How to create an Over World map like the one used in MILF City

[redandblack]

I've been programming in Renpy for a few years, and I also been rendering in Daz3d for a few years and I was thinking of starting my own game. I know how to program an over world map as I have in test games I've created just for myself. However, I was using other resources like the over world map of The Sims, so I never created my own map.

Does anybody know how do you create am over world map like the ones in MILF City? I cannot find any type of Daz3d software to do it. Like a map where you have houses, and building to travel to. Is there software I can do that and use commercially?

Sure I could just do a shortcut of a plain screen with text, but that kills the immersion. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks guys!

 

[DiviDreamer]

This is easiest part of game making, get or make buildings models in blender
render them and make cool looking map using editor of your choice,
i prefer adobe ae, make overlay for each building and imagebutton or hotspot in map screen,
that's all, how to use imagebutton and jump to location you must know according your few years programming experience.

 

[redandblack]

Ok so I've never used Blender, at least recently. I used it like 15 years ago. So I'll check that out. Imagebutton and hotspots I'm good with. Done tons of those, but I've never build a navigational map of buildings and land images art wise. I'm a horrible artist outside of Daz3d. Thanks for your help I'll check out Blender and see what I can do.

 

[lobotomist]

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this might help

 

[DiviDreamer]

Thanks for your help I'll check out Blender and see what I can do.

Not just Blender will do, 3d max, Cinema 4d, Maya can render beautiful buildings models if you good with 3d modeling.
Also you can train with real photo building lets say aerial view of house, use come cartoon filter or something, crop it and make png with alpha channel, and you can use it on your map now.

 

[redandblack]

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this might help

I appreciate the help, but I already know how to program code to navigate a map, I just don't know how to create the actual map from at artistic point of view. The map itself. Thanks though.

 

[lobotomist]

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you could use these also

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this is free for the month you could import sinty assets and these into unreal and render a map

keywor here is "isometric rendering". there are tutorials on youtube, at least for blender.

im on mobile so its a pain to post links but a channel called gamefromscratch has a tutorial on exporting complete scenes from unreal also on isometric rendering.

 

[caLTD]

Buy cities skylines from Steam.
There was tons of populated cities or build nice one by yourself.

Take screenshot. Bingo you got very detailed city map

 

[DiviDreamer]

Buy cities skylines from Steam.
There was tons of populated cities or build nice one by yourself.

Take screenshot. Bingo you got very detailed city map

Please don't
I saw dozens games that was made same way and all of them looks ugly, just circle to jump in over large area that include
huge neighborhood, lets say your story have church, mall and mc house
in one tight area how you make it?
Imo you have to control your map objects and they have to be recognizable and logical,
the best example you may find in summertime saga map.

 

[WhitePhantom]

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I haven't used any of these, but they're what I found when I was looking at making a similar style map myself.

 

[caLTD]

Please don't
I saw dozens games that was made same way and all of them looks ugly, just circle to jump in over large area that include
huge neighborhood, lets say your story have church, mall and mc house
in one tight area how you make it?
Imo you have to control your map objects and they have to be recognizable and logical,
the best example you may find in summertime saga map.

Cities skylines best city renderer entire known universe. This map was one of my test runs. It has everything you mention it and plus many more and it wasn't optimized.

And if you had 4k monitor you can put much more things.

Biggest problem is, populated cities using lots of community objects which hard to download and use it. Best way is creating own city which takes time.

 

[DiviDreamer]

Cities skylines best city renderer entire known universe. This map was one of my test runs. It has everything you mention it and plus many more and it wasn't optimized.

I must agree, it looks good, but still not perfect
i mean its break immersion and game quality, for example by story you need to go to coffee-shop
so lets pretend that small square building is coffee-shop.

 

[hiya02]

Perhaps you could make something more original than the overused, regular aerial views of some generic town?

 

[caLTD]

I must agree, it looks good, but still not perfect
i mean its break immersion and game quality, for example by story you need to go to coffee-shop
so lets pretend that small square building is coffee-shop.

It's all about how much time you want to invest it.

This shot was taken after 1 or 2 hours of trying. It was GTA V clone map, with some customization.


It was a rainy day and time is wrong. Also CS has lots of addons for better looking. Also if you download all dlc's you can access much better populated maps.

And most of maps need some tweaks. Nearly Every map creator following USA zoning system so, your suburban neighborhood does not have lots of facilities near by. You have to generate manually, a decent city with enough population was enough add unlimited money plugin then generate your dream map.

Also you have to find correct camera angle and zoom to capture better

And trust me, spent too many time to create better maps. Full 3d map, stylized map etc. At end of the day if you are indie developer like me and after 3d map.

Best option was Cities Skylines.

PS: Also there where a super screenshot plugin it takes very large screenshots, so you can create oversize maps which can work mouse sliding

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[DiviDreamer]

This shot was taken after 1 or 2 hours of trying. It was a GTA V clone map, with some customization.

Yup, that looks nice, I agree that it all depends on how much time you going to invest in map.
If you have time and resources it's better to make map the best or one of the best screen in the game, this is a place where players will return all the time and it will present game quality.

 

[redandblack]

I appreciate all of the replies I really do. The option of using CitySkylines and GTA V sound very appealing, however I would rather stay away from using other copywrite material from other games. I'm going to check out the software WhitePhantom recommended and also I am thinking of creative ways to have a unique map as hiya02 suggested. I do have one idea in mind. Again thank you, all of this is very helpful. Any more suggestions would still be appreciated. Also think I may start off with a smaller game to get my feet wet. Still deciding.

 

[ReiCaixa]

I'd say maybe that route wouldn't be the best for Open World VNs,
BUT

I like the idea of using Cities Skylines, and even The Sims 3 to make larger scale worlds EXACTLY how I want it.
Not only that, but I'm often using Elite Dangerous pictures to create stories in space.

I'm using Cities Skylines Seaside Resorts to make a small island, mostly for context in the story

This route works better if all you want is to show the map for cinematic purpose, not for the players to interact too much with it.
But of course, just make sure you're allowed to use the footage from the games you want for commercial use.
Other than that, I applaud the creative usage of Cities Skylines and others to create context and make the world feel alive.