[Guide] Detailing and How to Avoid Going Overboard With It

Malachite Man

L6: Sharp Member
Oct 16, 2015
345
198
Introduction
This guide will teach you how to go not overboard with detailing yet keep at a level that is good and by the end of this you should have learned some basics of detailing.
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How to know when you went overboard?
Okay this part is sorta hard especially for big maps like pl maps or even pd maps because you do not want space to feel too empty so how do I know when I have gone overboard?
mapexpample10000.jpg

You see how I did not fill in all the space that was available? I only filled some of it.
Think of a wall in your house; you have a nice painting and a stool with a flower on it.

mapexpample130002.jpg

Now you see, I used all the space I had and notice that it looks too noisy. There is too much detail in one area. It is not bad to detail a room a little. Just don't go overboard.
Some good examples of maps that are not over-detailed are Valve maps such as: Badlands, Steel, Frontier, etc.. This is not limited to just official Valve maps either with good community contenders being:
Glassworks by @ueakcrash

glassworks.jpg

And
Sunshine by @phi
sunshine.jpg

Both good examples of good detailing and awesome maps in general.
Worth checking out sometime.

Other Things to Avoid
Detailing in early alpha is a not a good idea because if you put a lot of detailing into a room and then you have to remove the detailing for gameplay reasons. All that hard work and time is gone. It is better to start your detailing in beta or rc. You could detail in alpha if you like but this is something to keep in mind.

Detailing in multiple themes. You do not want medieval stuff in a factory setting so it doesn't look like a bunch of themes got put into a blender. You can use assets from multiple themes just be cautious.

Too much overlays. Now you may be thinking to yourself, "what do you mean by this?" I mean mix it up a room with props as well. If you only use overlays in a room it may look like the room is full of big stickers. It is something minor but it helps a lot of things like spawn rooms and other stuff look pleasing altogether so mix it up with props to not make your room look like a sticker book.

Outro
Thank you for reading this guide or you just scrolled down the page really fast and skipped everything either way thank you for reading and have a good day :)