Hills in City Designer 3?

Gandwarf · September 2008

I want to do a town that is located on a hill. The top contains some stone houses and is surrounded by a small stone wall. The slopes are covered in thatched houses. Now, I am at a loss how to properly do the hill... any help or tips would be greatly appreciated.

Wizard_Thoarin · September 2008

Since most towns and cities are at a small scale (feet or meters instead of miles or kilometers) and you want to place lots of small buildings on them, contour lines would probably be best. You can even go old school CC1/CC2 and fill the contoured areas with different colors ranging from shades of green for low level altitude to shades of brown for high level altitude. You should also decide on how big of an elevation change happens at each contour line, is it 10 feet per contour line or something bigger (25 feet, 50 feet, 100 feet, or 1000 feet). Contour lines placed close together represent steep terrain or cliffs if they touch while contour lines placed far apart represent gentle slopes.

Monsen · September 2008

If you own the 2007 annual, the May issue may be of interest. It contains a city on a hill. Even if you don't, the pictures on that page (and in the gallery section for that annual) may be inspiring.

Greebo · September 2008

But in my experience that only works well with the SM:Cities style to which the example from the Annual 2007 May issue belongs.

I tried to achieve something similiar with the new CD3 styles and wasn´t able to come to a acceptable result, yet.

JimP · September 2008

Basically I make a hill out of polygons. Then put the city on top of that.

No need to make it 3D like the SMC Cities tutorial.

Gandwarf · September 2008

Ok, so I haven't tried my hand at that village on the hill map. But I did create a map with a cliff in it and I don't think it turned out that bad.

Bigger version at:

http://195.22.101.210/~emile/ravenburcht1.jpg

Bidmaron · September 2008

I agree. It looks pretty great. Others can give you ideas on sprucing it up, but looks nice.

Gandwarf · September 2008

Thanks.
Tips to spruce things up are always welcome. I learned a lot from this forum and another mapping forum I have been visiting.

Still trying to figure out how to do a hill properly

Patrakis · September 2008

Gandwarf, your style is evolving quite nicely indeed from the first map you posted a few weeks ago. The Layout of the city is great. It feels really alive.

Can you tell me from where you got your trees and your buildings please?

Very interesting map.

Pat

Gandwarf · September 2008

Most of the buildings I made with the "House" tool in CD3. The trees and towers are symbols that are also part of the CD3 package. This map contains absolutely no custom houses or symbols, so you should be able to make something like it yourself.

Dkarr · September 2008

I just saw a map of a town (Wheloon) on this thread.

It uses contour lines to delineate the gentle slope of the town "rising" from the riverbed. Take a look at building #1 (Temple of Mystra) to see how the mapper used lines to show a building on top of a hill.

Hope that helps.

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Hills in City Designer 3?

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