Heya! I have mastered almost every single skill on roblox which includes scription, ui design, graphic design, animation, modelling and a few more except composing. With all these skills I still lack one single important skill of building. I absolutely suck at it! I do not know how to build. By how to build I mean what can go there to fill the empty spaces and how can I add more detail to this and what should the borders be.
So, TL;DR here are my questions on how I can improve my building:
How do I add borders to map and what borders suits the best? (The most vital question here. I struggle to add borders. By borders I mean if I have a map then what should I put to prevent the players from going outside the map? And how? Should I just build a lot and then add some borders? or something else?)
How can I add details to my builds? (As in make something pop more.)
How can I fill empty spaces and with what? (Like if I have a build and there is some space left, then what can I put there, or what kind of props should I put there? In all contexts.)
How can I make a build look nice? (As in if I make a simple house, how can I make it look better?)
Your map seems to be a city or town. Buildings make a good barrier, and you can add invisible parts surrounding the map to make sure there’s no gaps you missed.
This is mainly a stylistic choice; in your case I would look up real-world examples of the settings you want and take elements from them to make in Roblox. In my experience, breaking up large areas of the same thing (like the big concrete wall you have) with interspersed smaller stuff (like maybe a texture or supporting pillar) can help.
Similar to above. Some general tips I recommend are, for example, to gradually build outwards rather than creating a big space at the beginning and trying to figure out how to throw stuff into it. Also, your map seems to have a shipping container yard of some kind, so I would add stuff that would be in the shipping containers (boxes, crates, various goods) scattered throughout the place.
Over time in my experience I have just gotten more okay with spending a lot of time on something tiny. Taking time to inset windows instead of just putting parts on the outside of a building, adding little balconies to my buildings instead of having them be cubes, etc. So my general tips here are to add contrast, add detail, and add interest or something to catch your eye.
Mainly down to personal preference. Part terrain looks simpler but is also considerably easier to work with. However with voxel terrain you get more detail and realism.
Finally, I would consider working on your background. Adding buildings and trees that you can see from inside the map but are outside is a good way to make your map more immersive. You don’t have to put as much detail into them. The goal is to make your map seem like just one part of a much wider world.
Hmm, so should I put trees in the place where I put the large wall? I think that would look better. I am adding details like I added some boxes, ladders and some planks to connect different places together and just random scattering it. I’ll model a trash can and add it as well. I have some balcony like areas in the main map area so I’ll try to make them. And the buildings are the hardest part here (the outer ones). I’ll try to take inspiration from some random building and try replicating it.
How though? Can you explain this part a bit more in depth?
I think trees and a fence would look nice here, yeah.
I was mainly giving advice for future maps in the first part of that quote; it’s easy to overwhelm yourself with trying to fill a large area, so building small parts and expanding only as you need to from there is what helps me make maps without a lot of empty space.
As for the second part of the quote, there are many shipping containers around your map. So I thought it’d be good decoration and space-filler to model and scatter about the cargo and goods that would go in those shipping containers. Pallets would work well like the ones shown below:
Random other bit of advice I thought of: lighting can be a major part of making a good scene. I would maybe suggest adding some sources of light to draw attention or put focus on a path or goal, or just in general to add some interest/detail/contrast. Could be from car headlights, portable worklights, etc.
Hope this advice was a little useful - sorry I’m a bit vague sometimes lol
