder. The two big rivers are the sides and then there will be the cross slats connecting them making the islands in the middle with land surrounding.

 

[zorkman]

That's okay then, & must admit that does sound like a nice idea for a city.

I will start using the default maps initially & haven't really decided what I will do after that.

 

[Socca]

I have two ideas.

The first one will be a riverdelta (i guess ?) or a map full of rivers, just because i like bridges and the look of skyscrapers going up with a river in between.

The second one will be a beautiful beach-heavy map.

 

[Wildcat67]

That's okay then, & must admit that does sound like a nice idea for a city.

I will start using the default maps initially & haven't really decided what I will do after that.

Yeah I'd like to try and have the dirty industry on the furthest downriver island and then a commercial/residential in the middle and high wealth/office building on the furthest upstream island. Then there is the challenge to connect them all and have traffic move from one island to another smoothly.

 

[NorthStars]

This is the first one I've been working on:

The setting is supposed to be a fictitious port in Northern France, but I also allowed myself a little creative license in developing the landforms more than you would see in that area. I'm also experimenting a bit just to see how well certain things will work... such as the fact that you'll notice a breakwater at the mouth of the main city harbor in the center of the map. In fact, all the coastline areas that are sharper are meant to be areas that will have development right up to the edge of the water. The slightly more blurred coastline will be where the land trails off into the water more gradually.

You may also notice a faint horizontal line crossing the center area of the map, slightly darker than the surrounding area (it's just north of the main river coming through. I'm experimenting to see how well this will work... it's meant to be a dip in the landform to allow a motorway to pass through the area counter-sunk slightly lower than the surrounding area. That might be a total dud idea, but we'll see. Could also be really cool.

PS- I've tried to post this in high enough resolution that anyone can take it if interested... but I don't know if this area is really meant for the sharing of resources or not... sorry if I shouldn't be putting this here!

 

[Wildcat67]

This is the first one I've been working on:

The setting is supposed to be a fictitious port in Northern France, but I also allowed myself a little creative license in developing the landforms more than you would see in that area. I'm also experimenting a bit just to see how well certain things will work... such as the fact that you'll notice a breakwater at the mouth of the main city harbor in the center of the map. In fact, all the coastline areas that are sharper are meant to be areas that will have development right up to the edge of the water. The slightly more blurred coastline will be where the land trails off into the water more gradually.

You may also notice a faint horizontal line crossing the center area of the map, slightly darker than the surrounding area (it's just north of the main river coming through. I'm experimenting to see how well this will work... it's meant to be a dip in the landform to allow a motorway to pass through the area counter-sunk slightly lower than the surrounding area. That might be a total dud idea, but we'll see. Could also be really cool.

PS- I've tried to post this in high enough resolution that anyone can take it if interested... but I don't know if this area is really meant for the sharing of resources or not... sorry if I shouldn't be putting this here!

So where is the starting tile going to be located? Also how do you make these?

 

[NorthStars]

So where is the starting tile going to be located? Also how do you make these?

The starting tile will be dead center, where the port is, but I will spreading out more East-West than North-South.

I made this in Adobe Photoshop Elements. I took the original outer coastline shape from an actual coastline in northern France using Google Maps, then I drew all the rivers, islands and hills by hand in Elements using a combination of the lasso, paintbrush, blur and smudge tools. The key is that each additional layer that I went up (becoming progressively lighter) had to be blended into the previous layer either with a blur effect, or feathering a selection before painting the next layer. The sharper the contrast between a light area and a nearby dark area, the steeper the incline will be (the top left area should have a really impressive mountain feature with a couple of nice U-shaped valleys coming down from the peak... all of that is way outside the buildable area, but it should make for a decent backdrop to my cityscape). The final step was to add "noise"... simulating the fact that real world topography doesn't just form a perfectly gradual upward slope... there are more dips and crests than that. For this scene, I used an extra layer in Photoshop with a "speckle texture image" (I just googled that to find something I liked) and added it as a top layer, but put it down to 7% opacity, so it just adds a slight hint of irregularity. Someone suggested in another thread using the Clouds filter in photoshop to do the same thing... that will be the next thing I'll try.

 

[Wildcat67]

The starting tile will be dead center, where the port is, but I will spreading out more East-West than North-South.

I made this in Adobe Photoshop Elements. I took the original outer coastline shape from an actual coastline in northern France using Google Maps, then I drew all the rivers, islands and hills by hand in Elements using a combination of the lasso, paintbrush, blur and smudge tools. The key is that each additional layer that I went up (becoming progressively lighter) had to be blended into the previous layer either with a blur effect, or feathering a selection before painting the next layer. The sharper the contrast between a light area and a nearby dark area, the steeper the incline will be (the top left area should have a really impressive mountain feature with a couple of nice U-shaped valleys coming down from the peak... all of that is way outside the buildable area, but it should make for a decent backdrop to my cityscape). The final step was to add "noise"... simulating the fact that real world topography doesn't just form a perfectly gradual upward slope... there are more dips and crests than that. For this scene, I used an extra layer in Photoshop with a "speckle texture image" (I just googled that to find something I liked) and added it as a top layer, but put it down to 7% opacity, so it just adds a slight hint of irregularity. Someone suggested in another thread using the Clouds filter in photoshop to do the same thing... that will be the next thing I'll try.

Interesting I might try this but I don't know if I have the patience.

 

[NorthStars]

Interesting I might try this but I don't know if I have the patience.

Yeah, it took about 3 hours to create that map. I'm sure the only reason I gave it that much time is because the game isn't released yet. Once it's out, it will probably be a while before I do that again, at least to that level of detail.

 

[CalPolyFan]

This is the first one I've been working on:

That is an awesome map.. Great job.. It will be so amazing seeing this thing come to life with flowing water.. I'm freaking out man.

One thing I have wondered.. looking at the left side of your map with those deep creeks, is how small the water spawners can be. Can we have smaller creeks? How many total water spawners are we allowed? Could we create a lot of small creeks, which feed into each-other like a real watershead? How small does the water sim. get?

Important questions I don't think have been addressed yet.

The smallest we have seen so far is a medium sized river.

 

[charlesnew]

I've got some plans of maps to make in my game. I don't really have so much experience in any photo editing software, so I'll have a lot to learn.

 

[EvilTom]

I always enjoy building in restricted terrain. Things like mountains and rivers and lots of areas where building is impractical. This means that I have a challenge and make an organically grown city.

My favourite map on SimCity 4 was Cape Newenham, which is a real location in Alaska. I would like to see a replica of this and try it in game, but only if the mountains are worthwhile.

 

[SimonJM]

I can't wait to get my hands on the map editor. It looks amazing. I'll probably spend as much time in the editor as in the game!

I like to use real world terrain because it comes with natural/organic features already and I'm not very creative. It's a bit of a process to make good maps though. I'm still working on my method. For instance I now want to create a nice smooth bathymetric surface instead of the flat plane of the sea surface. I could use real bathymetric data but I think I'd prefer an artificial curve. The aim is to make the maps look pretty and not be scientifically accurate.

 

[PeterWeaver]

Wildcat, Mesopotamia means between-the-rivers