that's a tone of maps to look forward to! I especially liked the Runic and medieval stuff!
Echoes of Eternity in particular looks great. 

Hey guys, I just registered on this board but I've been a silent lurker for many years. Some of you may know me from Mapcore.

During my free time I've been working on a 3-map Q1SP episode named Haunted Realms and using Kell's excellent Knave wad, trying to create variations on this theme (meaning that each map will have a distinct atmosphere while using the same set of textures).

Enough talk, here's the first batch of pics from the first map, Darkwatch.

http://i.imgur.com/O2irg.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/bvfyZ.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/pJ5RM.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/6M1m5.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/30IEB.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/Zb78o.jpg

Oh and Sock, nice to see you do some stuff on Q1 again. 

That looks very moody, I like it plenty. 

it looks good! 

nice dark atmosphere and unique take on the Knave design style.

2012 is shaping up to be a really good year for Q1SP 

Looks amazing! 

Shots were a bit dark though, probably just a gamma issue. 

more amazing shots! How long is this one off?

Scale in map 1 looks slightly too large though from those screenshots. 

Are you the same Skacky who released Shadow Politics for Thief? 

That looks fantastic skacky!

Looking forward to play it. 

Quakis: Yeah I'm the same person. I'm still working on my other Thief map at the same time but I paused its development for now.

The pics are a bit dark indeed, my screenshots seem to disregard my gamma settings for some reason with FitzQuake. The level is quite brighter in game but still pretty gloomy.

Thanks for your comments guys, very appreciated. 

Really nice work skacky, enjoyed all the pics!

All these screenshoots made me map much more then usually 

Love knave. Big scale is just fine. Dark shots but prolly fine in game. Not a fan of the trim as it is in lava shot. Half submerged skull. Opinion. Last one - vein this look too regular/ inorganic / pipey maybe? 

looks awesome skacky 

Shadow Politics was a good ride, so I'm definitely looking forward to both the new Thief and Quake projects. 

skacky: Nice to see you here at func, hope you enjoy the stay, a different crowd to mapcore, much more game play focused..

It is hard to go wrong with the Kell texture set (beautiful artwork) but the greatest strength is also its greatest weakness, books books and more books! The spiral bookcases always look amazing (screenshot 4) and towering bookcases in some of the screenshots look epic.

I like screenshot 2 best because it has nice variety of floor heights and it feels like the fight with the ogre/fiend could be interesting. I like the additions of the flesh and mouth in the last screenshot and it is certainly a better direction than every wall being books.

The lighting seems to lack any kind of hotness and is either very dark near the sky (screenshot 5) or the central areas (screenshot 3) have a high ambient light making the center of the room look flat. 

http://www.simonoc.com/images/design/sp/its3.jpg
(large image 1.86Mb)

doodling on my start map, any feedback on lighting? things you don't like? nitpicks? all are welcome ... 

The lighting looks like a big improvement - much more sourced, gloomy, etc. The ceilings, especially in the last shot, look good. Style looks like a very tight expansion on classic Quake theme with no distance at all between concept, textures and architecture. My only request is for there to be one outdoor area in that theme, even if it's a secret area or only at the end. 

Not sure I am sold on those which house that fiend. Prefer the thinner bars found in honey etc perhaps. I think other than that my thoughts are identical to those offered by tronyn. 

I rescind my former statement about the fiend cage thing. 

looks sexy as fuck, sock. i don't mind the thick bars. 

That looks awesome! I like the Fiend cage and I don't mind the thick bars as well. The architecture looks mighty complicated, especially in the first and third pictures.

About the Knave texture set, I agree bookcases are its greatest strength and weakness, and I got a bit overzealous with them at times since I tend to dislike 64*64 tiling textures. :P
I'm trying to break that, though.

As for the lighting it's still very basic for the moment, I haven't used a single light spot for the moment and man do I love these. I'm trying to pinpoint the style as much as I can before working on the lighting properly. I'm also using a 35 minlight but I'm thinking of lowering it to, say, 20 or 18 to have deeper shadows.

Thanks for your feedback everyone! 

Sock: those black triangles can be a real pain in the ass. Sometimes they go away as the map grows. Other times you have to use a sledgehammer: force QBSP to split the face differently. Try if making the conflicting brush not intersect with the adjacent geometry works. If not, you need to ,anually split the face/brush in half (but not in the same way as QBSP does - check with r_showtris) and use a slightly different texture offset or scale (something invisible to the eye, like 1.0001). This often seems to fix it. 

That's space beneath the elevator.