It could need more contrasting, there is too much grey. It seems very one coloured especially because the colourful lights have either a too small radius or intensity.
You need some more contrasting shadows going across everything. Not sure what your BSP lightmap resolution is set to but if it's above 8 take it down to 8 or 4 on the most obvious surfaces that the player will look at, like floors and walls.
Have a directional light(sun light) in the sky and place it on a high angle so the higher building geometry and bridges cast shadows across the surfaces below them. This directional light doesn't have to be too bright. Just bright enough to give some shadows while also letting your other lights still glow!
-Well its just from those vantage points I would say that there is an over use of the black and yellow trims - works ok on the walk ways but else where not so much imho.
-Also on the walkways - 3rd pic the trims aren't texturally contiguous with walkways that are at right angles (the inner texture should be confluent and have not be intersected by the trim)
-Last pic - those metal trims around the hall entrance appear at odds with the 'HU' (hall) brown brick work imho. Also the brick (wall) work has light and dark regions juxtaposed for no detectable reason.
-There are a few misaligned textures here and there but I figure your just looking for overall impressions, so I wont list them.
-I'm very encouraged with the use of custom textures. I'll have to wait till you release a beta to get a better look.
You need some more contrasting shadows going across everything...........Apart from that can't wait to check this out!
That's imo really the only problem. Doesn't matter if there are a lot of trims with a similar structure, the lighting makes the huge difference. Rankin from UT2004 is nothing but a bunch of woodplanks and red stones combined with some metal - and also repetitive if you take a look at it in unlit view -, the lighting makes it a top notch looking level though.
For the contrasting, uhm yea :P Do you mean its too dark? Or too much use of gray textures? < I might agree lol.
Yea, I already thought that as well. Ill try some less in the upcoming rooms. It just looks so good (A) haha
What do you mean? :) The stairs is indeed overall made about 55% smaller with 16 steps. But otherwise it would take too much room in that room. Because I want to make 2 extra doors on both sides near the entrance door.
I didnt lower my BSP lightmap resolution. Its probably my skylight that is on brightness 0.15 to have those colored lights come out good :P But overall its too dark yea.
You might want to use a slightly brighter floor texture, add more lights on trims and such stuff to illuminate the level more and increase the brightness and radii of a few lightsources. That's everything you will need to make it look much better. The rest would be just finetuning, it would look nice as a HOLP level. :)
Indeed, what the others buds suggested are good advices but also play a bit with ya posteprocessing volume, you can add much more contrast that way after your lighting base is set.
Actually I was thinking of the bsp edging - redo so it follows the corners. This is what I trying to say. If this is not clear I will make pic.
The steps gradient is too high, this is at odds with player movement imho, nevertheless I'll leave final decision up to you.
@ The steps gradient is too high, this is at odds with player movement imho, nevertheless I'll leave final decision up to you.
+1, Yea i played it a few times. But this will not be the actual level. Im planning to redo the whole level once I got the right lightning, textures and trimming matched.
When I look at HOLP maps, its all about gameplay. Which, should include player movement and smooth transitions of rooms and lots of Z-axis.
I was really impressed by CTF-Fatima, so I opened it in the editor to figure out how you made the lightning on that map. Also, the tut really helped :) Thanks ^^ +1.
I was simply trying to suggest that the grey floor tiles should be uninterupted - ie the edging (black and yellow strips) should go flow around it. The same goes for the lower level floors. HTH.
- Blended new textures in which everything is custom. I hereby removed some old textures seeing in the first pictures. Textures did not really match and trimming looked off. Thanks Archenar, that comment really helped.
So far its looking very clean and pretty good imo. Just a slight issue with the shadows. In some corners it looks a bit off :/
not sure if i like this wall texture applied on the floor though + it add a repetitive side to the map
other point i not really find top is horizontal texturing on inclined walkways...or @ least it need some triming to hide the "junction" which seem too "brutal"
Removing the skylight isn't a good idea because you will end up with pitch black spots which look bad & isn't natural. At least use a low value like ±0.025.
The new materials is looking nice but the old lights don't fit anymore, you need something industrial so it would blend well with the bricks, a light material like CTF-Bird just to give you an idea.
I also think you should leave it pure BSP to make this map a beauty unless you plan to decorate it a lot, few meshes here & there would look out of place.
Uhm, did anyone had any problems before with a skylight + a directional light ? It seems that, if I add a skylight, the directional light suddenly stops working? even after rebuilding. Hmmz, im probably noobing again. Ill try that skylight with a very low brightness and toy around some more with that directional light ^^
I dont think Ill keep those ripped off trees. I was just wondering how it would look and what you guys would think about it.. Now that I stare at it.. its actually not that good haha.
I dunno why you get some problem while using a skylight + directional light. There are some settings that can be deactivate in the skylight but it's not supposed to interfere that much with the directional light unless your skylight is to bright like using a 1.0 brightness value.
Suggestions about the materials, using wood for the walkable area, some kind of simple square ciment/stone pattern for the trims would be appropriate. For the walls, the bricks fit's perfectly & for the ceeling the same materials as the floor can be use but make it a bit more darker & with a higher contrast.
looking very nice mate...in a pure holp style for sure, i hope ur bureau have survive to the banging session
I have to say my preference is for the lighting in the top pics. Much brighter more vibrant atmosphere. Secondly I didn't think the root braches are that bad an idea, perhaps providing a dirt layer on top (with a tree on the upper layer) might add a bit more interest. Probably some high(er) poly bsp or mulitple small sized terrains.
With respect to textures I'd recommend checking through Nobiax stock or alternatively stevelosis deviant art page for mapping resources.
I must agree that the "brighter" style with the roots and that green light was quite interesting. You might consider going back to that.
About your BSP issues, see if you can convert some brushes to semi-solid brushes. Those pyramids for example, theoretically you could even make them non-solid if no projectile or person can reach them anyways.
Thank you both, but I really like this style and I'll continue on this, just because it feels much more as the style im aiming for.
The trimming and materials feel much more combined right now, instead of repelling each other in that gray style it was before.
Achernars mate is right about the roots braches, to me was a good idea to devellop too.....up to ur decision of course :p
That black mesh over there is an elevator, forgot to turn accept lights on -_- Flagrunners will find themselves confortable with that since they can easily jump through the hole to the second room or reach another floor of height in the same room.
i really like this kind of open layout, allowing all kind of flys mooves and walldodging....cant wait to do some shomboing practice there
ps: sorry for not responding on XFire, was my daughter doing scoolwork...lol....spoiled from my own pc again...i m on now...just in case ....
So, the next update will not be soon :) but hopefully the next one will be the beta plus the beta from Seraph :)