I'm pretty close to finished with this map. All I've got to do is place the weapons and player starts plus all the vphysics and normal clip brushes around the sky. Hopefully I'll have a beta download later today around noon, unless I sleep in way too long yet again. I'd appreciate any comments you can provide.
I'd have to agree and carry it one step further.
if you have been around structures like this, there is a lot of dust. the air is too pristine/clear. the environment and the shape of the structures clash.
also, buildings that are uninhabited even for a short period of time have rampant plant growth. grass will crop up even on the upper floors of a fair sized building. (bird poop and updraft winds.)
if i were you, i would think about un-tidying up the site/map/area.
[addsig]
Yeah. The structure of the map looks fine to me, and you did some cool things with the lighting (see 3rd to last screen - wow) but it's like the map has two halves: a ground level that is basically unscathed, and a rooftop level that's all f**ked up.
Though I hate to say it, the lighting needs to be a harsher color, if only a darker gray. Subtle fog (and maybe even dust/fire sprites here and there?) would do you a world of good.
I don't want to trash the map; the effort you put into the design/architecture is apparent in the screens. It just lacks the extra umph of polish needed to jump out at the audience.
[addsig]seems everyone is doing destroyed buildings nowadays 
in the bottom half of the first screenshot, the left roof texture seems a bit overscaled, and in the right roof texture, the tiles dont fit in the triangle. have an edge so that they dont end abrubtly.
[addsig]I'll see what I can do, but I'm already below my target FPS in certain areas so I don't know how much more I can add. I agree that the pictures aren't stunning and that the map probably won't be well received, but that's nothing new for my maps :/
The windows on the orange building will be blown out, that is a pretty obvious oversight on my part. I don't know how many plants I'm going to be putting in the rafters of concrete and brick buildings... now if they were completely destroyed leaving only an empty shell and rubble on the ground then sure, but these buildings aren't very realistically destroyed. The ground is probably too undamaged, but I can't start tearing up the road in any significant way because players still need to be able to get around the level. I refuse to use any of the concrete pile models down there because they present too many snags and sticking points for an area that basically connects the entire level.
Thanks for the suggestions.
EDIT: What picture are you talking about? There are no tile roofs in the first picture.
[addsig]Tiles are actually cut that way though
... And honestly, I doubt he could cram much more detail in that open
of an area.
Yak, very nice architecture, I like it. I don't
think you have to go as far as making an ass load of foliage
or something like that, but messing around with the "dust
particle" effects would be a good idea, especially in the area
shown in screen #6/7.
It also seems like there should be some
more bare wires and such. But, that's just some extra
detail.
Anyway, get optimizing, I
suppose.
Oh! That's a combine structure that connects two buildings, not a roof 
And dust particles are a good idea for that one enclosed area. I should have thought of that one myself.
[addsig]
if it rains, in a building with no roof, puddles form in the lower levels.
shade will slow evaporation too so, you could put stagnant water in darker places.
trash isn't the only form of debris.. dirt piles on the windward side of things.. rain washes dirt away on others.
when i said "rampant plant growth" i didn't mean a second tropical rain forest.. just put some grass stems on places that in a normal building would have it.. places where footsteps would not trample it if it were real.
with dust, comes beams of light, use that to effect.
sounds, don't forget some sounds.
hope that helps.
[addsig]ah, ok. I think I have some ideas on how to impliment these things. I'll see if I can shove them in there. 
teamwork, its such a f**king cool concept
dm_torque is now released. Feel free to tear it apart, as I'm taking the lessons learned here and applying them to my next map. The download link is up above. Right-click it if Tripod spits out an error message.
EDIT: There's an alternate download link at www.punkassfraggers.com: Look for dm_torque
It doesn't look very different from the earlier shots, and that's because I really couldn't add any additional details for the following reasons:
-I tried to add fog but it screwed with the skybox turning the models gray and leaving the sky clear, either I did it wrong or it doesn't work in that situation.
-I didn't have any updates from December 17 onward, so I didn't have the patch that fixed detail props not showing up after compiling. I couldn't add little bits of grass in the buildings because the grass didn't show up.
-I tried to use beams of light in the dust mote areas (those I did add) but they didn't look right in that situation.
-Breaking out the windows in the orange building caused a FPS drop in an area that already had a low FPS. I felt the small and unimportant (and ugly!) asthetic change did not justify the performance hit. It's strange that they had orange wall damaged props but no orange wall damaged textures.
-I tried to add a citadel, but I basically ran out of time.
I'd appreciate any post-release complaints you may have.
I just played this map 1on1 yesterday for some time.. And we really liked it, the flow/gameplay on this map is pretty good.. But I feel the room where the combine rifle is on ground level (pic 6 above) didn't get used alot because it doesn't hold any important stuff (outside the combine rifle).. We bassicly fought over and on the RL & crossbow roof area's all the time.. So maybe you can make that area a bit more interesting to go to by adding a combine supercharger or something..
P.s. having the RL and crossbow on top, and their ammo on groundlevel is pretty smart.. Stops people from camping on top all the time..
Thanks for playing it!
You have a good point about the hotel that I didn't think of. I guess I overstated the importance of the overwatch rifle, but that's what I get for not being able to playtest the map or get any critiques before release. The original design for HLDM had the gauss rifle in that room and the map had one less stairway leading up to the top. Goes to show how difficult it is to port maps between the two games
Np m8.. Are you gonna work on this map more (by maybe adding stuff to that room etc), or is this the final version?
Because that's the only got-dang textures they gave us!!! GRRRRRRRRRRR!
I am trying to make a Medieval Castle and I have about 3 textures to Choose from.
[addsig]
