[Amnesia] Screenshot criticism thread

Spoiler below!

*Please note that what I'm saying is not an attack on you as a person, but rather an attempt to help you improve your level designing and mapping skills. If something I say sounds offensive or intentionally hostile, let me know so I can re-word it appropriately. With that in mind, this is a criticism thread so don't expect me to sugar-coat anything for you. If it looks ugly, I'm going to say it looks ugly, then explain why and how to fix it.

**All example maps linked in this critique are my own or from ATDD - not because I'm an egocentric dick-head (although that's probably true), but because I don't want to use other mappers' images without their permission.

Don't just scan over it and pretend you read everything either, I'll be looking at your next screenshots and calling you out if you ignored me. Although, if you disagree with what I said, please tell me why so I can assert my correctness (I'm kidding, but I would still like to know if/why you disagree).

And don't worry, each component gets shorter as I go along so that I won't have to parrot myself.

Image 1
Lighting

From this angle, the lighting looks really boring. There could definitely be more contrast between the shadows and highlights (it also helps to increase the alpha of your key spotlights to 5). The lighting is also very monochromatic, all yellow-ish white. Using complimentary colours for your lighting can help in most cases (yellow and purple, orange and blue, green and red), then tweaking the colours to be more aesthetically pleasing for your surroundings. As a general 'rule of thumb' if the colour of your light is warm, the shadows are going to be cold, and vice versa (it's a common technique used by visual artists).
On the topic of colour, make sure your billboards and fog particles correspond to the colour of the light since both are made visible by light reflecting off of particles in the air.

Attention to Detail

For the most part, you did a pretty good job of detailing using static objects and entities, but you're definitely lacking when it comes to decals and particle systems. Sure, there are a few decals on the walls (I see three of the dirt_wall_leak ones (I think that's what they're called), and three fog-particles, but that's it), but other than that, your floors are clean and the walls show no sign of wear-and-tear other than what was already included in the textures.
Given the strength of your billboards (from the next image), anyone in that room would be choking on dust ('billboards' are created when light rays reflect off of particles in the air), so why does the rest of the castle (and air) look so sterile?
Throw in some more fog particles - make sure they're not clipping into anything - and splatter the walls/floors with dirt. Think about where people would have walked the most in the castle, the areas that would be hardest to clean out, and put dirt (static) decals in those areas. Don't be afraid of static decals - static decals are your friends :D

Design

The room's design looks okay for the most part, but it's not outstanding by any means. The rounded stairs and the large pillars give a nice 'grandness' factor, but if you're going for grand, the flat roof and the miniature lions are rather sub-par (why are the lions placed by a boarded up door anyway and hidden behind pillars anyways?). Flat roofs hardly ever look grand. Maybe try making them arched (like one of these: 1 2 3) or decorated.
Other than that, there are some pretty blatant seams between the wall pieces - the best way to mitigate that is by placing welders over them (seriously, seams are ugly).

Image 2
Lighting

Now I see the billboards - and they're white! White billboards and white lights are a huuuuuuge no-no! Why? They're boring and don't do much to add to the scene. The billboards are also way too thick for the brightness of the light/cleanliness of the air.
The overlapping spotlights in the adjacent hallway are also a bad idea - unless you have two suns, one shining through each window, that will never happen. It also causes really bad lag for slower computers.
Other than that, same stuff applies as I said for Image 1 (since it is the same image).

Design

Why is there an eagle behind the stairs? If someone paid a large sum of money for an eagle statue, they probably wouldn't hide it behind a staircase. You need to think a more about why you're putting things where you do. I find putting myself in the castle-owner's shoes helps. There are also some very oddly placed boards on one of your pillars (right side of the picture). I don't see any means for them to stay up or any pattern to their placement. It's a nice attempt at adding detail to your map, but it just simply doesn't make sense.

Attention to Detail

Same as last image, but add some light_dust and area_fog particles in your billboards to make them more interesting. A little detail goes a long way.

Image 3
Lighting

Looking at your map from this angle really accentuates the issues of the lighting. It's just way too bright with too little contrast and absolutely no colour. The combination ends up creating a bit of a displeasing appearance, so you might want to work on your lighting a lot. I've already given pointers on your lighting under the first image, so please take a look at what I said there.

Design

Looking from this angle, the arch of the roof looks very oddly placed. Why would it stop half-way through the door's arch? Most castles are designed using Pre-Romanesque, Romanesque, or gothic architecture (if I remember correctly) and doing something like that would be completely ridiculous and would probably result in having the architect fired.

Attention to Detail

There are bricks on the floor all over the place, but no sign of where they came from. Is there damage, are they doing construction, where's the construction/damage? Thinking about the or reasoning behind the location of certain items can really help make it look more interesting (this or this for example)

Image 4
Lighting

Your placement of billboards on the slotted windows looks really nice, but the same critique stuff still applies. Seriously, each one is as bright as the sun shining out of God's arse!

Design

The arched doors give a nice touch, so, using that principle, why not make the passage under the stairs have an arched entrance as well? If not an arched entrance, perhaps an arched ceiling for the corridor.

Attention to Detail

The wood beams make a bit more sense now, but their placement and how they're being held up is still not very evident. I believe that chandelier on the floor is new, but was there damage when it fell? Scrapes and dirt on the floor around it would make quite a bit of sense and, assuming this castle is mainly unoccupied, adding cobwebs to the chandeliers would make perfect sense (high location + not cleaned frequently = spider's favourite home).

Image 5
Lighting

This window is one of the cases where you could probably get away with using slightly thicker billboards (not thicker than yours, just generally thick looking, like this).

Design

This room reminds me quite a bit of the old archives in ATDD (the room where you find the lantern - can you tell I'm running out of things to say?).

Attention to Detail

The walls and floor still look unbearably clean considering the number of cobwebs that have sprung up.

Image 6
Lighting

The lighting in needs a lot of work too. First of all, you're using very white lights around the candles, maybe because the candles have very white pointlights attached to them. Try adding pointlights with a large radius by the candles and making them more orange-coloured. That way, you can use a blue-ish boxlight and take advantage of the contrast between the two colours to make the lighting more dynamic.
Also on this topic, the light from the candle at the end of the hall doesn't stretch far enough.

Design

there's not much to say because there's not much to see. The curve of the ceiling is a nice touch, but the image could definitely use more detail all-around. There are also seams on the wall pieces. Please cover those things up!

Attention to Detail

Like I said under design, this area is generally lacking detail. Admittedly, there's not much you can do in terms of detail for a hallway, even a few rocks on the floor, clumps of dirt, or fog/dust particles could go a long way.

End
That was a lot more typing than I would have liked to have done! Well, half an hour spend procrastinating isn't too bad!

Please at least acknowledge that you considered the stuff I said at some point or another. It's really discouraging when someone puts a lot of effort into a critique and gets ignored... kind of makes them want to stop providing critiques :p

Like I said earlier, if there's something you disagree with, let me know what it is and why (either here or PM is fine, so long as we don't derail the thread)