(03-04-2013, 02:09 AM)DeAngelo Wrote: I'm starting to get it. While working on my map, I didn't bother with lighting because I thought "Well, you're gonna have a lamp and you're in a cellar so it should be dark"

Well let's start with this: even if it's dark, you need light. There's not a single map in TDD that doesn't have a minimum ambient light. Even if it's something ridiculously low, like 0.005, 0.015, 0.044, 0.000 (Red Green Blue Alpha), there should be some sort of light. If there isn't, everything outside of the lantern's range will be pitch-black, the player will end up missing a bajillion things (tinderboxes, doors, monsters, all the hard work and effort you put into detailing a scary environment). This bring me to my second point: players get sick of pure blackness really quickly because they either waste all their oil trying to navigate and just find the next part of the game or they go insane because all their oil is gone and lose control of Daniel.

(03-04-2013, 02:09 AM)DeAngelo Wrote: but I'm starting to understand that it's more for atmosphere than gameplay.

It's both, but I've already said that.

(03-04-2013, 02:09 AM)DeAngelo Wrote: OK, I have a question. I have a light coming in through a window upstairs, it's still casting light onto the ground below it, even though I have all the floors as well as walls set with "cast shadows" turned on. What am I doing wrong?

Make the radius of your spotlight smaller. Planes don't cast shadows for some reason (it's really irritating). Boxlights and pointlights don't cast shadows, so you'll have to place them strategically.

(03-04-2013, 02:09 AM)DeAngelo Wrote: Also, when I use box lights it just looks artificial regardless of which settings I use. What are some good numbers to set the colors to? Or is it more of a "Just find the sweet spot for the mood you want to set" thing?

Depends on the atmosphere of the room. The one I'm used in the recent screenshots I put on here is supposed to be dusty and yellow-grey in colour to match the light source and make the whole room feel abandoned. The colours I'm using are: 0.198, 0.182, 0.141, 0.000 (RGBA). For a room that's supposed to look like night-time with a lot of windows, I used 0.105, 0.116, 0.150, 0.000 (RGBA), which looks grey-blue. For a sunset, I used 0.201, 0.102, 0.000, 0.000 (RGBA)which is really, really saturated red-orange.
The reason yours might look artificial is because boxlights don't enhance the specular maps. In English: boxlights don't make it look 3D, they make it look flat. Pointlights (with alpha >0) will make it look "3D" and textured.

TL;DR you need pointlights and boxlights, lighting is important, boxlights will have "sweet spots" depending on the atmosphere of the room.

Screenshot1: Interesting idea for a promo screenshot; there's not really much to comment on though.
Screenshot2: NICE! The view is really narrow but, from what I can see, the area looks like a cluttered storage space. Hopefully that's what you were aiming for. It needs light (box light, pointlights, some source of light). The floor tiles are really tiny, try changing the tile amount to something < 1. I usually set mine between 0.3 and 0.75 depending on the area. Make sure all of your floor planes match though. Add some decals - dirt, hay_mat_small, or moist_wall wouldn't hurt; depends on what kind of atmosphere you're trying to create. Add some particles too, dust in a colour similar, but darker than, your ambient light (this is why you need an ambient light in the first place). Maybe a few spilled bottles or knocked over objects on the floor wouldn't hurt either?
Screenshot3: Make the tile amounts smaller. If you go under the "Plane" tab of the primitive, the first option is "Tile amount". Try putting in 0.5 for the first and last box (your x and z tile amounts) and 1 for the middle (your y tile amount). With small patterns on large areas, it's easy to find repetitions, which ruins the immersion. Same as last one here: fog or dust or some sort of particles, add decals to the ceilings if you're going to bring attention to them.
Screenshot4: This is another reason you need a boxlight. All I (or the player) can see is a small light in an otherwise pitch-black room. At first, I wasn't even sure there was a room on the other side of that door frame. There isn't much that I can see in this screenshot, so I can't say much about it. As for the immediate hallway lit up by your lantern, it's very empty. Try adding some torches or light (unlit) to the walls/ceiling, welders in between the wall segments, and items/decals/particles scattered everywhere else.
Lighting Example: Unless the sun is shining straight through that window, try lowering the angle of your spotlight so it points towards the ground. On the "General" tab of your spotlight, there's a blank field labelled "Gobo". Try changing yours to castlebase_window_02.dds (the one with diamond-grids) to cast a more realistic shadow. Also, make the radius smaller so it doesn't pass through the ground.
As your ladder area is currently, you will be unable to climb it. Change the stretches to: 1, 4, 1.25 (x, y, z) and place the area in front of the actual ladder with the mini blue arrow (the one that rotates when you rotate the area) so that it is facing away from the ladder.
It looks to me as though you're going to spawn a bajillion monsters into the upstairs room once the player has entered it. Unless it is your intent for the player to be incapable of escaping, delete all but one and give the player time to get to a hiding spot or run.
The downstairs area: I like your use of the dividing walls and large barrels, but some of your objects look a little bit too neatly stacked. Try rotating a few of those wooden platforms or shifting them slightly so they don't look cloned. Considering the piles of stuff you have along the walls of your cellar, I would scatter a few more things around the middle to make it more cluttered or make the rooms smaller. Again, decals and particles can do wonders. With darker rooms, you can get away with adding fewer items and still have the very crowded feeling, but yours could still use a few items.