Trouble with maps

[Str8studios]

I love working on games, I am a decent eventer and decent writer and have some good ideas, and mv is a huge step up from vx ace, what with the plug in system and sideview built in. That being said I am a terrible map maker and was wondering if there are any resources, like a map generator? I mean towns and terrain not just dungeons, or any open source game skeletons I could use to help me fly through my current project without spending months becoming a competent mapper. I had a friend do all the maps on our last project but he works all the time and is about to get married so he doesn't have time to really get into mapping anymore.
Sorry if this is well known, I've searched around and haven't come up with anything like I am looking for.
Edit* Surely this doesn't exist, I don't know why I thought something that advanced would just be floating around. If anybody is bored and wants to make some generic maps or has scrapped maps laying around I could bogart and learn from that would be cool. Forests, Mines, Swamps, Castles, Towns I am interested in just about anything. I like to populate worlds not design them.

 

[SepulcherGeist]

You and I must be related, I feel the same way and have the same issue. My friends and family are usually a little impressed with my eventing and scripting, and I'm a writer, but I never feel like I can get maps working. I easily get overwhelmed, and even finally finding the courage to work at it for awhile, it turns out subpar (in my opinion). Seems like others can create maps that I find impressive with ease.

Maybe it's a right brain/left brain thing? I can't draw or play music either, but my map making brother, who hates doing events and scripting, can draw and create music.
In a way I guess it is a good thing to have strengths and weaknesses, it strengthens cooperation and community.

I hope you (we) find something to make map-making more digestible to us left-brainers. I deeply appreciate beautiful maps, after all.

Right now I'm having issues with making my hills even look like hills! How do people do it?
Maybe there is a good tutorial video channel or something, where we can just search a topic and learn from it.

 

[Str8studios]

You and I must be related, I feel the same way and have the same issue. My friends and family are usually a little impressed with my eventing and scripting, and I'm a writer, but I never feel like I can get maps working. I easily get overwhelmed, and even finally finding the courage to work at it for awhile, it turns out subpar (in my opinion). Seems like others can create maps that I find impressive with ease.

Maybe it's a right brain/left brain thing? I can't draw or play music either, but my map making brother, who hates doing events and scripting, can draw and create music.
In a way I guess it is a good thing to have strengths and weaknesses, it strengthens cooperation and community.

I hope you (we) find something to make map-making more digestible to us left-brainers. I deeply appreciate beautiful maps, after all.

Right now I'm having issues with making my hills even look like hills! How do people do it?
Maybe there is a good tutorial video channel or something, where we can just search a topic and learn from it.

I'm glad to know I am not the only one! It seems to me that map making is sort of the first step and it makes making progress hard! I can't draw at all, zero artistic ability. Through a lot of practice I learned to play some guitar but I had to practice everyday to stay consistent. I am working on the data base and using sample maps as best I can for now, but we need to find mappers my friend! I can't make hills either. I've tried tutorials but my map making is just sloppy no matter how hard I try

 

[SepulcherGeist]

I'm glad to know I am not the only one! It seems to me that map making is sort of the first step and it makes making progress hard! I can't draw at all, zero artistic ability. Through a lot of practice I learned to play some guitar but I had to practice everyday to stay consistent. I am working on the data base and using sample maps as best I can for now, but we need to find mappers my friend! I can't make hills either. I've tried tutorials but my map making is just sloppy no matter how hard I try

I'm going to throw out the words "parallax mapping," because the best maps I typically see are said to be made that way. Most mapping resources (and resources in general) are for Ace. Which drives me crazy... But perhaps there are nice MV ways to parallax map.
I think it involves drawing it outside of RPG maker and converting it into RPG maker. I dunno. Gotta research.

Otherwise I've taken good looking screen shots and copied techniques for practice.

I've noticed my maps look horrible at first, but if I force myself to keep going they end up looking a lot better after complexity. I work in cycles, laying the ground, then cliffs, then the roads and waterways, then objects from big to small, houses, trees, bushes, weeds and flowers. ET ceterea. Each round I just pretend I'm Bob Ross and throw things every where, "little tree here, happy tree with a friend here..." and I don't worry because I can always remove later. Things just get done this way.

 

[Str8studios]

I tried parallax mapping in ace once and it was a disaster. I just don't have the imagination for layouts, nor the know how for photo editors. I have posted for a mapper in project recruitment and in the mean while I will have to stick to database and battle testing. Mods feel free to lock this thread.