How do I approach making a terrain build?

Help and Feedback Building Support
#1

Hello, a few weeks back, I was making my first showcase based on Ocean Beach in San Francisco, CA, USA. The purpose of this showcase was to take people back when they could still go outside and take a walk on a beach. (ignore the palm trees and the rocks they’re gone now, along with some other adjustments)

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At where I was at that moment, I wasn’t satisfied. I spent most of the time making the sea wall, but the terrain did not have the exact expansive feel that I wanted. I tried stretching the beachside to real-life scale, (1 stud = 1 foot?) but once I was in-game I could barely see the horizon of the ocean. So then, I moved on to another detail which was the sand texture. It didn’t have a realistic feel. So, I hopped on Roblox Studio to test out the PBR textures, with little success.

The real problem is how to get any progress done without feeling stuck. I’m the kind of person that wants to get things right the first time, but I know with my experience it won’t be the case. (and it should never be) So, I turned to this forum for help. I don’t know if I can keep going without feeling burnt out or dissatisfied every time I try to put some kind of detail to it.

Is it even worth making realistic terrain builds at this point in Roblox? Should I be creating original environments instead of recreating them? All I’ve dreamed about recreating tons of stuff on Roblox from cartoons and all that, but when it comes to original ideas, heh, good luck with that one.

How can you consistently build on something, without having to pull hairs on how bad it looks at the start? (especially working with terrain) Do you guys schedule times when you build? How do you make progress that feels rewarding? I’ve been reluctant to pick up this project, and I could just wait until all my school work is cleared. But, I would miss out on learning new things while building. I really want to become a good builder and create all this awesome stuff.

Sorry for the mess of a post, but I hope you can make some sense out of it, and feedback is greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading.

p.s. I should really learn how to make models on Blender. Unions su-[content deleted]

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#2

I know it may feel really counterintuitive to what I’m about to tell you and this method may not work for you at all. However I wanted to share my approach with you to possibly get you out of this feeling since I always get this whenever I work on a huge slate of terrain.

I always try to work in small sections, whenever they’re seperated or not. I first like to create nice detailed areas of smooth terrain and then move onto the next part and then connect them together. I usually like my approach because I already understand what I want to go where in my head and it generally works for me.

As to replication of real places to roblox, just don’t limit yourself to what exists in that location to your build, you have to take compromises to make certain things feel right in roblox when it looks off when translated directly from that place.

Hope this somewhat helps.

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