Right Bukz, you’ve obviously put a great deal of work into this and I know how much you want to make excellent maps. I realize that the cube engine places a certain amount of limitations on what you can and can’t achieve, but the following is what I think.
In single player I spawn in the blue flag room and I’m impressed. The roof work is first class, not too much clutter, and nice atmosphere.
The lighting isn’t quite right though. The skylights, should provide the bulk of the illumination in such a room and either the flag end is too dark or the other end to light.
The arched windows and doors look nice and you’ve done well in rounding off the hard edges and providing a different from stock look to these features. The problem is is that if you built an arch like this in real life the middle of the bow would push out and the arch would collapse. So, I reckon you either have a full arch with bricks set radially or a square window with a lintel.
Floor is good, but perhaps depress the points where the floor slabs are missing a bit.
Heading straight out and across to the other high ceiling building same comments apply, but I think the lighting is better here.
Steps seem to be a problem with cube. I would not have the walls either side of the steps myself. The steps are not high enough to worry about falling off the sides and if constructed in real life would not require that amount of edge support.
Detail outside the window is always good and helps give the map the feel that it “belongs” somewhere; looks good too.
The sand ramp leading out towards the octagonal structure, why have you got a wall either side? There is nowhere for the sand to go as if it had slopes away from the main walkway. The buildings either side would hold the sand in place. Not having these not so little walls either side would mean better game flow and one less construction the cube engine doesn’t mange very well.
My feeling about ground work in general.
Full paving is fine but can look grey and dull.
When paving breaks, stuff grows through it, even in a bit of a desert.
Sand is okay, but very rarely lies evenly; make mounds, chuck bricks and broken slabs in if necessary to add interest
The next room with the windows with broken bars in is fine apart from the problem with having the doors and windows structurally correct again.
All the outside roofs have the same problem; I look inside and see nice wooden plankwork, go out and there is ten tones of unsupported masonry hanging over my head! Wood inside, then show wooden ends outside if possible, or even a horizontal beam especially when you have a pitched roof.
In general, if you have a flat, overhanging roof then it can’t be made of brick or block. Try using concrete if you must but then show a bit of the supporting steel work that holds the concrete together.
The small bay windows are something different but I think the coffin doors look out of place.
Try to avoid building large structures, especially height wise to give interest and detail to the map when a few sandbags on a pallet or the much overused, but still useful crate will do the job.
It’s a good map by ac standards Bukz, but you have the talent to produce a first class map, not one that’s just better than the average ac map. A game map or not, there is no reason why it shouldn’t be structurally correct within reason and bear some resemblance to a place in the real world.
You can beat the crap out of me on irc later
Download ac_safari.zip
