5 replies to this topic

[marinersfan59]

Park Making
Website Version

So, you're ready to make parks. Try some of these tips to work your way up to the skills of the Gods of RCT2. Some of these tips and tricks apply to beginners, others apply to the developing parkmakers. Everyone can gain something from these tutorials.

There are an infinite number of themes that you can go for. The easiest (in my experience, and many others of whom I've helped) style to start off is the "Forested Theme." It doesn't involve as much architecture, and gives more room to work with the coasters and small rides.

Most parks aren't made of just rollercoasters. Use a wide variety of flat rides, and try to make them suit a wide variety of guests. Of all the parks that are made, the best ones give everyone something to do.

If you're going for a realistic theme park that's just like any other one that exists, don't forget about the non-ride attractions. There are restaurants, games, and shows. Try to incorporate these attractions into your parks along with the rides.

Avoid single-width paths as much as possible. This is very bad-looking for parks. Try to stick to double, or even triple wide paths as much as you can, in order to give the park a more spaced-apart feeling.

Dont make your paths one size through the whole park, make it varied, add little covered 2x1 seating areas around a coaster or any other major ride like that or anywhere for that matter and if you keep one size through the whole park it might take away from your theme and space, but do stay away from single wide as much as possible, it looks odd.

Don't overcrowd your parks with archy. Sure, most parks have areas with facades that seem to go on forever, but overall there is a lot more landscaping than architecture in real-life theme parks.

Don't make a huge park if you're just starting out. Stick to a map under 50x50. Even veterans do maps around that size from time to time. I even just participated in a 20x20 MAX competition this week.

Trees, bushes, and water are your friends. Use them in various places to break up rides, buildings, and sometimes even sections. Island areas tend to be visually appealing if done correctly.

dont take all the really tall and cool looking trees and use them, use what fits the theme, don't put the Cypress trees all over your Tropical Island, dont put palm trees in your forest etc... use logic and you should be good, also make it like a mountain not a volcano or random field, tall trees in the middle and slope down, but dont make it look like you made a pyramid that is just silly, if you have a huge path say an entrance and you dont want a centerpiece building or fountain, some people just put a patch of foliage in there, if you are doing this (tips for surrounded by path only) put your tall and fat trees on the inside then put the medium full tile trees around that big tree (not limited to just one middle tree) then the small 1/4 trees and shrubs then flowers around the edge of the path. if you are doing a mountain dont put tall trees around them, the closer to the ground the bigger your trees can be, put one or two shrubs on the peak of the mountain.
Logic works best for Foliage.

Edited by marinersfan59, 05 January 2006 - 01:35 AM.

[marinersfan59]

Don't steal other people's designs. You can use them for inspiration, but always add you're own style to things. Parks are supposed to be your creations, so make them uniquely yours by creating your own style.

Just a little bit of history about this site, there was a person who went by rct2_lover here and he posted a screen of another persons park in his topic saying it was his, while it was a joke not everybody knew that, later he was banned for this act. just a little bit of info for you if you are thinking of this

Build for yourself. The most important thing about creating parks is to make yourself happy. I couldn't imagine if I spent a few months on a park, and had to release it when I don't like how it came out.

When you advertise your creations, listen to other people's ideas, and see if you can use their input to make your park better.

Another thing to do is if you dont feel the advice is a good idea or you have done something you like in the place of what they said or something that the community hasnt seen from you say a screen of a coasters themeing
Don't make a fight out of it, just kindly answer the advice with something like thanks for the comment but that isnt what i am going for or something along those lines, many times i have seen people here leave the community because they didnt like the advice of another person, people are entitled to their opinions and not everybody is going to like them.

The best scenario to start your park in is a custom scenario. Make sure that you select the objects that you know you will use. I work in the scenario editor until the last possible second before switching to park building mode. This way, I can add more objects as they become needed, and I don't have my folders filled with things that I might not use.

Custom objects help infinitly. If you're up for a difficult challenge, go with only pre-made objects, but custom objects are made for custom designs, and are extremly valuable.

[marinersfan59]

The entrance is one of the most important parts of a park, do not overlook it.

My tip is to save your parks alot, especilaly if you hack, if you are gona hack save the game right befor you do, you can't save games to much so save your parks!

And another thing I usually do is if I make a huge hit park, after I beat it I sometimes continue to play it. After a while the paths get disgusting, there is alot of vandalism and things you need to re-do. I usually use 8cars to close the park, then get rid of all the guests and fix the park up. I get all my handymen and mechanics to fix rides and sweep paths. I sometimes go in manually with the land tool and mow grass. This gives you the chance to freshen your park and give it that extra "umph". Redoing scenery and rides is very helpful

Always listen to critism and check out other peoples work for ideas to borrow/modify/improvement. If you see something that looks cool take a close look to see how they've done it. Take it apart if you have to (hey, you should have the park saved), but then you have a new technique that you could possibly use in your own parks.

eh I wouldnt go as far to say borrow. just use other parks for inspiration. but seeing how they did it usually does help, otherwise your stuff wont look nearly as nice.

Look at other people's parks. Something may inspire you to create something entirely unique, go where no designer has gone before. Experement, try ideas that you haven't seen elsewhere. The bad invention is the one that didn't get created in the first place. I don't know how many times I sat down to design a coaster and not be satisfied with the initial prototype. The thing to do is not just delkete it, but make improvements until it's perfect.

If you have a certain theme in your park, try to keep that theme without being too repetetive, or too random. For example, nobody wants a park with all 1/4 tile blocks, or all one color. Keep the textures and building pieces different, and use a variety of different colors to make your park unique while keeping the theme.

When I first came to this site I looked at the vacation parks. This is when I learned that parks could be made just for show, and not just to make a profit from guests. It gave me a whole new reason to play the game.

Edited by marinersfan59, 12 August 2005 - 06:10 AM.

[marinersfan59]

Pick your objects carefully. Try to pick objects you actually will use, not ones that you will likely just use once (unless it is a ride). Also don't pick two pieces that are practically the same (I'm not talking about roofs or walls), I'm talking about avoiding picking the games default waterfall and also including all of Cougers water features. Also try to find versatile objects. Also realize you might be able to avoid picking the biggest walls if you are going to pick the smaller ones too (but do realize that on the biggest parks you have a chance of meeting the objects used limit and that having the larger ones and smaller ones could help fight this). The most important thing in choosing objects is to make sure that you do it one by one instead of by groups because when you use groups you are bound to find something you will not want that is included in that group.

If you pick all your scenery-items piece by piece, a lot of them will come into the 'miscellaneous' tab. This tab will be full before you want it, meaning you cannot choose anymore scenery objects.unless they can still be represented in one of the other tabs that are not yet full. For me it works far and far better to choose as many theming groups as possible, in the following way: first I try to decide which groups give the most of the objects that I do want. I choose the first one and delete everything out of it that I don't want. Then the second etc., untill I have used all 19 groups that are allowed. The rest of the scenery then I pick by hand, which comes in the walls/fences, the trees or the miscellaneous. The advantage is that in this way I can still put the utmost in the 'miscellaneous' tab, which would otherwise already be filled up by objects that are now in one of the scenery groups.
This all does not save you any work, 'cause you are still choosing and deciding on every scenerey object piece by piece, but it gives the opportunity too choose as many pieces as possible (which still never is enough!).

just to carry on the theme of choosing scenery (since it is the first and one very important step). What I do when choosing objects is go in and take out all the stuff I KNOW I will not use, this being before i have chosen any tabs, then when i have taken out all the objects i know i wont use..i go in and pick out my tabs (NOTE: you can only get the entertainers if you get the matching tab so the bandit and sheriff are only available if you have the wild west tab, and space man if you have the space tab. Then once i have all the tabs I go through again and take out the stuff I wont use AGAIN. Sometimes they are in the tab and thus come back, then once i have all the tabbed objects I want I go through and choose the misc. objects I want, then choose paths, and benches and such.

Coasters and other track based rides need two thinges to be good. First, and most importantly, they need to fit the theme of the area they're in. Second, they need to interact with the landscape somehow. And the landscape doesn't only mean the land itself, it means foliage and water as well.

And custom supports (good custom supports) never hurt and can be a great way to add multiple colors to your ride or make it fit better with the themes of your park.

[marinersfan59]

This topic was remodeled on August 12, 2005 at around 1:00 AM (Central Time) as part of the major upgrades being done. It's now easier to see who provided which tips for this tutorial, and is also more spread out, making it easier to read.

Edited by marinersfan59, 12 August 2005 - 06:23 AM.

[ZeRoSkIlL]

Thanks Marinersfan! Alot of these tips are useful!