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Community project: Radcliff [beta released] v0.2


Suomiboi

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Good, slightly early Mondoid, people! I'm here with a small update and a teaser picture for you guys!

 

First let's amp up the building count! We now have a whopping 75 buildings! The new buildings include a gas station, A baseball field! lots of tiny, small and medium sized homes and a quaint little gazebo. :rolleyes: Thanks to all who have contributed so far!

 

The mapping has gone slightly slower due to mainly me drinking too much in the weekend and suffering from that subsequently. :wacko: Regardless, I've finished 3 new cells and started plotting some buildings into the world map. I've also made a small description for the map for when it will be put in the world. I've included that in the beginning of the OP. Check it out and tell me what you think. :)

 

I've updated the png and _veg maps in the OP so check 'em out! Also as before I've tried to put the accurate amounts of the buildings (some might be missing, I'm a bit tired now :D).

 

Here's the pic as promised!

VineGroveTest_zps523dd31d.png

This is from the town of Vine Grove and that is the main street which has some nice cozy homes and will someday hopefully have the town hall and some more houses *wink wink builders*. This is just something I threw together in 5 minutes and isn't the final product, but it's something I wanted to share with you guys in the glory of Mondoid! :D You can compare it to the actual place and see what you think about it. (It's not meant to be a copy, :razz: but more of an inspiration as with Muldraugh and West Point :))

 

Happy Mondoid everyone! :D

Those buildings make my houses look like shit. :(

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Hi there folks!

 

I'm here on a wednesday screenshot extravaganza to bring you slight spoilers on the progress of the map project! I'm here also to recruit more people to the fold!

 

The map is progressing at a decent pace and I've given myself some free time to do some building in between the mapping and plotting, to ease the twitching in my right hand. :P This post is to show you guys a bit of what came of my little walk on the darkside. :ph34r:

 

Let's start this easy:

 

Cell 1,6

Here's another picture of a finished cell I did a while ago. As you can see the finished map will feature lakes, rivers, creeks, farms, plains and lots of other terrain types. There's also lots of room for you busy builders to fill up! ;)

RadcliffCell_1_6_zpsb8815267.png

 

 

Sportin'

Here's something I finished just a few minutes ago! A small baseball field and a basketball court. To get your survivor in fighting fit! I had the inspiration for the baseball field from Clarkimedes who made an awesome larger one, which will be located slightly to the north east from this one.

RadcliffSports_zps3b4bf3cf.png

 

Block party!

Here's a building I finished late last night. It's a block of 3 buildings, a dentist, a lutheran church and a small bank. The church and dentist's have small apartments at the 3rd floor. This building is done with inspiration from the real life building on the east side of Vine Grove on West Main St.

RadcliffBlock_zpsd424b1c3.png

 

A test of faith

Here's a screenie I took when first testing the block building in game. There's something chilly when thinking about what went down here. :unsure:

VineGroveTest4_zpsa688c778.png

 

Gas'd

Here's another test pic I did in last stand. I was discussing with Jela331 on Steam at how awesome that Sieben's gas station is, when all of a sudden I heard a moan and a tear . . .

RadcliffScreenie3_zps4a180697.png

 

Trailers n' drifters

Here's a sneak peak on what the east side of Vine Grove will start to look like. Lots of shabby buildings and mostly trailers. This is a small trailer community I finished making yesterday.

TrailerTrash_zps43069497.png

 

Lastly I've updated the OP with the newly finished cell numbers (a total of 3 of them) and building numbers (85 total :)). We need more and more buildings so if you're interested in doing one, or a few, or a dozen, or more!! Don't think about it, just do it. You can always PM me for questions about the map!

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Hi guys and happy Mondoid! I'm back with a slightly slimmer update and a few pics. :)

 

Here's another cell pic to start off (2,2)

Radcliff_2_2_zpsbed4ee7f.png

 

Here's a large church I finished a few days back. Nothing fancy, but it's at least something. :)

ChurchLargeOut_zps9ae12837.png

ChurchLarge1st_zpsa199f477.png

ChurchLarge2nd_zps1a3578a5.png

ChurchLarge3rd_zpsb394fef3.png

 

Lastly here's an overview of what's been added to the map so far and therefore a guideline to what it will start to look like. This is the Vine Grove neighborhood.

As you can see not nearly all buildings are in. This is because I try to find as fitting buildings to the neighborhoods as possible. Also all of the commercial buildings in the "main strip" mimic real life buildings. You'll also notice that a few buildings are colliding with some of the natural elements. these will be fixed in time as they are just placeholders for now.

VineGrove1_zps7eac7bc8.png

Also I just noticed there are already at least 3 buildings missing from this picture (taken yesterday) so there is progress after all! :D

 

 

I've again finished 3 cells (seems to be the pace I'm getting into). And I've done about 10 new tiny houses that will hopefully meet with the map at some point in the future.

 

I don't have time to update the OP atm (I have to sleep too you know!) so I'll edit this post when I've done that.

 

Once more, happy Mondoid everyone!

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Happy Easter Mondoid to all! I'm here again to give a slight map update and show off some pics. :)

 

I have mostly focused on buildings lately and it's been great seeing how Vine Grove has slowly grown into a really immersive small town. The team has also dedicated some of their time to supply me with some really nice buildings so thanks for that! :) That said I have done some mapping, but I haven't finished any cells. But I do think it's been worth it!

 

I've been so focused on doing the buildings that I've totally forgotten to add the numbers to the OP, (sorry about that :( ) but again I'll try to do that when I have just a bit more time in my hands.

 

One last thing before I give you the pics.  :razz: I can't stress enough how great it is to get buildings, ideas, feedback etc. from you guys so if you have any time, please do chip in. Anything will do! And if you're thinking that you're work might not stand up to the standards, don't worry! I can always edit the stuff a little to suit the map just a tad better. :)

 

Onto the pics!

 

Let's start with the traditional cell pic, 3,4:

Here's a sligthly more urban cell than the previous ones. The sand area will have some under construction housing in the future and the north block with the lighter pavement will be a place for a large mall complex. ;) There'll also be a decent sized grocery store on the south east block. Otherwise the cell will be filled with mostly small to medium size homes.

Radcliff_3_4_zps43576e4b.png

 

Here're some pics of my favourite builds I've done so far this week:

Let's start with my personal favourite. This building to me represents the perfect 'murica setting and adds a lot of kentucky flare into the area just by itself. This is modeled after an apartment rental/motel type building in High Street of Vine Grove. I decided to make it as a home however to make it fit into the neighborhood a little better.

SmallHouse01_zps8fa7a3ed.png

 

Here's a sample on how I like to do some of my buildings when I decide to dedicate a bit more time to them. It's a very interesting design that caught my eye and I immediately wanted to try and copy it. I think I did a decent job, or what do you think?

 

Here's how the building is in RL:

housesample_zps0d2a1967.png

 

And here's what it looks like in game:

housesamplegame_zps7e7bf0a4.png

 

Last of the building show-off is a quaint little upper class home that sits opposite a small church. This is the house that is the most stereotypical picket fence home in america. (except this one doesn't have a picket fence... :???:)

House01_zps4ec51aee.png

 

 

 

Lastly I'll give you guys an update of what the whole area is starting to look like. I think you're gonna like this: ;)

As you can see the town center is almost finished and I've started doing the west side of town as well as doing some more trailers to the east side of the tracks. Oh, and yea there's railroad tracks. :eek: I've also finished the town hall, adult education center, a small church and a metric tonne of tiny and small houses. Also Phuket finished the very cool Vine Grove family medical which can be seen just north east corner of the town center. (The white building) So yayy! :D Lastly, let me just add that all of the buildings are 100% furnished, lit, mostly bug free and working as they should.

Vinegrove21_04_14_zps1d714173.png

 

Another wall of text finished! phew... Thanks for tuning in!

 

Again happy Easter Mondoid and have a lovely week. <3

 

EDIT: Oh, and to all you mappers out there! I found the way to get the blends working automatically when you do a bmp to tmx or use the BMP brush in tilezed! It's been updated in the OP of the MAP TOOLS thread and my post on it can be found here.

 

edited the cell number which was wrong. (it was 3,5 when it was actually 3,4)

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Happy Easter Mondoid to all! I'm here again to give a slight map update and show off some pics. :)

 

I have mostly focused on buildings lately and it's been great seeing how Vine Grove has slowly grown into a really immersive small town. The team has also dedicated some of their time to supply me with some really nice buildings so thanks for that! :) That said I have done some mapping, but I haven't finished any cells. But I do think it's been worth it!

 

I've been so focused on doing the buildings that I've totally forgotten to add the numbers to the OP, (sorry about that :( ) but again I'll try to do that when I have just a bit more time in my hands.

 

One last thing before I give you the pics.  :razz: I can't stress enough how great it is to get buildings, ideas, feedback etc. from you guys so if you have any time, please do chip in. Anything will do! And if you're thinking that you're work might not stand up to the standards, don't worry! I can always edit the stuff a little to suit the map just a tad better. :)

 

Onto the pics!

 

Let's start with the traditional cell pic, 3,5:

Here's a sligthly more urban cell than the previous ones. The sand area will have some under construction housing in the future and the north block with the lighter pavement will be a place for a large mall complex. ;) There'll also be a decent sized grocery store on the south east block. Otherwise the cell will be filled with mostly small to medium size homes.

Radcliff_3_4_zps43576e4b.png

 

Here're some pics of my favourite builds I've done so far this week:

Let's start with my personal favourite. This building to me represents the perfect 'murica setting and adds a lot of kentucky flare into the area just by itself. This is modeled after an apartment rental/motel type building in High Street of Vine Grove. I decided to make it as a home however to make it fit into the neighborhood a little better.

SmallHouse01_zps8fa7a3ed.png

 

Here's a sample on how I like to do some of my buildings when I decide to dedicate a bit more time to them. It's a very interesting design that caught my eye and I immediately wanted to try and copy it. I think I did a decent job, or what do you think?

 

Here's how the building is in RL:

housesample_zps0d2a1967.png

 

And here's what it looks like in game:

housesamplegame_zps7e7bf0a4.png

 

Last of the building show-off is a quaint little upper class home that sits opposite a small church. This is the house that is the most stereotypical picket fence home in america. (except this one doesn't have a picket fence... :???:)

House01_zps4ec51aee.png

 

 

 

Lastly I'll give you guys an update of what the whole area is starting to look like. I think you're gonna like this: ;)

As you can see the town center is almost finished and I've started doing the west side of town as well as doing some more trailers to the east side of the tracks. Oh, and yea there's railroad tracks. :eek: I've also finished the town hall, adult education center, a small church and a metric tonne of tiny and small houses. Also Phuket finished the very cool Vine Grove family medical which can be seen just north east corner of the town center. (The white building) So yayy! :D Lastly, let me just add that all of the buildings are 100% furnished, lit, mostly bug free and working as they should.

Vinegrove21_04_14_zps1d714173.png

 

Another wall of text finished! phew... Thanks for tuning in!

 

Again happy Easter Mondoid and have a lovely week. <3

 

EDIT: Oh, and to all you mappers out there! I found the way to get the blends working automatically when you do a bmp to tmx or use the BMP brush in tilezed! It's been updated in the OP of the MAP TOOLS thread and my post on it can be found here.

Those buildings are inspiring me to make use those interesting designs for my future buildings, great job on making them look alike!

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Thanks! Really means a lot to have some comments on the stuff. :)

 

I've been having quite a progress in the area and the first cell is starting to be finished! I'll be back again on Monday with a Mondoid update on the progress.

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And here I am again on a brand new mondoid update! You say it's not mondoid yet? You live in a wrong part of the world then. :razz:(It's like almost 2am here! . . . What?!) I have no work tomorrow so I'll give you an update!

 

I counted the buildings and finally updated the OP with the numbers and also the bmp and _veg maps! The total amount of buildings now is roughly 170!! That includes new buildings such as a car repair shop, an elementary school, other stuff I can't remember and almost 50 houses and that counts to almost 100 buildings in the last two weeks. I'm on a roll! Because of that I haven't yet continued the mapping and I've done it deliberately because it's going to take a while until I get even near to completing the finished cells. My team members have also been slightly more quiet due to the holidays and some technical difficulties so I've had my fun with buildings. :)

 

If you're interested in joining to the team just send me a pm. All you need to know is how to build a working niceish looking building! I'll guide you onward from that if necessary!

 

So enough with the commercials and onto the pics!

 

Cell of the week (3,5):

This is the cell into which I seem to be heading next with the buildings. It's a semi-dense cell with some forestry but altogether quite a simple area in regards of nature. It's just west of the Vine Grove town center so there will be quite a lot of buildings but it won't be as dense as the town itself. This is probably a good representation on what most of the "city cells" will be like. Radcliff is huge, but it's also sparse. There's also a small pond where you can try and catch those small fishies RJ has been adding lately!

Radcliff_3_5_zps9618ee65.png

 

Home sweet home:

Here's again another sample of me trying to imitate a real life building:

The real deal:

Housesample2_zps0bdc89c4.png

 

and my pathetic attempt at architecture:Housesample2game_zps2d344bde.png

 

Here are a couple of tiny homes I wanted to share with you guys too:

tinyhouse2_zps375a787b.png

tinyhouse1_zps8509968f.png

 

 

 

School's out!:

Here's a small elementary school in the east of VG. It's really boring on the outside, but I decided that I just wanted it to look a bit dull since it is a school after all. :P

 

Outside:school1_zps3bf7ce55.png

 

1st floor:

school3_zps611872ec.png

 

2nd floor:school2_zps963a4f9d.png

 

Down payment blues:

Here's a small block that has been through some shit. The rent wasn't paid so the tenant got kicked out. Well at least the Bail Bond next door is doing fine. (I wonder why? . . . )

 

Outside:

SmallBlock1_zps511e9e62.png

 

1st floor:

SmallBlock2_zpsdeb12a8f.png

 

2nd floor:

SmallBlock3_zps4177da8b.png

 

 

Lastly as it seems to be a budding tradition, I'll give you the whole pic of the area:

As we can probably see there's progress. :) Progress is good.

Vinegrove28_04_14_zpsd4d1ec9d.png

 

That's it for this weeks Mondoid. At least from me. Hope you like it and again have a lovely week!

Edited by Suomiboi
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And here I am again on a brand new mondoid update! You say it's not mondoid yet? You live in a wrong part of the world then. :razz:(It's like almost 2am here! . . . What?!) I have no work tomorrow so I'll give you an update!

 

I counted the buildings and finally updated the OP with the numbers and also the bmp and _veg maps! The total amount of buildings now is roughly 170!! That includes new buildings such as a car repair shop, an elementary school, other stuff I can't remember and almost 50 houses and that counts to almost 100 buildings in the last two weeks. I'm on a roll! Because of that I haven't yet continued the mapping and I've done it deliberately because it's going to take a while until I get even near to completing the finished cells. My team members have also been slightly more quiet due to the holidays and some technical difficulties so I've had my fun with buildings. :)

 

If you're interested in joining to the team just send me a pm. All you need to know is how to build a working niceish looking building! I'll guide you onward from that if necessary!

 

So enough with the commercials and onto the pics!

 

Cell of the week (3,5):

This is the cell into which I seem to be heading next with the buildings. It's a semi-dense cell with some forestry but altogether quite a simple area in regards of nature. It's just west of the Vine Grove town center so there will be quite a lot of buildings but it won't be as dense as the town itself. This is probably a good representation on what most of the "city cells" will be like. Radcliff is huge, but it's also sparse. There's also a small pond where you can try and catch those small fishies RJ has been adding lately!

Radcliff_3_5_zps9618ee65.png

 

Home sweet home:

Here's again another sample of me trying to imitate a real life building:

The real deal:

Housesample2_zps0bdc89c4.png

 

and my pathetic attempt at architecture:Housesample2game_zps2d344bde.png

 

Here are a couple of tiny homes I wanted to share with you guys too:

tinyhouse2_zps375a787b.png

tinyhouse1_zps8509968f.png

 

 

 

School's out!:

Here's a small elementary school in the east of VG. It's really boring on the outside, but I decided that I just wanted it to look a bit dull since it is a school after all. :P

 

Outside:school1_zps3bf7ce55.png

 

1st floor:

school3_zps611872ec.png

 

2nd floor:school2_zps963a4f9d.png

 

Down payment blues:

Here's a small block that has been through some shit. The rent wasn't paid so the tenant got kicked out. Well at least the Bail Bond next door is doing fine. (I wonder why? . . . )

 

Outside:

SmallBlock1_zps511e9e62.png

 

1st floor:

SmallBlock2_zpsdeb12a8f.png

 

2nd floor:

SmallBlock3_zps4177da8b.png

 

 

Lastly as it seems to be a budding tradition, I'll give you the whole pic of the area:

As we can probably see there's progress. :) Progress is good.

Vinegrove28_04_14_zpsd4d1ec9d.png

 

That's it for this weeks Mondoid. At least from me. Hope you like it and again have a lovely week!

 

Looking good Suomiboi!!

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I am itching to play this after reading through the thread! It would seem that things are coming along nicely and I will be checking this thread often now.

Hey, nice to hear that the project is interesting you. :) You can tick the "follow this topic" on the top right below the search icon, to get a notification every time this thread gets a post. For me at least it helps in following important threads.

As for the progress, I'd say it's slow and steady. With the current pace it's going to take quite a while until we're at a playable state. However, now that I've gotten the center of Vine Grove almost finished the progress should be slightly faster since it's not as dense elsewhere. (except when we get to central Radcliff of course :D)

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Goooood Mondoid Vietnaaamm!!! and everybody else too!

 

Back again with a truck load of pics and Mondoid fun times!

 

This time we have two new cells and another shit ton of buildings. I've been busy! Go West, young man, said Horace Greeley and that I did. I've been expanding Vine Grove to the West and added some interesting new stuff.

 

First let's count the buildings. A total of 199 buildings now! (I've updated the OP accordingly) I'm itching to do one more but I'll probably do a few soon. :P So that would be a total of 30 buildings and 2 cells in one week. :shock: I've also done a few special buildings which have taken slightly more time than the regular houses.

 

To the pics!

 

The cell of the week (2,4):

Ok, so this is the cell north of the Vine Grove center and can be seen in the compilation pictures that I've posted before and the last one on this post. This cell has the larger homes of VG, the block of buildings and the awesome Vine Grove Family Medical!(which is for now a cortman's) The other parts hold some baseball fields that are also already finished and the rest will be small to medium sized homes. A lot of them!

Radcliff_2_4_zps8763fa72.png

 

 

 

The Office:

Ok so here's the biggest building on the map so far. It's a three story Office building with roof access and a hefty security control. I've improvised a bit with the tiles and got a nice little watch going on in the reception area. ;) Otherwise there's over a dozen offices, some board rooms, lounge area, cafeteria complete with kitchen and storage and of course the bosses room in the parade spot on the 3rd story.

 

The whole building:

Office1_zps5305094f.png

 

First floor:

Office2_zps88d08d59.png

Tight security! and a secret back entrance! Can you find it? Did you even read this far?

 

Second floor:

Office3_zps5689bc0a.png

In the middle you can see the lounge area.

 

And the third floor:

Office4_zps270f4284.png

Here we have the cafeteria, kitten, kitten storage and the bosses office.

 

The Bar:

Here's something I made just a few hours ago. It's a small homey bar in the east side of town. Not quite Moe's place but close!

 

Outside:

Bar01_zps03aa1398.png

 

Surprise surprise, inside:

Bar02_zps961f8bf0.png

 

Here's a close up pick on a small kids playground, a basketball court and the town library made by Phuket

Playground_zps500aeb6e.png

 

And lastly the whole area as of today:

You can see that I've expanded a little to the west, but also done some housing on the east side of town. Also the first cell is slowly closing to completion and I'm getting a bit sobby since it's been such a lovely little town and I'm afraid of going to the big(ish) city. :cry:

Radcliff_5_5_2014_zps2ef9893f.png

 

 

 

So here's this week's Mondoid from me! As always have a lovely week and if you've got some buildings, send 'em over!! :P

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  • 2 weeks later...

Lovely Mondoid to you all from (for now) sunny Finland! I skipped the last Mondoid on purpose because I knew that I was going to be less active on the project for the last two weeks. Sorry if someone was waiting for that! (someone? anyone? ok then . . . :cry:) I did however get lots done (mostly two weeks ago) and therefore I am here again with a truckload of buildings. :)

 

I've decided to go with just a slightly different start this week and show you guys how I like to draw my maps for PZ. I'll use the Radcliff map as an example. Now there might be some repetition to the OP, but I'll be getting more to the specifics here. If you're not interested, just skip the map part for some update goodies. :P

 

The map:

I won't be going into specifics on how to add maps or what programs/colors etc. to use, you can find that stuff mostly here, here and hear. This is more about the practical stuff and artistry, if you can even call it that. :D I've also added links to the full size images after every pic.

 

Ok let's start!

 

Before doing anything else, I cover the background with the base green color which is 90,100,35 in RGB.

 

The town layer

This is where I really start with my mapping stuff, when I'm doing a real life place. I take a series of screenshots from google maps and align them next to each other to form the required area. In this case Radcliff and it's surroundings. With Radcliff, I've also tilted the map slightly clockwise, as the Muldraugh map is, to get the main roads vertical.

Radclifftownmap_zps83003753.png

http://i767.photobucket.com/albums/xx319/elmosyrjalainen/Radclifftownmap_zps83003753.png

 

Roadmap:

Next up, I lay down the roads roughly on top of the existing base. You can see in the OP a bit more clearly how I've laid them down. The basics are to not have too many corners on the large roads and to leave at least 20x20px space between areas that you want to put a building in so not to get too crowded of an area. There are also most of the sand roads and areas.

 

I mostly use the following sizes when I do roads:

I'll start by saying that these sizes are based on my detective skills, which I've used to deduct that cars will be approximately 2 tiles wide and 3 tiles long. How, you ask? Well the garage doors in West Point are 2 tiles wide so I'd think that's a size that a car might need to fit through. Also the lanes in game are 3 tiles wide and irl there's usually at least a little slack in regular roads between lanes.

 

14px wide: large 2 way 4 lane road with either empty tiles on the sides or two empty tiles in the middle for "protection" in the roads. These are the highways of sorts. You can always go crazy and do bigger, but in my opinion that's the biggest road that looks good in game.

12px: The large roads that also have 2 ways and 4 lanes, but aren't as highwayey as the 14 tiles wide. Good roads to do if you want big but not huge.

9px: These are 2 way 3 lane roads with the mid lane working as a passing lane to one direction or as an extra turning lane near crossroads. I don't like to use these very much, since they aren't that common irl and don't really add that much. I prefer the 12px if possible.

6px: The basic 2 way 2 lane road. I use these the most in the maps. These are the smallest ones that get traffic lines.

5px: Country roaaad take me hooome . . . This is a sort of in-between road. Not quite big enough for traffic lines, but not small enough to be a town road. I don't have as many of these in the map as I should, I like to use 4px instead in many places to leave more room for the buildings.

4px: The town road. These are the most common 2 way roads in more suburban areas. They might be a little small for some, but I like to use them as they seem to me the most natural sized for that purpose when comparing to real life.

3px: the one way driveway. These are the suburban centers and the small roads that lead to people's homes.

 

Radcliffroadmap_zps6e11e7ba.png

http://i767.photobucket.com/albums/xx319/elmosyrjalainen/Radcliffroadmap_zps6e11e7ba.png

 

 

Trees and fields:

Next up I start adding the trees and fields to the map. They have their own separate layers so I can toggle between them so that I don't get much light grass in the woods, as it doesn't really look that good. Here I've put them together to illustrate what the map looks like without too much glits and glam with the woods . . . Here I can also see best, how the map works with the underlaying real world and this is the view I use the most when drawing the map. I like to do the fields and lighter grasses all in the same layer for some reason. Mostly because they don't overlap in any significant way. The fields I've copied from the West Point rawmap and then just cut, turned, moved and tweaked to fit the required areas.

Radcliffmap1_zpsf0258b7b.png

http://i767.photobucket.com/albums/xx319/elmosyrjalainen/Radcliffmap1_zpsf0258b7b.png

 

 

The Beautification:

Next up I've added some grassy borders to the woods, some textures, denser forests and pathways between them. I use altogether 5 layers of different vegetation from top to bottom, 4 layers from grass to dense forest and one overlay layer of all of them combined. I'll list all of the layers in order at the bottom of this portion.

 

I've also added the waters and some of the paved areas.

Radcliffmap2_zpsecaca55d.png

http://i767.photobucket.com/albums/xx319/elmosyrjalainen/Radcliffmap2_zpsecaca55d.png

 

Helpers:

There are three things I use that help me a lot in the mapping process

 

The palette:

 

The painters no.1 resource. It helps out a tonne to have the map colors in their own layer so you can pick a color, draw, disable the layer and export a png. Here's a pic of what I use:

Palette_zps3beb1e71.png

http://i767.photobucket.com/albums/xx319/elmosyrjalainen/Palette_zps3beb1e71.png

 

Naming places straight to the map:

 

This is what I picked up from the west point map and it's really useful in remembering the places of important areas in the map, that I usually otherwise forget. Just write down the areas straight on the map and you can see them in tiled straight away and in the end draw on top of them in tile zed.

Places_zpsa2e3d1c3.png

 

Cell numbers:

 

I like to mark up my finished cells with red and some of the unfinished ones in green so that I'm able to follow my own progress and then of course post here on my progress. :P

RadcliffCells_zpsb9e19acb.png

http://i767.photobucket.com/albums/xx319/elmosyrjalainen/RadcliffCells_zpsb9e19acb.png

 

 

Blacking out the roads:

Ok then we go to the part where we need to print out a pretty map for our tools. I always do this when I've finished the roads on a map and add the blackness as I go along. This is done so that there will be no trees on the roads or in the water and speeds up the drawing quite a bit since you don't have to worry about that. You can either draw every road by hand or just use the bucket tool. I like to do the first one since I can also determine some area around the roads.

Radcliffroadmapblack_zps49ae7001.png

http://i767.photobucket.com/albums/xx319/elmosyrjalainen/Radcliffroadmapblack_zps49ae7001.png

 

The main map:

Here we set the layer visibility so that we have have only the background, fields, water, sand, pavements and roads visible. Then we export it as Radcliff.png. And the result is here:

Radcliff_zps82548322.png

http://i767.photobucket.com/albums/xx319/elmosyrjalainen/Radcliff_zps82548322.png

 

The _veg map

Lastly I add a black layer after all of the previously mentioned layers and opened up the forest layers and the black road layer. Then we export it as Radcliff_veg.png and call it a day. The result looks like this:

Radcliff_veg_zpsd0b76283.png

http://i767.photobucket.com/albums/xx319/elmosyrjalainen/Radcliff_veg_zpsd0b76283.png

 

The zombie spawn map:

Oh, and I almost forgot the spawn map! Here I draw some white on a separate layer with a brush tool (with the roads visible etc.) and then just disable all the layers above the black one. Then when printing it out, it's crucial to remember that you have to scale down the whole pic by a factor of ten and then export your zombiespawn.png. Aaaand here we go:

Radcliff_ZSM_zpsed849a61.png

http://i767.photobucket.com/albums/xx319/elmosyrjalainen/Radcliff_ZSM_zpsed849a61.png

 

 

 

 

Here are the layers I use with gimp, from top to bottom:

Palette

SpawnMapWhite

CellNumbers

BlackRoadsNoWoods

ForestOverlay

veg1 (dense forest)

veg2 (medium forest

veg3 (light forest)

veg4 (tall grass)

BackgroundBlack

Roads

Pavement

Sand

Water

Fields

GoogleTown

BackgroundGreen

 

 

And that's all folks. Hope you find it helpful or at least slightly interesting. If any of that, I'm happy. :) If you have any questions, ask away!

 

 

Ok, straight to the progress:

I'll just post a quick pic of the whole area since I haven't had time to take pics from the buildings and I really wanted to do that small tutorial. :P As you can see there are lots of new buildings and lots of expansion pretty much in all directions. I quickly counted that there's again about 50 new buildings added. That puts us way above 200 so far. All of the new buildings didn't even fit in the picture! :D I probably won't have time to update the exact numbers in a while, but I'll update this post if or when I have!

VineGrove19_5_2014_zps15cbf07a.png

 

Comparison:

Lastly here's a comparison picture of the size of this project. I've just plopped the muldraugh town area on top of the radcliff map so you can really see just how big of a city it will some day hopefully be. :)(The black area on the right is the Muldraugh town) Muldraugh is roughly 5x3 cells large with the logging corp area counted and WP is roughly 2x5. Oh, and the picture above shows a 3x3 cell area only partially, so there's some mileage to go. :P Luckily the whole map is not as dense as Vine Grove is.

 

RadcliffMuldraugh_zpsb6fe86b2.png

 

As always, all buildings and help are accepted with warm hearts and many, many thanks!!! :wub:

 

Happyhappy Mondoid everyone! <3

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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Aaaalrighty then!!! I'm back from a long summer break and I've been slowly getting back to my daily routine of Radcliff building. :P That's why I decided to bring a little more sunshine into your week and make an exceptional Wednesdoid post!

 

For those wondering if I've abandoned the project that's a firm no and do not inted to. Tbh, I had a slight mental breakdown with the pace I was going at before and simply got a bit bored making this map. But now that I've gained some distance and strength, I'm feeling ready to carry on building!

 

Without further ado. Here are some pics for you fellas!

 

Neighborhood #1:

Ok, I'll start this easy by showing the latest small neighborhood I'm working on. You've probably seen some of it in the previous updates, but now it's taken its form and starts to look like a really cozy little patch of streets. This time I've tried to copy Mash's style a bit more than on the Town centre, which I think required a lot of different styled buildings to look the mishmash I wanted it to. I've basically layered the area into 3 parts: The brick housing, the tiny blue street and the nicer suburbia.

Neighborhood1_zps91380d6d.png

 

Neighborhood #2:

Here's another small neighborhood in the east of Vine Grove. Here I've started slowly growing the distance between the buildings to represent that were getting out of the centre of town.

Neighborhood2_zpscd8c6153.png

 

The Vine Grove Golf Course and Resort:

Here's a brand new area I finished just yesterday, and I'm very happy on how it turned out. I've made a fairly large resort area consisting of 8 rented cabins, 2 motel apartments and a reception building with a small golfing goods store and a Spiffo's. There's also a small chapel and a graveyard just south of the resort.

VGGolfResortSign_zpsd757ab6b.png

VGGolfResort_zps7be1f98a.png

 

And here's the Golf course itself. I would have wanted to make it an 18 hole full course, but there just simply wasn't enough space for it to look good. I decided then to maximize the appearance side of it and made it a 5 hole circuit. Accompanying it, is a large reception building with changing rooms, a larger golfing goods store and a large Seahorse Café. There's also a small maintenance and car rental shed in the beginning of the course.

VGGolfCourse_zps430cd4cc.png

VGGolfCourseInside_zps4213901d.png

 

Progress update:

All in all I've done approximately 60-80 new buildings along the summer. So quickly counted, that'd be around 280-300 buildings altogether. I'm also proud to say that I've finished my first 2 complete cells. Those are the main Vine Grove cell (2,5) and the Golf course cell (1,5)! So yay from me to myself :P !!! (clyde) (clyde) (clyde)

 

Lastly here's the full map so far, with all the areas combined. I took this before a few of the 1st neighborhoods buildings were finished, but I think you'll see the whole progress. I think it's really coming along nicely and I've started to think that I might want to bringing an alpha test out for the public SoonTM. Not necessarily within the next month, but hopefully within this year. :P

VineGrove30_07_2014_zps5a2d47e0.png

 

All buildings and help is warmly welcomed. My team has been fairly quiet the whole of summer so don't feel intimidated to chip in with anything.

 

Also if there is anyone who'd be interested in just furnishing buildings, I'd love that. It'd help out a ton since it's become somewhat of a routine for me and my creative spark on that side is slowly diminishing. I still have a constant and strict routine, but I seem to be starting to repeat myself quite a lot.

 

Lastly, as always have a lovely week! <3 I hope you like the it and please comment, PM and ask anything that's on your mind about the project. :)

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Wow! Just found this awesome thread! Really looking forward for this map.

I would really like to help, but I´m too bad it this kind of stuff.

Thanks! :)

We all have to start somewhere. ;) The tools are actually quite intuitive once you get past the initial phase of shock and awe.

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Ah, the tools aren´t the real problem, but my imagination is the problem. I could furnish up some houses, but it will look like shit  :oops: I´m not very creative.

Well I guess we all have our strenghts and weaknesses. :)

Edited by Suomiboi
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