First may I say a big thankyou to all you map makers and Moders out there your hard work is much appreciated, iv been playing around with giants editor to make a fs22 map and have come to realise the hard work that goes into it.
I would like to know is where do yo get your inspiration for designing a map and in what order to you plan it?
I'm not that creative or imaginative and so have looked at Google maps for some inspiration but doing the landscape is hard.
Map inspiration and design
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Re: Map inspiration and design
As someone working on a map at the moment and having made mods for farming simulator and other games in the past, the most important thing for me is the motivation for making a mod in the first place.
All mods (both farming simulator and not) that I have actually finished had the same core motivation behind them: I saw something that in my opinion was missing from the game or could be significantly improved, which motivated me to add it or improve it. Maybe your motivation will be different from mine, but this motivation is the most important part, as without it (or with the wrong motivation) you will very likely end up failing or giving up part way. This is especially important for such a big project as a map.
I had the experience that a motivation like "I want to be one of the big names in the modding/mapping community that is well known" or similar, while it can be very powerful, was to unfocused (if that makes any sense). It made me motivated to do something, but didnt motivate me to do anything specific.
As an example, my motivation for the map Im currently working on was this: There are certain feature of the landscape that are very common where I live, but there is no map (on modhub) for FS22 that has these features currently. I see them every day when I look out of the window, yet they are no where to be found in FS. That motivates me to make a map with these features in it.
Find your motivation for making a map. Yours may be different from mine, thats to be expected probably.
When you have your motivation, try to define what exactly you want from your map. How should it look?
Do you want a mountanous map or just flat land?
Do you want water in your map and how much and in which form? An ocean, a or multiple rivers, or just lake(s)?
How much forest do you want on your map?
Roughly how many fields and/or how large do you want the fields to be?
Try to answer these basic questions for yourself. Maybe you can think of another question or two that will have a large influence on how your map will look as well.
Already just answering these basic questions will give you a good idea of how the map will end up looking.
If you are not sure about one or more of these questions, just ask yourself which maps you like and then think about what that map does in regards to the question. (eg if you are not sure if you rather have river(s) or just lake(s) on your map, maybe you find that you really like some maps that have rivers, but dont like maps that just have lakes so much or the other way around...)
Alternatively you could of course decide to 1:1 replicate some IRL location in your map, though imo that is a much more difficult task then to make an imaginary map.
When you have a good (rough) idea of what your map should look like, Im sure you can find inspiration for the details. You can of course look at google, but you can also take a look at eg other maps both for FS22 and also for older versions of the game or maybe even at maps for completely different games. Google maps can help, but its not neccessarily a great help, because a standard FS map is only 2km x 2km in size and in the real world I think youd be very hard pressed to find a location that has a farm, a farm vehicle dealership, a animal dealership, several sell points for crops and other farm products, a small village/town, a bunch of fields and some forest all packed in a 2km x 2km square area... On FS maps the town/village is often just one or two streets with a single row of houses on either side and fields behind those houses, simply because otherwise the town/village would take up to much space on the map. Similarly sell points are often standing alone in the middle of nowhere between some fields, while irl they would likely be located in a larger industrial park/area, but doing that on FS would again take up much space on the map and would also mean that all buildings on the map are clumped together in one place and everything else is just fields, which especially on flat maps can look really empty. Be aware of these differences and limitations when you look at something like google maps for inspiration.
As for the order to do or plan things in:
There is some freedom in that, but certain things have to be done before others.
One of the first things you want to do is to make the rough shape of the terrain, as for example roads and trees depend on the shape of the terrain. Roads have to follow the shape of the terrain and trees need to be at the correct height, so they stand on the terrain and dont float in the air or are sunken in the ground.
For other things the order in which you do them is not important. For example you could make the roads before deciding on the fields and then shape the fields to fit the roads or you could decide on the fields first and then later shape the roads to go between the fields. In such cases it really just comes down to your preference. There are no downsides to doing it one way or the other.
Generally you could also approach making a map in two completely different ways: You could either make the entire map on step at a time, each step working on the entire map, or you could make the map one small area at a time. Completely finishing one area and then moving on to the next. Which approach you choose is entirely up to you. Both approaches have their upsides and downsides.
If you are unsure if you can make an entire 2km x 2km map, you can also decide on a smaller area on the map and maybe decide to make a map that is only 1km x 1km or even smaller in size at first. The terrain will still be 2km x 2km, but you can just move the boundaries closer together and just ignore everything outside the area you have set yourself. If you then finish that map and want to make it bigger, you can simply move the boundaries further apart again and extend your map at a later date...
All mods (both farming simulator and not) that I have actually finished had the same core motivation behind them: I saw something that in my opinion was missing from the game or could be significantly improved, which motivated me to add it or improve it. Maybe your motivation will be different from mine, but this motivation is the most important part, as without it (or with the wrong motivation) you will very likely end up failing or giving up part way. This is especially important for such a big project as a map.
I had the experience that a motivation like "I want to be one of the big names in the modding/mapping community that is well known" or similar, while it can be very powerful, was to unfocused (if that makes any sense). It made me motivated to do something, but didnt motivate me to do anything specific.
As an example, my motivation for the map Im currently working on was this: There are certain feature of the landscape that are very common where I live, but there is no map (on modhub) for FS22 that has these features currently. I see them every day when I look out of the window, yet they are no where to be found in FS. That motivates me to make a map with these features in it.
Find your motivation for making a map. Yours may be different from mine, thats to be expected probably.
When you have your motivation, try to define what exactly you want from your map. How should it look?
Do you want a mountanous map or just flat land?
Do you want water in your map and how much and in which form? An ocean, a or multiple rivers, or just lake(s)?
How much forest do you want on your map?
Roughly how many fields and/or how large do you want the fields to be?
Try to answer these basic questions for yourself. Maybe you can think of another question or two that will have a large influence on how your map will look as well.
Already just answering these basic questions will give you a good idea of how the map will end up looking.
If you are not sure about one or more of these questions, just ask yourself which maps you like and then think about what that map does in regards to the question. (eg if you are not sure if you rather have river(s) or just lake(s) on your map, maybe you find that you really like some maps that have rivers, but dont like maps that just have lakes so much or the other way around...)
Alternatively you could of course decide to 1:1 replicate some IRL location in your map, though imo that is a much more difficult task then to make an imaginary map.
When you have a good (rough) idea of what your map should look like, Im sure you can find inspiration for the details. You can of course look at google, but you can also take a look at eg other maps both for FS22 and also for older versions of the game or maybe even at maps for completely different games. Google maps can help, but its not neccessarily a great help, because a standard FS map is only 2km x 2km in size and in the real world I think youd be very hard pressed to find a location that has a farm, a farm vehicle dealership, a animal dealership, several sell points for crops and other farm products, a small village/town, a bunch of fields and some forest all packed in a 2km x 2km square area... On FS maps the town/village is often just one or two streets with a single row of houses on either side and fields behind those houses, simply because otherwise the town/village would take up to much space on the map. Similarly sell points are often standing alone in the middle of nowhere between some fields, while irl they would likely be located in a larger industrial park/area, but doing that on FS would again take up much space on the map and would also mean that all buildings on the map are clumped together in one place and everything else is just fields, which especially on flat maps can look really empty. Be aware of these differences and limitations when you look at something like google maps for inspiration.
As for the order to do or plan things in:
There is some freedom in that, but certain things have to be done before others.
One of the first things you want to do is to make the rough shape of the terrain, as for example roads and trees depend on the shape of the terrain. Roads have to follow the shape of the terrain and trees need to be at the correct height, so they stand on the terrain and dont float in the air or are sunken in the ground.
For other things the order in which you do them is not important. For example you could make the roads before deciding on the fields and then shape the fields to fit the roads or you could decide on the fields first and then later shape the roads to go between the fields. In such cases it really just comes down to your preference. There are no downsides to doing it one way or the other.
Generally you could also approach making a map in two completely different ways: You could either make the entire map on step at a time, each step working on the entire map, or you could make the map one small area at a time. Completely finishing one area and then moving on to the next. Which approach you choose is entirely up to you. Both approaches have their upsides and downsides.
If you are unsure if you can make an entire 2km x 2km map, you can also decide on a smaller area on the map and maybe decide to make a map that is only 1km x 1km or even smaller in size at first. The terrain will still be 2km x 2km, but you can just move the boundaries closer together and just ignore everything outside the area you have set yourself. If you then finish that map and want to make it bigger, you can simply move the boundaries further apart again and extend your map at a later date...
Das Universum ist unvorstellbar groß und wir sind im Vergleich dazu winzig.
Daher kann mir jemand der unter uns Winzlingen Unterschiede in Hautfarbe oder Herkunft sucht, nur Leid tun, weil seine Sichtweise so begrenzt ist!
Fremdenfeindlichkeit ist Menschenfeindlichkeit!
Daher kann mir jemand der unter uns Winzlingen Unterschiede in Hautfarbe oder Herkunft sucht, nur Leid tun, weil seine Sichtweise so begrenzt ist!
Fremdenfeindlichkeit ist Menschenfeindlichkeit!
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