Zeromancer

Critique away, spinky ideas for lighting up the office-y area are much appreciated.

There appears to be no light coming from the odd-looking hanging lights in the second picture.

Hrmm. I see what you mean... they generally light up just the ceilling bit, but yeah... nothing on the floor. I must remedy this. Thanks. :smile:

I'll DL it tomorrow and have a look. in the mean time:

Pic 1: That floor texture looks wrong. it is really meant for a ceiling, and would look best if used as such. Also, the fades are too obvious. they ought to be a subtle effect. The lighting in is mediocre, unless, "bright" was the mood you were going for. I would recommend some spots under those fluorescent lamps, and a general decrease in the overall lighting intensity.

Pic 2: Aside from what Cass said it looks pretty good. you might consider some more architectural detail on the right side though.

Looking OK. Interesting architecture for a first map !

Errr, the archive is missing the hugh_issues.wad file, it kind of makes it hard to play without it :smile:

Goddamnit all to hell, so there is a decent excuse for no feedback. Blargh, I'll just remove the link for now then, add it back later. Thanks for pointing it out, I award you a gold... award. :kitty:

missing wads, can be bypassed.. its not as if it were a model missing (<--which cannot)

[edit] message editted for duncan[/edit]

I'm confused, how couldn't you just bypass a model the same way as a wad, by renaming another model to replace the missing one?

Anyway, I'll try and take a look later on today :smile:

ReNo said:
I'm confused, how couldn't you just bypass a model the same way as a wad, by renaming another model to replace the missing one?

Anyway, I'll try and take a look later on today :smile:

slow down duncan, read it again.. :razz:

you are thinking it right, but reading it wrong :biggrin:

Thanks for pointing it out, I award you a gold... award. :kitty:

hey ! i've won something :biggrin:

/edit - it doesn't seem to be using any textures from hugh_issues.wad ? ...lol

Some nice curved wall action going on in the room with the 4 rooflights. I would retexture the railings tho' with something more detailed that looks nicer.

/me looks up as Orph's joke goes right over his head...

Sorry mate, I've re-read it numerous times now and I still haven't a clue what the joke is :biggrin:

this once, it wasn't a joke, i was laughing at Hugh's comment about no one critiquing his map because of a missing wad..

all i meant was, you can circumvent a missing wad, but you cannot a model (to my knowledge)

anywho's, as i said, you were thinking correctly, but reading my words wrong..

tis no biggie :razz:

Orph apparently explained that WAD's can be bypassed right before you. I'm not sure if that's hilarious enough though. :smile:

sighs

it wasn't a joke, read hughs RANT.. i was laughing at him :cool:

/me joins the general confusion

/me gets indignant, cause you all are deliberately playing dumb :razz:

go back, re-read Hugh's reply.. and forget reno replied at all and it will make perfect sense :biggrin:

before i read ReNo's reply, i had already asked the same question.

ReNo said:
I'm confused, how couldn't you just bypass a model the same way as a wad, by renaming another model to replace the missing one?

which can be done. but it could look a bit daft though, if there's a mushroom lobbing mortar rounds at you or something.

well you see, therein lies the confusing point.. i was aware of only the wad..

anywho's.. onward and upward gents.

Good map working but i think the floor texture is strange on the first pic that texture seems better fitted to be on a ceiling or elevator shaft.

I ate pie.

Ferret said:
I ate pie.

Haha, yeah, I remembered that last night Orph, just too lazy to actually note that I'm not using any textures from it. :razz: Ah well, at least somebody posted about my general idiocy. :biggrin:

Hugh said:
Haha, yeah, I remembered that last night Orph, just too lazy to actually note that I'm not using any textures from it. :razz: Ah well, at least somebody posted about my general idiocy. :biggrin:

you lucky dog, i been an idiot for 30 years or more and i'm only up to captain

LOL, I got that one orph

I am a bit late on this, but whatever. Here goes.



First of all, let me say kudos for the nice curvy architecture. Although you have used curves throughout, this is by far the nicest area. However, as I said before, that floor texture has to go. I also feel that you should do something more interesting on the left hand wall than just that one texture.



This image illustrates something which bothered me about the map over all. it seems to be slightly under scaled. Nothing that effects the playability or anything, I just feel like I?m going to hit my head whenever I go through a doorway. Your architecture suggests grand scale, yet the map does not live up to it.



This is a really big empty space, with nothing of interest really. I do like the skylight and the nice pattern of light it makes on the floor, but there isn?t enough contrast to make it very noticeable. Also, that mixture of textures is pretty weird (cinderblocks-wood panels) and monotonous.
I also cannot quite figure out what those little tableish things in here are.



Te alcoves are very cool and all that, but house plants?



Very dark. a nice spotlight on this landing would make worlds of difference.



I very much like it that you can see into inaccessible areas, however again, this door is an example of under scale architecture.



You?ve done yourself a disservice in making this sand perfectly flat. I can?t imagine why it is there in the first place, but you might as well give it some height variation. (triangle terrain)

Overall I think the architectural style is great, but you have a long way to go on lighting in particular. The texturing was generally neat, but unimaginative (I have a good deal of trouble with this myself).

The lighting is simply flat. There is very little variation or interest. I may simply be biased towards dark moody atmospheres, but even if you intend it to be brightly lit, you still need more contrast.

Keep at it, I?d like to see how this comes out.

Looking at some parts, I'm thinking that this map could grow to be a classic; everything else, I'm wondering what happened.

Well, it is beta, and not in the sense that every room's completed. :smile: The room with the tableish things is very blah, I know, I can't quite get any inspiration going on it. Now to answer your questions. :biggrin:

The tableish things... are indeed tableish things. Basically they're there so I could see how much of the player is covered when they're crouching behind it. Originally gonna try to do some nice architecture around them but then realized that everything I came up with would block a lot of the view to/from the balcony.

The house plants are there because I felt that something needed to be there, and I couldn't come up with anything else... though maybe one of the little diploma posters behind some glass would look nice.

The sand's there because, again, there's gotta be something there. :smile:

The lighting's bright because I (read: most everybody) prefers dark moody maps, so I thought I might change it up a bit, but I did tweak it some, so hopefully it'll come out a bit darker.

Thanks very much for the critique! :biggrin:

Check his profile, it isn't his first map, just his first DM map I think its looking pretty cool though somewhat generic, I'll reserve full judgement until I've played a beta version.

u dont need the volumetric light in the grey room and in teh yellowish hallway the volumetric lighting may look interesting

To everyone who says the lighting is blah cough Tracer_Bullet :wink: cough turn down your glare reduction to the bottom, then it looks nice. Yeah... I left mine all the way on the bottom, so now I'm just readjusting lighting... I was wondering why everyone was making fun of my lighting. :smile:

I updated my screenshots, ooh boy... the office-y area might be scrapped even though it finally looks half-decent simply because it doesn't much match with the rest of the level.

I'll kill you if that office section is scrapped - its got some interesting stuff going on with the curves and skylights :smile:

Back to the lighting...

Its messy when some rooms have so many different light styles - that area with the two big red doors has 6 different light types (in the old map version anyway), it can look crappy when so many are used with several different colours in small-ish areas.

The lights in the HEV charger room are better but theres both wall and ceiling lights which looks odd. Rip out the ceiling lights and put beams across the ceiling and it'll prolly look better or... maybe not :smile:

Hard to say how to get the office area to match in with the rest but i would try and keep it in.

For you, I keep it. I'll just have to reorganize the level a bit, but eh, it needs work anyhow. :smile:

add a border to the door in the second pic.

There is one consisting of texture. :wink: Anyway, updated map, anybody wants to give another detailed critique that would be l337.

Surely will, I really meant to before now but if there is a new version I guess now would be a good time :smile:

EDIT: File not available error at geocities :sad:

:sad: It works for me... maybe try using the Save Target As? (If you're using IE)

everyone knows, geocities links must be copy/pasted to function

Why do you mock me so!? The link worked for me which is why I was confuzled. :smile:

It didn't even work then actually orph :sad: I managed to get it working
by going the the directory the file is in and taking a link however,
I'll be testing the map today :smile:

Ok mate, all of these are crappy little niggles and suggestions - the
map is cool as is and if you just finished up the layout without taking
on any of the things below it would be a good level regardless. But
anyway, here are some things you may wanna consider...



1. For detail, the handrail helps, but I feel its in the way of the
flow of the level. With the LJ you could jump up to this ledge from the
walkway if there was no handrail. Perhaps have a bit broken so there is
a section you can jump up?



2. Maybe give this pipe some trims where it meets the wall?



3. Nice looking ladder, much better than the default texture based one.



4. How about some stuff above the ceiling line?



5. These spotlights are a bit feeble, makes you wonder why whoever built this place bothered putting them in :smile:



6. That texture transition just doesn't look right :sad: To be honest, I
doubt that upper texture will look right just sat on top of anything,
yet its use on the upper floors is nice, which causes a bit of a
dilemma. Regardless, the bottom texture really sucks :razz:



7. How about making those lights hanging? You could then put stuff on
them for people to gauss jump upto or whatever, like in stalkyard.



8. Some of the best use of the standard HL office textures I've seen, looks good.



9. Still to recieve work I trust? The whole office feels unfinished due
to its lack of connectivity (though so does the industrial bit I
guess!) so I'm sure this is one of your in progress exits.



10. Have you been playing Echo? :razz:



11. Doesn't feel quite right running over this and not falling in.
I'd make the concrete thinner so the hole isn't as deep, then it won't
be so obvious you're floating.



12. Save yourself some w_poly by making the sides of these lights null
textured. Nobody is likely the notice that the light is just a single
face, and it reduces at least 4 poly per light. There are a few other
situations you could do the same around the level no doubt.

As you can see, no major suggestions. I like the map, it reminds me a
lot of my old level Elixir, though yours is definately more polished.
Good job with it, keep it up, I look foward to seeing what you do to
link it all together better.

Well, I'm gonna respond to some of your points anyway. :smile:

1. Very good idea, I knew something had to be there but couldn't think of any way to still have it connected.

2. I'm thinking about removing that pipe to allow for some form of alternate route for midgets, but if I don't, pipe trim it is.

5. The lighting looks different (read: better) on mine, even after I changed it... egads. But eh, if you were referring to the center lights, it's because whoever added 'em was underbudget + had no creative eye + but knew something had to be there.

9. That's indeed unfinished, I basically just threw on the roof so I wouldn't have a leak and compiled. :biggrin:

10. Haha, you spotted me ripping off Echo, I mean, erm, influenced by it... :wink: (and Elixir, for that matter)

11. I was just following your tutorial that said 8 units looks good :wink:

Thanks for the critique, I appreciate it! :biggrin: (especially after running out of ideas on fixing 'er up.)

No problem mate, my pleasure. I thought that hole looked deeper than 8 units...but maybe my tutorial was just inaccurate :biggrin:

That type of sand texture in 11 is totally unsuited to the environment.
I'm going to have a run around now. I like the look of it. :smile:

You can see this isn't touching the wall.



That pipe goes nowhere and the texture on the black thing on the of the green box is dodgy.



Nice area, but you shouldn't be able to see the skybox outside the gate like that.



Guess.

Cool wee map. Some inspired creativity, but the connectivity was lacking.

Haha. :smile: Yeah, I noticed the last one right after I uploaded it... yes, must do something about that connectivity... perhaps hire some migrant workers to finish it for me! :wink:

This texture is set to world, which makes it obvious that you vertex manipulated it to an angle because the texture is pointing in that direction. I would change the setting to face then rotate/resize it to line it up with the rest. This way the texture will point upwards instead of 45 degrees to the right.



There's a trim on the other side and the wall is symmetrical, so why not have the trim here too?

Now, you've got some serious connectivity issues that would hamper this map severely in dm. I always find it better to get the connectivity down first before working on the big details like lighting and such, because the number of passageways in and out can affect how much r_speeds you have to work with. Because I always want to go overboard with connectivity, I've whipped up some suggestions to improve the flow of this map.



Knock out this wall and make it a doorway to another hall section



Rip the ceiling off this hallway, make a nice sized ledge off of the left wall, and make a walkway over the existing hall. Connect the left end of this hallway to the doorway from before. The other two exits will be the next two pics



punch a hole in this wall for a doorway, but leave the rest. build a staircase behind the wall, and then have the walkway from before connect to this stairway via a small hallway or something



create a second level above this area that circles around the sky area. connect this area to the other ledge in the second picture, but be sure to have a visblocker between the rooms to keep r_speeds down



fill the pipe area with water. since it's a big dead end with one exit i would suggest throwing in a big gun to make it worth going to. make a doorway off the walkway and build a staircase up to the red door. raise the red door and connect the hallway to the walkway. extend a section of that hall to make a stairway that connects to the new second level area

ta da! its all connected, perhaps too much so, but that's just me jumping off the deep end. hopefully this will help you to come up with better ideas than my quick and crappy one! :biggrin: this map has promise, as it looks rather nice and could have good gameplay, so keep it up

... lol...

... wow...

That's some good stuff right there Yak, thanks very much! :biggrin:

Just for clarification, I chose not to comment on the connectivity as I
figured it was obviously work in progress. If I was wrong, then MAKE it
work in progress :razz: