I'll try and give this a run around soon. Anyone know a easy/fast
way to upload a bunch of photos into an album? Orph dont you have
something like that?

omegaslayer said:
When ill get the chance I will read through everything with a fine tooth comb and take your suggestions to heart. Thankyou!

Well, I wouldn't read to much into my suggestions until more than one person says something close to similar bud. Suggestions are meant to be listened to, not necessarily adhered to.

Good luck anywho's. I liked the feel of your map. It has lots of potential.

I just came back to say that lately Ive been busy with real life
(school has started again), but I want you to know I really appreciate
what you did orph :smile: . When ill get the chance I will read through
everything with a fine tooth comb and take your suggestions to heart.
Thankyou!

NOTE: It took 40 minutes just to receive this map. 8 megs is asking a lot from this old man. Secondly, this map showed a funny combination of well thought out and not planned sections. It looked as if you reached a point and noticed that you were suffering in the connectivity area and decided to add a bunch of rooms/areas/passages. I noticed that the outside area was much more pleasing to the eye than any of the inside areas. Even though a few of the inside ones showed that they were planned, the outside was much more so. Thirdly, The map was very confusing to me. Landmark zones were not very evident. I am sure that they were there, but I got lost several times and if I did, others will too. Fourthly, the overall lighting was OK. Not superb, but satisfactorily IMO. It could use some tweaking to cut on the glare of those damnable glows but still there was no areas to dim to frag. Fifthly, item placement sucked. You need some playtesting to sort where, but there were way to many caches. Lastly, I felt this map lacked that certain something that sets it apart from your average Joe map and your superb one of a few kind. There was no real atmosphere. The map was clean, and well swept throughout. It had no real ambient sounds to speak of and the very air itself was polished feeling. You really need someone better than I to specify where you are falling short. I know that a lot of effort went into this. It shows everywhere, but if you do not address its shortfalls, the map will be wasted. Just my opinion, but I am hardly ever wrong. Course its your call not mine. I am sure you can find someone to praise it as it is.

Orph's score currently: 6/10
Orph's score if fixed: 9/10

You chose.

Castigate Critique.http://www.snarkpit.net/pits/underdog/critiques/castigate/index.html

omegaslayer said:
Thankyou orph, thats just the type of feedback I was looking for. You are quite welcome sir. Custom dictated that since you accommodated my desires for smaller images that I show my respect for them. /me bows.
/checks download link here again, time is a problem. Using your images alone, that critique took me over 30 minutes. Imagine if I downloaded your map, took screens, uploaded them and commented. Perhaps an hour to an hour.five?
Yup it still works. While your critiques were nice and informative, I think you actually need to visit those areas of the map to understand whats happening in them. I agree, but would it be worth the time I do not have? I grant that I cannot be very good using your screens but I will always give you my best/honest replies with the info I have.
EG: The screen you did not know about needs to be visited so you may see what exactly is going on there.
1st screen: when you say "Trodden" do you mean trapled/walked on? Trampled yes. Trodden in my opinion would be better only because trampled sounds like its recent. Homes have pathways from here to there. Such as to the market or laundry.

2nd " this is actually a device that is carrying the "key" (the floating ball) to call down the air strike. The theme I was going for in the map was combine taking over, they have lots of devices all around the place that have different purposes. My apologies. I was uninformed. Now I am not. :smile:

3rd : I agree 100% too blocky and those textures are a bit too high. I was thinking, Leave the blocks BUT make them resemble blocks. Try increasing the scale to make the walls thinner. Blocks have very large holes in them and thin to moderately thin walls.

4th: is ist a really good idea to make something dimly lit for a DM map? I also thought of dimly-ness here, but I thought that gameplay dictates that light needs to be somewhat bright to see other players. There is dimly and dark. Dimly works if you have no deep shadows. You can have deep shadows but its best to not have them as camping locations. I would lower the light to 1/2 its current level and brighten it slowly till you acquire the desired lumen's.

5th: The light values are a bit high here, ill lower/remove some to give a better sence of atmosphere (add some color as well). On the topic of the door. I actually placed the door as a func_physbox so you may toss it. Currently it floats in hammer, and falls to the ground when the map spawns, so I guess you could say it is "natural" :S. Break a few, do not remove them. Lowering the value in lumen's here will help too I suppose. Its that god awful blue I dislike. Funny thing is, most all my maps had blue basic lighting throughout them. HL1 textures were accented perfectly by it. HL2 textures balk at it IMO.

6th: Are you saying here that im lacking in originality? Thats really not a problem I can solve since everything Ive built is original. But do you mean the theme of "combine mixed with old city" isnt mine? Thats just something that you really can't get away from. Lacking originality in theme, not content. I realize you built it but you modeled it after 10's of 100's of other maps. You can get away from it I bet with some creative originality. Cities the world over use the same colors paint without looking the same. In fact, the new England side of the USA looks drastically different that the West Coast. They both use brick and mortar.

7th: Obscured shot, I just wanted to catch someones eye with mid-afternoon light comming in from the top contrasted with the combine infestation. Obscure only because I am not sure what the blurry object represents.

8th: I like your suggestions here. What would you recomend I do with the cat walk? replace it with a wooden one instead? Bullets and such reach far. You do not need a path up there unless you truly need to run from over there to over here. I mean, is it a path of adding connectivity? Why not restrict some movement with the removal of all that metal? Put a hallway on the outside to connect the two ends and remove the grating. Assuming only that I am looking ONLY at the screen and have no idea why the room has a catwalk. The wire area to the left looks smashingly great. I love the fencing it restricts movement but allows much visibility.

Once again thankd for the suggestions. This post was merely to gain some understanding of the critiques. Keep up the good input orph. :smile:

Thankyou orph, thats just the type of feedback I was looking for.

/checks download link

Yup it still works. While your critiques were nice and informitive, I
think you actually need to visit those areas of the map to understand
whats happening in them.

EG: The screen you did not know about needs to be visited so you may see what exactly is going on there.

1st screen: when you say "Trodden" do you mean trapled/walked on?

2nd " this is actually a device that is carrying the "key" (the
floating ball) to call down the air strike. The theme I was going for
in the map was combine taking over, they have lots of devices all
around the place that have different purposes.

3rd : I agree 100% too blocky and those textures are a bit too high.

4th: is ist a really good idea to make something dimly lit for a DM
map? I also thought of dimly-ness here, but I thought that gameplay
dictates that light needs to be somewhat bright to see other players.

5th: The light values are a bit high here, ill lower/remove some to
give a better sence of atmosphere (add some color as well). On the
topic of the door. I actually placed the door as a func_physbox so you
may toss it. Currently it floats in hammer, and falls to the ground
when the map spawns, so I guess you could say it is "natural" :S.

6th: Are you saying here that im lacking in originality? Thats really
not a problem I can solve since everything Ive built is original. But
do you mean the theme of "combine mixed with old city" isnt mine? Thats
just something that you really can't get away from.

7th: Obscured shot, I just wanted to catch someones eye with
mid-afternoon light comming in from the top contrasted with the combine
infestation.

8th: I like your suggestions here. What would you recomend I do with the cat walk? replace it with a wooden one instead?

Once again thankd for the suggestions. This post was merely to gain
some understanding of the critiques. Keep up the good input orph. :smile:

clears throat

Ahem, look fellas. If I can do a minor critique on 56k, most of the rest of you should be able to squeeze out one ever once in a while too.

Snarkpit, is turning into just a Pit of non-interaction of late. We need some critiques, even if its only minor versions from time constrained members.

/speech

Orph puts on "HAT OF PATIENCE" to look over images as they slowly arrive


I particularly like the design of this shot. Maps of supposedly real locations hardly ever achieve their goal. This shot looks like a real place. Architecturally speaking, it looks sound enough to be real at least. The grassy displacement looks to green, and to unnatural for my taste however. I would roll it a bit more gently, and find something a bit more trodden looking. Housing tends to have the very worse in the way of foliages.


I have no clue what this is. It looks nice, perhaps a teleporter but with the apartment feel of screen #1, is it going to fit the theme?



Nice hole. Poor block choice but nice hole. I'd consider scaling down the debris texture though cause somehow it doesn't fit. I might even consider losing it since its obviously not block debris.


Oh yes, I like this. A good feel to it as a basement type setting. Sometimes square rooms actually work well within a map. Turn down the light value a bit to dim it some and I think you'll have a winner here. You need some trash/clutter/dust bunnies though. Basements are hardly this clean.


I never did like the bluish quality of the lighting in HL2 mapping. I know it was theme related but I never liked it since it always seems to clash with most real world texturing. The door has me thinking. Do doors actually fall so squarely when knocked open and/or off its hinges? Again with the sterile look. Put some diapers in the corners or some other disgusting stuff at least. :biggrin:


Real world vs.Alien. You seem to have the basics down and just looking at the pictures gives the impression that you need little in the way of motivation. I however feel that originality may be suffering a bit. Thats not always a bad thing in "Quality" mapping but it can blur it to obscurity if you do not add something original. This map could fade rapidly otherwise into the nether regions of all quality but unoriginal works.


FLATLINES... I dunno what this is. Perhaps another angle would assist my limited view.


This room, the square/flat doesn't work for me. Its a nice room but it needs just tiny bits of elevational differences to be transformed from average to grand. Elevate each work station on a simple wooden platform perhaps. just a step up would work wonders. Limit the overhead grating too. A bit to grant elevational advantage is nice but a catwalk is overkill IMO. The white lights are to white. Try some other color variations and allow for dust buildup on the bulbs. In other words, some lights will be dimmer and more brownish, assuming you have brown dust. You are also depending to much on the girders to accent the ceiling. Change the flatness of it a bit.

Again, I congratulate you on the clear, and yet small file sizes of the screens.

I like the variation in the color of the lighting, and I like the first
image you've posted here. Overall I think you do a good job with
the outdoor areas but the indoor areas so far seem slightly lacking...
I'm not sure what it is right now. Perhaps lack of memorable
areas? For example, I'm thinking of how memorable the destroyed
multi-floor area with all the sawblades was in Yak's Torque.

Also -- the cinderblocks you've got going on in the third shot look
strange to me. Especially the ones that seem to be hanging from
the ceiling without any visible support.

omegaslayer said:
I was worried a bit about incuring the wrath of 56k Orph. Thanks :smile:

I complain often but, I never complain needlessly. :wink: