So How Do You Work Around Annoying Rocks and Ponds?

[ashubii]

I've been redoing a few aspects of my town lately (it's a never ending project) and I've noticed that I am a sucker for symmetry. Pathways have to be lined nicely, trees and lampposts have to be evenly spaced and and placed, and paths leading from my Town Hall and Train Station have to align perfectly with the doorways.

Unfortunately, there's a rock right smack in the middle of where my path should go leading from Train Station entry. For a while this stopped me from lining my paths up exactly how I wanted, but I decided recently that I should no longer let this inhibit my vision.
So now my path circles around the rock, as if it's some form of plaza centerpiece. It's not the prettiest thing, but it let's me have a path that continues in a straight line from my Station.

The point of this is that now my curiosity has been sparked.

How have you worked around rocks, ponds, etc within your town? Especially if they've altered your initial vision or plans?

Feel free to post images, as well! I would have, but my SD card won't work with my computer any longer

 

[Tessie]

I just work around it unfortunately, here's a rock in the middle of a path towards Town Hall, blaah!

 

[Ettienne]

I don't have any pictures, sadly, but. Rocks I pretend are part of the scenery. Decorating all alternating trees and flowers, I'll pretend it's a tree. Most of my rocks are out the way though. I only have one pond, the Re-Tail one. I decorated around it with flowers, a path that loops around, etc, and placed a bench near the north side. Now it's a water feature.

 

[PaperCat]

Most my rocks border my paths, so I just put a bush on the other side to kinda match it. I dont have an image at the moment. If a rock is in my way, I will just go around it. I only have one pond, and I am just putting flowers around it.

 

[ashubii]

I don't have any screenshots from my game, like i said, but I do have this gridded map I made to plan out where I want things to go.
This is just the acre with my town hall, but as you can see, the black square represents a rock, and the pink represents my path.



I guess it wasn't too bad a set up, but it wasn't really working well for me.

So I adjusted it last night to this.

 

[Reese]

Ooh, I've done a similar thing with a rock in front of my Retail:

Although it wasn't the rock that was in the way as much as the pond to the right, which prevented me from making the upper left path cut straight across:

And the other rock slightly below it, which prevented me from making the path from Retail go straight down:

So I just turned it into this little intersection. I was so proud of myself when I came up with this, haha this is probably one of my favorite parts of town.

Oh, there's also a rock to the front left of my town hall (pictured in my signature), so when the ore rock spawned on the opposite side, I left it there to make it symmetrical.

 

[Stitched]

I think it's best to start by pathing out around rocks and ponds instead of beginning elsewhere and running into problems later.
That's what I'm doing when I repath my town.

 

[ashubii]

Ooooh, that's actually really pretty! (I might have to visit your DA to see it all myself). I really love your tulips and lilies!

I have tulips all around my retail, but they're not in any color order (yet).

I'm pretty ridiculously proud of my retail, though. I need to figure out a better way to get my pictures off my 3DS so I can share ;n;

- - - Post Merge - - -

I think it's best to start by pathing out around rocks and ponds instead of beginning elsewhere and running into problems later.
That's what I'm doing when I repath my town.

I sketched out my town map and then made a digital version so that I could do just that, but I've found myself redoing my pathways 100 times anyway. Sometimes I get better ideas about what to do or where to place things after I've already placed them a certain way

 

[DarkSlayer1331]

@Reese I am so jealous right now. That looks GORGEOUS. I could never come up with good landscaping designs like that. I'm proud of myself if I get a nice garden set up that lines a building. Actually putting paths down like that? Yeah right... Although I kind of don't want paths in my town. I like the grass haha. xD

 

[Reese]

Ooooh, that's actually really pretty! (I might have to visit your DA to see it all myself). I really love your tulips and lilies!

I have tulips all around my retail, but they're not in any color order (yet).

I'm pretty ridiculously proud of my retail, though. I need to figure out a better way to get my pictures off my 3DS so I can share ;n;

Aw thank you! I actually have tulips, lilies, roses, and cosmos all over my town like that, in the same pattern/colors. I'd love to visit your dream town if you have one! If not I'll just look forward to seeing those pictures when you get them up.

@Reese I am so jealous right now. That looks GORGEOUS. I could never come up with good landscaping designs like that. I'm proud of myself if I get a nice garden set up that lines a building. Actually putting paths down like that? Yeah right... Although I kind of don't want paths in my town. I like the grass haha. xD

Thank you so much! It was a lot of hard work and a LOT of trial and error, trust me, haha.

 

[xanisha]

Mostly I just ignore my rocks, because they tend to be out of the way. I do have one rock right in the middle of my path and I just ignore it >.< even though it looks kinda bad

Spoiler

'

This rock is the worst ><

 

[Pirate]

I just put my paths around them. I can't stand putting them in the middle of paths. Unfortunately, my current town, despite the awesome map and placements of my villagers houses and everything else, it has more rocks in it than any other town I've had and they're in some pretty awful places. Some of them are so close together that putting a path near them wouldn't look good at all.

 

[Story]

Eh...
I mostly ignore my rocks. I have most in flower fields, I went out of my way to make sure none of them abstracted my paths.
My ponds are a completely different matter. I absolutely love them. Then again, I only have two.

 

[ashubii]

Aw thank you! I actually have tulips, lilies, roses, and cosmos all over my town like that, in the same pattern/colors. I'd love to visit your dream town if you have one! If not I'll just look forward to seeing those pictures when you get them up.

No dream town yet, unfortunately. My town is a wreck (idek how many months I've been working on it, I think since January x_x )

- - - Post Merge - - -

But I'll work on those pictures!

 

[Tikikata]

I pretty much just go with the flow. As much as I hate where one of my ponds is, I just made the pathways work its way around them. Or I just try to make it look as neat as I can.

 

[Hypno KK]

For rocks, I just try to avoid them altogether and get used to it or I'll just incorporate them into the paths by making it go around them. Thankfully, I haven't run into many rocks like that in the areas I've done paths for, just one of them.

For ponds, I have several in my town because I didn't know much about maps when I first started played and I didn't want to reset my town when I found out about it. I kind of like them. I just try to make the most of them, I'll usually place flowers and benches around them and that tends to make them look nice and more natural.

 

[tolisamarie]

Fortunately none of my rocks are where I wanted paths, but quite a few of them line paths like this:

I just ignore them.

 

[LunaLight]

Unfortunately, there is a rock in a few of my paths :c I have 2 aisles of paths (Like most people) so there's just a rock in one of the squares. It doesn't look that bad, but I just try to make it work c:

 

[Crystiesc]

I went around them when necessary, but my town is very natural/zen, so free-wandering paths just fit.

 

[lutrea]

Rocks, I build around them. I don't really have any in awkward places, and the ones that I do have I just place my paths around them or surround them with flowers. c:

Ponds are a completely different story, I only have one pond and it's right by Re-Tail and I have some pink, red and white cosmos surrounding it c: