Still need comments on layout... pics included
humb1ed
Join Date: 2002-10-06 Member: 1446Members
Here it is, numbered for your pleasure. And some early shots of different areas, with minimal lighting and detail, just a ploy to get comments on my layout and suggestions.
<img src="http://www.boomspeed.com/brer/layoutone.jpg" border="0">
<img src="http://www.boomspeed.com/brer/one.jpg" border="0">
<img src="http://www.boomspeed.com/brer/two.jpg" border="0">
<img src="http://www.boomspeed.com/brer/three.jpg" border="0">
<img src="http://www.boomspeed.com/brer/four.jpg" border="0">
<img src="http://www.boomspeed.com/brer/five.jpg" border="0">
<img src="http://www.boomspeed.com/brer/seven.jpg" border="0">
<img src="http://www.boomspeed.com/brer/eight.jpg" border="0">
<img src="http://www.boomspeed.com/brer/layoutone.jpg" border="0">
<img src="http://www.boomspeed.com/brer/one.jpg" border="0">
<img src="http://www.boomspeed.com/brer/two.jpg" border="0">
<img src="http://www.boomspeed.com/brer/three.jpg" border="0">
<img src="http://www.boomspeed.com/brer/four.jpg" border="0">
<img src="http://www.boomspeed.com/brer/five.jpg" border="0">
<img src="http://www.boomspeed.com/brer/seven.jpg" border="0">
<img src="http://www.boomspeed.com/brer/eight.jpg" border="0">
Comments
Shot 1: I dislike the textures. They don't seem to fit.
Shot 2: I love this one.
Shot 3: Kinda square
The others are fine.
Other issues:
Layout- seems maybe a little too spread out. I'm not an expert though. It seems like you have lots of hallways but very few "rooms". Rooms house the majority of combat in NS.
Lighting- Did you have a leak and it not render? All the rooms are lit the same. I can understand if you didn't add it in though <!--emo&:D--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':D'><!--endemo-->
Everything seems too, too cuby
Lighting looks good, but I'd say add some subtle color changes in there, if desired. For instance, a faint green or blue around the areas with water, or some dull reds emanating from emergency lights or something. Also, I'd suggest some more contrast of light and dark areas (so Skulk has a place to hide).
As for textures, I think that they fit together quite well, but that's only my personal sense of style talking. The actual texture alignment seems well done in most places. My only big peeve is the HL rock texture; I'd try to find another, better texture if possible.
In terms of layout, I can't really make a big comment on that because I don't know what is what really. I'm assuming the purple dot in the center is the marine base, and the red dots are hives. If so, I think the hive marked with a "5" might be a bit too close to the marine spawn. Apart from that, it looks good to me, and appears to have good alternate routes leading from hive-to-hive.
I know the textures and lighting suck, give me a break I just want suggestions on the layout. I haven't done any detail work yet. Here is the bsp if anyone is interested in maybe getting a better idea of the layout, some of the doors haven't been scripted yet, so you might have to -noclip around a bit... anyways, here it is... <a href="http://www.geocities.com/jacob133/jaketest.zip" target="_blank">http://www.geocities.com/jacob133/jaketest.zip</a>
I have a couple of NS specific points i'd like to see changed:
1) There is too little space around some of your resource nodes, try and leave 128 units around them for resource collectors and builders.
2) Some passageways were too narrow to allow 2 players to pass easily, this can be abused be llamas.
func_illusionary grills, these caught me out twice causing me to fall to my death, please fix them.
A lot of doors seemed not to be working properly, you might want to fix that before giving out the next BSP.
I was actually working on widening up a few passages just as I read your post, so that should be taken care of. I am also raising some ceilings and widening some rooms to facilitate base building currently. And sorry about the other problems, I did not take the time to put in any clip brushes and all fully functional doors, I was more interested just in getting a feel for walking around and keeping an eye on r_speeds. Thanks again!
Pic 1: Those crates seem out of place (the green ones).
Pic 2: I like the feel here. I like it a lot actually..with a bit of lighting fixes, it would look nice (I know this aint a lighting post but hey...)
Pic 3: I'm gonna assume it's the angle of the screenshot, but I don't know that I like the step idea on the side of the walkway...just looks a little...ermmm....odd?
Pic 4: Don't know that I like those steps, reminds me way to much of a doom level... (the original doom that is...where you couldn't have level over level cause of the engine so they faked it by using steps and solid second storey buildings...anyways...beside the point) I think some sort of ramp would probably do a bit nicer - that or you could refine those steps a little more by adding a few more steps and maybe a handrail..
Pic 5: Again, I like this but it's a pity about the lighting...
Pic 6: ooook, maybe a little bit too much infestation.. <!--emo&:)--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'><!--endemo-->
pic 7: I really like the look of this room, nice feel..cept for the rock texture - try scaling that bad boy down to 0.5 or something similar..
pic 8: oh..there is no pic 8
* Layout seems pretty good, all-be-it possibly a little confusing - i think mainly due to the size of the corridors and possibly the lack of proper texturing - seems there is a lot of running through non-descript hallways that lead to more hallways and then more hallways..but again, this may change when you do some texturing..
* With the r_speeds, they seemed pretty good overall, but I would just say that there are some areas where you have the textures scaled quite high which reduces r_speeds but look absolutely horrible. I would drop the scale of the textures down to 1.0 or even less just to get a more accurate r_speed count... I know the textures (as they are now) aren't final but you aren't going to get a true r_speed representation with them scaled that high...
* You gotta watch some of the scales of your brushes. A lot of the corridors I got stuck in the floor because the trim was too high for Gordan Freeman to walk up...easy way to avoid this is to have a info_player_start entity and to move it around with you to the different sections you are working on - then you always have a good idea of scale and what will be appropriate...
Other than that...looking good