Schmung

Nice, but you've mixed about 3 diff versions of the MP5 there and dear holy hell could it do with some optimising.

Awesome pics Strat, looks like a fascinating place.

Small text?! It should flash up on the first four maps you make with huge red text saying 'NOT WORTHY OF RELEASE' just to be sure.

HL1 would be shit with this. Horrid, ugly, etc. HL2 I think could do it with some artistic licence taking. TS works with lots of layour, provided that you can use the stunts to modify your route a bit. Due to stunts and movement in general, stuff that would be hateful in most mods, works fine in TS, then again, there are special considerations to be taken into concern when making a TS map, space for movement, people jumping all over the shop and screwing your carefully nulled geometry etc.

Needs better textures, the ones you're using are horribly generic. Everything on the buildings is just a grey blob. Sort your lighting out, at present it's horribly over saturated in the places where you're using coloured lights. Utilise more trim textures, especially on things like the edges of roofs, at present it's just another grey texture.

Nope. Unless Filippo is a really, really good liar. Basically due to lack of time etc etc.

Indeed, AQ2 was the don. What were those bots that were relased for it? They were quality, had really good AI (waypoint based methinks). Action genres looking a bit dicey now, theres nothing on Source that I really feel captures what I like about action mods, which is a damm shame really.

23. Deary me, I'd feel old were it not for spellbinder.

theres room for variation, CS is basically shit where guns are concerned, people just say anything squad based with real guns is a ripoff regardless. Alas, the proble is, a lot of mods are. HI went too far one way for my tastes, what we really need is for someone to nail the point at which fun and realism converges and then give us exciting maps and varied weaponry.

I imagine that (as you mentioned) it depends entirely on company, somewhere big might well have lead texture artists, but smaller teams will just ahve art directors and a bunch of people who do various things. Should be interesting to hear the reality of things though.

mmkay, to calrify, I was trying to say that regardless of how good the engine is, it's the game you make with it that markets your engine, hence the reason why Source is more popular than D3, even if it's technically superior. As for the whole comment on Hell, I was thinking more along the lines of a few levels or something, not the whole game.

argh, his place is scarily full of really proficient people.. I acually never believed Mr Red whe he said makig UVs was soothing, but now I kinda see his point.

Isn't it it done a per light basis rather than a per object one?

Problem is that Valve used their engine to create an awesome looking game with a great story that was hugely impressive, immersive and enjoyable. id used theirs to creat a seen before it all shooter thats famed for being pitch fucking black the whole time and has rather repetitive environments. To modders and level designers an engine isn't just an engine, it depends on the game as well. Doesn't matter if Doom3 is in superior in some technical senses, HL2 is much more popular, there'll be more support for it and whats been done with already is more impresive. If id had made Doom3 a truly staggering game where you travel through the vast expanses of hell with gigantic flaming lave pits and spooky lighting, instead of spending the whole time on a moonbase, then maybe people would have sat up and taken more notice.

Yes, you're fairly lucky because you have a good start and the know how and stuff to wrok towards it. Pity the old people like me, who have to force new skills upon thei unwilling brains. Not that I'm actually that old, just feels that way sometimes.

Saving polys is always, always worth it. If not just for the minor performance increase you get if there's gonna be many instances of the object, then you should always optimise the crap out of things purely from a good practice point of view. If you optimise everything then it becomes habit and it's one less thing you have to worry about.

Bonkers. Like it, not sure how it would play, but it certainly looks cool as hell.

Prince Wills must really love Syndicate and Theme Hospital..

I think the main problem with those spiky rocks is that (to me) they look normal mapped and then all the other rocks aren't, looks pretty jarring and somehow wrong. Very, very nice though, as the others have said, it makes a fine change from all the beaten up city environments we've been seeing. GJ.

I adored that map, great with 2 players or 16. Looks like a decen recreation of it, personally speaking though, I'd like to see a bit more colour injected into it, which I realise is a bit tricksy with the HL2 texture set, but it is very, very grey at the moment. As von ferret said, lighting would also go a long way to making this look spiffy.

erk, is that when the closing date is?

meh, zone, switch, you can see where I went wrong.

I liked the diving element in it, but it was kinda clunky and could have been implemented more effectively. The blind firing and that was also pretty decent. Other than that I felt it was a bit formulaic and repetetive. Hope I'm thinking of the right game here..

Indeedy, no reason for it in Source, a nice 3d skybox thing would work wonders.

hmm, yeah, doesn't look really suitable for TS to be honest, I don't see any z action and it all looks tighter than a ducks arse. Pretty, but I'm not convinced it would work. Any, TS is overflowing with DM maps, we need spangly new team CTF type stuff.