Making realistic buildings

Ok

I have one of the simple questions that I know has a complicated
answer. I'm looking for tips and tricks on making my buildings look
beliveable and interesting. I'm working towards making a CS map, and
being that I want to set it in some city streets, i'm gonna have to
make numerous buildings. I wanted to know if anyone could point me in a
direction of any tutorials about just making a building that looks
interesting and realistic.

What i'm sure no one wants to see lots of are cubes with the same texture on all 4 sides and nothing else.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

P.S. I have checked out the links section of snark pit and trolled one
of the sites about map making suggestiongs. (Hosted out of the UK) Good
advice, but not quite the kind of information i'm looking for in this
case.

My advice is to look at real world buildings, either by heading into a
city or something and looking for yourself, or just using a good old
google image search.

Ever since I started mapping, I've been paying close attention to all the buildings in real-life. The architectural details (like a little motif on the fringe of the roof, or a particularly creative way to decorate a supporting column) are especially captivating. Sometimes I stare so much while driving that I worry I might get into an accident!

Open your eyes and start noticing the little things in real life, and you'll be on your way to be a realistic mapper in half life.

Yeah listen to satchmo he is right that is what I now do :smile: >

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting ReNo</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>My advice is to look at real world buildings, either by heading into a city or something and looking for yourself, or just using a good old google image search.
</DIV></DIV>
I agree, though I think it's quite easy to fall into the trap of making one good looking building and then just varying it a bit for everything else, instead of making new ones!

I agree. The key to making good looking buildings is paying attention to real buildings - either in person or by photo, and doing what you can to emulate the details. I'm building a Cuba-themed CSS map right now and I'm building a Cathedral with that "Cuban" look to it by using a photograph of a real cathedral in Havana. It's very impressive, and not too hard to emulate in Hammer, I just have to be careful not too add too much detail because framerates would plummet! So far I've made two belltowers and they look stunningingly realistic in game, and they actually don't affect my framerate too much.

Yeah, as long as the buildings aren't too big, and all the details are made into func_detail, the frame rate doesn't suffer.

I didn't have too many small details in my map, but for some reason my dynamic lighting budget was literally off the charts! I tried using func_details, but it didnt work...

Cool, now i know how to do some cool buildings...I never actually used to look in buildings...but now people may think that im A Retard staring on buildings like that, because i like drawing and i draw good :smile: , but in the street i have nothing to draw on so i use my mind, thats why it may take me like 15 min to stare on some buildings lol, but the thing is, i dont use what i see in hammer, i just say i would do it, but actually im too lazy to do it :wink: ...LoL , but thanks guyz for this help cuzz it really helped me alot :smile: