In the shopping district picture, things I would do:

The continuity of the floor is broken by that central pillar. I think
the floor around it needs a metal trim as seen in the edges of the
room. The light effect might even look better that way.

That central pillar, being a shopping district, looks like the perfect
place to put some sort of poster, advertisement or screen of some sort.
I don't know if you are going to put custom shop signs, since it seems
there would be little room for them. Maybe vertical signs or some sort.

About the rest of the screenshots, they look good. The grey corrugated
metal contrasts a lot with the brown textures, and IMO it might break
the massive vertical impression that those walls used to make. They
used to look like concrete cliffs, a very poetic kind of feeling that
worked very well. I'm not sure if you wanted to change that.

Anyway, it might just be the HDR making them look too bright. I know
you altered them for the sake of texture variation, and in that sense,
the map looks much better now overall.

There's an old shoe in the wheelbarrow. I don't know if that counts. :smile:

RedWood, you're right, the transition isn't optimal. I'd rather consider using a different texture, though. The diamond plate has always been a little random as a texture choice... a helpful reminder, actually. You can get blind for little things like this easily. Thanks.

Might want to put some garbage in that wheelbarrow to remind people that a wheelbarrow can be useful at that altitude.

Looks grate.
Maybe you could have a difference in elevation between the ground and the diamond plate in your first and third screen.
Is the bsp. up to date? I'd like to walk through it and see the changes.

The shopping district was always supposed to be more colorful. I made some (admittedly rough) texture-changes to make the area look less sterile. Still it's miles from the imposing neon-light jungle I always had in mind for this. But Photoshop and Blender don't like me very much lately, so it'll stay like this for the time being:



Other things changed:

I added a small, second layer of corrugated sheet iron so you can now jump up to the warehouse here:



And another shot of the new upper part:



This area has a bit more detail now. I also added much more gravity gun ammo.



A few more changes around the garbage container:





The map's more or less (more less than more) finished for the Beta 1 release that will end the bigger changes regarding layout and visuals. From there on, only absolute necessary fixes or (finally) custom content will be added for future versions. I think I can live with the next release staying the virtually "final version" of this map for some time. It's good enough for a beta release and all the important brushwork is in.

I'd like to start working on something smaller then. I need a break from this project, eventually learning a little more about using Blender and high-res texturing - and then come back to finally turn this prototype in the map I had in mind when I started it.

A few concept shots of re-texturing. Nothing really changed since my last post, but I made a few screens that I think illustrate the direction I've been going with texturing so far.

Basically, I tried to replace every single use of the default concrete texture (you can see in almost every part of the map) with a different, more interesting texture. A lot more metal textures made it in that way. Probably I got too excited about the corrugated sheet iron textures (they're colorful and fitting so I used them to cover big parts I didn't really know what else to do with yet). What you can see already is that I tried to get in more color through texturing, hopefully landmarking a few places better. There should also be some windows soon to make the large blocks and walls less cold and useless but I haven't added many yet. Also this is almost solely about texturing and basic composition. No huge level of detail updates yet.

So, here you go:

Biggest change so far: The area around the garbage is now green:



I'm once again betraying my "futuristic style" promise but I found the classic brick texture to fit in a strange way...



Same spot, different POV. Lots of corrugated sheet iron.



If you look close you see a yellowish texture in the background, a few darker, more structured concrete textures and a tiny bit of skybox geometry. But yes, not much new here.



Hopefully, I'll bring the upper parts too screenshot worthy quality sometime soon. On another note: I added a little "cage" for the RPG now. When you open it a red light flashes near the electro switches. I guess that makes the trap a little more efficient. I always had that in mind but couldn't think of an elegant way of implementing it but now it works nicely.

That's it. Beta1 (yea, beta!) should be out late January or February (in Valve time that means sometime this Summer).

Oh, must have missed the disastrous critique! :smile:

Anyway, I think I figured out a very final shape for the map. At least layout-wise. The current changes consist mainly of cutting redundant paths (especially the metal walkways behind the garbage container that only lead to a ladder (the ladder is now simply outside). Also the remaining shopping areas are a bit more open for easier movement.

Visually, I had another texturing pass and the results are surprisingly striking for me. I tried to remind myself that the gray concrete texture I used as a filler for the whole map is a dummy texture and therefore replaced it by other textures almost entirely. There are a lot of very nice "metalwall" textures. I'm still experimenting but I think the re-texturing could also solve certain navigation issues by giving parts of the map a clear and recognizable color-scheme. Bye bye, grayness!

Also I'm having a few plans for the RPG-trap.

Really, the last few things I added strengthened my decision to keep the map in a slow but constantly evolving state until it reaches a state where I can't think of any more possible improvements. Things are going much faster now than they did in the beginning and the results are more rewarding.

Hurray for beta1 :biggrin:

Nope. not a DOD/s only fan.

In fact, I haven't opened the game since my disastrous critique. I lost all interest in the game.

It's me, back from a filesystem crash. Hopefully I can recover my latest mudanchee versions... :S

I'd say the grenade toss isn't a problem for the RPG trap: that player will spend even more time in the water than otherwise, so if there's a more obvious sign for other players, the vents are perhaps a more preferred way. Anyway, I like the multiple options you keep open for players. Restricting players to one and only one way has become a designers disease imho. :wink:

A smart player will take yet another approach bytheway, completely circumventing the water. One takes two bricks, puts them at the bottom of the vent, one grabs the RPG and one climbs back into the vent, hops on the bricks to freedom yet again. Voila.

As for adding to the map, you could call it finished and save the future changes as a _v2 or such. :smile:

Thanks.

omegaslayer, you have some incredible smart comments here. I'll look into all of them.

Orpheus, the comment about the map status made me think and I tried to find the true reason I chose the low numbers.

It may be true that content-wise it's 75%. Yes. But in terms of work time (which I find much more important) comparing the map at it's current status with the way I intended it to be when I started 75% wouldn't be realistic.

Once again I started a map, trying an experiment for myself (I'm dying to make a non-experimental map sometime :wink: ). I tried to start a huge idea with very, very basic brushwork and then adding to it till it takes the shape I had in mind. I think to some point it worked. Looking at the big blocks'o'concrete I see them at the right place and more structure hidden within them. Like a sculptor sees his statue in a block of rough marble. I like that idea, I never build a map that way. But it's also quite stressful because progress is really slow and especially my custom content creation skills (which I kinda overestimated at first) are too humble to get anything done on the eye-candy side. It's too big.

Basically, I just don't feel like calling it finished. I'm happy with people playing a version with a "_beta" in the filename. Maybe it will never go, who knows. I just like having the opportunity to add to it as long as the difference between my vision and the actual content is as big as it still is.

Nope, none of you have to care and sorry if you read all this expecting a better pay-off but it felt good to verbalize my thoughts. It certainly isn't a textbook ideal way of map building but I enjoy working that way on this very map. While probably building different maps in the meantime. Let's see.

PS: Orpheus, weren't you a DOD:S only player for some time? If I'm not mixing things up... glad to see you back in HL2 :smile: