[Amnesia] Screenshot criticism thread

[Zokrar]

WAPEZ:

I wouldn't go as far as saying your lighting is shit, but what I would suggest is use brighter point lights, to make it seem like the light actually leaves the source (candles specifically, windows look good) more so than it does currently. I'm no expert with lighting myself, so that's all I'm able to suggest.

(repost from last page)


Old:

Spoiler below!

New:

Spoiler below!

What I changed:
- Made planks on shed more sporadically placed
- Added variations of trees
- Made floor more realistic
- Changed fog/sky
- Changed lighting

How should I improve it further? Also, the lighting in this picture doesn't truly represent the real lighting. I had to crank up the brightness to be able to see anything in the screenshot.

[Wapez]

I wouldn't go as far as saying your lighting is shit, but what I would suggest is use brighter point lights, to make it seem like the light actually leaves the source (candles specifically, windows look good) more so than it does currently. I'm no expert with lighting myself, so that's all I'm able to suggest.

Thank you, I'll think of this in the future. Also, my screenshots tend to become a lot darker than the actual game.

[CarnivorousJelly]

Spoiler below!

Old:
New:

What I changed:
- Made planks on shed more sporadically placed
- Added variations of trees
- Made floor more realistic
- Changed fog/sky
- Changed lighting

I definitely like the new one more! It looks much more reasonable than your old one did.

How should I improve it further? Also, the lighting in this picture doesn't truly represent the real lighting. I had to crank up the brightness to be able to see anything in the screenshot.

That should be a red flag to you. If you're finding it hard to see anything, then your player is going to find it hard to see/appreciate the map.
It looks like it could be just a teensy bit darker (than your edited screenshot), but not a ton.

Aside from that, you could make the shape of your lodge/house a little more interesting - it doesn't have to be a perfect box! Maybe use some planes to create a chimney/fireplace vent on one side, add a front porch, a stack of logs next to the door, etc.. :D

[CarnivorousJelly]

Edit: Shoot! Double-post. I'm so sorry! D: I meant to copy this and add it to my previous post.

Spoiler below!

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<image 3>

Spoiler below!

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<image 5>
<image 6>

I'm avoiding homework, so what better way to do that than provide critique? :p
(spoilers for size)

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)

For anyone else reading this, feel free to add, because I'm sure I missed something.

[PutraenusAlivius]

Crits is insulting Wapez. Wow. I wonder if Crits can make it this good.

[Daemian]

Add 'waterpools' with a strong red+green intensity in the specular maps to simulate water on the rocks.

Hey, Acies, a question. Sorry to intrude here.
What's the reason for that? Which role play the red/green channels in specular maps?

I have a soda machine I'd like to make it look wet.

Spoiler below!

It's using illumination to shine on darkness. I'm missing the wet surface or/and the impression the object is cold.

[Wapez]

Thanks Kia! That's some great advice, and I'll definitely try to improve the aspects that you pointed out. And thank you for putting so much time and effort into it! It means a lot.

[Acies]

Add 'waterpools' with a strong red+green intensity in the specular maps to simulate water on the rocks.

Hey, Acies, a question. Sorry to intrude here.

What's the reason for that? Which role play the red/green channels in specular maps?



I have a soda machine I'd like to make it look wet.

Spoiler below!

It's using illumination to shine on darkness. I'm missing the wet surface or/and the impression the object is cold.

Amnesia's specular maps are storing information in the green and red channel of an image. The blue channel isn't read at all - and should be black. Each channel is a black and white image, the more white the more red/green/blue.

Green stores something called gloss. Gloss defines how large a highlight on your model/texture becomes. A bright glossmap (in amnesia's case; a lot of green) will cause a pointlight to light a smaller, focused point on the model - while a darker glossmap will cause the pointlight to light 'all over the surface' rather than focusing the light.

Red stores the specular information. The brighter the red color the stronger the reflection of light.

[Alex Ros]

...
Old:

Spoiler below!

New:

Spoiler below!

...

Well, sorry for intrusion, but I have to confess I prefer Old version. An argument is that Old version is completely unrealistic, but at the same it looks like it's INTENTED to be unrealistic, thus the whole green & orange over-saturated environment perceived like a style, an artistic approach. New version is pushed towards reasons and realism and thus all "errors" do look like errors, not like it's intended to be that way, but just errors and nothing more. In conclusion I would recommend to decide for yourself where do you want to move - to realism or artistically stylized unrealistic picture. It's 2 absolutely different ways and you've to choose.

P.S. I hope my bad English was good enough to be understandable at least.

Another set of pictures here: ...

I would love to say some more things about your level design. It looks boring and non-interesting not just because of it lacks of details and presents lots of unreasonable unbelievable things. But as I believe it simply lacks of IDEA and thus AСCENTS. I mean while looking at your pictures I do not understand (basically do not feel) what is that you want to show me. Is that just desolation and that's all? Or is it the atmosphere of foreseeing some unknown danger? Maybe that place is a familiar place and I, as a player, should be saddened while observing that abandonment? Etc. I hope you will understand what I mean. There's no certain mood, it's all in the middle, not gloomy, not sad, not dangerous, etc. And finally when you will decide for yourself what is that EXACTLY do you want me to feel while roaming your levels, it will be real easy for you to understand what details do you need, what you want to put into shadows and vice versa what you want to accent with lights.

Just for another example, while I am looking at Robosprog screens I always have a very certain feelings. Always. And even if something wrong (like with those lumi-mushrooms lighting up whole environment) it does not really matters, because I feel that he knows FOR SURE what he wants to show me. And that's the forever-win way to make nice levels. You have to know for yourself for sure what do you want me to feel and to think about.

[CarnivorousJelly]

<TL;DR: Old Version is better>
P.S. I hope my bad English was good enough to be understandable at least.

I agree with you about stylized mapping. I should probably have clarified that my critique was based on a "realism" approach. And your English isn't bad! I understood what you were saying perfectly (I think).