Could be the angle, but I don't like how the floor looks in the first shot- the texture looks off with the environment. Overall the use of red in the screenshots seems somewhat off- what purpose was there, for the builders of whatever construction this map is set in (I can't tell what it's supposed to be) to paint red stripes down the halls.
I like the second two shots- a lot- though it looks a little bit gloomier than it feels like it should.
Pyro_breakout_b1 has been released! http://www.fpsbanana.com/maps/58153
Screenshots:
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Known issues: Two of the spectator cameras are tilted. The cubemaps for the water pits at the bottom of the stairways leading to the underground dungeon arena seem to not work. The ramp leading out of the red audience box in the underground dungeon arena tends to catch people trying to leave it. As these aren't issues people are likely to run into often, really, I didn't feel like they alone warranted a rebuild. They'll be fixed in b2 along with whatever crushing bugs people dig up in the meantime.
Quote from duxI couldn't disagree with you more, it's the complete opposite of moody or a brooding atmosphere which diablo 2 captured brilliantly. This looks like all of blizzards new games, WoW, all of it's expansions and Starcraft 2. They all share a smooth, stylised cartoon look which I think couldn't have been a worse choice for something like the Diablo series. Whenever I play Diablo 1 or 2 I always get the sense if being in an environment that is full of absolute evil, littered with tortured corpses, gore, moody lighting, and some rather disturbing iconography that I am not welcome in at all, and I love it! My impression from the videos and screenshots is a rather friendly atmosphere! Come on look at it, it looks like a rather pleasant place I can almost see the fairies dancing. It reminds me more of Dungeon Siege 2's mystical forests than a land full of evil. The environments certainly are not reflecting the type of game Diablo is. I'm a MASSIVE diablo fanboy so of course I'm going to moan about this.
It certainly had moody and brooding MUSIC. 
Diablo's environmental design never stuck out to me as anything special. What's shown in the gameplay footage on the other hand, while not amazing, is quite nice, especially being destructible, interactable, and has that drawn quality to the backdrops. The part at the end when they fight the giant monster was very, very reminiscent of the Act 1 finale area, the outdoor parts of it.
If you ignore the outdoor image (seeing as all the D2 images you posted are from dungeons) the only difference in appearance is the result of the move to dynamically lit 3d with a higher def display. There is an added artistic quality that makes the environments have a somewhat hand painted appearance- this is most certainly something WoW does NOT have. Wow looks cartoony and simplistic- as if Insomniac made the environments back when they were making Spyro and Crash Bandicoot games. D3 looks artistic but suitably moody and impressive.
Quote from duxIs anyone else bothered in a total fanboy way that it resembles wow in appearance and not the gritty and dark diablo 2 style?
Dark and gritty? Diablo 2 wasn't very dark and/or gritty. Not any more than the first part of the gameplay video at least. Are you forgetting that Act 2 was a desert and Act 3 was a jungle? The environments looked very reminiscent to me.
This was one of the worst online events EVER thanks to that fucking Octoshape bullshit.
However holy shit that gameplay video 
The boss monster at the end picked up the barbarian and ate him! Bit him in half! The blood splattered over its chest and stayed there until the monster died and burnt up! Holy shit!
Alright, I'm finished! Download cp_close_b1 here: http://www.fpsbanana.com/maps/56785
There are new screenshots included on that page. Updated the first post in this thead with link and screens.
The maker of cp_steel, Fishbus, says Valve hasn't contacted or talked to him in any way, so Steel's out of the possible running.
A full list of achievements and their icons has been released/leaked (but not the achievement discriptions), and one called Attention Getter pretty much verifies the weapon shown in Meet The Sniper is a flare gun.
Used the entity report, and found 'em. Two of the visualizers had gotten duplicated and was overlapping others. It was just a matter of finding which of the two was set to the wrong spawn, deleting it, and making sure the other is in the right place. 
I've got everything working an in place now, and just the way I want it, except the damn ladders. Does TF2 do something different than normal for those? It doesn't have the func_ladder entity and doing it the HL2 way seems to work in Hammer but I can't climb them in TF2. I think I might just get rid of them entirely and make the four platforms the ladders rise off of really fast moving on_touch elevators. 
Fuck yeah, everything works! The reason it would win after one cp getting controlled is they were set to different group indexes- they're supposed to have individual indexes but be on the same group index if they're both in the same round.
I'm still getting errors reported in the console about the visualizers but they work fine for both teams so I dunno what it's complaining about. The only issues with them is that a team can see its own visualizers, but they don't block their movement. I was under the impression visualizers are only visible for the team whose movement they block, but whatever, it hardly matters.
func_respawnroomvisualizer(func_respawnroomvisualizer) was unable to find func_respawnroomvisualizer named 'team_blue_spawn_1'
func_respawnroomvisualizer(func_respawnroomvisualizer) was unable to find func_respawnroomvisualizer named 'red_spawn_1'*shrug*
I just have to clean up something in the skybox I messed up on (stupid LOD models...), and it'll be ready to play. Officially, cp_close_b1. Huzzah!
Edit: Ladders work in TF2, right? Might want to add a couple...
I suppose misspellings is what I get for staying up all night working on it. Thanks DvS.
*goes about making that upper balcony and skybox*
After some experimenting... all I've managed to do is make the match won to whomever takes the first point. Point 2 remains locked, uncapturable, for the duration.
Here's the .vmf. Thanks for looking, DvS. I was more looking for a link to a proper, fleshed out cp tutorial, but I'll accept personal help.
http://files.filefront.com/cp+close+sou ... einfo.html
On a side note I discovered while testing it that the demomen can blast themselves up and get on the small upper lip at the top of the map, and I've decided to expand that into a castle parapet looking area of the map, reachable by stairs on the upper side hall lip, and a modest 3d skybox outside it. Let no man ever claim Jetsetlemming is lazy.
Goddamnit, I can't find the information I'm looking for, and none of the usual places I check for tuts is helping. Does anybody know how to structure command points and how they work together and across the course of a map and want to give me tips? I can't get the second damn control point to be unlocked. 
The only classes I think will have an actual hard time with the map compared to others is heavies and engineers- it's too small for teleporters and dispensers to really be necessary, and for a heavy to be effective he'd have to take the long way around to get to high ground. Most he's going to be able to do effectively is block routes, especially in the thin side halls.
I made places for snipers, choke points for demomen/soldiers, close areas for pyros, cubbies and alternate routes for spies (and engineers to build in so they can do SOMETHING), and vertically oriented areas for scouts. I make no promises in how it actually turns out to play, but I did put some thought into the layout. 
The locker's prop_dynamic, and I have the visualizer attached to the spawn room it's protecting as per the Source SDK Wiki. There's no outright "team" option in it, which would make things a lot easier. 
Overview:
[attachment=3]cp_close6.jpg[/attachment]
[attachment=2]cp_close7.jpg[/attachment]
[attachment=1]cp_close8.jpg[/attachment]
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That should make the overall design of the level clearer, right? The control points are on the two raised metal platforms across from each other in the center of the map, each spawn has three exits, one straight forward and two side ones, there's six entrances to the main chamber, two for each base and two on the center walls, where the side halls meet at level with the control points. There's a number of platforms and windows for minor alternate routes to escape camping demo or let a scout rush the snipers. There's a central tower with a large ammo box but no health that would be a perfect place to suppress all the entrances as long as the player can survive up there.
I started mapping in TF2 for the first time last night, and this is the result; cp_close. It's a very simplistic, retro style map, with the two halves mirrored of each other and not much attention paid to visuals beyond flow and team color pallets.
Any commentary, critiques, and criticisms are welcome. I'm going to try to organize a test game of it tonight with some friends, if it comes together I'll post a link to my server here.
Download link:
http://www.fpsbanana.com/maps/56785
Screenshots:
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No external art assets allowed is my kind of contest. Fucking shame that by the time June 30th rolls around I still most likely won't have a computer capable of running UT3.
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showth ... id=2874037
This is the news thread about the game, Let's Play forthcoming when I'm more awake.
I picked up a copy of this yesterday- I just couldn't resist.
I recorded a video of the intro and first ten minutes of gameplay. All the backdrops in this starting area are from Return to Castle Wolfenstein- The Wolfenstein jail RtcW starts in, the cathedral at the end of the first part of the game, and the zombie-filled catacombs that lead to the Cathedral.
Albatros I really, really wanna play your map. 
I hope you make those zombies far back from the player culled from view as well...