I am creating a hangout / lobby type area in this game and I am wondering if I added too many street lights?
I am quite new to building so I can’t really tell for myself.
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I would say so, yes.
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I would say reduce the number of street lights to half or a third the original amount, as well as putting them in convenient positions rather than just having them all beside the path,
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The number of street lanterns is quite high, but I think they are mostly standing out because your place doesn’t contain much detail besides those lanterns. If you start adding more props such as trees, fences, etc. you’ll notice that they start blending in and the scene will look a lot better.
Looking at your scale, I would remove half of the lanterns. You could try placing them in a semi-randomized pattern too, instead of having a perfect mirror image on both sides of the road.
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I’m no builder, nor expert on lighting, however I’ve found fewer is typically better.
I’d suggest starting off with none - make it night time (you’ll probably need to turn down some lighting settings to make it
a little dark so you can see the street lights contrast better).
Start with adding one light to fill out a single area.
If that one light isn’t bright enough, add a second light to cover the dark patch.
In other words, try and get away with as few as possible while still lighting the area.
Here’s some lights I set up for an old project.
If you want to get super into lighting though, I’d suggest checking out Corridor Digital on YouTube, they film and short movie makers with lots of experience.
The reason I bring them up is that they do some nice tutorials, one of which is on lighting a scene:
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Following your suggestions I have settled for this, I think it looks quite good. Feedback on it appreciated!
I’ve halved the amount of streetlights and I’ve added trees.
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A quick note, you should probably have the trees match the snowy environment as well.
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I would say, yes you should get rid of some street lights. After you get rid of them, you can type in a custom amount to the light amount. Such as instead of being stuck on the max setting, you can type a number in that’s higher than what the max is. I use this method when I’m using lighting, and highly suggest you try this method. I would also spread the lights out once you delete some of the light models you made.
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I would say street lights is the least of your problems.
To be blunt, the map is boring, it lacks any elements of exploration or play that make it interesting to stay in that server. I highly suggest you look at deathrun’s lobby. It is very well built, has places to explore and serval things to do while you wait for the next game.
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The keyword here is that the composition is missing. When building any kind of map, you need to carefully consider what the composition is going to be. You will want to create memorable layouts that are distinct and recognizable. You can work towards this goal by considering the following:
1. Prevent repetition: Some elements such as a campfire, rivers, town squares, parks, and so on are most effective when there is only one of them in a map. It break up symmetry and prevent players from getting lost easily.
2. Include landmarks: Maps are more interesting when there areas that stand out, such as towers, hill tops, mansions, you name it. They will draw attention and if you can use other features such as lighting and waypoints to draw attention to them, players will want to check out what these landmarks have to offer. Right now your map only offers two small squares with benches on the sides; There is not much to explore there.
3. Play with saturation: Not color saturation, but asset saturation. Your forests will look more natural when some areas are a little more packed than others and your cities will look better when some alleys are small and some are wide. It will also look better if some assets appear more on one side of the map the other. This also follows up on point 1 a bit because it breaks repetition. Right now your trees, lanterns and benches are all
4. Use contours: Using contours you will be able to seperate areas. You can usually achieve this fairly easily by using different, contrasting colors. Roads are a great examlpe, because the road might be black, pavement grey and cycling roads red. Right now your path is icy and blends in with the snow. It makes it difficult to notice the two squares to the sides.
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That is where I am at now, I think it looks even better with your guys’ additional feedback since last time, I’ve done my best.
- some lighting effects
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It’s nicer I suppose, but like Vine was saying…
Maybe change one of the bench circles into an ice skating rink? Maybe have a neat little area for snowball fights (and possibly script that when they’re in the area they have snowballs to throw at each other… however that means you’re gonna want to removetools on characters whenever they leave the lobby and go to the actual game.) Adding neat little fun things to do, a mini-game of sorts in the lobby, can be very beneficial.
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In my opinion, I think you built the lights too high. I would absolutely get rid of some.
If you have any more questions, I’ll try and solve it.
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I don’t see the point of the street lanterns being lit if the lobby is set in daytime. If it’s going to be nighttime, sure; if it’s going to be a continual day-night cycle, then I would suggest scripting the lanterns to adhere to that cycle by turning on and off intermittently.
As previously mentioned by @VineyardVine it would also be prudent to analyse how interesting your lobby is. A few foci I could pick out were:
- The map has nothing in it. Why would anybody use those benches? They are spaced out, and why would people sit down in an interactive game?
- What are the trees for? It may sound like a silly question, but you have populated the outskirts very heavily with trees and if their only purpose is aesthetic, it’s really just making a large, useless map more large and useless.
- There is no deviation from the invariably straight path.
If this was my build, I would consider including (aesthetic-wise) sloping snow up from the path and winding hills, as well as making the map not only smaller but also concentric, where you spawn, can go left or right, and if you keep walking, still end up where you spawned. You will find that many lobbies on ROBLOX also contain items that kill time, such as ball pits or conveyor belts that people ride on. I can’t think of many examples of lobbies that just have benches. Lobbies also tend to have BillboardGUI lists such as overall leaderboards, top donators, etc. The world’s your oyster.
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Better. The more you balance out the lobby with other elements, the more your formerly excessive lights become less excessive. Before with the barren lobby, you definitely had too many streetlights than what would be necessary. Now that you’ve decided to add on some more, it’s not as odd as before.
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The lobby should have a seemingly-natural rock wall around it, such as this.
This is a simple addition to an old showcase of mine, it still needs some work.
Something like that will make the player feel as if they are in a more natural area, and it will help make the build less artificial. On top of this, there are plugins to use to make some waterfalls, if you need them. The one I use the most is the Waterfall Generator. It allows you to specify the length, width, and other properties on the waterfall.
Another thing I recommend is having more, well, personality if you will. The build itself seems void of detail, but that can be fixed. Go into the terrain editor, put some bumps in the ground, add a few more things like snowmen, snowball piles, etc. With some work, the lobby can look great! Just remember that, and don’t get discouraged!
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thanks! the water is actually meant to look like that, as it is ice. So therefore it is solid. If it were just regular “warm” water it’d be terrain water and a waterfall generating plugin would be used!
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Alright! Keep up the good work! 
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Yeah definitely tone it down a bit, but also add some more details. Just seems sort of bland.
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