Posted by Push6 on Thu May 12th 2005 at 2:17pm

Ok, download link now sorted, get beta 2 here .
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Posted by DrGlass on Wed May 11th 2005 at 11:55pm

I'll wait to post my review till you get beta 2 up.
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Posted by Push6 on Wed May 11th 2005 at 10:47pm

Ok, beta 2 is now available, and much improved. check it out!

Download here
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Posted by Addicted to Morphine on Wed May 11th 2005 at 3:44am

It's too bad my comment was erased with the creation of this thread, but hopefully you remember what I pointed out. In case you don't... here it is again... except with pictures!

Like I said before your two main problems were not enough lighting and not enough connectivity. I already suggested ways to improve the connectivity, but here are some shots of areas that need lighting:


This is kind of ridiculous. All I can make out is a wooden box. You need some sort of lighting here. Just in case you can't tell where this is, I'm facing a corner where if you walk up to it and turn right you're looking down this straight hall:


The glows on those lights are really way too big and bright. Tone it down a bit, it's very distracting.


I liked this room for some reason. Although it was kind of weird to have a combine console in the same room as the Resistance type computer set up. I liked that this is where you get the ar2. Like I said in the comments thread I think it would work out will if you connected the back of this room to another area of the map.


This is looking back down the hall. You need some lights on the ceiling because I can't see much. All the work you're doing to make the ceiling look interesting is going to waste if it's so dark.


I feel like I'm looking at the face of God. That thing is so blindingly bright. Tone it down to a third of that.


I like your usage of the spot light effect. The direction of the beams does seem a little strange. Shouldn't they be pointing to different places on the same x axis? Also, I didn't understand why you had those platforms holding up barrels and boxes on the wall. I appreciate your attempt to make the wall interesting, but... that just didn't make much sense as a storage place. Perhaps you could make a recess in the wall with rolled up shutters that contain the boxes and explosive barrels. That at least would make more sense.


I prop jumped up here in a couple seconds, and I realized this would be a pretty good camping spot considering how dark it is in this room and the fact that a crossbow spawns a little bit below me. Some more lights would discourage this type of deviousness (and the frustration that it would cause for the victims )


I don't know if others can see what I'm talking about but I really liked the temperature effect coming out of this grille. I wish you had used this in more places around the map. It's just a snazzy use of the Source engine. Your map is small enough and runs smooth enough that you can afford to put some more of these nice aesthetic details in.


Once again, you need more lighting, and you need to cut down the glow effect. This room should be connected to another area to eliminate the dead end. I noticed the swamp room was directly below this. Perhaps a ventilation shaft with a ladder connecting these to areas? This room would also benefit from more prop_physics and some loose trash. It's too clean and empty right now. Try adding some geometry to the walls. Trims, recessed lighting... or just something else to spice this room up.


Daaaark. Aside from the ceiling and the spotlight this area kind of boring. You can fix this with more interesting textures or some subtle geometry changes.


Thankfully this area was well lit (the only one that I thought was bright enough). The smoke coming out of the pipes was way too thick so when it disappeared it looked strange. Try making the clouds less dense.


I could not figure out how to get that healthkit or battery.


These two decals looked awkward. Perhaps you could make a thin cylindrical brush poking out of the wall so it doesn't look so flat.


This area has some potential. Apart from it being too dark there are a couple things wrong with it. First off, I liked the idea of a dirty sewer type area, but... what's with the grass? I don't see any sunlight. Also -- the ventilation duct looks out of place. I'm not sure what you would replace it with... perhaps that ladder I mentioned in the shotgun room.


I liked the idea of having weapons/ammo/health that you can only reach with the gravity gun, but I wish they were a bit closer. In a combat situation I wouldn't want to have to wait around while I slowly pull the crossbow down the loooong tube.


I like the vertical nature of this area. Again I wish it were brighter. Maybe some spot lights shining down from that upper area? Or a brighter shaft of light coming down from that grate?


I thought this corridor was too dark and too thin. Any battles here would be pretty boring because the hallway is so long and there's no cover.


That just looks bad. Move the props or the geometry.


The natural light seems way too dark. Brighten it up, because while the dust motes are a nice touch they don't seem believable in such weak lighting. The room itself is also way too dark. If a brighter light environment doesn't fix it, then add some more light fixtures. The glow coming from the combine consoles isn't enough.

Anyway -- work on the lighting and connectivity and this map will look and play much better.

Keep it up, looking forward to the next beta.
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Posted by French Toast on Wed May 11th 2005 at 3:13am

Just from looking at the shots, it looks nice. I don't play DM, but a lot of people say hallways are bad. Also, if I were playing I might want some more cover, but that's a personal thing from playing too much CS.

Lookin nice though. I would download it, but my Hard Drive crapped out, so there's still like 5 days until Steam's done with updating my stuff.
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