Tsuno Sense Mapping Tutorial 1 : Outdoors (lots of images)

[Tsunokiette]

Good evening lads and lassies, I bring you 1 of many to-come tutorials on anything from Mapping to Scripting. (Yes I will finally spend the time neccessary to get this completed)

First off, I want to go over a few rules pertaining to nature.

1) Nature is random
2) Plants of the same type grow together
3) There are NEVER repeated patterns in nature
4) There's LIFE in nature

Now we will start off making a campsite. (You can choose the sound effects and bgm)

NOTE: Results may vary (lol)

First thing we need to do, is compile what we will need in this campsite -

• People
• Animals
• Fire
• Tent
• Trees
• Shadows (we are in the woods)
• River

Okay, that's pretty basic, but not bad, now we move on to a new map :



Hmm, it appears we have a lot to do to turn this plain grassland (can we even call it that) into a convincing campsite.

Now, it's pretty obvious that there's more than just a perfectly proportioned tree and bare tree in forest, am I right or am I not?

Using a nifty trick (I learned from other sources *cough*ccoa(sp?)*cough*) we will create clumps of different trees, keeping in mind that plants of the same type usualy grow together.

Using the trees from both the grassland01 tileset and the woods01 tileset, I came up with these clumps. (sized to fit in 32*32 tiles using a template from a set which I downloaded here => DOWNLOAD



Now we just add them to the existing template and set priority. To save some time, add one to the tileset array, copy the existing grassland tileset from the list, paste it over the newly created tileset, then choose the new tileset file, and set passability and prioty for the clumps only. As a tip to save any more time trying to decide passability and such, just guess about where you think the stump would be, and anywhere the trees overlap, just set the priority to 5.

There, now that we have our trees, it's time to set up camp! :-D

The first thing we'll do is place a stream, remmember, nature is random. I think we'll have it go from the top-right to the bottem-left.



Okay, let's mark river off our list.

• People
• Animals
• Fire
• Tent
• Trees
• Shadows (we are in the woods)
• River

I know! Let's work on the tent next, just to move things along. Let's put it on the right bank, since we usualy want the most important aspects to be closer to us.

There, that's about right.



Let's mark tent off our list.

• People
• Animals
• Fire
• Tent
• Trees
• Shadows (we are in the woods)
• River

Next we'll do the fire. The important part now, which will change how we make this map, is to decide the time of day. Let's do night first. (We'll do day afterwords to show the difference)

There's some good space out to the left of the tent, so let's put it there.



Let's mark that off our list.

• People
• Animals
• Fire
• Tent
• Trees
• Shadows (we are in the woods)
• River

Wow, this is going along pretty quickly huh?

Let's place those trees we worked so hard on in the map now huh? Remember to keep in mind that same trees grow together, and don't forget to place a couple of single trees eh? But also remember not to make the map too crowded.



Not bad! Let's mark trees off our list now, sound alright?

• People
• Animals
• Fire
• Tent
• Trees
• Shadows (we are in the woods)
• River

What's left? :
People
Animals
Shadows

Hmm, let's do animals first shall we?

Now let's make a list of day-time forest dwelling animals.

• Birds
• Rabbits
• Squirrels
• Butterflies
• Frogs (we're near a river/stream)
• Etc.

All of which there are graphics for, woot!

Lets place those now shall we?



Pretty cool, remember that wild animals (except the butterfly of course) are going to try to stay away from you.

Now let's check that off the list.

• People
• Animals
• Fire
• Tent
• Trees
• Shadows (we are in the woods)
• River

So now it's just people and shadows eh?

Let's work on the people.

That's a rather large tent, so let's have... 3 people.

And I think they should have a dog.

We want

1) Walking with his dog.
1) Standing around (by a tree stump perhaps?)
1) By the fire

Let's do that now.

Keep note, that the characters can also be on the other side of the river, but if they are, they need to be realisticly strong enough to get there.



Now let's check people off the list.

• People
• Animals
• Fire
• Tent
• Trees
• Shadows (we are in the woods)
• River

Before we move on to the final touches which will make a big improvement, trust me, let's see what it looks like now.
Keep in mind that I'm making the hero have no character sprite, so you can see the whole map without any "interuptions".



Hmm... Somethings not quite right. Let's set a fog, and tint the screen and see what happens then.



Much Better! But something's still missing...

...

AHA! Foliage! (plants, flowers, etc.)
And different grass textures.



MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH BETTER!

Now we're done!

I promise you, with practice, you will easily be able to make much better maps than what I've shown you here. (trust me, this map is way mediocre compared to some of the other ones out there.)

I hope this tutorial helped, and I look forward to your feedback.

BTW: I'll add the nightime camp part next week. It's midnight now and I need to get some rest.

Until next time ~
Tsuno

[ShellShocked]

Good mapping tutorial, i'm alright at mapping but this has helped me a bit (yay for clumped trees) 8/10

[dark12345]

nice man im typically a very good mapper in a thing called unreal ed (unreal engine) but not in this ^^ so thx for the help,tho its a lil stuffed

[Winged]

awsome! some people who make maps in a forest put like trees in one straight line, this tut exaplins plants grow in random areas and not in an neat row...get messy!! this is a pretty good tut to exaplain the elements of forest type maps....I like it, 9/10

[Arrow]

Very nice, I like the natural look of it. That, and the frog.

[Razuya]

Sweet tutorial its helped me out quite a bit.

[SexualBubblegumX]

If only my mapping would stop sucking balls wouls this tutorial help me. But when it comes to ze mapping I'm a lost cause.

[Tsunokiette]

If only my mapping would stop sucking balls wouls this tutorial help me. But when it comes to ze mapping I'm a lost cause.

It took me until now to laugh at that.

[Blizzard]

You know, all scripters always also know many other things about RM I noticed. xD

i.e. I even make sprites and battlers (additionally to mapping, scripting, eventing etc. lol). :=

[Nightwolf]

Nice Tutorial man, keep it up

[SexualBubblegumX]

That sounded sexual.

[Morris Lawry]

One more thing you should add, for the fire, add a section on how to make a fire animation on the wood, to make it look even better 9.9/10

[Tsunokiette]

One more thing you should add, for the fire, add a section on how to make a fire animation on the wood, to make it look even better 9.9/10

I didn't do it this time around because you usually don't light fires during the day.

Maybe later.

[Chaotix_Universe]

Awesome tut, awesome. And again, awesome.

8/10

[The Shadow]

NECROPOST IS BAD!

[Klarth F. Lester]

shouldn't this get a sticky?

i mean is very helpful.. believe it or not xD

[Karo Rushe]

One thing to say, is that the link above where it says "download" Isn't working.