The Park builders thread for Tip's, Tricks, and Ideas!!!!!!!!!!!!

[old-skooler-34]

OK, so no matter who you are or how long you've been building parks there's always something new too be discovered. Lets use this thread to share our ideas, give tips, and to get inspiration from one another.

How to use this thread -

1. Share your ideas and give tips on park building (also ad to others ideas and advice)
2. Post pics of parks your working on and ask for opinions.
3. Ask and answer any and all questions pertaining to CAP (Create a Park). No question is a dumb question, ask away!!!

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I try to make my parks as realistic looking as possible so these tips I feel worked for me. Most if not all of these tips Ive gotten from fellow park builders and I hope to get more!

- When building parks I Build one area at a time. I usually start with a house/Building or stair set that sets the mood for the park. I'll Build off and around that one piece. I NEVER square off the whole park then go back and fill in. I think it makes the whole process over whelming. For instance, I'll started with a stair set including a hubba or rail, then put grass next to it, build a building that makes sense next to that and continued out piece by piece. I try to get as detailed as possible within this small area. I think it helps me envision what should come next within the park.

- Use the basic pads only as a last resort. I try to always use a textured floor's and walls first whether its brick, sidewalks, or something flipped upside down, etc etc.. I think using Textures helps get rid of that 2 dimensional feel some parks have.

- Use your guy as a measuring stick (best advice I ever got). Naturally you want to make sure your rails, ledges, and steps are at the correct height according to "real life". What I think a lot of guys forget is even though your not going to use a door, wall, or fence is if its set at a funny height it makes looking at the surroundings un-realistic reminding you that your playing a video game.

-When placing grass I try to always use the hip grass or angled grass rather then just the flat pieces (helps create the feeling of being in the park rather then ON the park)
-Make custom rails before resorting to the stock ones.
-Real life has weeds in sidewalk cracks (don't go over board with it though), Trees aren't lined up perfect, bushes are sometimes crooked, etc etc.

[Wiltzuh]

Dude i love U and this thread !!!

[knexzor]

- When you have built an object or section, ride it and ride around it for a while and try to analyze the obvious routes (where you usually end up). Then, with that knowledge, it is a lot easier to plan your surroundings in a logical and flowing way.

- If you feel hesitant about a part of your park, delete it and start over. The key to a good park (according to me) is being fully content with it yourself.

- Multi-leveling. Go up, down, left right. A flat platform gets repetitive. Think about parts of your neighborhood or other familiar surroundings; draw inspiration.

I will try to keep this list updated.

[Wiltzuh]

- Multi-leveling. Go up, down, left right. A flat platform gets repetitive. Think about parts of your neighborhood or other familiar surroundings;.

Thats excactly what im doing. Actually im in switzerland now and i was walking around this beautiful village in middle of alps and got much awsome ideas for CAP. Cant wait to get back finland to do middle european village with sweet wooden houses, small sidewalkmgoin down with little river next to it. Bushes and foliage everywhere and huge number of small sidepaths with stairs and wooden rails and curbs. Damn i love CAP...

I have also couple tips.
- Use colours to create different feelings to your park. Try to mix different colours for perfect combination. But for example one too bright and wrong colourred objects like rails can fail your total look.

- Doing park with theme is best way to get good looking overall. For example i just said that middle european village theme. I have hige number of different themes... Cina, japan, barcelona style plaza (under progress), abandoned factory, hospital yard and lots of others... I can do list from them soon because writing is pretty slow with iPad...

I will also keep that thread alive !

[Antwan]

How I get the most out of Create-A-Park..hmm..
Try out variations, if you saw a setup you enjoyed skating try adding to it.
Here's a variation I made of Ghetto Spot's Pole Jam.


Put two-and-two..
I've seen a lot of people digging the fliptrick to under rail lately.
But how many of them have ducked under a doorway to grind,
or even grind up to 180 under?


Don't be afraid to throw random stuff together and skate it.. it can be the most fun.


Sink everything into the ground..
Sounds simple but I've sunken things I've never seen in any park before..
take this mega-terrain for example, sunken in half pipe corner makes a badass ledge
with a curved filler rail in the middle.


You can do more than you think.. check out this sick light rail.

[emericaridr11]

awesome man, now that I have a Cap Card Ill make some great things to share......

[old-skooler-34]

Nice! Glad everyone jumped right on in to share some ideas.

Antwan, Love the idea of just throwing single areas together to skate. I think I might do a whole park as a sort of inventory of ledges, stairs, walls, and rail ideas.

Brick, your right, doing a park with a theme is a lot easier and seems to go together better, I TRY to have a theme w/ every park. Color is also key to the parks overall look. I see some parks that are all gray and the skatable stuff washed out in red/green/blue etc. To me it makes it look like its just tossed together (which is fine of course, just not me).

Knex, also great advice.. Soon as a finish a small area I skate it myself and once there's enough areas connected I start inviting people to test it out. As pathetic as it sounds I'll actually watch everyone skate and see where they go and what they stick to.

Ok, gotta go make sales calls

[oyaben]

Very instructive
Thanks for sharing !!

[adda89ldn]

when i make a park, i usually forget to save and end up joining someones online sesh...

yeah that's not what you're sposed to do. so i don't suggest it.

also watch out for power cuts..

[thesignguy]

here is my tip
don't skate anyone elses park
I have only maybe skated 2 or 3 other parks than my own
makes mine seem like nobody elses
OK maybe bad advice
I cant get away from downward slanted parks
I don't think my parks are like anyone elses, although I would have no idea
watch your meter, worst enemy
use half pads or smaller stuff when possible, if you have 75% of a big piece not showing try and find other ways to make it to save space
don't overload the trees, trees specially big trees suck space like a bitch
be creative, blah always equals blah
I have been using premade corner, ramps, etc etc for my floor. the color change at the lip sucks visually but the generic flat floor is drab.
hide gaps to nothingness, was my main gripe with my last park, it limits filming if you have a 100 foot drop between 2 objects
don't overlap pads, i really hate this because it limits things, but I really hate when a overlapped pad or object changes and flickers ingame
cater your park to your skating, if you cant enjoy it whats the point
use different stuff, you can create just about anything you would want if you put your mind to it
use snap, probably my biggest gripe is that you should be able to turn this on and off easier, if you don't use it it is taking valuable merges. If you have 2 objects snapped they are not merged, if they aren't snapped then it limits you to whatever you want to sink it into or something into it
fine tune rotate is your friend. some objects give you fits merging even though they don't seem like they should. just move around in minute increments, pay attention to when it flashes blue. If you aren't happy with it slightly rotate it to see if you can get better placement. This is extremely useful with transition pieces, a slight rotation can give you a extra foot or 2 in the ground.
nothing better than skating your park before completion, some things seem way cooler than they actual are. I always fine tune pieces every time I play in my park, that's why I hate when I skate someone elses park and it wont let me tweak.

[old-skooler-34]

Color change - What sometimes works for me whether I'm 10% or 90% into a park and feeling stuck is a Color change. My last park "Function Form" I had big issues completing, It went from being bright and cheery colors to dark and dreary to what it is now - Neutral. Although it ended up Neutral in color every color change I did inspired me to finish another section.

Also, texture change on wall components helps a lot too. If you don't like the windows with the city or factory look simply sink a skylight wedge into them.

[xRiverKing]

Idk if this has been used before, but I think this fountain I made in my upcoming park looks pretty good. It's rather simple haha, it can be easily modified.

[adda89ldn]

i made something like that.

turned it into some kind of drainage system. yet to release the park. need to get my ps3 fixed :/

[Antwan]

Yeah RiverKing.. I like the way that looks, very nice.. Here's a few more of my ideas.

[briden]

I'm going to copy-paste this from the kids table, I know it helped me a lot.

Blending Strategies:

There are two types of pieces: Lets call them ledge/rail or LR and PAD

-PAD include: All Street Terrain, vert terrain, plaza terrain, mega terrain.
-LR includes: All rails, ledges, catwalk pieces.
-All other pieces are mixed and match you just have to try and see what they work with. Most things are PAD.

================================================== ==========

-With collisions ON: you can put any LR piece inside any PAD piece. (LR in LR or PAD in PAD doesn't work.)

-With collisions OFF: You can put multiple LR in LR, but then the combo cannot go into a PAD.
OR you can usually put about 3+ PAD pieces together and usually only one or two UN-blended LR pieces.

-If you now turn OFF collisions: You can now select all blended LR pieces and put them inside any PAD or blend of PADS.

TIPS:
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Building a fancy handrail with tons of LR pieces. Build the whole thing in the air with collisions OFF. Select all LR pieces. Turn collisions ON and lower it into the stairs.

Sometimes even with collisions ON you can blend the edges of like pieces.

Blending too many pieces together may cause that object to become un-grindable so look out and test your park.

Now for my own input


One of my favorite objects to mess around with, Danny Way's Hawaiian Hut:




Sink it for a small pyramid with ungrindable coping for corners, so many possibilities for this one:




Or flip it over and sink it for a standard L-shaped ungrindable ledge, frontside and backside:





One more quickie, spot in the vid @1:00



Rotated Half Pipe Corner

[Wiltzuh]

Rotated Half Pipe Corner

Briden you know you can do so many awsome things with all of those pipe pieces ! I have things made of those in many of my parks...i think you already knew that but yeah those parts are perfect ! Thats my tip for everyone !

[NowhereBoy13]

Ok i need help...

how do you merge/sink stuff?? i want to sink the full pip to make a kinda circle fountain ledge/ollie in ollie out kinda thing? and general merging stuff??

[old-skooler-34]

Ok i need help...

how do you merge/sink stuff?? i want to sink the full pip to make a kinda circle fountain ledge/ollie in ollie out kinda thing? and general merging stuff??

Very simple and I should of covered this when creating the thread.

When in Park creator hit the select button on your controller and go to options. Once your in Options you'll see at the bottom of the list collisions on/off. Turn them on then make sure you have snapping off which I believe is a couple options above collisions.

[xRiverKing]

This thread needs a sticky I think!!!!

This is the best advice I have ever received, old-skooler you should edit this in your first post, its EXTREMELY helpful for beginners to CAP.





Blending Strategies:

There are two types of pieces: Lets call them ledge/rail or LR and PAD

-PAD include: All Street Terrain, vert terrain, plaza terrain, mega terrain.
-LR includes: All rails, ledges, catwalk pieces.
-All other pieces are mixed and match you just have to try and see what they work with. Most things are PAD.

================================================== ==========

-With collisions ON: you can put any LR piece inside any PAD piece. (LR in LR or PAD in PAD doesn't work.)

-With collisions OFF: You can put multiple LR in LR, but then the combo cannot go into a PAD.
OR you can usually put about 3+ PAD pieces together and usually only one or two UN-blended LR pieces.

-If you now turn OFF collisions: You can now select all blended LR pieces and put them inside any PAD or blend of PADS.

TIPS:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Building a fancy handrail with tons of LR pieces. Build the whole thing in the air with collisions OFF. Select all LR pieces. Turn collisions ON and lower it into the stairs.

Sometimes even with collisions ON you can blend the edges of like pieces.

Blending too many pieces together may cause that object to become un-grindable so look out and test your park.

[Ohmidineffect]

Also I think getting creative with the floor will add dynamics, square flat spots are become drab, put things at angles ,create hills and circular spots. And definitely make sure that everything flows perfectly so you can skate things in a line thus adding options. The best advice I've received thus far was to make EVERYTHING skatable. Down to walls roofs etc. The more things you make skateable is the more options you have and the more space you save on park editor.

Cheers.

[old-skooler-34]

lets bring this back, bump

[emericaridr11]

YAH! beat me to it

[XILENTZ]

Always check the sizes of the floor. I was making a park the other day and the terrain meter was getting full. Turns out the floor was Half Width Size 3 Pads! (a few hundred of them). Saved about 30% terrain.

[briden]

I downloaded a park recently where somebody had a droppable object embedded into a floor pad. I tried for a long time to replicate it myself but to no avail. Can anybody please tell me how to do this?

[LanceForLife]

I often find myself huffing canned air and shot gunning red bulls to get in the right state of mind to build a proper piece. I like the floors to be multi textured and to have plenty of original pieces also, mega ramps fucking mega ramps get you downloads! throwing ungrindables here and there gives your park a very different dynamic.

[BannerBoy360]

@ briden
this is just a stupid ea glitch that happens every now and then where the props just completely go random places, sometimes in the air, sometimes synced into the ground. happens in the upload process.

[old-skooler-34]

@ briden
this is just a stupid ea glitch that happens every now and then where the props just completely go random places, sometimes in the air, sometimes synced into the ground. happens in the upload process.

Would be my guess also to what happen also. If your the host within the session you can reset objects and everything should go back to its original position.

[OGBMX420]

@ briden
this is just a stupid ea glitch that happens every now and then where the props just completely go random places, sometimes in the air, sometimes synced into the ground. happens in the upload process.

one time I had all my props levating FTW lol

[briden]

@ briden
this is just a stupid ea glitch that happens every now and then where the props just completely go random places, sometimes in the air, sometimes synced into the ground. happens in the upload process.

No, this was completely planned, nothing random about it. The uploader had ramps underneath the ground pieces so that the droppables would rest perfectly and create little flatbars above the ground. There were also multiple instances of it throughout the park.

Would be my guess also to what happen also. If your the host within the session you can reset objects and everything should go back to its original position.

Again, this does not apply. If you play it online and move the objects, then return all objects, they go back to being merged into the ground. I've seen weird random ones happen before, but this was 100% planned and I was just wondering if anybody knew how to manipulate it.

[BannerBoy360]

No, this was completely planned, nothing random about it. The uploader had ramps underneath the ground pieces so that the droppables would rest perfectly and create little flatbars above the ground. There were also multiple instances of it throughout the park.

then i dunno man, we should ask who uploaded it?... cus being able to sync props into regulars would be a revelation in skate.park.

[old-skooler-34]

Again, this does not apply. If you play it online and move the objects, then return all objects, they go back to being merged into the ground. I've seen weird random ones happen before, but this was 100% planned and I was just wondering if anybody knew how to manipulate it.

Hmm, post pics if you can.. Was the ground split for the props to poke through or they were directly merged in the center of a pad?

[briden]

then i dunno man, we should ask who uploaded it?... cus being able to sync props into regulars would be a revelation in skate.park.

Yeah, he hasn't been online since I noticed what it was. I'll post a video and download link (xbox, sorry old skooler) when I get home from class tonight.

[briden]

Quick vid showcasing the merged flatbars, then one where i removed the ground pad, then I copy-pasted the spot and levitated it to see it from the side.




Park link: http://skate.ea.com/gallery?contentT...itemId=1658331

[old-skooler-34]

WOW briden, awesome find! I seriously figured you were mistaken or off in your description here.
I've never seen that before, I'm stumped. My GUESS is I noticed that the piece seems to be sitting on a ramp then merged up and through. The first one you hippie jumped check to see if there's a also a ramp under the pad.

Maybe when prop's are on a ramp they can be glitched through a pad above. I also noticed the pads are upside down. I'm going to try this later on no doubt.

[Antwan]

What the fuck.. shit just got interesting and shit, fuck.

[xRiverKing]

Quick vid showcasing the merged flatbars, then one where i removed the ground pad, then I copy-pasted the spot and levitated it to see it from the side.




Park link: http://skate.ea.com/gallery?contentT...itemId=1658331

Omg.. wow

Edit: I can't seem to figure it out either, please elaborate?

[LanceForLife]

Omg.. wow

Edit: I can't seem to figure it out either, please elaborate?

ok I think i got it now I will try this and let you know but place ramp and the snap pad to the top of ramp like in the last shot then place droppable then delete pad piece let the droppable fall into place go to options and undo it might put pad back that you deleted but wont move the droppable and put the pad back and abbra cadabra

[LanceForLife]

ok I think i got it now I will try this and let you know but place ramp and the snap pad to the top of ramp like in the last shot then place droppable then delete pad piece let the droppable fall into place go to options and undo it might put pad back that you deleted but wont move the droppable and put the pad back and abbra cadabra

doesn't work that way

[briden]

Alright, I figured out my own way, can't get it EXACTLY like the original video, but my way works just as well. Here goes, tutorial with Pictures.



The featured droppable object is the Ramp. I have replicated the glitch with other droppables, the key factor is that they must be able to fit INSIDE of a ground pad, any size (including mega, so big stuff will work too).



First things first, make sure Collision is turned OFF. You need to start with your desired droppable object sitting on a ground piece (Let's call this PAD1). You should take time right now to orient the piece and the droppable to how you want the droppable to end up (in this case, two flatbars). This can be done later, but it saves time and effort to figure it out ahead of time.



You now need to create a new pad that will be larger than the droppable object (full size ground pad works for the Ramp, let's call this PAD2). Place the pad so that it completely envelopes the droppable, and PAD1 should be sticking out a little bit from any side, so that it can be easily selected for moving later on. The droppable is now inside of PAD2.



Create a new ground piece big enough to support the droppable, and able to keep the same orientation if you were to flip your object over (this will be PAD3). Place it where you feel the top of the droppable will stick out in the finished piece. This may end up being a game of guess-and-check, since I have experienced a few earthquake moments in this step.



Flip over Pads 1,2,3, and the droppable all at once. The droppable should fall a little ways out of Pad 2 and land on Pad 3.



Now, you will move Pad 1 down towards the droppable, far enough so that when flipped back to the original position, the droppable will once again rest on Pad 1 and stick out as much as you desire. Flip over Pad 1, Pad 2, and the droppable to see where it ends up. Again, this can be a guess-and-check process. Pad 3 is of no use anymore.



Now drop it into your favorite CAP or start from scratch.

[emericaridr11]

Wild briden!