Why I DON’T add depth to my buildings? + Surprise TRAD

Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don’t. Not your typical depth, anyway. Check out these realistic building tips followed by some traditional building to balance things out.

1. THE CASE FOR MODERN

Everyone seems to give the advice of adding depth to your buildings. However, 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, generic contemporary buildings.

Real buildings are 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 intricate window designs.

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 to the trad and modern city areas soon. You can explore all the builds online or join the in-game server!

2. FOR BALANCE: TRADITIONAL

A city needs balance. Call me crazy but I just built SOME kind of trad! Inspired by a picture of the Singer Building. Of course, such grand traditional buildings should not be flat, unlike their modern counterparts. I did an alright job here, though it varies between each home. More traditional coming in the future?!