Design A Cool Farmville Farm

Overall, this final scene took months of editing, nudging and redoing until I was happy with it. The key is using decorative items to add to the scenery.This is the area of Farmville you see when you enter my farm: I designed the central area to be somewhat of a surprise to visitors once the screen loads. Instead of ugly hay bales, I "trapped" the character with tree stumps, which were more fitting for the surrounding area. As for the layout, the water elements were placed first, and plant life was strategically placed around them. Finally, trees, and then wildlife.

Other bits and pieces were hidden behind trees to create an illusion, such as the cardinal perched on the birdhouse (both are separate items and don't look anywhere near as "together" with that tree out of the way). Backdrop items that already had an animal in them, such as the duck pond, were made to blend more with their surroundings by putting a similar animal near it (a duck), as well as flax plants, tall grass, sage brush and small hills. Some of these were limited-time only items.

The oak tree on the left was given the illusion of looking bigger than it is, by exposing the trunk and surrounding it with other trees that were placed lower than it.

Although this is obviously Photoshopped to an extreme, I wanted to show you how I was able to create the illusion of "height." By stacking dirt tiles and moving them a nudge higher than the previous, and then leveling them out for a few squares, then continuing to stack them - I was able to achieve a steep hill effect.

The effect was further accented by trees. Place trees near the bottom of your screen, and move them slightly to the upper right of the previous trees. It will take a lot of trial and error, but you can help "sculpt" your landscape with the participation of stacked dirt tiles and trees!

Also, note how I used dozens of the "tall grass" item to fill in all of the gaps under and behind the trees. This hides the floor texture and adds to the overall illusion.

This old barn can be seen at the top of my playing field in Farmville, and I surrounded it with trees. Note that the trees behind it, specifically, the jackfruit tree, "evergreen tree II" and breadfruit tree are being used to complete the illusion of height. They were placed to tower over the area to the left, which appears to be a hill fading underneath it. Note how I placed those trees to appear as if they are lower than the others.

The barn itself was intended by me to almost look "abandoned." I added a barrel next to it for appearance, and a patch of wildflowers (this was a limited edition German item) grows in the yard to the right.

The structure here is the "Wild West barn," a limited time building, and the Wild West items were the best ones of all in my opinion. They all had a very old, wooden texture to them and weren't as cartoonish as the standard barns.I designed the area to take on the motif of this barn - wooden fences, piled wood, tree stumps, barrels, pine trees (which are unfortunately rare items), etc. The American flag really stands out with all of the neutral colors around it.

As for the trees, olive-colored trees look best around these wooden structures, so I tried to mix things up. As usual, trees were alternated and placed in natural patterns to look realistic. I was lucky enough to get a weather vane, which seems to be a pretty rare item, and it made a good addition to this scene.

An aerial view of my farm, showing an area where two hills intersect - sunlight peeks between the clouds. To complete the look, I filled in the gaps with tree and plant life. The farm windmill appears higher than everything around it, because I placed the tops of the trees further south near its base. A lone scarecrow stands out, as does a dormant antique tractor, surrounded by tall grass. Several round hay bales were placed at the edge of the fields.

The upper right corner of my Farmville farm is where the vineyard is. Just like everything else, I only put relevant stuff next to it - a couple of lantern posts, barrels next to a barrel cart, and a grape stand. A Wild West tool shed is off to the right of the vineyard. It was the only tool shed that fit with the scenery. There's not much else going on here, beyond a lone rabbit in the field of tall grass.

Here's a wide shot of my farm, no Photoshop :) The bottom corner is where I cram everything that I couldn't put elsewhere (still hoping for another farm size bigger than "Grand Plantation," which is what you see pictured here).

Look at how I sculpted the land - it basically forms a valley in the middle. You can see the slope I created to the left, which basically continues throughout the entire farm. The only area that's flat is the bottom quadrant. The north and east quadrants slope to the left, and the western quadrant slopes to the right. Any gap between dirt tiles (there were many, especially where "crossing hills" met) was filled in with something: trees, some grass, etc.

Once you stop thinking "linear" and start thinking out of the box, your design possibilities in Farmville are unlimited!Here are the basics for creating a hill in Farmville: simply start at the bottom left of the screen, but not against the edge. Move out about 2-3 squares, and place your first row of dirt tiles. Put two of them down, one right next to the other, with no space in between. Then, above the left-most dirt tile, place another that's just one "nudge" up and to the left of it. Place another square tile to the right of that one, jutting up against it.

Now, above that upper-left dirt square, place yet another one that's up and to the left of it. Above this row (which should be the third from the bottom), level it out by placing another dirt tile flat against it. In other words, don't nudge it up and to the left, but lay it out flat. You should now have what appears to be a mildly sloped landscape. This should continue on and on until you've reached the top-most point you desire.

Continue moving along by sloping upward, then leveling out for about 3 rows, then sloping upward some more. Hills should never continue to move upward from the bottom of the playing field to the top - that would kill the illusion and make it look like a hackjob! It's best to make them natural by sloping up, leveling off a bit, sloping up again, etc.

Here's the tricky part: another key element of creating the illusion of hills is that they will have to appear wider on the bottom than they do at the very top (the reason why is because the playing field is not a head-on view, but a top-down view tilted at a 45-degree angle to the right).

When you create hills (note the plural version of that word) in Farmville, they WILL eventually "meet" and jut up against one another. That's where you have to be really strategic in regard to what happens in these cases. The area shown in green arrows above signify the places where another hill will "clash" with this one. In this case, the hill to the right of it will appear more in the foreground, and will look like it's almost towering over the one to its left that you see pictured here. To create this illusion, make the hill become thinner and more sloped to the northeastern end of it.

One final thing to note about the edge of a hill, such as the one pictured above, on the right side: note my "2,1" pattern: two dirt squares, then one, then two, then one: I continue this pattern until it starts getting to the top of the hill, where it should level off and become series of "1,1" dirt squares. You can then reciprocate by tapering off the dirt squares on the left, so that the hill narrows at the top.

Now that your hill is shaping up, use the spacing along its edge to your advantage. Start placing trees: on the lower left edge of the screen, place them to the left as far as you can. As the hill continues upward, place them up and to the left, as seen in the image above. This will make the trees at the bottom of the screen appear to be "further down the hill," and the ones uphill will appear to be higher and taller.

This optical illusion takes some practice. It also helps to use many different kinds of trees. There are some that are much taller and wider than others: use all of these to your advantage. The tallest species of trees should appear at the top of the screen, and the shorter ones at the bottom.

Once you've finished up with your tree placement, it's time to fill in the gaps under and behind trees with grass clumps. They're called "Tall Grass," and you can find them in the Farmville Market under "Other" and by scrolling all the way near the end of the menu. The only bad news is that they cost $1,500 each, and will eat up your money pretty quickly. So, this is a step only for farmers that have a few million in their account.

In looking at my illustration above, I placed grass under trees and behind them. Some trees have "gaps" between branches and leaves, and I like to place tall grass clumps behind them so that the ground texture isn't showing.

The practice of stacking fences in Farmville to create the illusion of height was something that most people discovered during the screenshots that used to show up in early 2010 while Farmville loaded. People have created some very elaborate designs by simply stacking fences tightly together, then removing them one by one until the other end looked "thinner."

The image above is a re-creation of how it's done: there's not much to say about it, beyond the fact that you can create the illusion of walls and even towers by using this method. I personally don't like it, as it only looks good from a distance, but petty awful when zoomed in close.

Another design bandwagon on Farmville is the strategic placement of hay bales that gives the perception that they're stacked on top of each other. Hay bales in Farmville are 3-sided figures, and can therefore be used to create the illusion of staircases or hills. It's yet another design method I don't use and am not fond of, as it only looks good from a far distance.

A favorite of some Farmvillers is to create "pixel art" or mosaics using nothing but hay bales. You can re-create classic video game sprites using them, where one bale = 1 pixel (or 4 bales, 8 bales, etc.) Here's a quick example that I made last year, re-creating the Mario sprite.

Here are a few screenshots I've taken in the past that show some pretty amazing Farmville designs. Although Farmville typically uses the load screen to advertise new features these days, they used to show off some pretty amazing community-made farms that were jaw dropping and full of creativity. Here are a few!

Possibly one of best utilization of fence stacking I've seen - this Halloween-themed Farmville farm has its north end "raised" with a fabricated wall, showing off a haunted house and a field of black sheep. It features a pixel art ghost, a second haunted house and cemetery, and don't forget all of those cool flying bats (a Halloween collectible item...if you hadn't gotten any, hopefully Zynga will re-release it again this year!) The fall colors and crops (pumpkins, etc.) further accent the scene.

The designer of this "Farmville Tower" is ridiculously good with their sense of depth & perception. The bridge you're looking at is nothing more than the floor texture. It's nothing but an optical illusion created by stacked fences with stacked blue and black hay bales under it, to give the appearance of a creek. The height of the tower itself is an illusion created by hiding the edges of the fence pieces with trees. The owner of this farm must have had a lot of cash reserved up, as there doesn't appear to be much of anything pulling in a regular income on this farm, beyond the animals and trees.

Normally, I can't stand those pastel colored trees, but it really made this farm look great. Between the odd color of the house and these trees, there's a lot of eye candy going on here: this Farmville farm is littered with pumpkins and has all of its trees fenced in neatly around the entire property.

Anyone who plays Farmville immediately thought "wow, that must have been expensive" when looking at this one. The sheer number of hay bales used here is astronomical, and they certainly aren't cheap! This is one of the best examples of Farmville pixel art I've ever seen. It's unthinkable to know how the artist was able to create such a huge image while perfectly judging the distance from one side to the other, and keep perfect symmetry.

Visit Farmville's official "Farmville Art forum" for more cool Farmville farm pictures!