[Solo Builder] Any open source materials available apart from roblox default and how do I get motivated as a solo builder/developer?

:slight_smile:
As I’m continuous trying to make cities replicating real life cities and made up cities from other games it just seems hard to get things together, when I do finish with something I’m actually impressed but how am I properly gonna get motivated as a solo developer to build a city, I see how those builders saying they can make things under a day for example small cities sure I can make one in a day but like what if I’m going all out for a town around 5-10 blocks.
Motivation is the first thing I need help with.

~ Second of all is there any open source realistic textures for my roads and sidewalks?

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Being a solo developer can be either an advantage or a disadvantage as there are a lot of factors that affect this kind of environment. To address your first issue pulling things together, you have to do a lot of planning when coming up with something :confused:, although impromptu development can be exciting, you’ll easily run into “what’s next” thoughts as you are unsure of what you’re even doing. You have to write things down with proper schematics of your city, details etc. What buildings will have interiors? Where will Players spawn? Where will they live? Etc. You should check out @LuckyTux’s post on breaking development fatigue, it has pretty interesting responses and will surely help you :wink:

Regarding your question on textures about roads and sidewalks, why would you need textures for these things? I personally do not favour texturing roads because it can be done with parts, unions and a little mind power, the same goes for the sidewalk. I’m pretty sure there are developers who favour textures over parts, but it really depends on how far you want to take the details of these builds.

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As someone who favors textures to parts in my building style, I know a good source of textures is textures.com and sketchuptextureclub.com, both have good licensing for game dev and a good assortment.

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6e4


I think your ping completely missed the topic of conversation. Although I appreciate the reference, I don’t believe that post is necessarily important to what his question was.

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Treat it as a hobby, map building takes time and large scale creations especially so. I’d suggest trying many new things as you go along with the build, be creative and different. Make a bridge, or a different styled building. Trying new things can help maintain motivation to continue and avoids it getting too repetitive and boring. Rome wasn’t built in a day, but it was eventually built. Things just take time but they can pay off massively!

I find it very rewarding to sit back and look at what you’ve created, maybe drive around the city and enjoy it.

Some advice for actually building is creating a system. Understanding the style and details you’re using can make it a lot easier when creating each building. You can start with a shape and detail it to how you’ve decided with the others, which is also helpful for consistency and speeds up the process, less thinking time on window frames, doors or etc. Generating your own asset packs for stock window sizes or doorways makes it so much simpler whenever a structure requires those.

Final word of advice is to look around for new ideas and note stuff down whenever you think of anything. Finding inspiration and wanting to create your own version is a great way to keep progressing with a map. Sometimes I’ll see a bunker and be amazed and want my own, for example.

Keep at it and you won’t regret it, best of luck with the city!

To answer your second question, being a solo developer has some advantages but quite some disadvantages as well, you’ll be able to keep all kinds of profits for yourself which is quite nice, to be honest that’s the one advantage I know of.

The list of disadvantages is relatively bigger, you’ll have to do all work yourself, you most likely have to finance everything yourself and you will get bored easily because there aren’t anyone else to take some of the load off of your back.

So yeah to be honest I’m still looking for motivation, but if you get some kind of a fanbase that gives some motivation, and treat it as a hobby and work on it when you feel like it.

I can understand where you come from as I have been in a similar situation myself although I find I am most motivated is when I am working alone whilst also, not making paid commissions. While I cannot bring myself to be motivated enough to work with someone else or, to build a project which I was uninterested in the first place. What I find most motivating is what [my] ideal creation should be and you stated that you’d like to

meaning that is the source of your motivation. You will need to dig deeper to understand what motivates you while if questioning work-efficiency with other users. Your problem might not be motivation but coming up with ideas and adapt to strategies that can quicken the development although that is a borderline to being motivated. I deeply suggest drawing, googling builds, playing multiple city format games but while if you cannot concentrate: music, breaks, food & drinks might be a way to resolve the problem.

I am currently building a large-scale building(s) and my problem is getting things together but not in context of being motivated as I’ve spent days drawing up concepts, googling, modelling, walking around my area, photographs but it is connecting the building that makes it seem real.

Moving away before I go off topic, I do want to point out the positives of being a sole-developer as from my perspective your opinion of being a sole-developer is difficult for you which for many others they’ll agree. Although being a sole-developer offers more flexibility to your freedom as you will have control and time. Time is another positive because while team of developers may work faster – they often have a set date which sole-developers have in the past kept adding on without feeling forced and is fuelled by a system of crowd-funding. The only advice I can give to you as a sole developer is to go at your own pace. Number of times while developing I like to vision perfect buildings but I would often try to take as much time possible to make everything perfect.

As a former reply said, Tux’s post is very helpful.
https://devforum.roblox.com/t/breaking-development-fatigue/207883

As a builder, sometimes I do meet barriers of motivation while building, but then I look back at why I’m building, and why I started building whatever it is I am building.

Most of the time when I lose motivation, it’s because I don’t know what to build, or I think my build looks bad. If you ever have this happen to you, don’t be afraid to look at pictures. Also never be afraid to restart a portion of a build.

Lastly, breaks are very important. If you smack these walls of demotivation, hop off the computer and do something fun outside of computer time. Clear the mind.

Also please do watch your language since this is a public thread.

Hope this helped. Good luck!

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