Ideas on Architecture

[BillMcCai]

I have been making maps for quite awhile now, each map I make getting worse than the previous one. It took me awhile to realise why this was the case, but I realised that generally my architecture wasn't all that great. I worked for awhile trying to perfect a style or get some of it up to speed but failed hopelessly. I was hoping that a huge community like Truffs would have someone who knows how to help... In other words, does anybody know any decent resources, ideas or tips that will help the general architecture (that's not layout or design, it's the detail, like pillars, cables, etc) and make my maps more enjoyable and realistic.

Any help is much appriciated =)

[FoamyGal]

Not the ideal place to ask, big community indeed but I say that because TrufF is like 95% consisting of players not mappers. :)

Best is, go to Unrealplayground.com and register, post a preview of a map of yours (saying it is in the making) and asking for suggestions.

The place holds links to help topics, you can request other help topic links, get helped when you encounter a prob in mapping and you can upload the map as a beta and let people judge it for further suggestions (plus uploading the final version later). Almost all people will help you without any bs critic side remarks if it comes to help itself - if you request to judge your map/beta map of course you might encounter some guys that don*t know how to express what they think without some harsh quote, but it*s a friendly and versatile place and thus very recommendable for every mapper :)

If you want to upload finished maps and get them a CONSTRUCTIVE rating to improve, upload them at Mapraider.com

These 2 places hold enough links for any further help topic I think :)

[TurboSi]

When I get a new map idea I'll build a fast single texture map to get a feel for the layout. Usually it'll only contain the shape / layout that's important to the map idea. I might add a couple dynamic lights for shadows and I'll run around to see if it feels right.

Then comes the hard part. I pretty much know which texture package i'm going to use from the beginning so then I'll make a copy of the map and start experimenting with texture placement. Will I use a single wall texture on a multi level wall or will I break it up with a beam texture at each floor level? These kind of questions get important in when building the geometry of the map. Once I figure out how to build my geometry around the texture usage I add the eye candy peices and lighting style to the test room(s). For a DM-Subtract-A-Cube it's now super detailed. If needed this is also where I build my skymap.

I go back to my original no texture layout map and if there's no need to redo the geometry for the texture style I used I import the detail map into the layout map. Now I can start texturing the layout and have a small detail room to reference. UED will also load the correct texture packages (and sound and models if used) so I don't have to go searching again.

Now this will sound obvious when I say it but I can't point out enough to also use "grid layout" when building! So many forget to use snap to grid and run into problems quickly. My rule of thumb is...

Terrain...use grid 64
Walls/Rooms use grid 32
Detail use grid 16-8

Very seldom will I stray from these settings. If I know all my walls are set at 32 units then it's very easy to switch to grid 16 and build moving doors and their pockets inside of the wall.

[Azura]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio