Thank you for your time to check out my map, Riven.

No, i will not continue with this map. In fact, i'm already working on a new one, a HLSP map to be precise, with scary scenes (scripted).

Edit:
Though i might cancel all the work since it isn't based on reality.

Well, the map has definitely improved since the last iteration; no doubt about that. But now having done so, it is up for further, more crucial (and therefore harsher) criticism.

Firstly, your previous statements directed towards aaron_da_killa:

Niborius said:

aaron_da_killa said:
Bad stairway, would it really look like that in reality?

The map isn't based on reality. And btw, some fantasy stuff is ok to me...

Well, I'd have to agree with what aaron said afterward about that statement. The stairs simply don't 'fit' within the rest of the environment. Sure, you can claim "the map isn't based on reality" -and I'll buy that, but to relate it to fantasy is another issue. Please don't get into the habit of hiding poor craftsmanship on 'fantasy' Many beginner mappers get into this habit and never go on to create anything more interesting than a killbox.

The map here is looking quite handsome in more regards. The cliff gives a nice context in which to help frame the rest of the map. However, allowing the player to ascend such heights gives them more angle of vision across the landscape and therefore exposes how lonely the map really is. What I mean, is that, there are no context areas surrounding your map. The map simply stops at the walls (which the player can walk on anyway), so the only thing stopping the player from falling over the walls is an invisible skybox texture/wall. This = not good. In trying to create more atmosphere (height of the cliffs/ the cliffs themselves) You've exposed your map to the 'suspension of disbelief killer.' That's right, I think you've left open your map to just gameplay critics, and locked everyone else out. (This includes me, a severe atmosphere observer).

To be honest, I highly doubt it worth your time to continue working on this map any further. 1st maps really aren't even meant to be posted and critiqued online. However, many beginning mappers have it in their heads that their first map might usurp all the other first maps submitted by other users, and thus they feel confident enough to go through with it. However, They'd be better off not posting and beginning on a second map immediately to start anew beginning with the new skills they learned from the last project instead of getting beat-up by online criticizers.

The last thing we want to do is nurture a bad habit in order to make you feel welcome. I'm sure if you stick around a little longer for releases of your latter work, I'm sure you'll start to see what we mean about the progress one takes while developing their skills as a mapper.

Overall, I think the map has improved quite considerably and that you're doing a good job. But I feel it futile to attempt any further criticism on such an obvious beginning map. You can continue to work on it if you feel like it; it's your call. But I suggest you start on a new project (if you haven't already) and see where that takes ya.

-Good luck, and I can't wait to see what you'll churn out next!

Niborius said:

aaron_da_killa said:
Floor should be a different colour.

Why?

I should have said texture instead of colour. Its to spereate the cliff wall from the cliff floors, adds contrast to the cliff and helps players navigate the cliff easier.

Niborius said:

aaron_da_killa said:
Lots of misaliigned textures.

I fixed all of them, but then i've set the scale of the mountain texture a little bit lower in the hope to fix the lag bug. After that i forgot to check if i should align the textures again.

Actually reducing the scale of a texture increases performance. At the point where the texture tiles, the brush the texture is on is cut creating more polygons which have to be processed, this is just the way BSP geometry works.

[quote=Niborius]

aaron_da_killa said:
Misaligned ladder texture (side).

How can i best fix that?
[/qoute]

Align the one that I said was almost aligned, then make all your ladders like that.

Niborius said:

aaron_da_killa said:
Misaligned wood texture (side).

I have NO idea how to fix that. i've come across the same thing multiply times.

You need to rotate the texture and modify the scale if you have to, both of these operations are done with the texture painting tool.

Niborius said:

aaron_da_killa said:
Light glitch, ensure your using the latest compile tools (ZHLT 3.4).

I tried everything, and yes, i have ZHLT 3.4

Then prevent that surface from being cut and thus causing the glitch, when two world brushes (a brush that isn't tied to an entity) touch or overlap, they cut into each other creating more polygons and can sometimes cause lighting glitches like this.

Niborius said:

aaron_da_killa said:
Bad stairway, would it really look like that in reality?

The map isn't based on reality. And btw, some fantasy stuff is ok to me...

Well it certainly looks realistic to me, you are using "realistic" textures and whatnot and have created an environment that is likely to be possible or one exists similarly in real life. All I'm saying is that the stairway doesn't look good in that its very big and bulky, it has a metal texture all round and the way that it extends to the floor throughout like that from top to bottom. I'd like to show you what I think you should have done but the image is on my imageshack account and pictures from that go missing all the time

Niborius said:

aaron_da_killa said:
Increase the scale of the sprite and move it a bit closer to the light next time.

When i made it bigger and closer to the light, half of the sprite could not be seen. But at least i put sprites in it.

Believe me, this has been done many times before by myself and many other people. You just have to keep tweaking it a little but anyway, if you couldn't get it working right than you shouldn't have put it in at all

Niborius said:

aaron_da_killa said:
Haha, apperciate the effort but a dumpster like object like this wouldn't open like that, not to mention the lid is floating. It should have a hindge, use func_door_rotating next time.

Right. Offcourse i did already tried that. But that's too complex to me. I put a origin texture on the side that the container should open like and tied it to func_door_rotating. But ingame, when i touched the container, the "door" or w\e it's called, was floating around my whole map. Also, it was the same in the previous version...

Here. Basically what you have to do is have your door and a small bush covered in the origin texture which acts as the hinge, then you just need to set the correct settings. You tie both the door and the origin brush to func_door_rotating.

Niborius said:

aaron_da_killa said:
maybe you put the ambient sound in, maybe you realized that it didn't play everywhere, maybe you didn't realize it, whether or not you noticed it and decided not to fix it or didn't notice it at all, you still didn't spend enough time making sure it worked, making sure it was perfect, spending time and tweaking those things and really putting some thought and effort into the map. Just "good enough" sucks, you can't do "good enough", you have to really do "good" or better, that's what you should be aiming for. The same applies for the sound you chose and this is just an example/hypothetical. Let's say you where looking through the ambient sounds and you came across one that you thought "yeah, that could fit", you didn't bother to keep looking, you just chose the first one that fit in the map, that's not good enough. You have to keep looking, there might be a better one!

Ok sorry but you're completely wrong. I checked almost every sound in the ambience folder, and i throught these would fit the best in the map. And i think i was right. I mean, when you stand on a high building\mountain in real life, you hear wind too.

I said hypothetical I was just trying to illustrate a point.

Niborius said:
Now in overall, i spent alot of time in this map, like 4 times more than i put in the old version. I even added background stuff (like in the cave, where you can see a light dropped on the ground with a long path in the cave, which you can't reach because it's blocked by spikes)

Good, I did say that this version is an improvement of the last didn't I? I was just trying to say that its important to focus on getting everything perfect and not just adding in more stuff. I'm not saying that's what you did, I don't know how much level design experience you have so I can't say whether your doing "well" or not. If this is your first map, which I doubt because this is better than a first map, than your doing really well and you are obviously focusing on detail, if you have been mapping frequently for 5 years than I can say that this really isn't a map that reflects that sort of experience. I'd guess that you have been mapping the equivalent of a year of frequent mapping or less. But I just wanted to say that to make sure you understand that polishing the map is important, quality is more important of quantity. Its pretty silly asking you if you focused on quality because you would say yes and quality is relative, plus if you said no then I'd be a bit worried.

Anyway, if I was forced to play this map with friends, I don't think the game would not be enjoyable (I think the game would be enjoyable), so that's good and the most important thing. I can't imagine myself being stressed about anything really. And as I said multiple times, this is an improvement, your heading in the right direction . I look forward to seeing your next map and how you have improved it from this one .

aaron_da_killa said:
Floor should be a different colour.

Why?

aaron_da_killa said:
Lots of misaliigned textures.

I fixed all of them, but then i've set the scale of the mountain texture a little bit lower in the hope to fix the lag bug. After that i forgot to check if i should align the textures again.

aaron_da_killa said:
Misaligned and stretched light texture, side of the light should be a metal texture or concrete texture.

I know, there was a reason why i didn't do that but i forgot.

aaron_da_killa said:
Misaligned ladder texture (side).

How can i best fix that?

aaron_da_killa said:
Misaligned wood texture (side).

I have NO idea how to fix that. i've come across the same thing multiply times.

aaron_da_killa said:
Light glitch, ensure your using the latest compile tools (ZHLT 3.4).

I tried everything, and yes, i have ZHLT 3.4

aaron_da_killa said:
Glass pieces shoudln't touch or overlap. Put a metal truss on those edges next time.

Good one. Thanks for the tip.

aaron_da_killa said:
Bad stairway, would it really look like that in reality?

The map isn't based on reality. And btw, some fantasy stuff is ok to me...

aaron_da_killa said:
Increase the scale of the sprite and move it a bit closer to the light next time.

When i made it bigger and closer to the light, half of the sprite could not be seen. But at least i put sprites in it.

aaron_da_killa said:
Haha, apperciate the effort but a dumpster like object like this wouldn't open like that, not to mention the lid is floating. It should have a hindge, use func_door_rotating next time.

Right. Offcourse i did already tried that. But that's too complex to me. I put a origin texture on the side that the container should open like and tied it to func_door_rotating. But ingame, when i touched the container, the "door" or w\e it's called, was floating around my whole map. Also, it was the same in the previous version...

aaron_da_killa said:
This platform is floating.

I put some bars under it before but i got compiling errors so i removed them.

aaron_da_killa said:
maybe you put the ambient sound in, maybe you realized that it didn't play everywhere, maybe you didn't realize it, whether or not you noticed it and decided not to fix it or didn't notice it at all, you still didn't spend enough time making sure it worked, making sure it was perfect, spending time and tweaking those things and really putting some thought and effort into the map. Just "good enough" sucks, you can't do "good enough", you have to really do "good" or better, that's what you should be aiming for. The same applies for the sound you chose and this is just an example/hypothetical. Let's say you where looking through the ambient sounds and you came across one that you thought "yeah, that could fit", you didn't bother to keep looking, you just chose the first one that fit in the map, that's not good enough. You have to keep looking, there might be a better one!

Ok sorry but you're completely wrong. I checked almost every sound in the ambience folder, and i throught these would fit the best in the map. And i think i was right. I mean, when you stand on a high building\mountain in real life, you hear wind too.

Now in overall, i spent alot of time in this map, like 4 times more than i put in the old version. I even added background stuff (like in the cave, where you can see a light dropped on the ground with a long path in the cave, which you can't reach because it's blocked by spikes)

Floor should be a different colour.

Lots of misaliigned textures.

Misaligned and stretched light texture, side of the light should be a metal texture or concrete texture.

Misaligned ladder texture (side).

Misaligned wood texture (side).

Light glitch, ensure your using the latest compile tools (ZHLT 3.4).

Almost aligned ladder texture.

Glass pieces shoudln't touch or overlap. Put a metal truss on those edges next time.

Bad stairway, would it really look like that in reality?

Increase the scale of the sprite and move it a bit closer to the light next time.

Haha, apperciate the effort but a dumpster like object like this wouldn't open like that, not to mention the lid is floating. It should have a hindge, use func_door_rotating next time.

This platform is floating.

Lighting glitch, ensure you have the latest compile tools (ZHLT 3.4)

Other Things

* Buggy ambient_generic and env_sound, questionable sound choices. I was outside and in some areas I couldn't hear the sound, I know its a pain in the ass to setup sound in Half-Life 1 (its much easier in Half-Life 2 ) but make sure if your outdoors, you can hear the sound everywhere. Also, I went in a vent and when I came out of it I still had the env_sound you put there active, so I was walking around and it sounded like I was still in a vent, make sure to revert it back to normal when the player leaves the vent. Your ambient sound choices where questionable also, the outdoors one sounded like I was in a city to me.

* Poor frame rates in some areas, Half-Life can't handle much so it starts to lag even on decent machines, make sure you build your map efficiently so you don't lower frame rates.

Those where the major things. Anyway, I think this map was a nice improvement of the last version. You added more breakable things and had snarks in the cave which where pretty cool, although I think because of that you should have added a greater incentive to enter the caves. You put more effort into the environment and added additional spaces plus tossed in some ambient sound (although done poorly) so your on the right track. Although, with more content in the map came more bugs/glitches/mistakes or whatever you want to call them.

I think this map should get a 3/5, I hope your not disappointed by this or anything. You defiantly increased the quantity and put more effort into the map, but I feel that the quality and time spent polishing this map was still the same per task I guess as last time. By this, I mean maybe you put the ambient sound in, maybe you realized that it didn't play everywhere, maybe you didn't realize it, whether or not you noticed it and decided not to fix it or didn't notice it at all, you still didn't spend enough time making sure it worked, making sure it was perfect, spending time and tweaking those things and really putting some thought and effort into the map. Just "good enough" sucks, you can't do "good enough", you have to really do "good" or better, that's what you should be aiming for. The same applies for the sound you chose and this is just an example/hypothetical. Let's say you where looking through the ambient sounds and you came across one that you thought "yeah, that could fit", you didn't bother to keep looking, you just chose the first one that fit in the map, that's not good enough. You have to keep looking, there might be a better one!

What I'm trying to say is I see the extra effort there, but it seems that effort was spent adding more things rather than making sure everything was perfect not just "good enough". Time spent thinking about the map or building something and deleting it because you find it isn't good enough, is not time wasted.

Anyway, you can be happy with this map, we all start somewhere and get better, I was terrible when I first started, but now I like to think I'm a decent level designer. I started in either 2002 or 2003 and still am getting better! I look forward to seeing your next map and I hope you stick around on The Snarkpit. We need some more people around here who are starting mapping or are fairly new to it and are working there way up. Most of our active members are already experienced designers and have moved onto other things or are just too busy with life.

Anyway, I await your next map, if there will be one. Don't rush it and feel free to post some WIP (work in progress) screenshots that we can critique ;). Also, you should check out some of the maps here. Go to the maps page, select Half-Life Deathmatch and rate by the highest to see the best maps and check out a few, I can link you to a few ones that I think are really good if you like, just to get an idea of what to work towards.