WiP in WiP, post your screenshots!

[Freyja]

So much red

 

[Wilson]

That is too much red, try throwing some less red wood in there.

 

[Fruity Snacks]

I don't know... looks like it could just use a tiny bit of metal and it'll be okay (or its fine for now)

 

[Freyja]

Exactly, those two have different colours, even if they're gray, breaking up the red.

 

[Fruity Snacks]

I'm pointing out that in the BBlitz picture, it uses the same amount of textures (and well, basically the SAME textures) as in Tom's.

At least there is 2 colors in toms. (/me points to aly's grey walls of flatness)

EDIT: Since this we've had a talk in chat about it. Too much = Overwhelming, just going to clarify.

 

[LeSwordfish]

Yeah. I agree that it needs to be broken up more. Perhaps borrow barnbliz's grey. Hightower is nothing like that- it has more yellow sand and grey metal than red, i have no idea what you're talking about.

Also i see a texture that has sand at the bottom in the last screenshot, which looks odd inside.

 

[grazr]

My main problem with it is that it's the finalé and he's still using wood everywhere. Look at goldrush, dustbowl and upwards. By the time you reach the finalé it's mostly metal and/or brick with only a few wooden walls at best.

That white-ish metal texture with horizontal bumps gets used a lot at A/D finalé's (goldrush/upwards). Use some of that one to create a little thematic/aesthetic consistancy.

 

[Harribo]

@ Tom, i find it odd that the concrete pit circle is set in wood, other than that i think the wood is fine, alot of theme progression in a singlestage plr set in such a little space is silly expectation to me, badwater travels alot of ground and so can make that theme progression more believable . If the last upper flat ground before you chuck the payload into the hole is meant to be ground with the wood around the edges holding it up then i'd suggest you change the wood texture and go for something like this:

, would also break up that flat edge it has around the sides. Also for the darkness in the last image, how about just breaking the roof open and having a skylight? Having the environmental lighting light up the payload path and spawn door would look great I think.

 

[Tom Hoen]

Thanks everyone for your comments. I remember reading complains about using single color texturing but still I too fall into this trap. Week to go and I'll rethink finale textures tomorrow.

And as Frozen pointed out I took alot of inspiration from barnbliz and hightower.

theharribokid thanks for the tip, I'll change them.

grazr, I personally love wood and I'd like try to "break some barricades" with wooden finale.

 

[grazr]

Loving wood is fine, but you need to demonstrate "progression" and a feeling of achievement for players by varying up the environment. Generally speaking, in regards to the facade system in TF2, players will progress from the out skirts of a base to the inner area which is more built up and industrial. IE wooden shacks and cliffs>full on wooden structures>metal, contrete and brick structures.

It could be argued that forgoing the progressive theme is counter-intuitive to TF2 lore. But there's a large margin for error so even including at least a few metal structures will be a massive improvement. So it's not just a matter of "lots of wood is ugly" it's also relavent to the narrative of any map, especially A/D.

 

[soylent robot]

maybe progression can be done with wood? the wood textures have varying quality to them, as in worn and beat up wood with bits missing and scratched paint, to very solid, regular, newly painted wood

 

[grazr]

Some progression can be achieved, but nothing that could demonstrate progression through an environment with more than 2 CP's. The design brief is generally: There is an objective that is housed in a base, and a base wouldn't be made out of wood and at the very least would be spytech on the inside.

Granary and thundermountain are the only examples of maps i can think of that have more than 2 cp's and progress fundamentally with wood, and even granary has concrete and metal structures.

You can get away with wood in arena and KoTH (sawmill) but this is an A/D map and this is hard to avoid. For example, one of the main aesthetic complaints about egypt is it's complete ignorance of TF2 as a narrative. It'd be a more acceptable TF2 map were there spytech bases involved; no need for metal, but at least to follow the TF2 story adn demonstrate progression on the inside of structures.

 

[Tarry H Sruman]

It's such a small plr map that theme progression wouldn't make sense imo.

 

[Trotim]

did grazr forget tf2's narrative has paintable pants and shirts, jingling boots and flashing christmas tree hats

 

[grazr]

did grazr forget tf2's narrative has paintable pants and shirts, jingling boots and flashing christmas tree hats

I don't see what hats and shirts have to do with map design or narrative, and nor do i see the arguement for daft maps if we have the option to stick with the original TF2 design ethos.

 

[fubarFX]

we totally should be making space maps at this point

 

[Trotim]

I don't see what hats and shirts have to do with map design or narrative, and nor do i see the arguement for daft maps if we have the option to stick with the original TF2 design ethos.

Oh don't get me wrong, I agree, but whenever I mentioned art theme integrity someone always felt the need to point out TF2 is lolrandom and just a cartoon you guys

 

[Seba]

we totally should be making space maps at this point

It's funny because you made those low-g maps

 

[Fruity Snacks]

It's funny because you made those low-g maps

I thought that was Abusurdist

 

[Seba]

Damn, that might've been him. Oh well