Need help with maps!

uncle2fire

Hi,

So, I've been messing around with the Foundry for a while and, while I have many ideas for missions, my creative juices stop flowing when it comes to using and making ground/interior maps. I do just fine with the space ones, but I'm never happy with the pre-made interiors and can never get myself to progress very far on any custom ones.

My questions is, can you give me any advice on how to make creating maps more interesting and take less time?

Also, any advice you have on making missions in general would be happily accepted.

Thanks!

Thol Kohmintra

castsbugc

Would you be willing to give a 'vision' of what you want to be able to do with a ground map? I completely agree that the 'stock' interiors are fairly....unimpressive in their planned layout (who in their right mind puts a extra long hallway to a room in a ship like generic interior 02???)

Obviously depending on what you want to do helps to influence what you do as far as rooms go.

uncle2fire

Well, for the mission you see in my signature, I would like to have a space station interior that doesn't have crazy mixed up corridors and weird rooms. And that contains a mix of technology from different races, but from around the year 2160, so nothing too high-tech.

I guess it's all the checking to make sure everything fits right (and doing that over and over again) and making minute little adjustments to position that really tire me out.

Any help you could give would be hugely appreciated!

Thanks!

kirksplat

uncle2fire wrote: »

Well, for the mission you see in my signature, I would like to have a space station interior that doesn't have crazy mixed up corridors and weird rooms. And that contains a mix of technology from different races, but from around the year 2160, so nothing too high-tech.

I guess it's all the checking to make sure everything fits right (and doing that over and over again) and making minute little adjustments to position that really tire me out.

Any help you could give would be hugely appreciated!

Thanks!

That would be a really hard set to make. I can think of a few props, like the connectors that might work for the walls. But that sounds like a real challenge.

Wait, you mean the props from something in 2160, or the station is from that era?

castsbugc

the first issue you will run into, prop wise, there isnt anything 2160s really, you are looking at 2260-70s with the TOS, there is nothing Rommie war vintage, though I think you can fudge with some of the generics.

About how big did you intend it to be, and how many rooms, amenities, etc?

uncle2fire

Nothing too fancy, just a small transporter room (I was planning to use the hologram alcove thing), a control room, a cargo bay and a research lab. I know there aren't any 2160-specific props, I was just planning to use a lot of the generics with some Klingon consoles thrown in.

Yes, for clarification, the station is from 2160-ish time period.

I would like it to be relatively obvious which room is which, but nothing too detailed. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

rickysmith1

I find Civilian and Generic are best for Terran or Vulcans in the 22nd Centuary. Keep with Romulan Props for Romulans obviously.

I find if its a building or station, add a few plant pots dotted around to give the place a sense of life, maybe a Federation Captain set on Patrol with Custom Uniforms.

If it's a ship, have a sense of compartments to it, dont have crates in the corridor, we wouldn't do it on a warship and you don't see it in the series, it isn't professional... Unless its a civilian ship in which case make it look scruffy and unorganised.

And if you use a Bridge Map, feel free to customise it abit, such as adding small consoles to the two seats either side of the Captians Chair on the Galaxy Bridge.
Or create NPC's that look like statues or Holograms to add a bit of Variaty to your map.

If its a research lab think of 'what kind of research', if its bio, then add Fish Tanks with NPC's floating or plant samples. If it's techno or Holo kind of lab, a clever use of NPC's or a Singular major prop under study would be best as most labs have one particular thing under Research, you wouldn't walk into a Lab and find organs on one side and motherboards on the other unless it was an old time horror film!
The Cargo Room, think of the Cargo Rooms in TNG, stacked all the way to the top in columns and rows, that I find is the best look. For the Transporter Room, keep it simple, a clear control podium infront of the pad/s, I like to use one/two consoles with a Flat Wall console behind for mine.

To sum it up my freind, I'de advise;
1) A few props to add life.
2) Every Compartment/Room has a purpose even if its vague.
3) Take Screenshots of places like ESD, New Romulas, Bajor, DS9,K7, etc to use as revision... I even travelled system to system doing nearly all the Patrol missions just for the sake of Screenshots of systems and planet surfaces... makes great screensaver too!

Best of Luck.
Mail me in-game @rickysmith1 when you Publish.

uncle2fire

Thanks so much for the advice! Those are some really good points. Do you any shortcuts that you use to make map creation go a little faster or a little easier?

Thanks!

kirksplat

Nagorak made a great tutorial, near the bottom of the list. You should bookmark this page.

http://starbaseugc.com/index.php/noob-guides/tutorials-guide/

rickysmith1

uncle2fire wrote: »

Thanks so much for the advice! Those are some really good points. Do you any shortcuts that you use to make map creation go a little faster or a little easier?

If your after speed and simplicity, just do the bare minimum in the maps, complete the story/Dialogue, Publish and then come back to it later for adding and editing. Plus the first few reviews will give you good pointers on the story before any major re-works are made.

The BEST TIP I can give you is; to not just Spell check everything, but to Spell check it in U.S.
For us many British fans it's a nightmare getting told we havn't spent hours upon hours checking everyline in our missions just because we spell 'Humour' instead of 'Humor'! I could point out that the reason for differant spelling is because the early school system in America was simplfied for the many thick people coming over... but I'm not bitter lol
Oh and when your done and published make sure you play through straight away to ensure theres no Glitches.

uncle2fire

I watched that and it was really helpful! It gave me a lot of shortcuts and tips, but I was wondering if anyone else has any? I'm a tad bit lazy a lot of the time and have trouble keeping interest in things that take a while :P

Thanks!

kirksplat

uncle2fire wrote: »

I watched that and it was really helpful! It gave me a lot of shortcuts and tips, but I was wondering if anyone else has any? I'm a tad bit lazy a lot of the time and have trouble keeping interest in things that take a while :P

Thanks!

The last thing you want to try to attempt (if you are impatient) is trying to build a custom interior. I have one map in "Relics" that took about 45 hours to make.

A few sets have been shared via pdfs, but not ones like the one you need.

lincolninspace

I always thought the tight look of the Defiant interior would make a great Enterprise era set. In fact when I first saw it in a foundry mission I thought it was supposed to be the NX 01.

castsbugc

For a lark, I got into the editor this morning and threw this together:

http://starbaseugc.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Station.pdf

Pics:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27616725@N05/sets/72157632689908010/

This was done using the Fed looking Generic interior map. Sometimes I find taking lemons and making lemonade isn't all that bad. Now with that said, I only roughed things into place, so some alignments might need tweaking, and I didn't put in a lot of detail because I was just looking at doing the bones, not the rest.

Let me know if this is a help at all

uncle2fire

You just "threw" that together? You, my friend are a very good thrower. :P

And thanks! I think I'll use this to help me with my station. Thanks!

And for the Defiant map, that too is an interesting idea. I'll have to look at that if my mission takes me aboard a ship.

Thanks again to all of you for giving me advice!

castsbugc

*chuckle* yeah I spent a couple of hours on it, mostly fixing the pdf because the item names didnt export right and I had to manually correct that.

Another suggestion is that you could also use the cave interiors as well, such as was intended as the old neutral zone asteroid bases of the Romulan War-TOS era

markhawkman

yeah, some caves have very smooth walls. All you need to do to make it look like a lived in space is add a floor in the lived in areas.