BlueCoatKarma

It's spelled "ton" in the U.S., "tonne" in most other places I think. Both words come from French tunne. It's either 2000lbs. or 2240lbs (~1000kg), depending on if it's a short or long ton(ne). I agree it might fit in better if it were a bit grimier, but the warehouse doesn't look all that grimy to me. The only real giveaway is that there's a light out, so... yeah. Also, sometimes equipment is kept in good condition for maintenance reasons when everything else looks bad.

You could try faking the railings' light origins or disabling shadows on them to see if that fixes it. That doesn't sound like a great "solution" though.

I like the sand idea. I think, however, that the wood should be grayed out more - like it's been bleached by the sun and sand. More like the floor-on-the-roof than scaffold-on-the-front.

I really like the ledges beneath and above the doors and windows - very authentic. It's cool to see some traditionally-American architecture in Source, instead of the typical European stuff we saw in HL2 and countless maps for its mods.

I really like the floor texture. Perfect.

These shots look really fresh and original, and I like the architecture a lot. The materials fit very well with the architecture. The outside looks amazing. But... there's a lot of brown. Maybe this is what you're going for, but you might consider at least trying some other art directions. A big part of this might be that all your wood is similar in tone, and it's all very "chocolaty" - I think the color is maybe a bit too dark and rich considering the setting. This is highlighted by the fact that the modeled props and furniture have a more natural and brighter color, which makes them all look slightly out of place in my opinion. If you are attached to this color, consider making it look like it's been stained that shade, in which case it would be shiny and maybe even darker. Don't do this too the floor though (again, would make the furniture look out of place) - maybe just to the trim or something, especially on upper floors. Otherwise, I'd consider making some of it grayer (for a weathered look) or lighter (for a "just built" look). In either case, it might give more variety to some of your hall shots. You also might stain the floor of the saloon - even more so than the walls, it suffers from a general "wow, there's a lot of brown there without much distinction." In fact... if you just saturated that texture and added a steeper normal map so the boards are clearer, I think it would set off the walls more and add depth to the scene. On the (presumably) second story, I would try getting rid of some ambiance and focus on making it clearer what the light sources are. There's nothing bright about these hallways, so light shouldn't be bouncing around enough to make it so diffuse. I think the ceiling texture there might be a good candidate for a stronger normal map too - combined with more clear-cut lighting, it might look really cool. Obviously I wouldn't make these changes without more feedback on the issue, and ultimately it's up to your taste. Just some thoughts.

Looks pretty good. Here's some specific criticism (obviously it's up to you - take it or leave it.) In the first shot, it's too obvious that the rails are brushes, especially since you used the same thing (copied+pasted) on both levels. Also, what's the access like to the platform on the right side of the shot? If it is a platform, it should have details (like a yellow caution line) and a railing like the other side does. If it isn't a platform, what is it? Right now it seems like a convenient path with very little detail and a big pipe at one end. The collapse looks pretty good though, I have to say. The second shot is too grungy and concrete-y. If this were a train station or subway you'd expect tiles, not just bare concrete in a lobby/waiting area. You can get away with concrete down below on the platforms (first shot) but not in an open area. Make this distinct from the rest - add some windows or turn the lighting way up and make this area brighter. Make players nostalgic for the station's glory days or something. It's totally up to you, but I think the "was pretty at one point but now it's covered in dirt" look would serve you better in this area. Also, add some sides to the arch up above in the background - it looks a bit HL1-ish right now. Consider raising up the horse statue on a pedestal (not higher than 64 units though or people can't see over it) and putting the benches around it it in a circle with just a couple of them "broken" - the way they're strewn about right now seems a bit excessive. Visually the floor is okay, but game play-wise I think having something in the middle would make things more interesting. Overall, the rest of the geometry is pretty good. Shot three/four arenice and distinct with geometry and lighting. It's very blue-gray, but that might be okay if this is a small area. If those are stairs going down in the back right side of the shot, consider adding railings on the sides. Is there stuff underneath the grating? Maybe add steam coming out, or different lighting beneath the grate. Also, why is there a grating in the middle of the floor? Maybe try to add a visual cue hinting that this area was accessible at one time; that there was a grating for a reason. Maybe the pipes could even come up through it and you could move it next to a wall. You need something to break up the ceiling a bit here, even if it's only vents. What's powering that light by the way? Also, consider turning up the brightness on those lights or turning down the ambient blue-ness. Replace the DO NOT ENTER sign with a caution sign - it's too obviously a road-sign. Finally, the wall texture makes no sense. Why is there a grimy water-line a foot off the ground? (Although that could have a place somewhere else if part of the abandoned station is flooded.)

I like the green on the buildings.

Yeah, I have an ATI card and I'm getting this too.

Nice. You might be aware of this stuff, but it can't hurt: Dev Textures: Not sure what's going on here. It seems like the animated texture that looks more distant is actually closer than the texture that is bigger/more detailed: Not sure if there's anything you can do about this, cuz the reflections from cubemaps don't really get dim enough, but the transition to black texture is obvious in your elevators: This texturing just looks really weird to me. I think you need something at the top of the ledge so the fact that this is just a normal mapped texture isn't so obvious. This texture seems really stretched and kinda out of place: This texture is aligned badly: Maybe I don't spend enough time looking at outdoor maps with mat_wireframe on, or maybe this is unavoidable, or maybe this is legitimately scary: This map is totally "walk-around-able" and for the most part it looks great, but I don't want to think about trying to play it with other players running around and "throwable objects" added in.

Agreed with everything that's already been said. And your city skybox has a nuclear cooling tower in it - why?

It's not just a VRAD problem, it affects performance in-game. Look at the wireframe screenshots part way down in this thread: http://forum.interlopers.net/viewtopic.php?p=75780&highlight=lightmap#75780

It looks great, but I have to ask, how's the performance there? Aren't the lightmaps really small to get those nice shadows from the skylights?

Obviously, the map looks great. It didn't take me long to figure out the map, which was nice. You did an amazing job blending the skybox into the "actual" outlying areas, and the sheer amount of custom content is amazing. I foresee some complications with the bushes not being solid though. It seems like there's the possibility of players hiding inside them and basically being invisible. Of course, they're as difficult to see out of as they are to see into, but that I'm sure that won't prevent them from being abused. If it were me, I'd clip out the middle of them with a box. I agree with Phlek on that wall texture and with that area being too dark. As much as I wish they did, shadows don't seem to make gameplay more fun in CS. This area probably suffers graphically from the fact that (if I remember right) it's done with models, but performance-wise I'm sure this was necessary. I'd hit it with some fake ambient-lighting (as in not just light_env ambience). And (you might know this already) here's yet another area where you can get out of the map:

Looks amazingly good. Nice atmosphere - the important thing is that it has to be in extreme contrast to the inside of Black Mesa, and I think you really captured that difference well. Soundscapes will be crucial here, of course. Also, he said that the skybox (background) rocks are temporary.

Wow... this looks amazing. I've often though that if people ever push Source the way NS mappers (like on this map) have pushed the HL1 engine, it's going to be incredible. I prefer NS to CO, but still - this looks great.

This has improved a LOT since you first started working on it. The roof of the building looks amazing. The interior office-type shots are a bit off I think. The prop placement is awkward: some places seem too empty and some places have unrealistic and pointless placement.

I dunno... I don't think it's saturation you need in your light_environment, I think it's brightness. There aren't a lot of direct-sunlight maps - sunsets and dusk are popular, but you might try putting this with really intense sun. You don't have much to lose trying multiple light_environment settings anyway - except the time to compile.

If you turn up the ambience on your light environment, you will lighten up your cave. Keep in mind standard scaling in HL2 and CS is at .25 - 1/4 normal size as opposed to double normal size like in your map.

...But seriously, who uses a variety of textures anyway? (That was a joke, not criticism - it looks good for the most part.) The textures look rather blurry - do you have them sized up a lot so they don't tile, or is it just the detail level you're running it at? I wish my displacements looked that good.

New shots look really good in general. The exteriors of the buildings could still use work - make the roof overhang a bit maybe, and use textures for the walls that don't tile so badly vertically. For example, most of the wall textures are designed for walls 128 units high. For 256 unit walls, most textures have a cleaner version (i.e. without the concrete around the base that the bottom texture has). Its hard to explain, so here's a screenshot of what I mean: You want the version on the right. Specific stuff: (NOTE: I'm only saying the bad stuff, because you don't need to fix the stuff that works already. There's a lot of good design in this map.) http://www.sourceprefabs.com/ftp/joe/dam/dam_new_096m0000.jpg The ground in this shot seems a bit gravelly to me - it's up to you, but I'd probably go with a slightly cleaner concrete texture considering that in general the scenery is in "good condition." Also, apply smoothing groups to those columns. http://www.sourceprefabs.com/ftp/joe/dam/dam_new_096m0001.jpg The concrete floor problem becomes very apparent here. The decal you used for the crosswalk has details that match up with a specific concrete texture - you should probably use the one that it matches so that the "grooves" in the paint make sense. Right now, they just look random. http://www.sourceprefabs.com/ftp/joe/dam/dam_new_096m0005.jpg The far wall in this shot has a different texture for the botom 128 units than the rest of the walls, for no apparent reason. http://www.sourceprefabs.com/ftp/joe/dam/dam_new_096m0006.jpg The light above the door appears white and the lights in the room up the stair are yellow, but the walls of the room are tinted blue-green. This looks a bit unrealistic. http://www.sourceprefabs.com/ftp/joe/dam/dam_new_096m0011.jpg The stain decal is coming up from the floor here. This seems a bit weird - I'd probably turn it 180 degrees and have it coming down from the ceiling. Overall the room seems good though. http://www.sourceprefabs.com/ftp/joe/dam/dam_new_096m0012.jpg I really like this room. See if there's a way to make the lighting more interesting though, even if it's just decreasing the intensity of the overhead lights and then making spotlights (remember to make them non-dynamic though in the flags since they won't be moving.) http://www.sourceprefabs.com/ftp/joe/dam/dam_new_096m0013.jpg I think the perfect symmetry of the pipes is a little weird, but if it makes sense within the layout of your map its fine. The ceiling texture tiles a bit too much in this room, but since you're using it throughout I don't think there's a good way around that. http://www.sourceprefabs.com/ftp/joe/dam/dam_new_096m0022.jpg This was the first shot where I noticed your wall problem (the thing I mentioned at the top of this post.) Props seem pretty well used here, but I think the brightness of the white lighting on the left side of the scene is a little weird - it's odd to see such intense lighting when just a few feet to the right there's bright sunlight. I'd probably just take the lights there out altogether. http://www.sourceprefabs.com/ftp/joe/dam/dam_new_096m0024.jpg This is a good shot. Since the dark concrete on the dam is so far away, you could easily get away with doubling its size though so it tiled less. If you have reference pics of a dam like this, good on you. However, looking at these pics it seems like the concrete is usually the same color/type throughout the construction. Also, the parts that stick out are usually thinner and don't extend above the dam so far. (This is when you'll wish you hadn't resized it... good luck editing it now.) http://www.sourceprefabs.com/ftp/joe/dam/dam_new_096m0025.jpg I just wanted to say the cliff looks a lot better in this picture than it did in the originals. Good work.

Are there flares on all your lights, or is that a natural thing that I've just never noticed?

I've kinda thrown myself into a high-res-ifying project involving the textures from NS (ns.wad and ns2.wad mostly). I haven't really done any texturing before (I did some VERY simple re-texturing for Deus Ex as well, but it was items instead of environment textures.) It's still nice because I don't have to be very creative to remake something. The big obstacle here is that I can't do any 3D modeling, and I don't have a program to do so even if I could (which is a good part of why I can't.) Because of this, my normal maps are just Nvidia plug in affairs, and I haven't actually been successful in viewing these in Hammer (having problems with the .vtf/.vtm thing). For now just color layers, although I've done a normal map for the first of these. So I'm looking for input on these. I'm struggling to get used to the idea that there shouldn't be much (any) lighting/shading "baked in" with the colors. (Here's the old one): Here's a vent. Having not really ever used normal maps before and not knowing much about them, this is the one that really needs help. Obviously some (all?) of the shading shouldn't be there. EDIT: I just realized that the first one needs some explanation. We kinda decided that it needed to be cleaned up for Source - it would have looked to repetitive with such distinct features (the big metal hinges etc.) That's why there's a complete lack of them. Keep in mind that in NS textures aren't tiled all that much because walls don't usually go very long before being broken by details or supports or models or something.

This is my first map. I already posted it on a different forum, but I think I need all the help I can get. It's kinda chunky, because it started out being just a layout. In some places where the curved stuff is lit by spotlights, the separate faces are really obvious - you'll see in the screenshots. So I may need to redo the curved architecture to make it look better. The arches and curves have all been converted to func_detail... I hope. The style is pretty different from most of what I've seen out there. On one of the test runs a guy commented that it looked like something from Unreal (he joined the game while I was walking around making sure things looked right). Which it probably does. It's basically three levels, all connected by stairs that cut throughout the level. I can't do an overhead view of it very well because the top level covers up everything beneath it, and the roof of the bottom level (the floor of the middle) covers up everything above it. There aren't a whole lot of props - I didn't think it fit to have explosive barrels or radiators sitting around. The combine interfaces can be pulled off the walls and thrown around, as can the protective shield things on the main platform on the top level. Also, where do you guys host your maps? At some point it might be fun to play this with some people.