What's the best direction to build for a large open area?

[Pope Guilty]

I'm working (in Doom Builder 2) on a map that involves a large lava lake (Mt Erebus-ish) crossed by broken bridges connecting various areas. My question isn't so much "How do I accomplish this?" but rather "What's the best order to draw my sectors?" Should I start by designating the outer boundaries of the area and fill inward, carving the sectors for the bridges and islands out of the larger lava lake sector? Should I build a little at a time, starting with the bridges and islands and filling in and around them with the lava? I'm concerned that the outside-in method is going to involve some weirdness with disconnected areas being the same sector, and the inside-out direction seems like a good idea to me but I'm not experienced enough to be confidant that it's not going to cause issues I don't know enough to anticipate yet.

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

IMO, it's best to make the insides of buildings that'll be completely surrounded by outdoors first, and then add the outdoors afterwards, to make sure the internal rooms will be big enough since it's easier to adjust the bounds of those before there's a whole bunch of surrounding stuff drawn in.  Either way can potentially end up with some fiddliness when it comes to putting the finishing touches in, though, but so it goes.

[Misty]

Well,first you should try plan map on paper. Maybe you'll get great idea and vision how map should look like. Sometimes it helps a lot. I often try draw map on paper and later try recreate it on doom builder with some fixes and a bit different ideas. 

[leodoom85]

I did the insides first then I add a bit of outdoors with the potential of leading to an open area...

[everennui]

1 hour ago, MysteriousHaruko said:

Well,first you should try plan map on paper. Maybe you'll get great idea and vision how map should look like. Sometimes it helps a lot. I often try draw map on paper and later try recreate it on doom builder with some fixes and a bit different ideas. 

 

I did this today. I went for a hike in the bluffs; sat on a rock, overlooking the river valley and drew a Doom map. It's not much, but it's something that might flesh out to something bigger. Just looking at it now I can see more possibilities.