How to avoid a "copy & paste" look when creating towns / cities / ...

[YouDoNotKnowMyName]

Good evening everybody!

 

First of all: This is not a "technical" question and there is no "right" answer to this.

 

 

I am currently working on a little custom worldspace that has (among other things) a little town in it.

 

I have already placed all of the "important" or "unique" buildings (I made some custom meshes ...) there, but I have some "problems" with "filling up the empty space" in the town.

What I mean by that is that I want to make the town looks & feel "consistent", but I don't want to make it look like it was "copy & pasted".

 

Maybe the problem here is that I am not really a "creative" person (when it comes to "random stuff" like this), or that I don't really know my way around the CK too well (where to find what static objects).

 

 

If anybody has any advice on this, please let me know here ...

 

 

I kind of feel a bit bad even asking this, because I am sure somebody will say "why would you try to design a custom worldspace if you are not really creative?".

And, to be honest, I have no idea. Sometimes I do things because I like doing most of it, but some parts (like adding "clutter" to interiors or exteriors) is always a bit frustrating.

[Zorkaz]

Depends on how much detail you want and if you have destroyed buildings or not.

I'd say create some new SCOLs and also use Material Swaps.

[taryl80]

Before you build a building you should know for which reason you build it.

 

That always has a primary reason and sometimes a secondary reason. What I mean is, you can build as example a Building in that later a gun merchant stays and that helps you also with cluttering this place, because a gun merchant has probally stay a lot of ammunition and maybe weapons around as example.

 

A secondary reason can be, that you build a building just to let the town look bigger as example, but there you can ask yourself again, for which reason this building exist or what it can be? Maybe a office? Then you can clutter it as such. Or maybe as a privat home for the residents?, ->Then you can clutter it again as something like that.

 

I working currently amongst other things on a big interior that contains around 15+ copy&paste "homes" for people and so I need to do the major difference via cluttering, because no home from someone looks the same as from some other guy.

 

And as you can read from what I have written, -> I am not a native english speaker by myself. So I feel your pain to find specific parts in the ck. Don't know how many time I have already wasted in the ck, just because I was searching something :D.

 

Edit: Also sometimes it is not bad to take a creative break and just play Fallout 4 a bit. So you can get inspiration by walking through the vanilla worldspace.

Edited June 20, 2020 by taryl80

[Zorkaz]

Also check out Concord, Cambridge and such and take the buildings from there. There's quite some variation.

 

Also Parsons Instate Asylum and Salem has nice stuff

[markusm1000]

A little introduction to level design: Fallout 4's Modular Level Design

[YouDoNotKnowMyName]

Thanks for all of the replies, I didn't really expect any actual answers ...

 

 

All of the buildings will be "intact" (the lore behind that is that this is a remote island that was mostly left intact by the war).

And yes, I have already put down all of the "useful" buildings, the ones that have a purpose and interiors, like shops, offices, industrial buildings, warehouses, ...

Now what's left are all of the "homes" and "apartment buildings", the places where nearly all of the people of this town would live.

Only very few of those will have actual interiors, most of them are only going to be "exterior shells" that will make the town look "real".

 

Yes, I think I really need to spend more times in the towns and in the main city when playing FO4 and actively look out for how things were done.

Or spend more time playing FO4 in general.

 

One other thing is that I like to avoid using wooden stuff for exteriors, from a "realism" point of view.

Because wood tends to rot or get moldy in a moist atmosphere (such as close to the sea in a warm climate) and it also burns rather quickly ....

So I personally prefer nice solid concrete or bricks or metal (yes, metal also doesn't like moisture, but there are plenty of "rusted metal" objects in FO4 for me to use :laugh:)

 

And it's not like my non-native-english is a problem when looking for stuff in the CK, but some objects are just really strangely sorted.

For example those industrial concrete exterior things (like the ones at the corvega assembly plant or at warwick homestead) can be found under "Interior -> Industrial -> OuterShell" or something like that, where it would make a lot more sense to have them under "Architecture -> Industrial -> OuterShell" (or something like that).

 

And I also don't really care about "good level design" or things like that ...

I know that this may be silly, but I rather make the stuff look / feel realistic ...

(I know this is stupid, because it is a game after all ...)

 

But I don't want this to turn into a rant about the CK ... :laugh:

Edited June 20, 2020 by YouDoNotKnowMyName

[Zorkaz]

Feel free to use texture from here: https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/43944

[taryl80]

It is a nightmare to build clean houses imo, because they are so hard to fill with stuff, compared to ruined buildings.

 

I mean, in ruined buildings, you can use dirty decals, trash and rubble a lot, but by a real living space for people that living in there, you can't do it, because they would probally clean it up if they have not recently moved in or the building is not completely developed (large skyscrapers as example or brickhouses where people only use specific areas while the rest lays still in ruin).

 

But you know, every living person has a sleeping place + some storage containers to store his values and things. Maybe even a kitchen, toilette, shower, eating place and so on - depending on how "rich" those persons are and where they have settled in. Maybe they have also something for entertainment in it like a radio or a board game and so on.

Edited June 21, 2020 by taryl80

[Zorkaz]

Just make a lot of retexture/material swaps for common objects, like beds and pillows.

 

This ceramic set might help you fill a store: https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/37733

[YouDoNotKnowMyName]

Thanks for all of those resources, one can never have enough of those :laugh:

 

I don't relly have problems with interiors, the exteriors are more problematic for me.

But once the exterior is done, you already have a rough idea of the shape and size of the interior space and where what should be.

And cluttering interiors for something like FO4 is much easier then for Skyrim (the interior of old ruins is a bit "harder" to imagine then modern living spaces, industrial stuff or research labs ... at least for me).

 

Usually when I work on something and get frustrated, I work on some other aspect of that project.

But like I said, I can't really do all of the interior stuff until I have done the exterior.

Because I would very much like to avoid the whole "bigger on the inside then on the outside" - thing. Or that the windows don't line up (for example: 3 windows on the "exterior" but only 2 on the "interior").

Those are things that really "trigger" me and "break immersion" for me. (Skyrim is especially "bad" at this ... )