Effective Ways of Map Building Using Blocks

[teodore31 (Sensei)]

This is my first post in the building category, but I’ll try keeping this clear.

I am currently making a map that has a shore, and rather bumpy hillsides across the map. I am also building it using bricks, not Smooth Terrain.
Well the thing is, I want to know how if there are effective ways of building maps with a lot of curvy hills, and slopes without resorting to Smooth Terrain.

Examples of what I am talking about:

But the problem is… It seems kind of tedious and time consuming just to manually add, move, and rotate, each piece of land. I haven’t seen any plugins dedicated to this type of building as well. In other times, there might be gaps.
Of course, this could be fixed using the GapFill plugin, but I am also concerned with the detailing of the land.

Although that, there are some things like I did. Such as, like I did in the picture, manually adding, moving, and rotating them.
I also tried negating them, but of course, they turn into unions.
And last, I tried making them without using slopes, only tall towers of blocks.

Which I actually did

I’ve just been wondering about this, because there are other games such as ‘Blood and Iron’ that has done it in such a clean and effective way.

After all that, my question is…
Are there any ways to effectively build maps using blocks with slopes cleanly?
I want to know if there are any plugins or techniques that I may have been unaware of that are hiding in
the shadows.
Maybe should I keep on using sliver of blocks, negate and union the parts, or resort to Smooth Terrain?

I’d like to hear what you know of for this type of things. Thank you!

[bachovar123 (Bondoman)]

Smoothterrain is your best bet right now , its easy and reliable but if you are aiming for more robloxy feel then you should go with some triangleterrain plugins.

[ItsKoiske (Koiske)]

You can try using Stravant’s Gap Fill plugin if you really don’t want to use terrain.

[teodore31 (Sensei)]

Thank you for your reply! I have some results from your recommendation.

@bachovar123

but if you are aiming for more robloxy feel then you should go with some triangleterrain plugins.

I am keenly interested in the more traditional ‘blocky’ aesthetic of map building.
I have also used one of the triangleterrain plugins.

The result of that was this image, which is an open, hilly grassland.
I can say this is quite effective, as it is easy to handle and doesn’t require a lot of steps.

I will surely put this into consideration, thank you for your help as well!

[Aotrou (Shawn)]

I mean, it takes time but it is possible, it just takes a lot of practice. I used the plugin Studio Build Suite to make the terrain in the builds below:

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Basically it’s a game of hiding edges and using the SelectEdge tool to rotate parts along edges. Once you get it down it’s fairly easy to make

[Wishtap]

Woah, I really like the terrain. Nicely done

[Urbanize]

Stravant’s Gapfill plugin is the easiest way to achieve what you’re going for.

[NeverTrustBob]

I would say use Stravant’s resize align to achieve the same thing without needing to add more parts into workspace.

[Urbanize]

Nah, they don’t do the same thing at all.
You won’t be able to achieve more complex terrain with resize align. Plus, need to place the brick and then align it takes a lot more time than using gapfill.

[NeverTrustBob]

The gaps in his terrain would be fixed using resize align though. And how is using resize align any more time consuming? He should use both in combination using gap fill works for any of these issues but it also adds a part in some case resize align will do the job without adding the part.

[Urbanize]

The gaps would never be fixed using resize align as the edges are not parallel. Here’s what I mean:

In order to use resiize align like this you’d have to manually ensure all edges you want to align are parallel, hence why it would take longer.

As for gapfill, it fills the space seamlessly, creating perfectly smooth terrain.
Yes, it does use an extra part. However, if minimising part count is your primary concern then using this terrain method is a mistake to begin with.

[NeverTrustBob]

I understand that concept that in those situations it will not work for resize which is why gapfill is needed.

[Skysm]

Hey!
Blood and Iron was made with triangle terrain, it’s wedges lined up btw.
So SBS and qCmdUtl are the build plugins that let you select an edge and rotate on that, as shown below

To speed that kind of progress up, you can sometimes use Archimedes instead,

If you have a declining part, as you would have on a beach, there might be issues when you try to connect two parts when there’s over 90degrees between them (like at the end of the video)

And Urbanize showed what’s the problem there.

So really, use triangle if you want to have a blocky terrain, I recommend this

Atrazine's Terrain Plugin V2