Hello once again, beautiful people of Roblox! I’ve returned with another step-by-step tutorial, this time discussing how to lay out and design a simple house! Thanks again for the support on the previous tutorial for designing maps. If you missed it, you can find it here: Ruski’s Tutorial #1 - How to design your maps layout or for my guide on sound and audio, click HERE.
What makes a good house?
They say home is where the heart is… Well they’re wrong! Home is where you can easily access the bathroom, kitchen, and bedroom without having to go through a maze of corridors! Seriously, though.
First things first, we need to come up with a floor plan. I highly recommend searching for some on the web. There’s plenty of free-to-use floor drafts and plans around the internet. One site that I like to use in particular is Floorplans.com.
Here’s a few things to consider before choosing a layout:
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How big is the house/building?
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How many players should be able to comfortably fit in the house at once?
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Will this floor plan fit the shape of the lot, or will it make the exterior look funny?
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Will the props/furniture I plan to use be a suitable size for the room(s)?
Whether you’re following a floor plan you found, or one you sketched out, let’s continue! For this tutorial we’ll be going off of this floor plan:
Getting Started
Let’s get settled in with the basics. The first step is laying out sizes. I don’t care what anyone says–size does matter. I like to keep the walls .7 studs thick. I also like to keep it an average height that matches about the height of a characters bellybutton. I use Bob-Chan as a height reference for all my doorways and windows.
Now we can move on to the actual building part. WOO! Let’s start by tracing out some rooms, our doorways (RED), and our windows (BLUE).
Once we’re satisfied with the floor plan and room sizes, we can start building up our walls. Make sure that the player has room to move the camera freely (not having a very low ceiling). Depending on the complexity of your house, it’s nice to have areas with vaulted ceilings.
I like to use this time period to add a little frame around the windows and have them extend out a bit. It adds a nice touch of contrast to the flat walls.
Getting into the Details
Now here’s where the real fun starts. If you’re wishing to go for a bit of extra detail without going overkill on part count, just a little bit of baseboard & some wall color can go a long way. I like to place a veryyy thin part along the inside of the walls, that way I can color rooms individually to give them each a bit of personality. Putting a baseboard (or top board if you wanna get real funky) can also help break up the ground and wall nicely.
I mean, while we’re at it, why don’t we do the same for the floor? Then we can texture each room according to its theme.
From here we can begin working on the exterior. I could go very deep into the topic of exterior design, but I’m trying to keep this short and to the point. Feel free to experiment with your own style, using your creative brain will set your house apart from the rest! Once again, finding reference images will be your best friend for coming up with ideas.
For this house, I am going to do a small deck and a simple sloped roof, similar to the reference photo bellow.
I like to overhang the roof slope about 1 or 2 studs over, then the shingle layer on it another 1 stud over that. This adds a more realistic overhang style as seen in most modern North American homes.
From here, you can leave it flat and plain, or do as I do below and make a wood shake pattern on the walls (this works great on the roof too!). I adjust the sizes and make sure the lineups are offset, and toss a small rotation on each one to give them more originality and less of a copy/paste feel (remember: real life is random!) Adjusting the color of the shakes also helps it stand out.
The same concept can be used on the walls, but I did it at a single rotation and in long strips to reflect modern vinyl siding.
Conclusion
So here we are at the end of this quick and simple tutorial. Here are the key takeaways:
- Plan your layout. It helps to draw it out or have a pre-existing template to look at
- Use characters for scale and reference
- Plan ahead as to what’s going in the building so you’re not making it too large or too small
- Small details do matter, don’t be afraid to try new styles
Overall, have fun with designing homes. This was more or less just a tutorial to show that planning is essential. Without a good plan, everything falls apart. If you have any questions, feel free to leave them bellow. I’ll add onto this topic later on when it’s not 2:49am on a work night….
Thanks again for the support. if you have a suggestion on the next tutorial then leave it down below, I’d be happy to make another.
Stay Cheeky,
Trustmeimrussian
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