[article] Bringing your map to life

This is a discussion topic for the article "Bringing your map to life" by Xen which can be found here

Article description:

Ideas and inspiration on how to change just another map into an awesome map.

Wow man this is great, too bad I dont have the patience to map anymore.

Good ideas outlined here, I wish you had gone into a little more detail and touched on clip brush and added detail (adding depth to walls/ceilings/floors with extra brushes). I also don't agree with extra hallways/paths personally I feel that the illusion of other places are enough.

Clip crushes don't add immersion... They're layout. As for adding detail, thats something thats good for a whole tutorial of its own that I'll prolly write soon.

Clip brushes are optimization Your clipbrush resources will be glad you used them!

The bit about using hallways and door as un-reachable areas; I think it's quite... poor. I've played countless Sven-Coop maps where doors are used for detail, but they don't open! They usually don't even make rattling or beeping noises when you aproach; thought you did mention to not overdo it or the player will get lost. I do feel, though, that you probably should have recomened something else to go along with that.

No the suggestion I made is extra areas you CAN reach, give the player some eye candy to explore, but make sure not to go too far as getting them lost, and give them a reward for using their time going the wrong way (Maybe throw in a puzzle a-la saving the Barney from the zombie for the shotgun in Office Complex. So many ideas. I coulda made this thing go for pages.

Updated with new pictures cause I lost the old ones