The gameday was once again too late for me to attend in my timezone, but judging from the
feedback, this version got pretty torn apart as well. Some of it is straightforward and easy to understand; The hill room clearly needs fewer entrances and the areas between hill room and spawn are too open. The doorways that require crouch are an obvious mistake, though I can't understand how I managed to make it and then failed to notice it in all the times I tested the map. Still, easy enough to fix.
The water is apparently still missing a cubemap, which frankly baffles me. I know there's a cubemap entity assigned to the water face, and every time I've submitted a sanitarium version to the gameday, I've made sure to - after the final compile - enter the console command string 'mat_specular 0, buildcubemaps, mat_specular 1, disconnect, sv_reloadallmaterials'. When I play the map in a local game, the surface is completely checkerboard-free. What am I doing wrong?
Then there's the more abstract stuff that leaves me feeling confused and helpless, all of it posted by Wilson for some reason.
The actual point room needs height difference, don't make up for it by adding tons of windows to shoot from
The hill room already contains four raised section with different height levels and two ramps down into the floor? How can I add more height differences without making it too busy and cramped?
Now your areas are huge boxes with height difference
Huh, I thought I managed to create fairly curved and zigzaggy areas this time. What do I have to do to make them not be boxes?
Also still height wise bit overscaled
Still? There are some really tall dev brushes surrounding the map and on the roof of the mid house that are placeholders for lower geometry and clip brushes, but I assume you understood that and are referring to the playable geometry. If that's the case.. Damn. I walked around the map while trying to imagine stuff as TF2 architecture, and it felt pretty right to me.
Specific issues aside, my bigger question is: What can I do to learn? I've listened to feedback, I've studied official maps, I've thought and planned an paper, I've tried to feel and use intuition, I've remade the map practically from scratch three times and it's apparently still horrible. How can I get decent at mapping before people start boycotting Sanitarium maps?
Also, I can see how this post could be interpreted as an angry rant, but it really is not. I'm writing it with hunched shoulders and puppy dog eyes, so please read it in such a tone.