dm_romanpool (Play test available)

Please take a look, download and give it a spin (edit - Back up for play testing!). All comments are welcome. I'm a novice mapper and looking for all the advice I can get, design related or otherwise. This is a small map designed ideally for 3 - 6 players.

http://%7boption%7d

Quote from Campaignjunkie

It's really.. uhh.. blue. So blue infact, that I find it really distracting. Really distracting! How has no one else mentioned this yet? It seems like a really glaring thing that needs improvement... C'mon! I'm not crazy! Stop staring at me! You and your accusing eyes! AHHH! But seriously, I would tone down the blue to a more earthy saturation. And get some of that fancy specular shader stuff on the tiles, this is Source after all!

EDIT: I'm assuming you're basing the level off of this image ( http://www.carto.net/neumann/travelling ... n_bath.jpg ).. Hmm, tricky. But notice that the blue tiles on the bottom wall trim are more purpleish, while the blue tiles on the walls are less purpleish. Also, the blue on the columns is REALLY desaturated, not nearly as strong as you have it right now. And as the others said, work on getting some natural looking light coming through the windows - in HL2, sometimes Valve just used a pure white texture (I think it's called fakesky or something) and put a window over it. But anyway, this is certainly a good start, keep working on it!

Thank you all for the constructive comments. These are really important as it is almost impossible to get good criticism from close friends. CJ is right, it is too blue! I’ve been looking at it so long that I became blind to it. I will play around with the saturation of the textures a bit to try and achieve more realism. Cool lighting effects would definitely improve the overall look of the level. I need to put in some extra time and learn all of the environment lighting tricks. That really seems to be an art unto itself.

CJ is also correct that I modeled the level off the Roman Pool from the Hearst Castle in San Simeon, CA. After a visit there a few years ago I was really struck by all of the great art and architecture on the estate. I tried to keep all the core elements of the room intact as well as some of the tile design. A perfect replica would require too much time and too many different textures. I think at some point, it is possible to go too far with the level of detail. A current project I am also working on is a level based on Casa Grande, which is the main house there. That one will likely make a better candidate for CS.

Keep the suggestions and comments coming in! I hope to have an improved version for you in the next couple weeks with the suggested changes made.

Quote from KoKo5oVaR

Hey man, you really have a sweet map there ! custom textures and all, but it's really too bad to release a so good looking architecture and texturing without the proper lighting it deserves ^^So, sorry about that, but i've quickly photoshopped one of your screenshots to show you my opinion :

Very cool! Sweet effect even with just the photoshop touch up. My mind is churning now with all sorts of ideas for the lighting. I think I will take down the map download for the time being until I have the lighting and color balance worked out. Doesn't seem like I'm too far away though.

Anyone know any good tutorials for lighting design? Definitely not a strong point for me.

I went ahead and desaturated those really blue texture files and changed the windows. Here are the before and after shots:

[Blocked Image: http://www.natcarm.com/dm_romanpool3.jpg]

[Blocked Image: http://www.natcarm.com/dm_romanpool_desat.jpg]

[Blocked Image: http://www.natcarm.com/dm_romanpool4.jpg]

[Blocked Image: http://www.natcarm.com/dm_romanpool_desat2.jpg]

Here is my first crack at some lighting effects. I'll replace these shots in a couple days with better ones after I adjust my graphics card and kick up the antilansing.

I stripped away most of the light entities and let a light_environment do most of the work. I also put in a env_lightglow to simulate a sunlight glare when you are looking out the windows facing the sun. I also added reflection via cubemaps and normal mapping to most of the tile textures.

I'll need to tweak the lighting balance a bit so it is not too dark. I ran into difficulty though with the lightglow on the lamp models. Because the bulb part is so large, it swallows the light when I place the entity in the center and I can't move it to a place where it looks natural. Any ideas?

[Blocked Image: http://www.natcarm.com/dm_romanpool_L1.jpg]

[Blocked Image: http://www.natcarm.com/dm_romanpool_L2.jpg]

Thanks to the admin that moved this post. I was just thinking it really does belong in the WIP forum.

Here is another brief update. I tried to stick with a dusk theme. Let me know what you think about the lighting.

New screenshots here:

http://%7boption%7d