[Amnesia] Screenshot criticism thread

[JonnyAnomaly]

AloneAndUnafraid - I really like those mountains in the first shot, what did you use to make them?

[Acies]

I made them :]

http://www.game-artist.net/forums/spotli...3-udk.html

[Putmalk]

Would it be appropriate to post videos in here for criticism? (I couldn't find a thread.) If not could someone throw me in the right direction?

I'm just getting back into amnesia level editing and would appreciate some feedback.

Spoiler below!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXRc8w8gm-U

[7heDubz]

I thought the mapping looked really good, fairly realistic albeit eccentric, The wakeup scene was smooth not jarred about,

If he used the dagger to kill himself, (Julius's brother) Then why is it up next to the note? Wouldn't it be in his wrist or heart or something?

A knife.. Broke the door? (A knife that my brother killed himself with being something I wouldn't take out of my brothers dead body.)

[OriginalUsername]

You should place pointlights around light sources. Also using a boxlight wont hurt. The map is pretty good, if you ignore the cliche story line.
Keep it up!

[Putmalk]

I thought the mapping looked really good, fairly realistic albeit eccentric, The wakeup scene was smooth not jarred about,

Thank you very much sir.

If he used the dagger to kill himself, (Julius's brother) Then why is it up next to the note? Wouldn't it be in his wrist or heart or something?

Intentional plot element, thanks for noticing! (can spoil my ideas if you want)

A knife.. Broke the door? (A knife that my brother killed himself with being something I wouldn't take out of my brothers dead body.)

Interesting point, but I wanted to have some way to restrict the player's progress (so he has to see the dead body) without making it too corridor-like or having a key somewhere. I don't like key puzzles too much, they're rather generic (and I say that, yes, with full knowledge that there's a key puzzle in that video, but it's an optional objective). Plus the knife will be used in later puzzles.

You should place pointlights around light sources. Also using a boxlight wont hurt. The map is pretty good, if you ignore the cliche story line.
Keep it up!

Assuming you're talking to me and not someone else, screenshot from the editor, as you can clearly see there are tons of point lights everywhere, as well as a boxlight (set pretty bright, although sanity is disabled (possibly forever?), the map is not intended to be too dark).

Spoiler below!

As for the cliche story, I cannot comment, I don't look at other custom stories here, and the story is really infantile at this point.

Did anyone notice the subtle event that the lamps turn off in the sister's room after the discovery of the dead body?

[OriginalUsername]

Well, if you already have pointlights, you should probably make them a bit bigger. It looked really weird..

[daortir]

@Putmalk
It looks pretty sweet so far. There is a real ambiance in the video, good job with that. Sound atmosphere is well done as well !

Mapping can still get better, I think. First of all, the bathroom is kind of weird. Like, everything is lit with candles and then we got toilet paper, and modern toilets. It's pretty weird, but whatever, maybe it's just me :3.
Lighting is what I don't really like though. It's not very dynamic in some places : the room with all the broken stuff on the floor at 4 mn has 1 candlestick on the wall, one chandelier, a fireplace and a window. And the fireplace/window don't really influence the lighting of the room. There's a global lighting that is warm because of the candles I guess, but around the fireplace there is no real source of light.

Then just behind this there's a bathroom that has 3 candles and is still super bright. Because the whole room is bright, your lighting becomes less impactful. It lacks contrast imho.

The final hallway has one window that is not bright at all, yet the hallway is just slightly dark.

Basically, when it comes to lighting I think your initial boxlight is too bright, and that kind of screws up the contrast, making your map less dynamic, and less realistic. This is just my very own opinion, but I think contrast, whether it's between colors, dark/bright areas, or anything, is what makes a map dynamic. Exactly like a drawing, basically.

And a very bright pointlight kinda puts everything at the same level, and makes the level feel less impressive and dynamic. (Not sure if anyone agrees with me on that one, i'd be glad to have feedback on this.).

One last thing :
Your detailing is great but hallways (especially the last one imho) feel a bit empty. It's no big deal, but I think a lot of older Amnesia players (so, not me actually xd) might get tired of empty hallways. You didn't play other custom stories as you said, but if you would you might see that it happens a bit too often : >.

That's all, my advice can be summed up to this :

Keep up the great work with atmosphere and detailing.
Make the lighting more dynamic, lower the boxlight's value.

Looking forward to see what you think about it ^^

[Putmalk]

Hey guys I really appreciate the feedback. I'm currently looking at default amnesia maps to see how point lights are done. Yes, they seem to be a lot bigger than what I had set for mine. This is why I don't pretend to be an expert on mapping. The lighting to me seemed fine, but it seems problematic to the audience, so I must change it.

Because I don't have A:AMFP I am lacking some models I really want to use. If someone could point me to the direction of a nice mansionbase set, I would be very grateful (I've checked myself, and took some nice custom models, but I think you guys might have more experience than I).

[OriginalUsername]

Tip: You can make the pointlights bigger, but make sure you lower the colors. It might get too bright if you don't do that.