Chapter 3: Economy, Resources, and Travel Routes

Created by Sarah Choi (prompt writer using ChatGPT)

Economy, Resources, & Travel Routes — A Worldbuilding Guide for Environment Concept Artists (Concepting + Production)

Worlds feel inevitable when places exist for reasons. Economy (who trades what), resources (what is abundant or scarce), and travel routes (how things and people move) shape the massing, materials, signage, security, and daily rhythms of environments. For environment concept artists, tying scenes to these forces keeps designs believable on the concepting side and buildable on the production side. This guide shows how to convert economic logic into kits, palettes, wayfinding, and gameplay clarity.

1) The Triangle: Resource → Route → Market

Every settlement sits on a triangle:

  • Resource nodes (ore seams, forests, fisheries, quarries, farms, springs, dyes/pigments)
  • Travel routes (rivers, passes, coastlines, caravan tracks, rails, highways, air lanes)
  • Markets (local consumption, transshipment hubs, festivals/fairs, ports)

Your task is to make these visible. Show extraction, conveyance, and exchange through architecture, props, signage, and wear. If the triangle is invisible in your keyframe, add cues until it reads at a glance.

2) Resource Types and Their Spatial Signatures

Mineral/Ore. Headframes, slag heaps, tailings ponds, ore carts, stamp mills, cableways. Surfaces: oxidized metal, rock dust, soot. Urban impact: foundry districts, water demand, labor barracks. Gameplay: hazard zones (steam, slag), strong silhouettes (headframes) for landmarking.

Forestry/Lumber. Log booms, sawmills, tramways, stacked timber yards, resin taps. Surfaces: bark debris, sawdust drifts, pitch streaks. Urban impact: timber framings, shingle roofs. Gameplay: stealth occluders (stacks), traversal (beams, pulleys).

Agriculture. Granaries, threshing floors, irrigation networks, terraces, markets, mills. Surfaces: chaff, mud, straw; seasonal color swings. Urban impact: wide cart streets, storage courts. Gameplay: cover patterns (hayricks), seasonal variants.

Fisheries/Maritime. Quays, slipways, net racks, smokehouses, icehouses, lighthouses. Surfaces: salt crusts, tar, kelp, gull droppings. Urban impact: tide stairs, spray walls. Gameplay: slippery surfaces, tide‑driven routes, fog recipes.

Textiles/Dyes. Dye vats, drying racks, weavers’ courts, soft‑water wells. Surfaces: pigment staining, runoff channels. Urban impact: color culture and signage. Gameplay: strong accent palettes; smell/visibility VFX.

Energy (Fuel/Power). Wood yards, coal cranes, oil tanks, wind farms, solar fields, hydro works, geothermal vents. Surfaces: soot, oil spill sheens, cable trays. Urban impact: transmission corridors, hazard labeling. Gameplay: stealth shadows or bright hazard zones.

Knowledge/Services. Markets, guildhalls, libraries, universities, pilgrimage shrines. Surfaces: polished thresholds, notice boards. Urban impact: square planning, hostel districts. Gameplay: social stealth, crowd density.

Tie each resource to transport artifacts (rails, ropeways, canals, caravan gear) that visibly connect extraction to market.

3) Travel Routes: Reading the Network

Rivers & Canals. Ferries, locks, towpaths, quay ladders, bollards. Wayfinding: depth marks, tide boards. Production kits: embankments, lock gates, mooring furniture, water stairs.

Mountain Passes. Switchbacks, galleries, avalanche sheds, milestone stones. Wayfinding: cairns, prayer flags, emergency huts. Kits: retaining walls, snow fences, lookout niches.

Desert Tracks. Caravanserai (day’s‑march spacing), shade arcades, wells, windbreak dunes. Wayfinding: beacon towers, reflective trail markers. Kits: courtyard inns, camel ties, water chests.

Coasts & Open Sea. Lighthouses, buoys, fog horns, breakwaters, tide markers. Kits: revetments, seawalls, slipways; night lighting cadence.

Roads & Rails. Bridges, mileposts, toll gates, stations, yards. Wayfinding: color bands by route class; icon families for services. Kits: guard rails, platforms, gantries.

Air Lanes/Skyports (sci‑fi/fantasy). Mooring masts, landing platforms, wind socks, docking lights, traffic beacons. Kits: safe‑zone paint, blast shields, guidance pylons.

Route quality changes street hierarchy: long‑haul arterials vs. local alleys. Reflect hierarchy in width, surface, signage cadence, and lighting.

4) Markets: Exchange Shapes Cities

Market Typologies.

  • Linear street market: stalls along an arterial; awnings; morning logistics.
  • Square/plaza market: central node; fountain/cistern; guild perimeters.
  • Waterfront market: fish auctions; wet floors; drainage channels.
  • Night market: dense emissives; temp wiring; food smoke VFX.
  • Periodic fair: festival overlay architecture; caravan camps outside walls.

Spatial consequences. Loading bays, storage courtyards, guild lanes, scale houses, customs gates, tax posts, watch visibility, and firebreaks. Use graphics language (weights/measures signs, tariffs, guild seals) to embed economy into wayfinding.

5) Concepting‑Side Workflow: From Economy to Thumbnails

  1. Write the triangle: one‑liners for resource, route, market (“Copper ridge → ropeway → furnace quay”).
  2. Motif extraction: from reference/fieldwork, pull 6–10 transport/market motifs (lock gates, ore chutes, camel wells) and 6–10 resource motifs (headframes, granaries).
  3. Value thumbnails: stage extraction → conveyance → exchange in three frames; ensure the network reads in grayscale.
  4. Keyframe the beats: arrival at node, choke point (toll/customs), market heart. Add a gameplay‑lens variant to prove path clarity.
  5. Anti‑cliché audit: replace generic “bazaar” with guild‑coded stalls and measured awnings; replace “random cranes” with route‑justified hoists.

6) Production‑Side Workflow: Encoding Economic Logic

  • Kits: extraction (shafts, ramps), conveyance (ropeways, rails, canals), exchange (stalls, scales, warehouses). Each with three valid assemblies and safety logic (guard rails, clearances).
  • Material matrices: resource‑driven PBR targets (oxide reds at ore yards; salt gloss at quays; pitch streaks in timber towns). Include wear decals for traffic lanes and hand zones.
  • Wayfinding packs: icon families for water, fuel, guilds, customs; mounting heights and cadence by route class; accessibility redundancy (icon + color + text).
  • Lighting plans: night markets (warm pools, low‑glare), quays (cool navigation lights + warm work lights), passes (beacon cadence). Maintain readability parity.
  • Streaming & occlusion: use warehouses, sheds, dunes, piers as occluders along arterials; reserve volumetrics for nodes.

7) Security, Tax, and Risk: Invisible Hands, Visible Forms

Economy invites control and crime.

  • Customs & tolls: gates, weighbridges, seals, tax boards; narrow chokes with overwatch balconies. Gameplay: chokepoints for combat/stealth.
  • Guild control: color bans, logo seals, stall sizes; dispute stones. Gameplay: faction zones and safehouses.
  • Risk & resilience: fire lanes in markets; seawalls at ports; lahar channels in mining towns; dust screens in desert depots. Kits: gates/curtains; emergency water cisterns; fire hook racks.

8) Resource to Palette, Shape, and Sound

Resources color the world.

  • Metals: verdigris, rust, slag glass; hammer rhythms; steam VFX.
  • Grain: straw yellows, flour dust bloom; mill clatter.
  • Fish: teal nets, silver scales, tar black; gulls, bell buoys; salt fog.
  • Dyes: saturated racks in limited hues; runoff stains; hawker calls. Encode these into palette limits, VFX/audio cues, and no‑fly zones (e.g., no neon near sacred guild colors).

9) Travel Distance & Cadence — The Rhythm of Space

  • Day’s march / camel stage: ~30–40 km → caravanserai spacing; road nodes with wells and stables.
  • River lock cadence: every elevation change; lock‑side inns and stores.
  • Rail siding spacing: fuel/water points, passing loops; signals and gantries.
  • Lighthouse chain: line‑of‑sight spacing; fog horn patterns. Reflect cadence with repeated kits and icon rhythm so players feel distance.

10) Districting & Land Values

Proximity to routes raises land value; dirty industries get pushed leeward/downstream. Visualize value gradients: tall warehouses near the quay; cheaper add‑ons in lee alleys; prestige façades on market edges. Production: LOD silhouettes and kit quality vary by value; material care matrix (new/maintained/neglected) follows wealth.

11) Gameplay Affordances from Economic Form

  • Cover: bales, crates, log stacks, boat hulls, ore piles.
  • Traversal: cranes, catwalks, ladders, ramps, towpaths, switchbacks.
  • Stealth: awnings, stacked goods, smoke/haze pockets, crowd density.
  • Puzzles: lock gates, weigh scales, valve arrays, switching yards. Design affordances that emerge credibly from economy rather than add‑ons.

12) Accessibility & Comfort in Busy Districts

Markets and depots are visually noisy. Preserve contrast minima on traversal edges, add shape redundancy in signage, and control strobe/flicker from emissives (night markets). Provide quiet fields (matte backers) behind interactables.

13) Performance & Memory Notes

Economic hubs are asset‑dense. Use instanced kits, trim sheets, and prop clusters. Occlude long arterials with sheds/signage bands. Consolidate lights into pools; use decals for stains and signage instead of unique meshes. Keep LOD friendly silhouettes on cranes and masts.

14) Common Pitfalls (and Fixes)

  • Vibes without logistics. Pretty “harbor” with no nets, ice, or market flow. Fix: Add conveyance + exchange kits; route fish from boats to stalls.
  • Generic bazaars. Identical stalls everywhere. Fix: Guild zoning, signage standards, size variation by goods.
  • Unmotivated cranes/rails. Fix: Tie to resource flow; add touchdown marks and wear paths.
  • Over‑fogging. Hides route hierarchy. Fix: Localize volumetrics at nodes; use occluders elsewhere.
  • Palette chaos. Night market neon fights hazard coding. Fix: Accent semantics; palette ceiling; matte backgrounds.

15) Exercises (Concepting + Production)

  1. Triangle Sprint: Pick a settlement; write the resource→route→market triangle; thumbnail arrival, choke, heart.
  2. Kit Chain: Design an extraction‑to‑exchange chain (mine headframe → ropeway → smelter quay) with three kits and proof assemblies.
  3. Market Layering: Paint day and night states of a plaza market; keep readability and accent semantics consistent.
  4. Wayfinding Pack: Build icons/colors/mounting for water, fuel, customs, guilds; test in a paintover.
  5. Resilience Pass: Add firebreaks, seawalls, or dust screens; show how they affect composition and flow.

16) Hand‑Off Checklist (Concepting + Production)

  • Resource→Route→Market summary with one‑line purposes
  • Extraction, conveyance, and exchange kits with dimensions and three assemblies each
  • Material matrix for resource districts (PBR targets + wear decals)
  • Wayfinding pack (icons, colors, cadence) with accessibility redundancy
  • Lighting plans for day/night; emissive policy for markets/ports
  • Streaming/occlusion notes using sheds, warehouses, dunes, piers
  • Palette ceilings and accent semantics for busy hubs
  • Resilience infrastructure kits (fire lanes, seawalls, avalanche sheds)
  • Performance plan (instancing, trims, LOD silhouettes) and memory notes

Conclusion

Economy, resources, and travel routes are the deep structure behind convincing environments. On the concepting side, write the triangle, extract motifs from real logistics, and stage beats that make flows visible and readable. On the production side, encode those flows into kits, materials, wayfinding, lighting, and resilience systems that scale across teams and platforms. When the world’s logistics are legible, players believe—and enjoy navigating—your spaces.