Posts by Serenius

When in doubt, look at No Mercy 1 & 3, along with Dead Air 1 & 2. Great reference material if you're going for a setting like either of those.

A few other things I noticed looking at your screens more that jumped out at me.

Is light only coming out of the top of the overturned lamp here, or is there a wall/doorway blocking the light that should be coming out of the bottom side of the lampshade?

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The closest street light in this picture looks like it's on, but it looks like there's no light being cast from it.

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For the broken wall, is there a way to overlay brick texture onto the white? You could also consider changing the surface to get across to a wooden plank, which will make it a little more dramatic (at least to people with a mild to severe case of acrophobia). Is this current platform an air vent? If so and you stick with that as your platform, you may want to lower them, as they should line up like they're running along the ceiling of the floor below the one you're entering and make sure they have some structural support. I'm guessing this is a spot for smokers to pull survivors down to the street (my personal favorite in versus maps).

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Quote from alecmoody

I think some more material variation would be nice. Could the words 'hope' be written in either stainless steel or some other sort of cleaner metal (not cast iron since that will blend right in)? A reflected highlight across the stone or wood with a well painted mask would add a lot too. Maybe put some lights in the tunnel in the last image you posted to create some rim lighting on the benches and a few reflected highlights on the floor and walls?

I'm actually going to change the material of the face that "HOPE" is written across. That white brick was more of a placeholder. I know the exact material I want, which is similar to the stair meshes on both sides of it. I'm just having some difficulty finding it. The way Epic groups their assets into packages can make finding the right material a bit challenging.

I'm pretty new to mapping, but this is one tip that greatly helped me out for starting out. It's from Cliffy B's UT design tips, but it's a pretty universal thing for any game setting.

Quote

Basic Geometry Tip (that a lot of people tend to miss!) Avoid large, flat surfaces. Try to break up walls, floors, ceilings with supports, recessions, decorations, windows, doors, etc… Sounds simple but a lot of newbie mappers miss this.

http://www.cliffyb.com/rants/ut-ld-tips.shtml

There are a lot of items at your disposal to pull this off. For the walls, you can use columns, floor/ceiling trim, pictures/statues, recessions, windows, etc. For ceilings you can use support beams, hanging lights, air ducts, pipes, and wiring (the last few more so in areas that should look like they are under construction). Flooring can be broken up with too many things to list, but sometimes simply giving a border to a long hallway, or transitioning from carpet to hardwood with trim along the edge can really enhance the look for you.

Considering the brightness of your skybox, you may want to consider either using a brighter outdoor light or a darker skybox so they're matching.

Also in this image, the rooflines seem a little too flat.

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It's too dark to tell if these are singular large buildings or mutliple buildings with similar heights, but it would look better with some variation. If they are separate buildings, you could simply make some taller than others, or if they are single buildings, you could have a raised section or large structures for a portion of the roof to break up the roof line, both of which are quite common. Examples below.

Urban:

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Industrial:

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Small town:

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This one shows all the roofs that are mostly the same height, but different roof patterns that break it up nicely.

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Again, I'm a bit of a rookie, so take my post with a grain of salt, but I think it will make your map go from good to great.

Quote from ctswin

I highly recommend the level design book by Hourences - he's a member here on the forums http://www.hourences.com/book/index.htm

This book was most excellent. I'm hoping to get Ed Byrne's book and Hourences other book for Xmas as well.

There's a ton of great info on this forum. I like to go digging through old threads in the 3d levels and work release forums and read through the commentary on various maps submitted and the feedback given.

There are also some good articles on the web you can read. Lots of information that seems really obvious, but is also really easy to forget when you're just starting out, or very subtle techniques that you sometimes don't even know are being done intentionally. Less technical tutorial, more theory type stuff.

http://www.hourences.com/book/bookexamples.htm (examples from his book)

http://agamesdesignblog.com/2009/03/01/ ... el-design/

http://www.cliffyb.com/art-sci-ld.html

This is largely UT-focused, but there are some good universal tips in here too.

http://www.cliffyb.com/ut-ld-tips.htm

You can also peruse Gamasutra and World of Level Design. Lots of rough to wade through, but there are some good gems on those sites too.

Quote from SotaPoika

That 'P' letter should have some shadows, as it now blends on the wall too much. Same with letter 'E'. I think you've done a great job so far. Keep it up!

It does. I think it's just the angle of the shot in the editor + JPEG compression. Thanks!

3rd time's the charm.

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I'm not done with this yet, but it's a step in the right direction I think. Again, I appreciate all the input. Proper lighting has been a huge hurdle for me.

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Just needs some Raptors toting machine guns now.

Thanks guys. I think I'll have to junk the spot lights and put an orange light over the dais, along with yellow floor lights running the main walkway. I'll see what I can do about adding in contrasting ambient lighting as well. Thanks again for the feedback. This particular room has been a real challenge.

I finally figured out how to adjust the color of the glow spheres last night too.

Finally finished redoing the sanctuary. Would love to get any more positive/negative feedback from you fine folks before I move on to putting in the destroyed building/atmospheric details.

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Played around with it a bit more tonight. Trying to keep the contrast and color schemes going with a more natural look.

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Thanks for taking the time to push a clueless rookie in the right direction.

I didn't think it was possible, but I think I got it. Might need to brighten it up a bit though.

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It's like the final gear just clicked into place in my head. Thanks, HP.

Using the feedback given, I've played around with the lighting and the post processing a bit. Improvement?

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Quote from Aalexanderrr

Well, the idea is that ( at least in UT99 mapping) you use 2 main light colors and 1 additional. Additional is usually used to highlight something important. That's how I usually do it, at least.

That's the approach I was using, but I need to be more liberal with the secondary colors.

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Thinking over it, I used a primary color (light blue), then 1 highlight to draw attention to the stairs and door to the second area (reddish orange from the fire), then used a second highlight to draw attention to the side corridor (yellow from the stained glass windows). Needs secondary color. Should be fun to play around with it tonight, along with seeing if I can reduce the number of lights for better shadow contrast.

Thanks again everyone.

I've spent way too much money on gaming recently.

Dragon Age

L4D2

Assassin's Creed 2

PS3 bundle with LBP and Ratchet & Clank

Originally I had used yellow as the primary lighting color, but everything came out looking ugly and way too brown. I changed to light blue as the primary color to liven it up a bit, but it sounds like I need to figure out some creative light sourcing to work in more secondary color.

I'll also be doing a detail pass for a more destroyed building look now that most of the other elements of the map are where I'm happy with them.

Thanks again for the feedback!

As a side note, anyone know how to make the editor viewport in Unreal 3 match the brightness of the game with default graphics settings? It's way brighter in the editor than the game itself.

Quote from Lord Ned

This thread is now about Deadspace.I just started my second playthrough and it's... frustrating. What used to facinate me (Chopping the limbs off) now seems tiresome and cumbersome. Nothing startles me anymore.

What's happened?

Same reason why Doom 3 is only startling/scary the first few levels. Monster closet gameplay gets stale quick. The dismemberment mechanic in Dead Space was a little too overdone. Would have been better as an option to conserve ammo instead of being forced.

Hello Mapcore!

This is my first map since the days of Dark Forces and Doom. I spent the last few months learning the UT3 editor and put together a simple "2 rooms joined by a corridor" level, which has slightly expanded from that concept after the initial design. This project is in the final stages of development, with mostly bug fixing and adding in details for better atmosphere remaining. I'd love to get some candid feedback from the community on this project if possible.

Link to download: http://www.moddb.com/members/serenius/a ... hapel-beta

Screenshots:

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