Illhaven has been one of my single biggest inspirations. 

ye is looking real real good :) 

definitely got some atmosphere 

 

Hate to be the nitpicking one again, but...

#1 Texture alignment on the grey cobblestones
#2 Roofs normally look different from the inside.
#3 Roof textures clipped off at 45 degrees.

I guess the answer to #2 is to put some wooden beams on the inside of the roofs. The answer to #3 is: Don't build this style of roof then. I've had the same problem in another map. Hrimfaxi's new map has the same issue IIRC although it's less obvious. Look at some real roofs, those seams are always covered up there.

Another concern, which is either very big or very small, depending on perspective, is: It doesn't resemble Quake anymore. :-)

Also, it looks very much like a facade. If those windows were _real_ windows, that would be something else. It always bugged me in Thief that I would see the lit windows and hear people talking and laughing, but could never go inside and see them. It felt like a fake, which is what it was.

Painted-on windows are problematic. Unless they are breakables with rooms behind them. Also, windows are normally set back into the wall a bit.

Try using some more and different kinds of chimneys? 

#2 Roofs normally look different from the inside.

Well yeah, they don't have shingles! Try replacing the inside shingle textures with a wood planks texture. 

That kind of critical feedback is exactly what I need to hear, as it's really hard to stay objective after staring at my own work for hours upon hours. I'll address them one by one.

1: That cobblestone texture simply does not align well, unless I changed the width of the streets, which I am loathe to do at this point. I may conceivably change it, though most other cobblestone textures I have seen are just as non-directional.

2: I agree, the roof's interior should be flat wood planks or somesuch. I've changed this in some places, but not in the area I took that shot in.

3: Roofs at 45 degrees, I assume you are referring to http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/8640/dp000006nb2.jpg ? This can be rectified with clever stretching, though I don't think you'd notice it in game as much, as you would be seeing the roofs from street level most of the time.

Regarding the windows... I can assure you that you can, in fact, go inside all of the buildings. They are lit with a point light of delay 2 (1/x^2 falloff), light 32 or 23 (depending on size of the window) right in front of the window. In other Nehahra engines, this looked fine, but the overbright gamma of darkplaces oversaturates the window and makes it look too bright, even though the light is not traveling too far. For certain windows where the light ought to travel farther and spill out into the street, I intend to try delay 1, 1/x falloff, though I haven't done so yet.

The window frames, and the wood "X" frames, used to be made from individual brushes. The X frame prefabs were 11 brushes each. Realizing this was insanity, I made up flat textures in photoshop and reduced my brushcount by at least 1000. Do you mean the windows should be inset on the inside or outside? Given the open nature of this map, I'm trying to keep surfaces flat where possible. In certain places where gameplay dictates, I do intend to make the windows transparent and breakable, but it's not realistic to have every one be like that.

I like the idea of chimneys for atmosphere and realism, I'll look into where some more would look good. Do you see the one here? http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/6975/dp000002li4.jpg The misc_smokemaker trails are still moving a bit fast to be realistic, but they are there.

I'm aware it's not your typical quake scene, I've never been big into blood and spikes style maps myself, I think it will become appropriate in context. 

Don't "hate" To Nitpick

Really? Oh ok then.

Those wood textures are shit. They're horrible. The graininess and contrast on them is ugly on its own, but is all the worse because the material supposedly being represented is wood grain. They look like they were molested by an Unsharp Mask filter. Twice.

What stuns me is they are - I assume - from a professional source. Ditch them if you actually want your map to look like a nocturnal medieval townscape by firelight instead of the inside of my cooker.

HTH 

Yes, that's what I was referring to. And you're right that they will be viewed from floor angle. But it might still be easy to fix if you devise some kind of clever "cover-up."

I meant that the windows should be inset on the outside with little ledges below them. Unfortunately I'm missing the English words here just as I was missing "shingles"... Window sills? As it is, the scenery looks about as much like a medieval European city as ... the inside of Kell's cooker.

I'm aware of the brushcount implications etc. and what you say is perfectly understandable.

Kell: The textures are by Undule, from an unfinished Unreal total conversion project IIRC (Real Tournament = RT?). Same source as "Day of the Lords". I agree they look a bit unrealistic here. I also agree that the wood textures in Knave are damn good (and underused) ;-) That's just empty theory though because the author of course decides these things. ^^ RT_* are very good for stone and stuff like doors though.

Chimneys: I was thinking more of the "industrial" English ones. You have a "brick" on the roof and several pipes coming from it in a row. Typically right on top of the house. Not medieval but atmospheric.

I would suggest breaking up the facades a bit (portals? arcades? ever see medieval entrances?), but your project is already hitting all sorts of boundaries. 

Stairs. Old towns are chock-full of different kinds of stairways, steep ramps and *very narrow* passages between houses.

If you're going Lovecraftian, check out slanted stairs.

And even cobblestone roads are in reality very uneven, in fact they are little mountain ranges. Carriages and weak underground have made them like this. Don't be afraid to make the roads 3D, it's realistic. Higher in the middle with parallel dents in them and water in the dents. You can also slant them in parallel to the houses.

Another typical thing is that the houses themselves are asymmetrical because part of them has sagged away. The main horizontal support beams on old European houses will always be either slanted or slightly U-shaped, or both. Really. Sometimes also the whole house is A-shaped a bit. Slanted walls and floors! There will be no 90 degree angles. And around, behind and between the houses will be wooden shacks and stables. And the streets will be FILTHY. I'm talking little pools here. You know in Rome they had these treadstones, so people could cross the street without getting really dirty feet.

There will be unused spaces between houses, too. And burned down houses. The last war can't be long ago. And empty dark windows.

Also, space between buildings will probably be either bigger or really narrow (a man's width.)

-> Geometry looks much less neat than in your shots. 

There will be no 90 degree angles.

All of what you say is true, but QBSP isn't going to like that a bit :) 

the medieval / plagued village level in Painkiller. 

QBSP isn't going to like that a bit :)

Yeah, I was being extreme. It would have to be translated to the game of course. Like just using some slanted walls and ceilings, and a malformed house or two, symbolically so to speak, to liven it up. I meant to create a pile of material that he could just use where he wants, not copy an original to a T.

It's clear. 

this is quake! No unrealistic expectations... For example you probably can't do that much with the ground/roads or the player will get stuck easily with the qbsp errors in the hull generation. But it could be cool to try? 

can't you do triangle terrain for the roads? 

Forget it guys, even quake3 shits on the detailed 'natural-like' maps with subtle angles all over the place (Sock`s PoM)
And we are talking engine 2 generations behind that 

can't you do triangle terrain for the roads?

Maybe with a clip brush over all the triangles... 

http://forums.inside3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=797 

looks almost as good as the Sauerbraten water. 

both reflection and refraction unevenness there. 

actually looks like real water, in quake! Feels weird and new. Like a new pair of underwear, at first it's constricting, but then it becomes a part of you [/garth] 

Oh well... 

I have been making another level for Quoth, just one massive level, cause I realised the downside of making six small levels is that I cant watch demos (nobody sent me any, anyway), cause you cant record multi-map demos (can you?).

So far this thing only runs on AguirRe's engine:

http://shub-hub.com/files/images/quake04.jpg
http://shub-hub.com/files/images/quake05.jpg
http://shub-hub.com/files/images/quake07.jpg

Will have a version (with rocks surrounding) ready for testing in a day or two.

So far it looks like its gonna have a lot of monsters, I've populated about half of it so far.

Contact me if you wanna be on the list to test it, when it is ready for testing I'll probably be just as impatient about finishing it off as I was for DejaVu, so if you do wanna test it you'll have a couple of days to do so and if you havent got back to me then it'll probably end up out anyway! 

although some in level shots would mae it easier to judge.

Great skybox selection though. 

turn on the ligth please