[Amnesia] Screenshot criticism thread

[DragonRuins]

I've finally gotten started on working on my custom story again and I'm absolutely horrible at lighting and placement. Especially when it comes to filling in empty spaces. The main thing I'm looking for is any advice to help make the lighting a bit more natural rather than placing point lights where it's getting dark. Also without having any light bleed through to other rooms, I always have trouble with that. Anything and everything will be a great help.

Spoiler below!

Image1

This is a little side room which I wanted to have a bit collapsed by rocks and the player would have to pull the rocks back to get out. I think the rocks were a bit over-done, but I didn't want players to be able to look into the room from the other side. I was also having trouble finding what props to put into place to make it seem more like the ceiling had actually collapsed.


Image2
I think that this room is a way too big, but I wasn't sure how I would down-size it and still make it look good. The problem with me, is that I want everything to be perfectly square, as to not throw off the alignment with other static objects. The lighting is also absolutely terrible. I don't know what other light sources and placement I could use here.


Image3
This area is supposed to be a hallway with bedrooms along one side. I did down-size this area once already. A problem I am having right now is what to put in the rooms so it doesn't feel repetitive.

Image4
I'm also having some issues coming up with ideas for this room. The highlighted areas are places that I'm having the most trouble with.

[Damascus]

I've finally gotten started on working on my custom story again and I'm absolutely horrible at lighting and placement. Especially when it comes to filling in empty spaces. The main thing I'm looking for is any advice to help make the lighting a bit more natural rather than placing point lights where it's getting dark. Also without having any light bleed through to other rooms, I always have trouble with that. Anything and everything will be a great help.

Spoiler below!

Image1

This is a little side room which I wanted to have a bit collapsed by rocks and the player would have to pull the rocks back to get out. I think the rocks were a bit over-done, but I didn't want players to be able to look into the room from the other side. I was also having trouble finding what props to put into place to make it seem more like the ceiling had actually collapsed.


Image2
I think that this room is a way too big, but I wasn't sure how I would down-size it and still make it look good. The problem with me, is that I want everything to be perfectly square, as to not throw off the alignment with other static objects. The lighting is also absolutely terrible. I don't know what other light sources and placement I could use here.


Image3
This area is supposed to be a hallway with bedrooms along one side. I did down-size this area once already. A problem I am having right now is what to put in the rooms so it doesn't feel repetitive.

Image4
I'm also having some issues coming up with ideas for this room. The highlighted areas are places that I'm having the most trouble with.

Pic 2: Yeah that room is much too big. I would collapse the bottom-right corner to make the room an L-shape, if you have to keep the doors where they are. You could lay down some carpets and a fireplace to convert into a kind of lounge area.

Pic 3: I think that hallway is a bit too wide. Shorten it by 2 or 4. As for the rooms, you're bound to have them look similar, but change up what kind of furniture they use (room 1: bed, desk, two drawers, a cabinet; room 2: bed, desk, table, cabinet, sofa). And rearrange the furniture in each room.

[NaxEla]

Someone should totally make some high-res carpets.

[Kman]

Definitely not bad, though you're barely showing off anything. All I can tell from this screenshot is that you're pretty good at using billboards and lighting, and you know how to place static objects and entities; there's not a whole lot to critique. Only issues I can see is that there's no welder in between the two windows so you can see the seam between them and the angel of the light coming out of the windows doesn't match up with the angel of the billboards. You might also want to make those spotlights a little dimmer, since they seem a little bright right now. And of course the rug, but there's not a whole lot you can do about that.

[NaxEla]

Definitely not bad, though you're barely showing off anything. All I can tell from this screenshot is that you're pretty good at using billboards and lighting, and you know how to place static objects and entities; there's not a whole lot to critique. Only issues I can see is that there's no welder in between the two windows so you can see the seam between them and the angel of the light coming out of the windows doesn't match up with the angel of the billboards. You might also want to make those spotlights a little dimmer, since they seem a little bright right now. And of course the rug, but there's not a whole lot you can do about that.

Thanks for the feedback. I'll fix a few things up . I had a welder in between the windows earlier, but I didn't really like how it looked, but now I can see that the seam is pretty noticable.

[CarnivorousJelly]

Oh, Kiandra, I just noticed that your pictures were sort of swept under the rug due to being the last post on the last page- I wanted to point out that I really like your color scheme in the first picture. The complimentary colors of orange and blue (from your first picture to your second) are very cosmetically pleasing, and actually make me interested in the story because I would love to see how it pans out, since it clearly involves a progression of time from day to night. Your lighting is very pleasant.

Oh my Thank you for the feedback!
I completely forgot I had posted to this thread when I saw the Dark Room pictures

[Danny Boy]

Your glowing shrooms intrigue me.

You Intrigue me

[CarnivorousJelly]

I've finally gotten started on working on my custom story again and I'm absolutely horrible at lighting and placement. Especially when it comes to filling in empty spaces. The main thing I'm looking for is any advice to help make the lighting a bit more natural rather than placing point lights where it's getting dark. Also without having any light bleed through to other rooms, I always have trouble with that. Anything and everything will be a great help.

For the lighting predicament:

Spoiler below!

For your lighting predicament, I'd suggest trying to use a box light - they create the same kind of lighting as the Ambient Light in the level editor and look a bit more natural than point lights if you're trying to achieve a smooth and continuous light.
For example, this room:
Lit with a box light (and other various lights)
and again with no box light (point lights and spot lights still on)

Although it's a very dim box light (0.105, 0.116, 0.15, 0) it provides enough light to keep the area from being pitch-black when the player stands in one of the brighter spots.

If you'd prefer not to use a box light, throw in two more PointLights. The first one should be large (Approximately 9-11 Radius, but change it if needed.) with a really dimmed colour of your light source. About 15-25% of the power light level of the original source. While the second one is half the Radius size with about 40-50% light level.

Spoiler below!

I definitely stole that second suggestion from Rapture here. Although he was referring to my extensive use of bright billboards.

First Image:

Spoiler below!

I like the idea you have there, but the rocks look really repetitive. Is it possible to use another rock entity (one that looks different) with those ones and rotate/scale a few to make them look less like clones of each other? Also, it seems like the area is supposed to be a storage room (forgive me if I'm wrong ^^") so perhaps scatter a few things that were supposed to be up against the walls along the floor to take up that extra space.

Second Image:

Spoiler below!

I agree with Damascus, the room is waaaaay to big I know you really like those square rooms, but break that barrier :p Oddly shaped rooms have so many possibilities, hidden monsters around the corners, secret passages, spooky corridors...

I also noticed your corners are a little bit funny looking - the seams are really noticeable. Try using the mansionbase static object: welder02_concave in the corners to create a little bit more natural look to it (make sure to rotate the welders as necessary). For the convex corner you would get by making the room L-shaped, use welder02_convex.

This room could also benefit from a box light, it looks a little bit like you were trying to fill up the space with point lights, which you mentioned was something you would like to fix.

If you really don't want to make the room L-shaped, try throwing in a few more static objects, maybe a rug or a shelf too, and put some decals on the floor to break up the repetitiveness of the wood.

I like the concept though, looks like you have a rather devious plan to scare the bajeezus out of someone with a brute!

Third Image:

Spoiler below!

I like the two outer rooms, they look a comfortable size, not overly large or small, and they aren't too crowded or too open to look nice.

If you want to shrink the hallway a little bit (this one's arbitrary, it looks fine the width it's at now), you could put in a short wall (short02 in mansionbase) instead of a second full wall.

As for repetitiveness, I was going to suggest throwing off the alignment of the bedrooms by putting one on the left-hand side, but it seems like you want them all on the same side. In that case, try changing the gaps between the doors: have one door right in the center of the bedroom's wall, another one on the far left of the other room so that the gaps between them aren't even (sort of like what you did with the beds inside the rooms).

If that doesn't work or messes with something you were trying to create, try having a candle by one of the rooms burnt out or broken. As I mentioned earlier, decals are your friends you could put in a spot of blood or dirt, or some scratches as a sign of weathering.

Fourth Image

Spoiler below!

Try throwing in decals/furniture/paintings on the walls to break up the monotony. If you're having trouble with the empty room in th middle specifically but it's not essential to the game or the map, maybe cut it out completely and turn the hallway into an L.
Also, you might want to put a deterrent by the exit door so that the player has to explore all the rooms (lock it and/or throw a monster in front of it and/or have an objective for the area that must be completed first)

Sorry for the rambling, hope it helped a little bit!

And check out this guy for more details on deterrents, incentives, and other stuff. It may be written for Halo, but the same concepts (other than combat) apply to Amnesia.

[DragonRuins]

Sorry for the rambling, hope it helped a little bit!

And check out this guy for more details on deterrents, incentives, and other stuff. It may be written for Halo, but the same concepts (other than combat) apply to Amnesia.

Thank you very much for the feedback/help. 
If it makes it easier for you to see how the map looks (and you can see other parts of the map and how it looks in-game) ,
The Beer Cake did a two-part playthrough of my Test1 Demo of the map.
TheBeerCake's video
And actually, there are two brutes used for the scare. The first one us foreshadowing what is to come.

[CarnivorousJelly]

And actually, there are two brutes used for the scare. The first one us foreshadowing what is to come.

Oh devious! o:
It definitely helps to see the game from a player's perspective -makes it much easier to gauge the size of the rooms.