Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don’t. Not your typical depth, anyway. I’m not talking about grand traditional buildings here, just generic contemporary buildings. Here’s more “Realistic building tips..:
Everyone seems to give the advice of “adding depth to your buildings”. However, like everything, that advice is skewed towards more fantasy builds. For realistic city building, I will give the opposite opinion: A well executed FLAT façade works much better to recreate the look of real buildings.
Real buildings are, all in all, pretty mundane, and any depth changes are subtle. In-game, you’re working with 1 meter blocks, so depth changes are much more aggressive. You can instead limit yourself to a flat wall and work detail into it through texture changes and details like stairs/slabs at window sills.
Then, you can take it a step further and add “flat depth” – Add setbacks, balconies or other structural elements on top of a flat façade to give it some functional depth and make a more interesting shape.
The images come from the ModernCraft – Moslyn Island Coastal City map which will get another update released soon. You can explore all the builds online or join the in-game server at the link above.
