Hi again! Today we’re gonna learn the next couple of steps in making your simulator: Building the map! Now, this may seem simple. You may already be thinking “Why should I read this? You just make a green floor and import some trees from the toolbox.” Well, you are welcome to have your own opinion, but most quality simulators don’t actually build their maps that way. There are even steps to do before building. Let’s start with those.
Plan Your Map Accordingly
You want your game to have the right tone for your topic made in the last tutorial. Now, here are a few examples of a good map:
For zombie/battle games: You may want to use a darker map with more black and red.
This is a villain base that uses darker colors and shadows.
For a more cartoony type simulator, use bright brown and green, like drilling simulator
Keep this stuff in mind when you build your map.
Building
Now, the first thing to do is to create a floor. Insert a part into a blank baseplate and scale it to your liking.
Textures
You can also use textures to represent a theme. Use the green-plastic to stick with the cartoony look, and use dark grass for the haunted, darker look.
Now, most simulators have a lobby of sorts. You should create that before anything else. Here’s how to make a classic lobby for a simulator.
- Make a statue.
Most Simulators have a statue in the middle of their lobby, and creating one isn’t as hard as it may seem. Insert a dummy into the workspace by clicking on Plugins>Build Rig>Choose which rig you want to insert. Now, position it as you want and rename it so it doesn’t have the name dummy floating above its head. You can rename it something like ‘statue of such and such’ Now, ever wondered how some statues look metallic? Well, change the color of all the dummy parts to the metal color you want, and open the properties window for each of them. to create a metallicy look, add more reflectancy. Viola! You have a lobby statue. - Add a lobby floor. It’s now time to make the floor of your lobby, and if you want the classic look from other simulators, I recommend you do this:
Insert a part into the workspace, scale it down to as thin as you would like (if the scale tools won’t let you make it any thinner, go into properties>size. I am using 0.4 for my thickness. Your floor should now look like this:
Now, it’s time to decide textures. I will give a few examples:
this is brick. I think it’s better for walls, but use it if it fits with the theme of your simulator.
Meet Marble. Good for something fancy, and can sometimes work with the cartoon side of things.
Pebble, my personal favorite lobby floor. It can fit in with most styles, too!
Now that you have your floor part made, its time to align it. Use the move tool to align this above the ground so that you can see it, but don’t make it floating. You may have to move your statue up so that it fits on top of this.
Trees/Ambiance
Now it’s time to make the rest of your map. You can add trees, rocks, and whatever else fits in with your theme. Now, keep in mind you can use trees in the haunted and dark theme still, it should just look darker with little to no leaves. here are some examples of cartoon and haunted ambiance:
A perfect example of a cartoon tree. It is a sort of abstract and has a bright brown/green theme.
A haunted tree. It is darker with no leaves but still is missing that slight bit of realisticness that could still fit in a haunted cartoon. Now, you don’t have to make all of your trees, this is the perfect time to utilize the toolbox. Just be sure to check for backdoors at the end. Now that you have your trees determined, copy and paste them all over the map. now is also the time to determine if your shop is going to be gui or an actual shop. If it is going to be physical, make room in the trees for your shop.
Shop
Well, now that I’ve mentioned shop, it’s time to make one. Insert a blank part. This will be your door. You can make it bright blue with the material force field to create a glass effect. Now, go to properties, and turn CanCollide off. You now have a walk-through door. Now it’s time to make a wall. Insert another part, scale it up to be taller than the door, and make it wider too, so that it is half of a wall of a shop. Now, right-click on it in explorer, and select duplicate. It may look like nothing has happened, but there is another part inside of the other one. Move the duplicate over to the other side of the wall. At this point, you should have a small blank space above the door. This can be solved by inserting another part and scaling it to fit in that space. Now, the other three walls are much easier as they can just be one part. Scale one part to be a sidewall. Now, you can use the handy-dandy duplicate trick to make the wall for the other side, too. Unless your shop is an exact square, the back wall will have to be a different part, as it has to be scaled differently. Insert another part and scale it to make the back wall. Now, just sit back, relax, and have the rain pour on your head. Just kidding, your can make another part and rotate, scale, and texture it to make a flat roof. Now your shop building is done! We will not be scripting it today as that is another day’s chapter.
The Wall!
We almost forgot to make a wall around our island! Now, this is like the walls for our shop, but thicker and taller. You can also add style to your wall by adding jagged edges, round mountains, our just making inconsistent parts stick up in a cartoony way.
The finishing touch
Now, if you were to load up this world right now, it would all fall from the sky and you might not even spawn on the island. You should add a spawn point first. Click on your floor part. open it in explorer, and click the little plus icon. search spawn and insert a SpawnPoint. it can then be dragged around by your lobby. Move it until you’re satisfied, and move onto the final step . . . ANCHORING!
Move away from your creations until you can see them all on one screen. Click with your mouse and drag until they are all selected. Go into the top bar and select anchor. You should now not fall from the sky, and you get to feel like a pirate. Good for you.
Outro
Well, thanks for reading this tutorial! If you have any questions, comment on this post, and at least 2 more chapters will be coming soon on scripting this map. See you then!