Booster Tower

Booster Tower - Beta

http://www.geocities.com/dillonsayz/Booster.zip

Feedback Please.

Bit of a short post to expect anything in the way of feedback, to be honest. Post screenshots, that way people will at least give their opinions on those. Its very rare for people to actually download and test maps these days I'm afraid.

Well, I posted some screen shots but other than that its not to much to say about it other than play it.

i concur with duncan, but would like to add 2 things..

1) some of us no longer have HL installed, but that doesn't mean we cannot remember what a map should look like :smile:

2) welcome to snarkpit.

Looks nice. This map would be perfect for LAN games, but would probably be boring for anything else. I give it a 3.5/5, even though I can only choose a 3 for the actual rating.

I this is your first map, good job. I'll try to find time today to DL and comment.

It looks a bit grey, to be honest, but it comes across to me as a design choice on your part, so thats fair enough. The problem is that its grey with default HL textures, and those are some horrible textures :sad: You should perhaps experiment with some custom textures - check out the wadfather for a whole load of them...

http://www.planethalflife.com/wadfather

Something that doesn't do your map any favours is your lighting. It seems you have used very few sources, and all of them are the same colour. Having some variation in your lighting could do wonders I think - some small coloured lights here and there to break up the monotonous bright white could improve things greatly.

Architecturally, you have some interesting things in here, but a few things just negate them entirely. Namely - the stairs. As far as I'm concerned, those are not physically possible, no one stair is even attached to the next! Put a trim along the sides or something to hide this problem.

As I said, there are a few things of interest in here, for instance those pillars with the thin centre section. I'm assuming this is an early map of yours, in which case its nice to see you using some degree of variation rather than just make big blocks for everything.

I made a somewhat similar map to this not too long ago, called Seneca, which you might wanna check out for some ideas and inspiration. I used light_spots in that extensively to provide lots of contrast, and I think playing around with them could help out this map too. It can be found in my profile if you are interested :smile:

Looking good. I like the stairs and the way the buildings are constructed.

Looking good. I like the stairs and the way the buildings are constructed.

You seriously like the stairs?!

I cringe whenever I see brush railings. It's pointless and blocky.

I think if done well it can be ok - provides more interesting semi cover, unlike texture railings which are either total cover or no cover. Of course in HLDM, cover isn't a big issue, in fact hiding behing that brush railing would do more harm than good with the gauss spray.

Depends on the situation. If you're trying to use railings on stairways then the { texture ones just don't cut it. However, if there is no height variation then the { textured railings are superior. (especially if they are func_illusionary and clipped)

OK....I changed a few things in my map "Booster Pass". I put the fades around the lights as Reno suggested,added a few different colors, and changed the stairs to be more real. Check it out and tell me whatcha think!

Http://www.geocities.com/dillonsayz/Booster.zip

I like this map allot. there isn't much in the way of complex archatecture, but the blocky style works quite well. You have kept r_speeds down even though there is zero visblocking. This would be allot of fun on a small LAN.

A couple of suggestiuons:

The fades: make them less obtrusive (lower fx value), add some sprites to supplement them, break them up into smaller chunks that make up the whole shape so they look a bit more volumetric.

You should add some ambient sound coming from those rocket engines.

I might just get rid of the railings if I were you. they don't really fit the theme of the map.

I see blocks, so many blocks!!!! :sad:

Tracer has a good point about the fades needing modified - they look too strong, and yet not bright. I think the reason for this is that you have set the render mode to "texture" and given them a high render fx value. Try setting them to render mode "additive" and giving them an fx amount of about 64 or 96, and see if it looks better. It should give a more subtle effect and yet feel brighter...if that makes any sense.

I still think those stairs look bad and could use a little more tweaking, basically by adding a trim. This coud in fact help around the entire map by adding them to all your walkways. I've included a screenshot of a little example I knocked up. Obviously it will increase the r_speed a bit if you use them extensively, but I think they are normally useful in adding a bit of basic detail to a level.



Otherwise, it looks as if you are using entity lighting only, rather than any texture lights, but I guess at this early stage its not a huge issue - its something you will want to look into for future levels however.

I see blocks, so many blocks!!!!:(

How constructive. It's what we've come to expect though. :rolleyes:

Change the sky to something more interesting. You won't get away with using that sky since it's so prominent. Keep working on it. :smile: