This is a a discussion topic for the map "dm_sew3rs" by sh4dowz which can be found here
Map description:
Hi my names John, this is my first map that I have completed 100% it has a few ugly spots as most first maps do. All in all its a learning experience I would really enjoy pursuing level design as a career one day. I present dm_sew3rs I spent about one week off and on working on it for about two hours each night. I tried to keep it in the hl2 combine ambiance as well as add my own features.
enjoy
also if you would like to see were i got the idea from heres a link
to the picture. I tried to make a replica of it but textures were a limitation as well as the decals...
<A HREF="http://whatwedoissecret.org/madebyblog/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/japanese+sewers3.jpg" TARGET="_blank">http://whatwedoissecret.org/madebyblog/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/japanese+sewers3.jpg</A>
Map screenshots:
Screenshots for: dm_sew3rs
The console was barking errors about too many overlays trying to be rendered at once, so basically due to the open nature of the level you can't get away with that many overlays.
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<br>5. Lighting was nice, some really neat touches. I thought the overall brightness level in the main hall coulda been dropped down a bit to make it more atmospheric, but you've still managed to get a fair chunk of contrast in there so fair play to you. There's a basically pitch black corner in the lower sewer that could have done with more light, but it's nothing too major. My main issue with the lighting is more of a technical one - you've really gone crazy with the lightmap resolution 
It's resulted in some really nice effects but you've dropped it to really low values on almost all surfaces, and in MOST cases it isn't having any visual effect. That doesn't mean it isn't contributing to the filesize though, hence your 22mb BSP for a map that could really use less than half of that. In future by all means use high res lightmaps where you need them for fancy lighting effects, but not where you don't. If you've got faces that are entirely in shadow or in light then you don't need the resolution - bump up the value to 16 or 32 and you'll never notice the difference. Also, if you've a huge wall with only one small portion of the face that needs a high res lightmap, cut up the brush into multiple brushes and only use high res values on the parts you need. It'll cut down the BSP filesize, speed up your compile times, and reduce the memory requirements of the level in-game.
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<br>Anyway, this has grown a little longer than anticipated so I'll stop here. Hope it's been of some help! Keep it up man, looking forward to seeing more from you 
