How did you go about terraforming your island?

[misstayleigh]

ahhh!!! there's so much island teardown regret here LOL

which I started reading about as I was just about done tearing down mine ajfdsjhfkjsf and I was like what have I DONEEE

but then I just started going to town tearing to terraform fast & dirty—and it's been going well!! I started with my river mouths because I knew the back left side was going to connect to my museum, and the front would connect to my shopping centre. I'm really happy with how the shopping centre in particular is turning out! the right to the left near the airport will eventually cut off entrance and I'll put a bridge there, so when people come to visit my island I can easily block off access to the main island/streamline to the shops if need be.

the lake toward the right side of my map is going to be a residential lake. I'm going to put four houses staggered around it and a playground with a bridge on the centre island. I liked the idea of a communal space but didn't want to do the same neat rows I've done on my past islands. I'm trying to be more open to imperfect/"random" seeming placements, even if there's actually a lot of thought going into it haha

the museum in the back has a stone/brick fossil cafe on the first level, the museum on the second level, and the third level will eventually build into a bamboo/pine forest where I store extra insects and fish to sell to Flick and CJ. I'd like my orchard/farm to go near the secret beach, where Redd will occasionally infiltrate the farmer's market with his dubious knockoffs

my resident house will eventually be a little beach bungalow by the peninsula, and the campsite will go I thiiiiink toward the right frontside of the map. that's the last big placement I'm still not sure about, besides some other residential homes. but I'm having fun working my way through this!!

I can't say I'd recommend tearing everything down blindly because it did take A LOT of time, but I challenged myself to pick a map I HATED so I really couldn't back out of it haha

 

[SirOctopie]

I've torn down my island 3 times already, but before I do I use the happy island designer website to get a feel for how I want things to look. There's also that 3D one that uses Unity engine, which I've used to see if things translate well in-game. Then I turn on some music and work for hours on end

 

[HopeForHyrule]

My first island, Daguerreo, is being heavily modeled after the "real" Daguerreo in Final Fantasy IX, soooo it's kind of a bother trying to learn what can and can't be replicated. I ended up flattening my whole island,moving all the houses and stores to the left side of my island and am slowly building everything back up...which is starting with the basic layout and then fill in everything with items/housing/etc.

My second island...I'm just gonna wing it, lol. But knowing me, I'm gonna go heavy with double waterfalls.

 

[Fye]

Tearing everything down was really intimidating and I had so many windflowers on my cliffs so I got rid of all my flowers first, and then edited my cliffs and rivers around ideas I had. I'd say the overall shape is the same as it was in the beginning: second level cliff in the middle, third level cliff in the back, and a river going from my east river mouth to about 3/4 of the map west before turning down to the south river mouth. I got rid of the ponds since they were in my way and added some small ones later for the sake of fishing, and a few months ago added a small level 4 cliff to give the back of my island mountain vibes. I struggled with an overly straight river too and managed to curve it a bit to make it look more natural but I'm not completely satisfied yet. Overall I'm happy with how it went and would have been really stressed out if I had to start from a completely flat island, but that's just me.