THE DO'S AND DON'TS OF MAPPING PART 3

Even when the Engine is Rm2003 it can still be applied to every level design related.

Table of contents:

1 The basics
a the 'yeses'
b the 'noes'

2 The specific Basics:
a Mountains
b Forests(you are here)
c Towns
d Deserts
e Plains
f World Map Tips

3 Adding to a map
a Eventing
b Overlapping
c Effects
d Overlays

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Forests

This is a no brainer. Forests need trees, water, and a HUGE assortment of ground tiles. It should have thick grasses in some places, dark in others, flowers here, tree stumps there, etc etc. There really is no real way to make a forest, but the one thing that mostly stands out is placement of trees. Trees NEVER grow in a straight line, and are constantly curving and changing shape. This should be reflected in your maps. Example:

Pictures with natural look



Pictures without natural look



Your forest maps should also make sure to include some sort of path. It doesn’t have to be a brink road or dirt road or etc, just something that someone will follow. For example, in this picture, there is an actual dirt road:



But, in this picture, all there is to make a path is saturated grass (the weird things in the water are pictures of falling leaves, which I’ll go through in the events section)



People subconsciously follow these paths in their mind. They see some ground type that doesn’t look like everything around it, and begin to follow it. It’s human instinct.