Anyone has a good building tutorial or tips?

[CainSeldon]

Hello,

I am having a hard time making cool buildings. Every time I try to get a bit fancy (making multiple floors, inside walls or arched roofs) I get issues. For example, sometimes the roof will refuse to appear or I will misplace a window and when I remove it, it makes a hole in the wall that I can’t fix so that I have to restart the building from scratch.

I was just wondering if there was a good tutorial somewhere on the web with tips and guidelines to make nice buildings. The ones I have found on youtube so far are 2+ years old.

Thanks

[Artain]

First, when there’s a hole you can just place a window there with “place item” in the construction tab, without custom designing open, so just leave it.

Second, most people are using the “ib” command in the console to build instantly.

Third, the walls are always 6 blocks high and so on, you should use slabs if you wanna go custom.

[LordGovernorGeneral]

Hello, I have this problem at times too!. although I am not aware of any tutorials, I’ll share with you what I do. when I want to make a multiple floor structure, first I draw it so I get a General idea of what I want on paper - then I place to foundation, first floor walls, and put the second floor, with an optional hole inside to place the stairs - then I place the second floor wall up and the roof.
If i want separate rooms inside, i do them before I do the next floor with slabs - same goes with furniture and decorations.

What I found effective for the windows and doors after trial and erroring it. i set at a 90 degree angle the camera (pausing the game so there wont be any lag or any citizens obstructing my view) then I do any windows, doors, flags, lanterns, etc. then I do the next wall and so on.

Really and truely, its more of eleminating human error in this way - not a real solution i guess, but a work around?

I apologise for the length of this but I hope it helps you and/or anyone who has such a problem.

[LordGovernorGeneral]

p.s. the tallest structure i successfully made is a massive barracks structure of 3 floors with a balcony and a barracks/castle style with many flags and doors, and another such structure is like a hotel or inn, with 2 floors with the second floor accessible from the outside via a balcony

[Fornjotr]

I will suggest you to watch some of the youtubers, like for example Banto, and see how they design and build their buildings. Other ways to learn is just to keep at it, experimenting, saving alot and loading when the builder screws up. The developers have said that the builder is gettin a overhaul soon aswell.

Personally i found that when building with the slabtool as the primary tool, i could get more things done. Incorperating the walltool only specific places for access into the building after construction.

Some things i have picked up while designing:
When placing a wall with the walltool. always place it from left to right.
The walltool makes 6 cubes high walls.
Have your craftsman make one of each window and door. Then you can use the placementtool together with the slabtool to incorperate windows and doors without the walltool.
When you have placed a wall with the walltool, check if it works like intended with the walls halfdown before building anything else, so you can use the undobutton to remove it again if you made a mistake. (placement with left to right).
I have stopped using the rooftool completely. But i guess it is a matter of design.

I hope some of this is helpfull

@Artain

most people are using the “ib” command in the console to build instantly.

My experience with the IB command is negative… it works perfect for some situations, but building your whole town with it takes all the feeling of acomplishment out of the game. Even though the hearthlings are slow and doing what hearthlings do (admiring poyos), when they have managed to build what you designed, it makes the whole idea with the game come to life.

[LordGovernorGeneral]

I agree with your views of this command as well 100% - however, if your gonna do a story like a previously existing town (being well developed) sends expeditions to the other edge of the map for an outpost, then it may come in use (for scenario building purposes)

[coasterspaul]

A lot of people use ib at times, but I doubt that most do.

[Psyduck]

I can try and explain what i do when im designing a building…
I almost exclusively use single blocks Since they are forgiving You should always save before you consider placing any kind of wall.
The times you should consider walls is only when you want to place windows and doors. I have 2 ways of doing this either i try to push every wall placement to the end of the building and then make cut outs in the building then add walls, windows and doors. (the safe way) the less safe way is when im almost 100% positive something has its final look. I might save and add the details and continue rest of the building.

If im doing somthing new i will start out to find at least 3 matching/fitting colors.
Many times i will then draw out a simple floor plan, mainly for the world around the house. that way i get a rough idea of both possible shapes and size in comparison of the world. (eg:other houses terrain trees ect)

About this time i will mostly roughly decide on the height of a building. with that knowledge i can mostly start drawing outlines of a house…if i cant draw the entire shape of the building just a rough size and outline for one wall is a good start.
Since that gives me a blank wall…and then i start trowing shapes and colors at the wall to i find something i like.
And then try to build on that…

Heres an example on the building im doing right now.

first pic is an almost done facade, it was pretty much a flat wall with 2 small pillars. That looked okey, but once i started adding the terraces. it was clear i needed 2 more(for supports for the terrace) But those 4 lines gives me natural smaller building zones. I can then fil these with windows, door, pillars, supports, terraces and stuff like that
.
And the smaller working space tempts to give me faster progress since i have less options.
combine that with the shapes and colors of the building i mostly end up with something fairly nice and unique.

Second pic is just to show it has a blank wall more

3rd one is the wall im currently trowing stuff at…i noted out early on in the building that there was room for a tower or weird door or something in that spot…once i finished the first facade of the building i did the tower figured it might influence the facade look.

Roughly how i do it anyways…keep in mind im the architect not the engineer!
I dont really care if my engineering heartlings goes insane just from planning the scaffolding If anything if they can build it ! its below my standards

for reference heres the next step:

Since i kinda liked that

Bit rushed but still decent.

and here are the final pass.

last wall wont matter in this case since another building will go here but if i had to do it i would just copy the other side.

[GamingSilverNox]

My number 1 advice is saving before building so you can revert a save if something doesn’t work… make sure there is plenty of space around the build so hearthlings and their scaffolding don’t get blocked. I also add everything besides the windows and doors post build. I’ve had a lot of problems with builds never completing because they won’t place items. I know these aren’t helpful for cool builds but they can help avoid errors!

Another thing that might help is make the building in parts? I was having trouble with a building so I did the floor and walls and then had them build it. Once done I added the next floor, walls and roof. That way if something went wrong, I’d only have to redo half.

[GamingSilverNox]

Wow your stuff is incredible! Impressive.

I should try building with the single blocks more. I like how easy it is to delete them if something doesn’t work out right.

[Psyduck]

thank you kindly as mentioned i wont promise your heartlings will build it! was more me trying to give some hints on how i work out a building.

They could probably make this one not the most advanced

[MaddyGrand]

Slabs are more or less useless if you need to look inside a building as they don’t disappear in the view-modes. You can lower your roof 1 block to make it appear as a 5 high tho. Also built the outer walls + roof before you make walls on the inside.

[Nathaniel411]

I’m not trying to take credit, but is it the inn I made you were talking about? It sounds similar to mine.

[CainSeldon]

Thanks, that’s really helpful!

[Psyduck]

keep in mind what @MaddyGrand already wrote
hopefully they will give us better building cutting tools in the future. Since currently you have to be very finicky with camera placement as the wall tools wont work with single slabs. Meaning you have to place the camera inside buildings.

[MaddyGrand]

Exactly this makes it so hard to design with walls already placed. Work with the bare house before you decorate and do inside walls. You’ll be able to add slabs on it at the end to make it look better.

Screenshot

This example shows the basic look vs my own designs. I like to think my barn and windmill came out pretty nice. I can show insides if you like.

[LordGovernorGeneral]

No, I am taking about a separate Inn (tbh, I am unaware of your but it may be similar - I will attach a pic of it for you below. (sorry for it being see through, they haven’t build it yet

It was born out of necessity, as I wanted to mine in the side of a mountain, quite some distance from the town, and so it has the basic necessities for people to work, sleep, eat and store resources at till I got what I needed

[CainSeldon]

From what I have gathered so far, the best way to prevent any bug or issues with the building is simply to use slabs instead of wall or roof tools. That’s what most streamers do and it seems to be working very well.

Now the only issue is that it prevents you from seeing inside your buildings… which kinda limits your ability to grasp quickly what’s going on with the town. Would it be so hard for the devs or a modder to simply add two new types of slabs? Like a slab that’s design to funtion as a wall and one as a roof so that when you change the view they act accordingly?

Cheers

[Psyduck]

Personally What i would like to see is a cutting tool like used for mining just one level at a time not 5.

And i think more types of slabs will give new problems if not more problems, at least more complexity.
(mainly have new players in mind here)

[GamingSilverNox]

I’m going to assume you are talking about a cutting tool like that for building? 'Cause there is a mining tool that does only one layer at a time.

Luckily, work on the building ui seems to be coming up on their list of things they are working on. I’m excited to see what changes and improvements they come up with.