Large city beginnings

[El_Phantasmo]

So a big project I want to tackle is the SLA Industries tabletop RPG map of Mort City. It's the main setting for the game and the city is freakin' huge. Originally it was said to cover the planet of the same name (Mort) but has been revised over the years so that now it's the equivalent size of a large US state.

There are various inspirations for how GMs and players envisage the world created (And rather awesomely illustrated) by Dave Allsop and Nightfall Games; among them Blade Runner, The Crow and a good number of other dark, oppressive, crampt and vile hell-holes.

The city itself is made of several districts (HQ, Central, Uptown, Suburbia, Downtown and then the Cannibal Sectors outside the city walls) and is many, many layers down - in fact a lot of GMs hand-wave things like sector names/numbers, districts and the like.

tl:dr - It's HUGE. It's dirty. It rains all the time (Quite literally) and it's amazing.

My questions are thus;

1. Due to the vertical nature of the city (Many, many layers and floors all on top of one another) is there a "best practice" in mapping something such as this?
2. In Photoshop is there a nice way of giving everything a wet-look - it rains all the time in Mort City.
3. Has anyone done any huge sci-fi city maps already? I'm wanting details so a randomised brush/process of dropping in building types around roads would be excellent - any ideas?

[SteffenBrand]

I tackled something like this a few years ago, it's only hard if you try to depict everything. I'd still go for top-down view, probably with additional vertical profile views to show the heights and the connections. At least, that is what I did.

Also, to get a rainy look I would try to highlight the consequences of much rain - big sewage, drain pipes, rivers forming in the city (!), dams to protect specific areas, huge dams with a sea to generate water power, etc. You should also try to avoid cast shadows ant the like, because you probably have a very clouded sky. Which leads to probably bombastic looking light coming off of some reactors, power plants, bigger buildings, etc. You should also think about how you feed all those people without any sun and constant water. Maybe some algae-stuff XD

Sure, it's medieval, but there is a city-planet called Ravnica (Magic TG-Universe), just google it for more information. Probably you get some inspiration there. Even Dave Allsop worked on this

Cheers, Steffen

[El_Phantasmo]

I tackled something like this a few years ago, it's only hard if you try to depict everything. I'd still go for top-down view, probably with additional vertical profile views to show the heights and the connections. At least, that is what I did.

Also, to get a rainy look I would try to highlight the consequences of much rain - big sewage, drain pipes, rivers forming in the city (!), dams to protect specific areas, huge dams with a sea to generate water power, etc. You should also try to avoid cast shadows ant the like, because you probably have a very clouded sky. Which leads to probably bombastic looking light coming off of some reactors, power plants, bigger buildings, etc. You should also think about how you feed all those people without any sun and constant water. Maybe some algae-stuff XD

Sure, it's medieval, but there is a city-planet called Ravnica (Magic TG-Universe), just google it for more information. Probably you get some inspiration there. Even Dave Allsop worked on this

Cheers, Steffen

Fantastic Steffen, thanks for replying, some great ideas (Especially the lighting/cloud cover. It's constantly cloudy and rainy hence the lighting will be mostly from industrial/street lighting, installations, neon signs and the like.

For the moment I think it will need to be an overhead and a cross section and I'll likely tackle each section separately so as not to get overwhelmed with the size/scale of the project!

[El_Phantasmo]

I looked at the Central section of the city last night - it's a 2500 square mile area ... whilst there are some truly vast buildings and landmarks (Head Office and other notable locations) that take up considerable space I'm thinking that creating all the streets and buildings will be such a task that it's likely not possible without some Cthonic non-Euclidean interference!

I'm pondering using contemporary city over-heard shots as texture/templates and creating a vast mosaic of them over which to lay filters and the custom parts I want to add. Are there any examples of someone doing similar before?

[Ilanthar]

The scale is certainly a problem. I love the dark setting of Mort by the way. I think I would use a general urban chaos/view and hightlight only (maybe with close-ups) the buildings, places (SLA Head office, The Pit, etc.)...
In a perspective view, they did exactly that with Luna City for the game Mutant Chronicles, like below (just one of the two pages).
MC LunaCity.jpg

[El_Phantasmo]

Good ideas, though I was originally going with something a little more detailed - though I can see the appeal of the Mutant Chronicles map (A game I always wanted to get into but never had chance.).

For now I think I'll practice on my fantasy setting maps I want, they're much smaller for a start and likely a good deal easier! I can keep the Mort map as a long-term project that I dabble in occasionally.