Where, when, and what is Temnograd?
Temnograd is a city(and its surrounding area) located in a fictional post-soviet Russian-speaking country called Zabrovia. The name "Temnograd" (translated from Russian) basically means "dark city". I chose it because it has a symbolic vibe similar to "Liberty City" and "Vice City". The name "Zabrovia" sounds a bit related to something abandoned.
Of course as usual with GTA games the map will be an island, but you can imagine that it's located somewhere around Latvia, Estonia, and Russia. The initial inspiration for the map shape was Vyborg, Russia, but it has veered quite far away from that to include various types of terrain and fill out the available 6x6 km area.
Here's one of the very first map "sketches" assembled from Google Maps screenshots, made almost 2 years ago.
And I'm using Cities: Skylines to make a slightly more detailed(but still very vague) plan of the map, doing it in C:S makes it quick and easy to design roads, areas, and terrain and quickly edit them by moving things around.
The reason I went with "Russian-speaking" is because it most fits the aesthetic I'm going for, it makes sense for the area, and I also understand it quite a bit. But don't worry if you don't - anything important for gameplay will be in English.
Despite the main inspiration being the "doomer aesthetic" of Eastern Europe, I'll try to include a wide variety of urbanscapes including a nice old town like in Riga and landscapes such as green forests and plains with farmland.
As for the time period - I'm not picking a specific year but I imagine it sometime between 2000 and 2005, with an emphasis on dated places and cars from the past.
I am focusing on autumn as the main theme for the map, but I'm also thinking about "biomes" - certain areas of the map where the aesthetic is a bit different. For example - the northwest could be more muddy and have bare trees, while the center of the city could have more of a vibrant orange/red fall vibe, and the countryside could have fields that feel a bit more like summer.
Regarding the art style - the main inspiration for the vibe is GTA III, but I think GTA VC has better cars with their unique body textures.
The main point is to go low res and low detail so I can make things faster, but still try to have a lot of character.
I know that I haven't shown much of the actual progress on the mod, but recently I've spent a lot of time experimenting with mods and shaders, troubleshooting various issues, and refining the workflow of asset creation so it's quick and easy for me to import and reimport content into the game.
The next articles will be about showcasing the first car I made, and a tiny area of the map, so here are some more sneak peeks:
By the way, Ko-fi supporters get access to recorded stream videos which already contain the creation of the first car and a bit of work on the map.