Nature's Thread

[Sweet_Basil]

Hello everyone I've decided to join this forum because I'd love some feedback about my maps. Please tell me how I can improve my map making :). I'm new at map making but I find it exciting.

This is the first map I made.

I had trouble with the water and mountains. In this chapter units start on one side of the map and have to make their way to the other side. No pirates, or fliers join your army in this map.

This is the second map I made, it's transferred from FE8 with FE7 tileset.

For this one the protagonist is kidnapped and put inside the center of the map, they have to survive enemies kind of like a gladiator scene. Their team arrives the next turn and have to liberate their leader.

Fancy palace

My goal was to make this one a fog of war defend map. The little forts are for sages with status staves or bolting.

My latest map

This is one has prisoners waiting to be rescued, it's based off Awakening's paralogue 4. I need help with this one because I don't know what to do with the floor.

Edited November 19, 2015 by Rosemary

[Celice]

I like the map designs and ports :) There are some basic errors, such as missing shading on the chests, some different heights, wrong stair tiles, the ocean isn't using any deep water tiles, etc., but these are all minor gripes if one is trying to emulate the original game style of maps. Like, some may say you never put caves on the mountains like you did, but I honestly don't see an issue with it.

What program do you use for mapping? I use tiled, and it has a handy random feature for filling in tiles. So for your snow map, if you aren't sure how to fill in the grass without it feeling bland, you can let the randomizer do it for you. What exactly is your issue with the floor?

[Sweet_Basil]

Hello Celice I am using Mappy, for the snow map I don't know which way to point the floor patterns. Also where are the different heights?

[Sweet_Basil]

I made a new one today

Edited September 10, 2014 by MidnightStar

[Haku]

Wow, these are some solid maps, nice job!

For the snow tile sets iirc there isn't a specific floor pattern, but if I'm wrong, I guess you could try and fill in some of the space with a frozen lake or something, or some paths :)

Also solid job on that cave map, the floor tiles are a pain to work with.

[spoiler=lol]

Similar much :P btw there are a couple of errors with the walls in your maps, I can circle them if you'd like.

Edited September 10, 2014 by Haku

[Sweet_Basil]

Thank you! :) Yes that would be great.

BTW here's how my snow map looks now.

Edited September 10, 2014 by MidnightStar

[Celice]

That map looks very good :) I think some FE maps have shadows that also appear on the chests, so you may consider adding them in your map.

And for the heights, such as the fancy palace map, the walls above the stairs do not go lower in height, while the walls beneath and around the stairs do. It's a small basic error though.

[Sweet_Basil]

Hello I haven't been active for two months :( but I have some new stuff to show.

First I think I fixed this map:


and I have two new maps to show

This is a rescue-rush map to defend the npcs in the mid-room, based on FE7's defend Zelgius map.


and lastly this is a seize map (open chests represent traps)

Edited November 27, 2014 by MidnightStar

[deranger]

For the first map in the most recent post: The wall above the stairs leading to the throne room should have heigh hike ups in them, the stairs are increasing elevation. The 'towers' halfway up the map on the far right and left have 1 too high staircases. I suppose this isn't necessarily an error, as you could have half steepness stairs, but typically one staircase means one increase in height. You only need one increase in height, as the walls inside the tower are 2 high, only 1 more than the 3 height of the walls outside towers.

You have remarkably few height errors for someone who just started. Keep up the good work. Your maps don't have the awkwardness that many new mapper's maps have.

[Sweet_Basil]

I got a new one



Are there any height issues? I'm also having trouble with the outside what would be a good pattern for it?

I also wanted to thank Deranger for the feedback

Edited December 5, 2014 by MidnightStar

[Lord of Gabriel Knight]

The bottom left room has steps leading to it, yet the wall surrounding it is just as tall as the walls everywhere else. Also, the steps in the middle go down, yet the walls on the above floor and the walls on the below floor are the same height.

Edited December 5, 2014 by Lord of Gabriel Knight

[NobodiePichu]

the hell's going on with that middle room (height error)

[Sweet_Basil]

Thank you i'm going to remove the steps to fix the height issues, and will add walls to the throne to fix the height issues (and remove those on the middle room).

Edited December 6, 2014 by MidnightStar

[Sweet_Basil]

More maps


Village based on a topography map from Valkyria Chronicles.


A small indoor map.

[Brendor]

The top one looks like it has too much road and looks kinda artificial. Try breaking up the road into sections

[Sweet_Basil]

How should I break it up? Should I relocate the houses around or add more grass patterns?

I've got my first desert map



the bottom left gate is from Celice's free map pack- Sami's debut

[ErrantDShepherd]

Not really skilled with maps, but most of these look pretty decent, pretty good to me at least.

I kinda like the village... and I realize its based off another map, but the positioning of the houses seems a little too linear? Too perfectly straight/in rows for a small village?

Desert maps are always fun too... maybe needs a little more variation to make it more interesting though as it seems a little repetitive.

[Matt Snow]

How should I break it up? Should I relocate the houses around or add more grass patterns

I would add more grass patterns, and use the road to make it flow from one building to the next. Also try moving the houses around, when people say that a village map looks artificial they mostly react to it looking too neat. You want the houses too look like people just went and placed them (at last IMO). the houses in that map are pretty much all set in rows, which is kinda the opposite of what you want to do.

Also you used some shadow grass tiles in the bottom right corner, I'm not really sure what everyone else thinks, but I've always found that they're really awkwards to work with, and kinda make everything feel off. I either use dark grass for shadows or just ignore it, though ultimately the decision is up to you.

The maps here are really good, keep up the good work.

[Sweet_Basil]

I took the advice and fixed up the village map. It has less houses but they're more scattered, here's how it looks now:



is that better now?

Also have new maps to show:




These last two are from FE9(Mia's recruitment chapter) and FE10(Laura's recruitment chapter) respectively.

[NobodiePichu]

mias map didn't have the two doors at the top as far as i remember.

[Chocolate Kitty]

I think they're just based off of them; they're not carbon copies.

[Sweet_Basil]

I've decided to try some splicing.



The first girl: Myrrh, Black haired civilian girl, Miledy's boyfriend, Lyn, Ursula.
The second girl: Npc Pegasus FE8, black haired civilian girl, Vanessa, Syrene, Franz.
The boy: Franz, Saleh, Chapter 6 boss FE8, Raven, and one of the bandits from FE7.

[ErrantDShepherd]

I really like the design for the girls, the first one especially. She kinda looks like a Jill/Miledy/Minerva analogue.

The boy design... Not so sure about, what are your ideas behind the design? 'Cause currently his fancy hood clashes with the rest of the design... whereas if he had a simpler hood with no trim it might work better.

Some general placement/proportion issues someone better than me might be able to help on.

...you say you don't often sprite? These are pretty good and clean looking mugs especially if you don't do these often! :D

Nice work, you should try it more often. :)

[Fateborn]

I've decided to try some splicing.

The first girl: Myrrh, Black haired civilian girl, Miledy's boyfriend, Lyn, Ursula.

The second girl: Npc Pegasus FE8, black haired civilian girl, Vanessa, Syrene, Franz.

The boy: Franz, Saleh, Chapter 6 boss FE8, Raven, and one of the bandits from FE7.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha incest much.

Joking aside.

First one hurts my eyes a bit, specifically her face proportional.

Just stare toward her eyes for a bit (you look at person's eyes in a conversation to show attention.) i'm certain you can see why it hurts a bit.

If you can't, remember Myrrh's eyes, they're made specifically to be as if the child is looking upward from a lower position (any reason can apply: sitting, bending, or being a loli.) Thus this looks strange when you consider her head's... what do I call it? size? appearance? angle? Angle!

Yeah Angle.

Also you should consider making it apparent that she has a neck. Right now it looks like it doesn't exist due to how the hair cuts it off from collar. Try adding a pixel length to the right of the lock of hair.

2nd one isn't bad at all, it's good to look at. No complaint.

3rd one. I don't know why you dubbed him a male, when to me he looks very girly. It's funny considering you only used male mugs.

Perhaps you could consider making his shoulders more broad?

[Chocolate Kitty]

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha incest much.

what are you even talking about; that's gale's armor