Build Terrain For Elven Kingdom

Please leave any suggestions and ratings! All feedback is appreciated!

 

Some parts of it just look... off, not bad but just off.

1. The wall / mountain part is REALLY flat. Like its 4 layers thick or something

2. Te plateaus look nice, but evidently look off since there is nothing in em, probably will look sick when things are built on it

 

Can totally agree with your first point, I knew it looked off just couldn't figure out something I really liked. Do you have any suggestions? As for your second point yee.

 

Uhh, a couple things. Nice, first. I recommend some tutorials by GeminiTay and Grian, they are gods at this and have awesome tutorials. I would mostly recommend texturing. select the whole region with your wand in world edit, then use this command //replace 1 60%1,10%1:5,10%98,10%4,10%98:1. Then, use terrain shading. in the deepest crevices and caves, use voxelsniper or worldedit brushes to make them darker. basically, exaggerate the lighting.

 

I have spotted 3 major issues with your terrain.

-block pallet
-shape
-coloring

I can see that you proficient with voxel sniper or world edit but this terrain still needs alot of work. Firstly your pallet. You have used 6 different block types in total, and these blocks are extremely cleche. Try using a unique combination of blocks. This is especially important since you are doing Elven terrain, at this skill level, you have to start backing away from stone, clay grass and the other stone types. Try a new pallet, such as mushroom stem and quartz. Learn to use a gradient ball, incorporate your build pallet into your terrain is a very good idea, since it would make sense for the inhabitants of the village or town to gather the materials available around them.

Secondly shape of the terrain is unnatural even for elven terrain. All of the rock faces and cliffs seem to melt into each other. This never happens in nature as natural erosion brakes the rock faces of mountains apart. you have to think about the pieces of rock, and where they connect. Add rocks, to your terrain, having rocks sticking out of the terrain really adds character and depth, It also makes the terrain look more believable. When making terrain you need to think about how the terrain is formed, Another important feature of the terrain is the water. There is such things as catchments in real life. All the rain that falls into the catchment will eventually end up in a massive body of water. Think about catchments and how your terrain curves as water flows down it. Water can carve through rocks, so making small crevasses to indicate that there is moderate water flow really helps your terrain feel alive.

For the coloring of the terrain, As I have said, learn to use a gradient ball, gradient balls help your terrain look more natural and realistic but most importantly of all it is important to think about where grasses grow. Grass does not grow on vertical cliffs as seen in this picture below do you see any grass on that vertical cliff? now look at your cliffs, grassing growing on vertical clifs do not make sense. The placement for grass is really important, I really cannot stress enough about how important it is to color your terrain so that it makes sense, so many people make this simple mistake! even with boring stone terrain, coloring it so that it makes sense can really improve it, alot!

 

While I do agree that the walls are quite flat and could use some further depth, I actually think you did quite a good job with this! I agree with a previous comment in saying it does look a bit bare without trees and other builds, but generally the arches and plateaus look nice. If you want to take this project a step further I would:
1) make sure to add some color through water features, trees, and other builds.
2) add depth to walls

But other than that the shape and texture (although basic) look quite nice :)

 

Redo the palette, to make something special and not only grass and stone.

 

What would suggest?

 

I wold recommend, grass, dirt, green concrete, lime terracotta, dirt, spruce, oak, birch, and then a mix of mushroom blocks and quartz. with trees with white trunks. Good block to use is bone. Now I will teach you how to make a gradient ball. do //sphere 8 57,0. and then get diamond pic and do //br cyl grass 20 1 with the radius being 20 and the depth being one. and now do //mask 57, masking it to diamond. now click the top of the ball, to make it grass. Now repeat this process, and layer the blocks in this exact order. VERY IMPORTANT! Grass, Dirt, Spruce, Oak, Birch. Now that you have a brush you select it and do //copy, grab a stick and do //br #clipboard -a and also do //Gmask [!0] masking it to anything but air. Click on all ledges, after you've done that, replace everything else with mushroom block and white Quartz, Remember! Its best if you use trees with white trunks as it complements the terrain.

Happy building

 

example of gradient ball