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[Jonathon [SSL]]

Hey, this is my newest map, which has been in development for a while. Obviously, it's a remake of my favorite Goldeneye 007 map, Basement. I tried to make the hallways and rooms a bit bigger, to support more players, and also added additional ammo spawns.  It's still being tested, so I'm not posting any download links yet, but I just wanted to post some screenshots to se if anyone had any new ideas or criticisms about the look, and it should be totally done with a download link within the next few days.

[Sporkfire]

picture 14 looks quite nice.

[Doc.NO]

picture 14 looks quite nice.

QFT

if anyone had any new ideas or criticisms about the look

I would add one or two extra paths and rooms (ala facility/backzone) since the map is rather small, and will turn in a spawn kill fest with more than 6-7 players. Only my thought though.

[FReXx]

Woah very beautiful seriously. Nice job SSL!

[killermonkey]

I like the look of this map a lot. I would work on subduing your lighting a LOT, it seems like the whole place is lit by flourescents but in viewing the images, I only see sparse bare light bulbs. Also, your textures are vivid and exciting, maybe a little out of place for a dank basement (pic 15).

[VC]

I'm going to vote with leaving it lit, but work on making the light sources look nicer.  I"m seeing washed out blobs and that sucks.  Granted, Source seems to love to do that, and my tinkering with Hammer has always left me throwing nearby objects because the light sources look awful without spending eternity tweaking it.

Just ensure there are some dark spots.  Canon Basement is well lit, but it looks dark because of the netural textures used throughout.  Only the one hallway with the T-junction into the Weapon F spawn room is actually shadowed into darkness.

Ultimately, Source looks bad in low-light conditions, so keep the general lighting but use variations between light and dark, and beautify your light sources.

[Jonathon [SSL]]

How would you recommend I get rid of the white blobs? Simply by dimming the lights?

[VC]

It really depends.  If no objects will be getting near the light source you can back it away from the wall.  That works well but if you do that near objects they will become improperly lit.  Worst is doing that with a ceiling light, where the actual light point will wash out the viewmodel's hands, and light them from below if they jump at the light, which is exactly backwards.

If I recall, for dim lights like cage lights, using something like Linear 2 instead of Quadratic 1 attenuation and tweaking the brightness a lot worked well in some testing I did.  Depends on the ambient, where exactly you put the light point, and so on.

Also, pay attention to how many lights are on a surface, since you will get butt-ugly stair-step shadows if a surface has only one light on it and the light is rather distant.  You can either raise the lighting detail on that surface (good if it is a small face), or just add some more light sources from different sides to smooth it out.  You can't get a nice sharp shadow at range with source lighting.

[Jonathon [SSL]]

Does this look any better? (Ignore the bullet decals)

[VC]

Not bad, though it's not centered.  Stay on grid!  Yes, that's difficult with the way models are handled, but get one perfect, then copy it along with a brush that is on grid.  Then when you move the brush the model will stay in-sync.  Delete the 'handle' brushes afterwards and you're fine.  (I suggest texturing your handle brushes with SKIP so they won't interfere with anything and will be easy to spot.)

[X23]

Nice start. I think you should focus on a specific theme, add some more architectural detail (right now there are bland hallways with props to make them detailed. You could use source pics of whatever you are making a map of for inspiration.), and make the map layout bigger. Add a room and some hallways to accommodate the number of players.

[Jonathon [SSL]]

SCREENSHOT UPDATE (Once again, tell me what you think)

Added a bunch of details, such as pipes and vents running along the ceiling and some walls, added pillars at the corners, an extra tunnel, and some tables and chairs. I also attempted to fix my lighting problems.

[Doc.NO]

I like how it turned out... That green/silver ambience fit to the map. However:



1- Need alignement
2- This corner look unfinished. I'd use something like this (seen in ge_control):

3- fill the hallways with something! crates, barrel, cart (), etc...

[X-tra]

You know... thats pretty awesome! I once tried to do a basement remix, but it sucked .

Your map look awesome. Good job!

[Jonathon [SSL]]

Well, it's been over a month since I last did a screenshot update of this map, but after 4 total months of working on this map, trying to make it perfect, and, and doubling, or perhaps tripling my knowledge of source and Hammer, I figured it was finally time for an update. The map's nearly done, with me simply doing the last of the light tweaking and optimization with nodraw/hint/skip etc.

I've worked a lot on texture design and vmt file creation and all the options developers have with it, and managed to create bumpmaps for the wall and tile textures.

I've also done some major work on the lights, changing the color, brightness, etc... and I think I have them almost right.

As for the geometry, I tried to add a lot more detail and more advanced shapes, primarily in the displacements and the arches on the ceiling, and I rounded the corners off of many of the pillars and func_details within the map.

As for the music of the map, I've decided to try using the "Goldeneye Overture" song from the beginning of the movie, when Bond and Trevalyn are sneaking through the chemical weapons facility(It sort of sounds to me like a cinematic version of Basstronix's "bondage" theme), with the action-filled runway part possibly clipped out.
Anywho, some screenshots: