How do people figure out how to design something new?

[gholin]

So, I'm not much of an artist or modder or anything, and I always wonder how people figure out how to use custom parts in a game like this to design really cool things like airships and western buildings and stuff. It seems so hard to envision what pieces are needed. Are people just gifted artists? How can I be like that? I have been able to do it to an extent, with simpler looking buildings, but mostly through emulating other people here.

Anyone who has made such amazing things (Like the LOTR theme park! How did you figure out how to make a hobbit hole?) got tips to figure out how to make what's in my head real looking with these pieces?

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

The hardest part is knowing the entire inventory of parts you have available to you!

Find pictures of things you'd like to try to build. Break them down into basic shapes, and components. Look for parts that can create those smaller components. The more you do this, and the more you build, you'll remember bits you did here and there, and you can start winging it on stuff in your mind. You'll still breakdown that idea into manageable parts.

 

[gholin]

The hardest part is knowing the entire inventory of parts you have available to you!

Find pictures of things you'd like to try to build. Break them down into basic shapes, and components. Look for parts that can create those smaller components. The more you do this, and the more you build, you'll remember bits you did here and there, and you can start winging it on stuff in your mind. You'll still breakdown that idea into manageable parts.

I have noticed since playing this game I've been able to see more shapes in things, and thinking how I can make them. Cool. Thanks for the advice! You are right that the inventory of parts is the hardest part.

 

[Life Paused]

I have had the game since the start so I have gotten used to the parts plus also what I can do with them. I have also watched youtube videos as well to get ideas of what to do. Start with the basics and build up from there.

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

Yeah, that library is daunting.

If you like old buildings and castles, I highly recommend "Abandoned World" on facebook.
A lot of the things they post are pretty readily created in PlanCo.

Things like:

So like, in the every first image, you might recognize some pieces we do have, like the corner treatments in the castle theme.
I think we even have something that would work as that front "bay" window. But break it down. First construct the big box shape. Then the front bay window thing.
Then look at the left side. That little section sticking out? That has to be a separate building, and "sunk" in. But it's still a basic box at it's core.

The fourth and fifth image get more complex, but find the "pieces" that would be done as separate buildings, and it comes together. Even if you can't exactly duplicate the fourth purple house, you can certainly use elements of it to make something you are making more "complex" looking.

The last house, the roof might be the biggest problem. There you need to start looking for other pieces other than "stock" roofing, and hand build it, like with planks.