RCT Discussion / Mala For Dummies

in my opinion, taking inspiration from someone's rct work is equal to ripping him off.
when you think about it, what do you do when "taking inspiration"? you do it after him. you try to do it alike.

no one should ever look at other's parks for "inspiration". find your own ways, improve them, master them, and in the end, everyone will love your parks because they're so original. don't pick up other's styles and try to make them yours. i know where i'm coming from...

[font="tahoma"]in my opinion, taking inspiration from someone's rct work is equal to ripping him off.
when you think about it, what do you do when "taking inspiration"? you do it after him. you try to do it alike.

no one should ever look at other's parks for "inspiration". find your own ways, improve them, master them, and in the end, everyone will love your parks because they're so original. don't pick up other's styles and try to make them yours. i know where i'm coming from...[/font]

What about your scheussler inspiration, in your recent parks ?
does that not count ?

Oh Sna,Pa'

in my opinion, taking inspiration from someone's rct work is equal to ripping him off.
when you think about it, what do you do when "taking inspiration"? you do it after him. you try to do it alike.

no one should ever look at other's parks for "inspiration". find your own ways, improve them, master them, and in the end, everyone will love your parks because they're so original. don't pick up other's styles and try to make them yours. i know where i'm coming from...

What about your scheussler inspiration, in your recent parks ?
does that not count ?

i have often said that i regret what i did with my style. i only made it a cheap copy of schuessler's.
or where else do you think my post you quoted has come from?
i thought the "i know where i'm coming from" would give you the right idea.

no one should ever look at other's parks for "inspiration".

If people didn't do that, there'd be no community. New hacks would never be appropriated, people wouldn't be driven to trying new things...I don't think inspiration is in any way equal to ripping off. Why do people go on art degrees? So they can study how people have done things in the past, and use that knowledge to create new work. Just because a child imitates its parents' words, doesn't mean it won't grow up to speak its own unique language...ok that's being melodramatic.

But I disagree with that quote, because inspiration breeds creativity. I know I wanted to outdo the parks i'd seen from other people, but I had to learn from them in order to do it. Or are you saying i'm ripping everyone off...I see.

Nate, don't say things like that if you're not gonna follow them up with a link or PM or two

Inspiration breeds creativity.

Well said. A good example is RRP's rapids at SWA. If I had not see his square loading platform, I never would have gotten the idea to create the rotating platform.

And about the second part, I think you already know.

And if I hadn't looked at Dungeons, Dragons, and Drops I wouldn't be making parks at all...

but don't you think that there are a lot of people who say "i need inspiration" and in the end just come up with a copy of what they looked at?

i even believe that people have developed and established certain ways of theming for certain things which are considered as "common" and which everyone uses, or at the minimum, should use. this has only happened from people looking at each other's parks. now this sounds as if i'm saying that it's bad to look at other's parks, which is of course wrong.

i just wanted to say that the term "inspiration" is kinda thrown around very carelessly lately and that it would be better if everyone came up with his own idea of how to do/theme a certain thing.

Parks that inspire me do so because of what they accomplish, not because I want to build like that. For example, Erwindale inspires me to want to play the game because it reminds me of how much is possible in RCT. I could never build that way tho, so it doesn't inspire me to build like Ed.

Everyone is disagreeing with Posix.


Basically, before this erupts into a flame war, I'll qualify everything:

If by inspiration you mean taking actions that result in copying someone, then yes, inspiration is bad. If people feel that "being inspired by something" means they should copy it, that's not necessarily the right way to go.

However, if you take the true meaning of the word and say being inspired means you take a style and derive a new idea from that style, then by all means, it's almost a necessary aspect of the game.

Everyone is disagreeing with Posix. 


Basically, before this erupts into a flame war, I'll qualify everything

you are really tough, you know...

I'm not necessarily inspired by other RCT parks, but more from the real world. After I visited Six Flags Magic Mountain I felt really inspired, but not inspired to copy Six Flags, at all. () I believe you can be inspired to be original.

 

Here we see some classic Mala landscaping from the Hi Rollers winning Escalante River Falls. 

But wait Mala throws in more complexity to the formula, adding a third angle in there along with the 2nd land type or texture.  Mala continues with the flowing form system though.  The angles all point up towards the peak of the hill and do so repetitively; that is the key to good landscaping.  However here we have a lower texture (grass/mud mix) and a raised texture (red sand) and while this appears to add huge amounts of complexity it’s really just and expansion one common sense and what’s been said.  The lower texture (20 to 30 ‘feet’ below the upper) has vegetation and still flows with the general form for the most part, occasionally breaking the pattern and the upper layer does the same only above the lowers layers trees and shrubs and it is left blank.  The lower "level is generally a darker color as well with the higher level standing out due to the contrast.  This is a common component of Mala landscapes.

If you have any relevant questions feel free to post them.  Thank you for your time.

ride6

I don't think that is very good landscaping, the stuff from Escalante Falls that is. It's just raised land, being raised at randomn heights and all being pointed and not varied rather than direction.

 

Here we see some classic Mala landscaping from the Hi Rollers winning Escalante River Falls. 

But wait Mala throws in more complexity to the formula, adding a third angle in there along with the 2nd land type or texture.  Mala continues with the flowing form system though.  The angles all point up towards the peak of the hill and do so repetitively; that is the key to good landscaping.  However here we have a lower texture (grass/mud mix) and a raised texture (red sand) and while this appears to add huge amounts of complexity it’s really just and expansion one common sense and what’s been said.  The lower texture (20 to 30 ‘feet’ below the upper) has vegetation and still flows with the general form for the most part, occasionally breaking the pattern and the upper layer does the same only above the lowers layers trees and shrubs and it is left blank.  The lower "level is generally a darker color as well with the higher level standing out due to the contrast.  This is a common component of Mala landscapes.

If you have any relevant questions feel free to post them.  Thank you for your time.

ride6

I don't think that is very good landscaping, the stuff from Escalante Falls that is. It's just raised land, being raised at randomn heights and all being pointed and not varied rather than direction.

That's jagged rocks. It's how they're supposed to look.

 

Here we see some classic Mala landscaping from the Hi Rollers winning Escalante River Falls. 

But wait Mala throws in more complexity to the formula, adding a third angle in there along with the 2nd land type or texture.  Mala continues with the flowing form system though.  The angles all point up towards the peak of the hill and do so repetitively; that is the key to good landscaping.  However here we have a lower texture (grass/mud mix) and a raised texture (red sand) and while this appears to add huge amounts of complexity it’s really just and expansion one common sense and what’s been said.  The lower texture (20 to 30 ‘feet’ below the upper) has vegetation and still flows with the general form for the most part, occasionally breaking the pattern and the upper layer does the same only above the lowers layers trees and shrubs and it is left blank.  The lower "level is generally a darker color as well with the higher level standing out due to the contrast.  This is a common component of Mala landscapes.

If you have any relevant questions feel free to post them.  Thank you for your time.

ride6

I don't think that is very good landscaping, the stuff from Escalante Falls that is. It's just raised land, being raised at randomn heights and all being pointed and not varied rather than direction.

That's jagged rocks. It's how they're supposed to look.

About 9/10 of that is land and not rocks.

I have to agree. Escalante River Falls is not a favorite Mala park. The landscaping in that screen is just weak. Check out Mount Sinister for examples of his amazing earth shaping technique.

The overall size of the map and the amount of attractions plus elevation changes left little room for me to create the atmosphere I needed in Escalante. As I stated earlier, this park was heavily inspired by time I spent in the canyonlands of the U.S. Bryce Canyon in particular. You can see Bryce in pictures and even stand in awe on it's rim, but until you journey down into the heart of it and experience the utter magic of sunrise or sunset, you really are only observing it. The place is truly alive as shadows quickly morph the surroundings all around you. Clusters or families of spires would seem to climb the cliffsides as if all waiting for the show to start in some great godlike amphitheater. I wanted to convey the atmosphere of Bryce where red and orange spires and outcroppings stand eroded and ancient as patches of vegetation cling for life in the crevices and depressions that decorate their bases. Every here and there a hardy pine of some variety would stand proud amongst the outcroppings. As you zoom out with the map, this area in the screen combines with other areas in Escalante creating the overall atmosphere I intended. I was there and I feel it in Escalante. I chose more modest heights for my spires than some of those in Bryce because the sides of the land squares could not be made that brilliant striated red, white and orange and their brown dirt sides just were not selling it for me. Those Wacky Worlds canyon pieces would be fun for me to mess around with I guess. The time I spent in Bryce Canyon and the Grand Canyon as well as Zion Nat'l Park and Lake Powell was a huge inspiration for the story behind the Mystery of the Giza Connection in the Cydonia City Guide Book. In fact the park itself was situated near the Grand Canyon to take advantage of the somewhat Mars like terrain as well as a steady tourist flow. I had Rift Valley more at the base of the Colorado Rockies. I doubt the links in the guide book are still working but I am sure the images are somewhere on Hoagland's vast site.

so many mala posts @_@

you must have more free time than you previously had.

anyway, I just want to complain about something...

I really wish people would stop thinking of me as a wannabe mala.



I'm blitz.



mala: I've been wanting to visit bryce canyon for a long time, since I saw some pictures of it. Very beautiful.

^ I guess that's true, your style is quite a bit different than Mala's so I'll quite. I saw quite a bit of video of Bryce Canyon on the Travel Channel or something and it looked spectacular. Funny thing, it reminded me of your work Mala.

I tend to agree with Natelox on the landscaping subject, Mount Sinister has the greatest forms since it had the room to properly spread out. Rift Valley didn't have the obvious land changes but if you get down there into it they're there, just not as much as in the other two.

I'm done with the guide due to it's controversiality, however if you even need any help understanding something (n00bs, this means you!) for your parks when it comes to landscaping, treeing, theming or archetecture feel free to contact me at Jroot88@aol.com and I'll try to get back to you with a detailed analisis and explination.

ride6

ride6, I'd much rather read about how you build your parks, instead of how you think other people build their parks. Trying to explain someone else's work never really works, because you don't know how they think. Keep writing stuff like this though, it can be interesting