Battle Garden

Just like "Gorami"

I Was just looking for a few pointers on how to improve my mapping skills,

the new map im working on is going to be amazing when finished, ive
made a new way of spawning. im also using pretty textures. i want to
focus alot on this one as i fell my previous attempts have just been
average. (anyone who has played my maps would know this, but what they
dont make up 4 visualy ive been told the gameplay is solid)

Battle garden is gonna be good. with a little help

:smile:

Well -- the first 2 shots look like something out of a dream. The
textures you've chosen for the walls and ceilings in the first
screenshot are really confusing, because they don't look like actual
walls or ceilings. Also -- what's the deal with the boxes with
lions and huge metal grate textures?

What's the "sage" texture in the second shot? It doesn't make any sense... do you want it to actually look like foliage?

The black texture in the 3rd shot should be replaced... it's impossible to see 3 dimensional space with the black texture.

Teh boxes with the lions and tigers on it are boxes that rotate, the
blue grate ish texture is acctualy my name but the shot is to far away
for it to be seen.

yeh ill get rid of the black texture, just thought it lookd cool

the sage is just a sign on a fall its not foliage (dont even know how to use sprites properly).

Cheers for you thoughts

I think you summed it up when you said "just like Gorami". You seem, just like him, to be pushing yourself in entirely the wrong direction in your mapping. Drop this psychadelic dreamscape theme; in fact, forget all about doing anything different or using custom resources at this stage. Go back to the standard HL texture set, and build a lab, or a military compound, or a warehouse.

Read up on my architecture tutorials here and elsewhere. Here's a direct link to get you started...

http://www.snarkpit.net/editing.php?page=tutorials&game=HL&id=10

...and there are others in here that should be useful to you...

http://www.snarkpit.net/editing.php?page=tutorials&game=HL&type=architecture

Take a look at official maps or successful custom maps, and look at what makes them "work" visually. Try and do the same thing yourself. Use the grid and watch your dimensions so as to make textures line up nicely. Work in grid steps of powers of two where possible (eg. 128 unit steps for large brushwork, 16/32 unit steps for medium scale stuff, and 4/8 for smaller scale). Use textures that fit in with the others around them. Don't use carve, don't use carve, don't use carve.

/random tips

Best of luck anyway, but I'm afraid I don't see this level going anywhere. As I said, I suggest you pick a standard HL-suiting theme, such as those I listed, and get to grips with things from there.

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

oh god I think some of those textures are ones I converted long ago. go get a real texture pack from Blazeer or someone, those suuucckkk lol

seriously, though- drawing primarily from one texture pack, a set meant to go together, makes a HUGE difference in your map's visual appeal.

I got those textures from a site accu studios i think. they give away free textures as jpgs, so its possible maybe a few of ur textures wound up there.