intro
This article for beginners that want to get building to the next level, if you are already experienced you could learn some new things. This article may seem a huge, but I know that it will help you after you have read it. So, Let’s dive right into it 
Start
So first, when you want to make a map you should choose the game you want to make a map for. Normally people begin to make maps for games they like. And that is okay. But I would recommend you to think about it a bit more. Some people are better at making small maps and others like to do big maps. So, it’s your choice . Read the full article before you make the map.
Planning and theme of choice
When you have a game, you need to plan out what you want build. We would recommend that you sketch the map before you start to building it. Not the whole map and every single detail, but a basic sketch of what you are going to build.
Theme
It’s always hard to pick a theme, but here’s a list of themes you could use:
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Ice
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Cave
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Forest
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candylands
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sci-fi
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lava
etc…
But what if all these themes are already taken. Well then you could mix them. Sci-Fi sky islands, or jungle cave. The possibilities are endless. You can come up with your own theme. When u pick themes, you need to think about it twice, because if you choose something that is impossible for you to build or if you don’t like what you have built, the map won’t be as good as it could be, and you will not like the final product yourself.
Let’s say u made a boring grass map and you don’t want to remake it totally. In a map, colors and materials are very important elements, so you could think about changing those, because it would make the map unique. For an example instead of having green grass as the ground, you could have green mystical grass or anything else. The only thing that matters is that you like the map yourself. A good thing to do is also to get inspiration from the internet. It doesn’t have to be ROBLOX, it can also be from the real world and other games.
When planning a map your best friends are pencils, paper and imagination (well and google too😉)
Building
Start
There is different building methods and different ways to start up. Some people plan everything out before they start building, some people find out what their map will look like along the way. If you are new, we would recommend that you plan everything before doing it. A helpful method is to place small parts around on the baseplate where you want to create buildings or trees or paths and such. Another thing that all good builders do is that they make an asset for their map (it doesn’t work on all maps but on the most).
For example, you are making a forest. What does a forest contain? Pine Trees, Normal Trees, Stones, Flowers, Grass and maybe some lanterns. If you don’t want to create every single one of them, you can make them as models, so you only have to make them once. If they are looking too much like each other when you paste the models around the map, you can change the size, the rotation and colors. This way, there will be a lot of variation to the game although it is almost the same. But always remember to have unique models on your map. After you have placed all the simple things, you need to build the unique parts. You always need to build something that stands out.
Example of an Asset :
Here is an example of a map with a unique building is marked with red and the asset is marked with blue ignore the bad lighting
Detailing
When you think something is blank, then it needs some detail. Details can be many different things. It can be stripes, circles and many other things. I would say detailing is the second most important part of making a map. It’s hard to explain how to make things more detailed. The best thing I can do is that I can come with some examples.
Also note that the amount of details you have on the map will have an impact on the gameplay. If you have a lot of details on a small map, everything should be good, but if you start throwing a lot of them onto a big map, you game is LIKELY to crash. So always think twice about how big the map is and how much detail you want.
That doesn’t mean that u can have unlimited detail on a small thing. There is a thing called over-detailing. You should always keep your creation balanced
Also remember not to overdetail or use too much neon. It can be hard for the players to look at Ove detailed things, their eyes get tired. So just keep that in mind. Examples:
And now an example of overdetailing
Depth
Also when you check out your map you should also look out if there is enough depth. If you just make a flat wall without anything that pops out or in, then the wall feels bit boring. So always implement depth to your map
Here is an example:
Lighting
The lighting is an important part of every map. To get good lighting you need to work with the light properties. Firstly, you need to choose what time of the day you want the map to be or if it’s outdoors or indoors. You can change the time of the day in the settings. An important thing with the lighting settings is ambient. It’s basically the color of the lighting. Then you can mess around with the properties and get cool lighting. There are also different lighting modes. Shadow map, Voxel and other, but we are not experts in lighting, so the best thing we can recommend you is to try it out yourself. Mess around with the properties and find the best combination for your map.
Gameplay
Gameplay is the most important thing on a map. The map can be ugly, but if the gameplay is good, then people will play it. There is so many games that don’t look good, but people play it because the gameplay is good. When you are creating fx a parkour map, and you think you have reached a checkpoint, you can always make a game test with your friends to see if the game is enjoyable to play. If it’s not, you can change something in it, and the gameplay might be better.
Feedback is the key component to see if the gameplay is good.
Plugins
Plugins make it easier to make maps. Plugins are user made tools that can help with all sorts of stuff. I will recommend some plugins here that I find useful:
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Gap fill – You can use the plugin to fill in gaps. It is really hard to fill them up with parts and get them precisely lined up, and this is the plugin to use.
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F3X tool – this tool has many different functions. We like the scaling in this tool, because it makes you able to scale something a lot easier than normally.
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Build V4 – this tool also has a lot of function, but we mostly us it for making terrain.
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Then there is z fighting plugin that fixes z- fighting.
I’ll send links to them here:Stravant - GapFill & Extrude - Roblox ; Building Tools by F3X (Plugin) - Roblox ; Build v4 - Roblox ; Z-Fighting Wrench - Roblox
There is also a lot of other useful plugins, but this is our 4 favorite plugins, that we often use when making maps.
Color Pallet
The color pallet is a thing that you need to think about before you build, because it’s a pain to change the color of everything when you are done. The color pallet should always be really simple, something like 3-5 colors. If you want to use more colors, you can always use the same color just in different tones. If you are not sure with your color pallet, here is a trick from us. Take a picture of the map and then blur it in photoshop or add the blur post processing effect on your map. When the picture is blurred you should see that all the colors blend into one good color. If it does that, then the color pallet is good. We use that trick often, when people say our maps have too many colors. Another trick is that you can desaturate some bright colors. The reason for not using saturated colors is that the people playing can get distracted and annoyed by too bright colors. The colors are a really important thing and you should always think about it. Here is good color pallet compared to bad color pallet
Here is map good blur
Particles
Particles is not an important thing, but it adds some detail to the map. When you make a waterfall, you could make particles at the bottom to make it look that the water falls down and creates bubbles. If you make a snowy map you can make it snow. If you have some wires you can make them release electricity. The possibilities are endless. (We will probably make an article about them). Particles adds some extra detail to your map.
Done!
If you are making the map for someone else, you should always do these things to make sure that the majority of the players will like it:
Feedback
You should always get feedback from the owner of the game, to know if it’s good or bad. What to add, what to remove, what to improve. But what if you can’t contact them? Well then you could simply ask other developers that worked on that game, and if they don`t want to, then you can ask here on dev forum or in a server on discord.
Last touches
Some of the last touches could be fixing bugs or z- fighting. If your map has these things, the chances of the map getting accepted are slightly decreased. It’s not easy for a busy game developer to fix all the bugs and z- fighting’s for you, so to make everything easier for everyone, do it before you send the map.
Pricing 
Do not beg someone to pay you more than they have already done, because that could end up getting the map declined. Some developers do not pay that much, simply because they are greedy, but some think that the idea of making a map is not to earn robux, but the process itself. And I agree with that, but on the other side, robux motivates people to make maps.
Last Words
So, before you say anything like ‘’Uh this is probably an article by some noobs that haven’t done anything on their own”. We can assure you that it’s not the case.Jakubinedotcom has worked on maps that were liked by notable developers.
I hope you enjoyed the articles and you learned something new. If you found it helpful, please give it a heart!! (We worked hard on this). Have a NICE and a NOOT day
Credits to: Jakubinedotcom – for writing the article, VaVgamingXY – for writing the article and setting it up.