As always, quality advice from the Snarkpit jester :biggrin:

Just because you can't use photoshop doesn't mean you can't use textures from google :smile:

Try it :wink:

I like futuristic citiy themes a lot. My first impression of the
screenshots was that they are very dark. If someone plays the map on
a sunshiny day he might not see much.

It's hard to tell what you have in mind in the orange room state but I
think it would be nice to give the buildings in the background a
believable purpose. Anything from giant shopping malls to office
buildings. I would prefer this over a more arena style approach where
the buildings in the back are just decoration. This would be mainly a
texturing task.

I'm curious how it will look with textures!

Agent Smith said:
So theoretically you should be able to create similar sky boxes to UT. Look at moving clouds, maybe some small ships or combine stuff flying around, fog, etc.

I would think that if you had a very large scrolling sky texture of some sort that you could have it exceed the edges of the visible sky but have say very broad edges of sky material to hide it in. In this way, you could have a slowly moving sky without any repeat say in a 15 minute frag.

In fact, with the texture being transparent, you could have multiple ones at different heights and densities to simulate cirrus and cumulus clouds perhaps.

So theoretically you should be able to create similar sky boxes to UT.
Look at moving clouds, maybe some small ships or combine stuff flying
around, fog, etc. Of course on really dodgy maps every now and again
someone manages to fall out of the level and into the skybox, becoming
a 100 foot giant :smile: .

Looking pretty cool in general Mister, it will be good to see how it looks with
some nice textures. The layout seems pretty random, which I really
like. Seems to make games a hell of a lot more fun when enemies can
come from anywhere, and the level is asymetrical. Looking forward to
giving it a play.

The
clouds arent there yet. And to be honest i dont know how to make it
look good since most of the city is 3D-sky, which means no moving
objects.<br style="color: white;">I have already added some real big buildings in the background, ill post pics when they are "done".<br style="color: white;">Color variation in lighting is something that the map desperatly needs right now, i completely agree with you.<br style="color: white;">

Entities can just be placed in the 3D skybox, only no player starts.
The Valve wiki states that players and other objects cannot enter the
3D skybox, but any entity can be used within it. :smile:

I don't know if you missed it, but what about the name dm_stratos ? stratos is just short for stratosphere.

Stratosphere definition:

1 : the part of the earth's atmosphere which extends from
about 7 miles (11 kilometers) above the surface to 31 miles (50
kilometers) and in which temperature increases gradually to about 32?
Fahrenheit (0? C) and clouds rarely form

2 : a very high or the highest region on or as if on a graded scale <construction costs in the stratosphere> <the celebrity stratosphere>

Well... I guess it's not cloudy, but at least it's high up!

Thanks for all the quick and interesting feedback, heres my answers.<br style="color: white;"><br style="color: white;">

<br style="color: white;">nice concept. though from the screenshots i can't tell that its a city in/above the clouds, moreso because you have gardens. If i were you i'd place those gardens on a platform so that everyone sees they're artificial. And i would leave "vertical holes" in the city, where the players can look down so that they're aware that they're up high. A bit like the pathways in the city being inner bridges. /2cents, keep it up!<br style="color: white;">

<br style="color: white;"><br style="color: white;">I do have a garden at one platform on this pic:<br style="color: white;">http://www.home.no/misterbister/Bilder/dm_cloudcity/dm_cloudcity_a230021.jpg<br style="color: white;"><br style="color: white;">However i agree that i should make it more obvius that there artificial. <br style="color: white;">Im not sure what you mean with "vertical holes", but the player is perfectly able to look down. A friend of mine suggested that i should make parts of the streets/bridges in glass, this way the players will be even more aware of it, I think ill do that.<br style="color: white;"><br style="color: white;"><br style="color: white;">

<br style="color: white;">It looks quite dark, perhaps too dark, but it's also very interesting. I agree the cloud aspect doesn't really show - add some really tall towers that end up in the clouds, or add moving clouds and particles together with a windy sound and the windows to the ground as BlisTer suggested.<br style="color: white;"><br style="color: white;">What I like here are the almost surrealistic looking structures. The lighting dots in the distance look interesting as well. I'd suggest using some more color variation for the lighting though because it's a bit too grayscale right now and that's not just caused by the dev textures as far as I can see.<br style="color: white;"><br style="color: white;">Keep it up indeed, looks promising.<br style="color: white;">

<br style="color: white;"><br style="color: white;"><br style="color: white;">The clouds arent there yet. And to be honest i dont know how to make it look good since most of the city is 3D-sky, which means no moving objects.<br style="color: white;">I have already added some real big buildings in the background, ill post pics when they are "done".<br style="color: white;">Color variation in lighting is something that the map desperatly needs right now, i completely agree with you.<br style="color: white;"><br style="color: white;"><br style="color: white;">

<br style="color: white;">For some reason, I have a feeling you could use some of the custom textures from dm_neon. Maybe you should shoot the author of that map an email?<br style="color: white;">

<br style="color: white;"><br style="color: white;">Yes, i thought the exact same thing. However the textures doesnt really fit i think, but I could definitly use some of it.<br style="color: white;">Ive asked the maker of the map, izanagi, and he said it was perfectly OK. However i ran into errors when i tried to extract the textures out from his BSP. Ill take a look into it soon.<br style="color: white;"><br style="color: white;"><br style="color: white;">

<br style="color: white;">If you need help then use my tutorial<br style="color: white;">

<br style="color: white;"><br style="color: white;">Thanks for your consern, however im afraid i know very little of photoshop, and making textures to this map would probably be a little more complicated than i could handle.<br style="color: white;"><br style="color: white;"><br style="color: white;">

<br style="color: white;">the map itself looks good but it doesn't remind me much of cloud city.<br style="color: white;">

<br style="color: white;"><br style="color: white;">No it doesnt, this map doesnt have anything to do with Cloud city in Star Wars. Dm_cloudcity is more of a WIP title. Other suggestions are welcome.<br style="color: white;"><br style="color: white;"><br style="color: white;">

<br style="color: white;">Planing on having oxygen tanks and everything frozen?<br style="color: white;">

<br style="color: white;"><br style="color: white;">What, who, where, when?

You seem to be pushing the envelope a bit more on the external areas than inside but I do so love what you have going. At least from the screens.