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Inspiration & Reference
I just wanted to know if people had any links to good websites for either level design inspiration (photos, paintings, concept art, etc.) or just for architectural reference. We had a thread like this on the old qmap, but we know how much good that does us.
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Just An Old Shot I Thought Was Cool 
I pasted this in irc ages ago but here it goes.
http://skynet.campus.luth.se/~chosen/bam/gtc_telescope_sg011203-02p.jpg 
Crawler Transporter 
Some heavy machinery for you
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=2591&start=1
check page 2 too.

This has been quite quiet lately. :/ 
Screenies From 
"and a place turned bad" onwards

look great 
Thats What I Call A Big Fire 
Crazy Underground Russian Tunnels. 
http://www.funmansion.com/html/Underground-City.html

There's a link posted earlier by Jago with some, but not all of these pics it seems. 
I Am Stupid 
of course they can all be found here:

http://russos.livejournal.com 
ATTENTION PHOTOGRAPHERS OF THINGS THAT WOULD OTHERWISE LOOK DECENT 
Stop taking "HDR" photos. They look like shit. Bracketing your exposures and then photoshopping them together to crush the exposure range into 0-255 not only isn't HDR, it drains your image of depth and color, puts ugly haloes around things, and is a moronic amount of effort for a result that looks indistinguishable from a quick Filter->Other->High Pass in Photoshop.

Knock it off. Please. 
Lun 
You're just jealous. 
I'd Agree With L00n 
HRD destroys all the shadows making pics all fullbright. and we all know how we hate fullbright, right? hdr looks sharp but synthetic and lifeless... 
Lunaran: 
I assumed that they HAD simply done a high-pass filter. It's pretty ugly in some of those photos. 
Yeah 
One probably needs better, calibrated displays and dark rooms for the viewers too so photographing can advance, so that it can show realistic bright and shadowy stuff. These hacks are not good.

Interesting idea though, use all the bracket photos, since the CCD dynamic range isn't as good as film. It's just done somehow very wrong here. 
Related: 
There was a siggraph paper that talked about taking two photos, one with a flash and one without, to get a crisp photo with accurate lighting.

Basically it used the flash photo for all the crisp, in-focus details, but used the no-flash photo for the color and brightness of the ambient lighting. Not a pro-quality solution, but this is software that the average dude with a cheap camera can use.

http://research.microsoft.com/projects/FlashNoFlash/ 
Regarding Photos 
I nowadays never use flash. It just destroys everything about the original setting and atmosphere. I'm planning on moving to a F 1.9 seventies Canonet and 800 or 1600 film for dark environments (tested it a few years ago, there is some noise but the photos have atmosphere too). I don't really like B&W either. doh. How limited technology still is today. 
Flashes Suck Ass 
I really hate flashes, but I'm no photographer, and holding my camera still for a couple of seconds to get a long exposure of a dark scene is a pain in the ass and prone to blurry results. When it works, the results are way better though. 
Flashes 
I really hate flashes, but I'm no photographer, and holding my camera still for a couple of seconds to get a long exposure of a dark scene is a pain in the ass and prone to blurry results.

that's why actual photographers use tripods :) 
I Find 
you can very often find a place to lay your camera on or support it against. Big tree trunks are better than tripods, since if you push hard enough (with an SLR the "shoulder" the lens and body form is good), it's completely standing still. Also, some table or ground and just put something under the camera to do the vertical alignment.

Tripods are never around when the situation comes and they are ~never robust enough. :/

I also like to use manual focus, since otherwise it's always fucked up (in this way only like 30% of the cases, especially if there's not much time.) Of course that's a pain in the ass with cheap new cameras. 
Yay 
Tripods are always around when you always have one with you. =)
I used to do like you bambuz, find somewhere to push my camera against, but having a tripod is much much better, and alot more stable. 
Photozzzz 
For once BoingBoing is useful/interesting:
http://pingmag.jp/2006/07/24/japan-underground-photography/
(No, this is not that old photoset of the G-Cans project.) 
Old Iron Mines 
More Half-Lifey Than Half-Life 
Right down to the lens flares.

http://russos.livejournal.com/210363.html 
Crazy Russians 
http://www.abandoned.ru/

More abandoned locations than you can poke a stick at. 
Why would you poke a stick at abandoned locations? 
Well 
It's better than poking a stick in crowded locations, which just tends to annoy people. 
And How Is That Better? 
Hey you! You at the other table. Pass me your salt. 
 
Fuck you. Get your own salt. 
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