This topic is locked
So then, lets start landscaping:
This is the type of gaps that need landscaping. They are empty and just make your park look incomplete. Is is essential that these gaps are filled in order to make your park feel complete. This peice of land can be scultured in many ways to look natural and realistic. First of all, we will change the terrain height so the boring flat land turns into more intersting flat land.
So we have some different terrain heights. It's a start but still needs work. That picture is very unrealistic. In real life you will never see square chunks coming out of the ground like than. It is realistic to have land popping out like that if you have stones placed on the edges, but since this is landscaping and not themeing we will work on making the landscape more natural. Firstly we need to make it look like a hill or a mound. To do this we will blend the land together.
As you can see that looks much better and the landscaping is starting to take shape. However, it still looks a little un natural for a woodland. In real life woodland doesn't have much grass, so we need to change the terrain type. There should be a small amount of grass, a large amount of dirt/grass and a small amount of dirt. This looks more natural and we are now ready to place some woodland soon.
-----------------------------------
There is more to space filling that just land. Water can have an equally good effect. However, as with the land, more attention needs to be used to make the water feature look more natural.
As you can see, that pond/lake above doesn't look realistic. The only realistic thing about that is that the water falls towards the ground as opposed to it looking flooded. The pong should be less of a pit and the edges should slope inwards, like a ditch.
Thats better, but it still looks a little to unnatural. This is because it looks a little square. The best ponds are random. Lakes and ponds come in all different shapes and sizes and should be made random. This can easily be done with the land tool. Unfortunatly you can only use this in the scenario editor, but you cna enable it by using the "8 Cars per Train" trainer. Here is an example of a good lake/pond.
You can also mix water and terrain heights together and just experiment. Once you've made water and sculpt the land you can add trees. Firstly, identify your type of trees and select 5 or 6 matching trees. Here we are doing woodland. I have chose a couple of woodland trees. Also choose some shrubs for around the lake to make the layer of trees look more dense. I recommend ballrushes and weeping willow trees around the lake.
-----------------------------------
I hope this tutorial was helpful. Please give me some feedback of what you think so I can make some better ones.
Louis
