Level Design Walkthrough - Start to Finish - WIP Corridor

[Niitaayis]

Greetings interlopers!

Today, I plan to finish a project here that I started over on Facepunch.
The computer I'm using to develop this is pretty weak-sauce, but I'll do my best to bring the quality up to standards.

Please excuse any lack of AA, low screenshot resolution or graphical errors you see; this computer wasn't meant for gaming.

First thing's first, I'm going to try something new.
I'm going to lay down the lighting before any texture work;
usually it's ill-advised that one starts this way, but where's the fun in knowing everything?

Lets see how this turns out.

initial plan was it have an env_projected_texture for some pretty shadows





But I couldn't get it working properly and it just turned out to be quite an eye-sore.
So I scrapped it and sharpened the shadows.



The plan was to have something walk by the doorway down the hall there, barely visible.
I guess I will try shoot for a spooky run-down or abandoned atmosphere.

I started basic prop placement, built up the idea the desk area is a receptionist desk, but it looks like I will have to brighten the area up a bit.



I'm satisfied with where the lights are and how the scene's starting to play out.

Next up I'll be doing some texture work.

Got some textures set in, not sure if they're a good choice or not.
Going to work on changing up the feel of the room, make it more open-like and less boxy.



Wasn't quite satisfied with the dimensions of the room, so I widened it and turned an area into a waiting area





I added a ton of detail to the floors and walls, still working on the ceiling tiles
next up

UPDATE

Alright, I've found some time to work on things and thanks to your guys' advice, I've been able to improve the map a fair bit.

Thoughts?




small details
Anything else that seems off?

Update

Made some progress, changed the lighting scheme a bit, fixed the light drawing too far and added dustmotes

Failed medical experiment anyone?
(blue light way in the back flickers, only shows up on the first screenshot)






Keep in mind the new area is extremely rough right now
I just want to see what it would look like in-game
c&c welcome

And with that, I think I might have to put it on hold again

[TheUglyIgloo]

Poor choice for floor texture, and the ceiling just needs to be...changed. Also, There shouldn't be blood anywhere if this is WIP.

[Niitaayis]

Poor choice for floor texture, and the ceiling just needs to be...changed. Also, There shouldn't be blood anywhere if this is WIP.

That's not very helpful...

How does it need to be changed?

Why is the floor texture a poor choice?

Why can't there be blood in a WIP?

[MaK]

Don't listen to that guy Niitaayis, he's new and a giant troll.

Its looking ok so far. As for the ceiling, it doesn't make sense why it looks like that. Could there be an explosion, is it not fully installed, or did they fall off? It might be a good idea to have some fallen tiles on the ground, that would help explain it, and maybe have less missing tiles. Right now it seems like they're floating, usually they're laying on a metal grid, it could be a model or really small brushwork (func_detail'd).

The blood is fine.

The floor seems awfuly dirty, and a bit repetitive. If you're going to have trash laying around it's best to use a decal/overlay or some of the garbage models.

An interesting idea you could implement to take advantage of all those missing ceiling tiles is to place a light source above them. You could make up a reason why there would be a light up there, it could be a lantern, a hole in the roof, or from a vent or something. The resulting effect would cast an interesting shadow of the rest of your world when you lower the lightmaps. Could be neat, just an idea.

[Niitaayis]

Don't listen to that guy Niitaayis, he's new and a giant troll.

Its looking ok so far. As for the ceiling, it doesn't make sense why it looks like that. Could there be an explosion, is it not fully installed, or did they fall off? It might be a good idea to have some fallen tiles on the ground, that would help explain it, and maybe have less missing tiles. Right now it seems like they're floating, usually they're laying on a metal grid, it could be a model or really small brushwork (func_detail'd).

The blood is fine.

The floor seems awfuly dirty, and a bit repetitive. If you're going to have trash laying around it's best to use a decal/overlay or some of the garbage models.

An interesting idea you could implement to take advantage of all those missing ceiling tiles is to place a light source above them. You could make up a reason why there would be a light up there, it could be a lantern, a hole in the roof, or from a vent or something. The resulting effect would cast an interesting shadow of the rest of your world when you lower the lightmaps. Could be neat, just an idea.

Alright, thanks for the advice
I'll take that into account for the next time I work on it

[TheUglyIgloo]

I like how your limited intelligence makes you mark people as a troll. It's my honest opinion. I think the pattern of the ceiling looks unnatural, the floor is extremely repetitive, and I have no idea why the blood is already there if it's a WIP, as decals and props ALWAYS go last. Also, one of the counters need to be removed.

[ad_hominem]

the floor is extremely repetitive.

Repetitive textures are okay!

[Gary]

It's my honest opinion. I think the pattern of the ceiling looks unnatural, the floor is extremely repetitive,

Yeah, the ceiling should be revised. It does look weird... And the floor texture does repeat pretty badly.

and I have no idea why the blood is already there if it's a WIP, as decals and props ALWAYS go last.

While that is true, I think he is only doing a scene, so this might be closer to completion then it looks.


Also, Gavyn, don't attack people's intelligence.

[TheUglyIgloo]

Oh, well not to bash, but if it's near completion, then it might be safe to assume that he's a new mapper. There needs to be a *little* bit more detail between the counters and on the walls.

Also, I'm assuming you're trying to make the place look beat up. If this is the case, perhaps add places where the ground shows under the floor, like this?


Except, ya know, better dirt and floor. xD

One more thing, if some catastrophe occurred to make the ceiling like that, then maybe make the counters busted, or more toppled props.

That's all.

[kraid]

Since this is still WIP, i guess you're allready planing to add some things i'm going to mention now.

The ceiling plates need some underlaying structure, floating plates look strange.
What happened to the plates that are missing on the ceiling? They should still be somewhere on the ground
and some of them might be even hanging from the ceiling.
The dirt decals are placed much to uniform on the ground and there's not much variation (size, shape, kind).
I somehow don't like the lights beyond the reception table, they simply don't make sense there.

Overall the room captures a good abadoned look suitable for something like a Zombie game.

[Niitaayis]

That's for the advice guys

Next iteration will include a host of fixes and texture changes

[Niitaayis]

Yeah, I won't be working on this for a small while now

Shared computer and the whole family's in the same place for the winter

Let this thread die now
I'll update and bump it when I have more progress

[Text_Fish]

I realise this is on hold but I love the sight of my own text so I'm going to comment anyway.

Here are some ways to make the ceiling look a bit more natural:
-Lower the 'actual' ceiling or raise the tiles as it's rare to find such a huge ceiling void. It just needs to be big enough to pass some piping above the tiles.
-Change the hanging light model -- there are some default ones that are designed to fit neatly with the dimensions of the tiles.
-Put some chips and cracks in the ceiling tiles, and most importantly put some "warping" in them to hint at why the missing ones might have fallen out.

Overall the biggest problem I have with the whole scene is those little spotlights around the base of the reception desk. They're completely out of sync with the "dilapidated" look. Either get rid of them, or at the very least delete a few of them and put some variation in their values to suggest the bulbs are dying. You could also do with cracking/smashing the glass panels on top of the half-height walls.

[Niitaayis]

Alright, I've found some time to work on things and thanks to your guys' advice, I've been able to improve the map a fair bit.

Thoughts?

[Niitaayis]

-snip-

I pressed quote instead of edit
Sorry