Graveyard

ARENA Graveyard rc2

Tumby

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May 12, 2013
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Graveyard - Halloween reskin of arena_lumberyard.

Spooky.

I started working on this a few weeks before the blogpost about halloween, so don't think I specificaly made this for that. (Although it's kinda neat)

It's a strange place this "graveyard". I feel like this giant skull is watching me on every step. The big hole in the middle doesn't look inviting either. And I don't even know what this green stuff in the valley IS. I just know that I shouldn't get near it.
 
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wiseguy149

Emperor of Entities and Amateur of Aesthetics
May 12, 2009
103
220
Alright, I looked over this map and I have some feedback.

First, though, I have a general piece of advice for your post on here. All the screenshots you posted were taken with anti-aliasing off, which doesn't look as good and isn't quite as flattering for your map, especially one that's entirely about the detail and aesthetics.

Now on to the map itself:
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In this first screenshot, you can see my main gripe with the map, its lighting.

We have a two very thematically different light sources positioned right next to each other, the the torch and the lamp, which doesn't really make a lot of sense in terms of theme. Who would decorate a building with lighting so widely varied?

Also, the torch looks to be about as bright as the electric bulb, which doesn't make a lot of sense either and feels rather unrealistic.

And overall, you have a lot of indoor areas in this map illuminated with bright, clean, white, electric lights, which aren't really conducive to a spooky atmosphere in the least. They make the map feel less like lumberyard decorated for Halloween and more like just lumberyard at night.

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Here's another example of decoration with different light sources in the same area.
It also illustrates just how bright, clean, inviting, and non-spooky most of your indoor areas feel.

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In this third screenshot, you can see another instance of conflicting decorating styles in respect to lighting.

In the room on the upper right, we can see it being well-lit with white light that is plainly visible through the clear glass windows.
But immediately to the left of that in the same building, we see opaque yellow windows, suggesting wildly different lighting conditions in areas literally right next door to each other in the same building.


Now on to something else:
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I'm not entirely sure what this is supposed to be. At first the color made me think it was some sort of chemical spill, but that isn't exactly Halloween themed, and the surrounding props didn't exactly suggest that. Then I thought it might the ground glowing due to spooky undead magic stuff because of all the graves around. However, that didn't make sense either when I noticed that the green stuff was actually cutting through the grave props and was actually raised above the ground. That made me think that it might be fog, but it's movement patterns, variety in elevation, and general not-fuzzyness threw that idea out the window. So I have no idea what this actually is or is supposed to resemble.

Also, this is the only instance of this particular glowing green color in the map, and so it feels rather out of place compared to everything else.

Take a look at something else that seems out of place:

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I'm not talking about the skull itself here, but instead the teal glow that is coming from it.
None of the lighting-based glows around the map are all that colorful, they're mostly white or a very bright yellow-orange.
Yet here we have something glowing very teal. This is not just the only instance of a colorful glow in the entire map, but it's also the only instance of the teal color as well. Nothing else is this color, but what's worse is that the green ground-stuff around the graves from is a slightly similar, but very distinct color.
Having a bright green thing in an otherwise dark-ish map and a bright teal thing in an otherwise dark-ish map that don't look anything like each other causes them to sort of clash. They don't look like they both belong in the same environment together.

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These towers on the roofs may seem like they fit in at first glance, since their colors are relatively close to the rooftops on which they're placed.
However, the texture on the sides of these towers are nothing like the textures on the sides of the building that they're mounted on. This difference is far worse on the blue side.
Additionally, players will never actually see much of the blue-gray rooftops from their perspective on the ground, so the clash between the side textures is more pronounced than it is in this screenshot.
These towers do not look like they belong on these buildings.


I also found a gameplay-related bug:

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Falling in the deathpit by the control point spits you out and lands you on this rooftop, behind the playerclip brushes and locks you out of the gameplay areas.




So, overall, I felt like the map was far too bright and white and really lacked any sort of spooky, Halloweeny-atmosphere, with the lights being the worst offenders. However, I also feel like not enough of the map was re-textured and the light wood decorating the blue-side buildings also did not help the atmosphere any.
 

Tumby

aa
May 12, 2013
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The problems "Lighting sources" "Spooky tower thing placements" and "brightness in spawnrooms" aren't really problems. Here are a few pictures as to why I think this:
Multiple light sources:
2015-10-13_00010.jpg 2015-10-13_00014.jpg
Towers don't even try to match the wood:
2015-10-13_00011.jpg 2015-10-13_00012.jpg
The following two screenshots are from hightower_event and hightower:
2015-10-13_00015.jpg 2015-10-13_00016.jpg
The _event one doesn't have the spotlight sprite effect. Other than that it's identical.

Regarding the green goo stuff (I don't know what it is either), I had it even more green before and tried to get it teal by using $color2. There is also teal lighting around that. I gues I'm gonna have to edit the texture again.

You weren't supposed to survive getting out of the skull. I thought using "OnStartTouch !activator SetHealth 0" would kill people.

I don't even wanna talk about the windows, because that happens in nearly every map all the time. In some it happens within the same room. It's simply a different type of glass I gues.
 

killohurtz

Distinction in Applied Carving
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Feb 22, 2014
1,016
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I don't think you should be holding Valve maps as some absolute standard for detailing. Just because they cut corners with mismatching lights and cookie-cutter Halloween assets doesn't mean you can't do better.
 

ExtraCheesyPie

L420: High Member
Jan 29, 2015
484
151
I don't think you should be holding Valve maps as some absolute standard for detailing. Just because they cut corners with mismatching lights and cookie-cutter Halloween assets doesn't mean you can't do better.
And their lazy maps get in while the community has to work harder :p
 

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
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Nov 14, 2009
4,694
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Especially Ghost Fort. It's best for all of us if we pretend that never existed.
 

ExtraCheesyPie

L420: High Member
Jan 29, 2015
484
151
Especially Ghost Fort. It's best for all of us if we pretend that never existed.
It doesn't even fit the damn naming scheme. A better name would be "Rakeside" (for raking the autumn leaves) or "Shakeside" (thats what autumn leaves do), or "Breakside" or "Lakedied" or something
 

Tumby

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May 12, 2013
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It doesn't even fit the damn naming scheme. A better name would be "Rakeside" (for raking the autumn leaves) or "Shakeside" (thats what autumn leaves do), or "Breakside" or "Lakedied" or something
That would mean that "Mann Manor" and "Carnival of Carnage" are also bad. The worst offender of this would be "Harvest Event".
 

Tumby

aa
May 12, 2013
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An update to Graveyard has been released. The update will not be applied automatically. The major changes include:
  • Changed color of the green goo/slime/fog to better match the giant skull.
  • Decreased indoor lighting by a tiny little bit.
  • Decreased light emitted from outside windows.
  • Placed some wood planks on some windows.
Screenshots will be updated later on.

Read the rest of this update entry...
 

Tumby

aa
May 12, 2013
1,084
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An update to Graveyard has been released. The update will not be applied automatically. The major changes include:
  • Added a bit of clipping around the train props.
  • Fixed an open window being solid.
  • Further adjustment of fade scales.
  • Fixed sound & particle effects at the skull not playing when being teleported to it.

Read the rest of this update entry...
 

Tumby

aa
May 12, 2013
1,084
1,192