...how on earth?
Maybe the Pugin comparison is cliched and cheesy... but yeah. 

I had added this room about a year ago. It's a pretty important room, but I was never really happy with how it looked. This is an old screenshot from before I did the re-texturing.

Old Room

I worked on it a lot last week end and I think it's looking better. Probably still needs some lighting tweaks.

New room

Different view 

is phenomenal!

And yes new room looks better but lighting could be less flat. 

I meant neoclassical as in new school quake w old school sensibilities and etc. 

 

new room looks MUCH better with the texturing. those windows and bricks are great. the outdoor spires are fantastic. just be careful not to make it TOO dark. 

damn sorry Drew seems like I over-interpreted things again, as I always do.

New version of the room is a lot better, everything seems way more considered and detailed, including lighting and texturing.

/Eschews gothic label 

I think the bricks look kind of small in relation to the huge scale of the room. I'd prefer if at least some parts of them could be bigger for a more 32ish style similar to the previous metal4_4 style. 

Which is good. The new one looks better because the textures break up the flat areas of the previous one better.

Is there an altar in the middle? 

Keep going with it. 

Looks very interesting indeed.. neo-gothik / medieval maps are always cool :)

Go finish this ! 

Yes.

I keep hearing this in my head every time I see one of those screenshots. 

Looks pretty good.

I think I prefer maps with a higher contrast of light/dark lighting. Also I thing I would personally avoid large flat walls and break them up with detailing with protrusions or texture changes. 

large flat walls

Honestly, what do you mean? There are not any of what I would consider large flat walls in any of those last few screen shots. There are some that are pretty tall though. I wonder if it's something about the angle the screen shot was taken at?

Here's an overhead view with an exaggerated fov. I didn't change brightness or contrast from the original, just converted it to jpg so I may look a little dark.

http://quaketastic.com/files/screen_shots/Wish13_d.jpg 

dont let them distract you! 

If the walls aren't the same thickness at every height. You can make these transitiones in two ways - with a 'step', i.e. the wall suddenly gets X units thicker, with a perpendicular step, or with a slope. This is true of much architecture because the foundations need to be strong enough to support all of the weight above it.

Either way, it's a nice way of adding a whole other dimension to your architecture.

You could add some damage detail to the architecture too, maybe a few cracked tiles, , bricks out of place or missing etc.

Overall I think the shots look pretty awesome, just thinking of elements that you could take more advantage of. 

It doesn't require gussying up. It has a nice stark balance and subtle detailing. In the shots I've seen, I'd consider that aspect of the map 'done'. 

You realise the map is already bursting at the seams with marksurfaces? 

What you've got is good. Finish it as you see fit.

Float walls refers to not using geometry (brushes) to make the light map do the work of making a space interesting. But with all the work you've put into the light it's not a mistake you've made. Don't go into pre-release worry.

We've only seen screenshots! 

 

 

.



dont let them distract you!

Not much chance of that. The reason is because I intend to stay within the normal Quake Engine map limits.

onetruepurple is correct, the map is bursting at the seams with marksurfaces

What this means is that the geometry of the map is pretty much finished, with no chance at all of any major changes being made.
The map is currently bouncing around 32000 marksurfaces, which is what causes me the most problems. Most of the time at this point, just adding a brush or two will cause QBSP to go insane and the marksurfaces will jump by hundreds and go over the limit. I've found ways of getting around that, but sooner or later I know I'll hit a wall.
I basically have to fight tooth and nail just to make small changes to the brushwork and not go over 32767 marksurfaces.

There is also a 256 model limit. I have 255 at the moment. If I add just one more Fitzquake gives me a mean old message that 256 models exceeds the 256 model limit.

It doesn't actually, but I will keep it at 255.

As of yesterday, I still have six "place holder" func_walls in the map left to play with.

I'm still kind of struggling to understand the various comments referring to flat lighting, large flat walls, small brick textures, and so on.

It's pretty hard to move along any wall, anywhere in the map for more than 128 units without something changing.

I really appreciate these comments. I think about what you guys have said along these lines quite a bit and give these comments much consideration, but when I play the map I just don't see it.

Somehow, I think the screen shots are failing me.

And if you really think this map has a problem with large, featureless walls, covered by a small brick texture with flat lighting, I have three words for you:

"Honey by CZG".

Yes, I am just teasing you there.

Yesterday, I worked mostly on the lighting in this room. It's a fairly important area that the player will pass through more than once.

What do you think?

http://www.quaketastic.com/files/screen_shots/Wish13_e.jpg

http://www.quaketastic.com/files/screen_shots/Wish13_f.jpg 

Remember: qbsp splits large surfaces every 224 units anyway. This can be used to your advantage.

Brush models and marksurfaces: This may or may not be helpful in your situation or the context of the map, but you can 'clone' existing brush models and turn them into functional entities (provided they are on the same rotation and light level as the originals). If there are identical bmodels used on several occasions, you can make one actual brush-based template and use it elsewhere as point entities. 

The screenshots are cool. Though I think I would consider using some vertical trim with seams on the sides inside the window frames. 

I like the screenshots a lot! Being overly anal about details that no player really notices can make a map worse.

Your windows on those 2 screenshots could have a stronger light emitting from them, leaving a pattern (just a cone) on the bridge. I think it looks completely fine as it is though.