okay since people are complaining upon my return, zero wins custom, halo wins original content, mathias wins newcomer. This is agreed with ronalds comments. Thanks to the judges that DIDN'T reply to me, and still haven't. You guys must be so busy.
Ronald, sorry to of left you in the dark. as "chairman" you can understand how annoyed I was that no one assisted me.
If I say overall, Whilst zero's content looked the best, Halo's played far better, so from the three, Halo wins.
RONALDS PM:
svn_chernobyl by Halo
Photo album
Theme: 7.5
Your theme is definitely historic, so no problems there. You didn't really do much to sell it in your map. You had the obvious (radioactive barrels), but you didn't really put your map anywhere in chernobyl as far as I could tell. Just a random structure somewhere.
Textures: 8.5
Your textures coalesce quite well. I really enjoyed the black brick walls used in the center room. Nothing quite special about the rest of the texturing. It works. Standard Halo texture set, nothing wrong there.
Lighting: 8
I've always liked your style of lighting. This map isn't anything super special compared to your past stuff. I am wary about marking your score down for this (so I wont) due to you can't always fix it, but make sure you make sure your mapmodels are always the same light value screenshot. You probably already know, but putting a light on top of the mapmodel and making it very small radius and adjusting the light output is a good method for making sure you have consistent lighting. Works for me at any rate.
Detail: 8.5
Your detail is really what sells this map. Your skymap is a wonderful choice for a powerplant like map. Your piping is also quite appropriate. Your ability to detail without mapmodels is probably undervalued. Example: screenshot, screenshot, screenshot. What is marking you down here is your number of mapmodels here, for instance your desk and storage cart and other areas have much more mapmodels than needed. Remember that people wont notice the extra cigarette while playing. You could probably knock your mapmodel count down to 600 by doing that. That being said, I love your usage of pipes: screenshot.
Sounds: 6
Nothing special, nothing bad. You added in sounds. Avoided the classic error of a sudden wall of sound when entering a not-so-special area. Maybe a touch slim on the sound?
Layout/Gameplay: 7.5
Your map was a bit confusing to me, however I think that probably is just me. Your bases were a bit too similar for my liking, and the enclosure in front of the RVSF base seemed a little superfluous and added some advantage for the RVSF. If you removed that or blocked it off you could also save some of the fps drop some people reported probably. Nothing special about your layout, but its decent and pretty balanced.
Average: 7.58
ac_pompeii By Z3RO
Photo album
Theme: 9
You sold your theme very well, possibly did the best job in the contest.
Textures: 8
You did a good job choosing your textures, however your chimney kinda lacked something or another. It was odd seeing a chimney without a hole screenshot.
Lighting: 8
Good job lighting, not much to say about it.
Detail: 8.5
I really like your detailing, it does a great job of selling the theme. Your bags of whatever, the torches, the wall vines, and the gates were all very nice touches. On problem was with a nook holding kevlar and akimbo screenshot. It seems superfluous and a little confusing. You can't pick these up, but yet they are pickups. It detracts from the map. It might work better in a present time military base, but not pompeii
Sounds: 0
No sounds.
Layout/Gameplay: 6.5
I hate to see this part of your map falter, because the rest of it was so very nice. The main issue is with your base location. They aren't on opposite sides of the map, it makes one huge chunk of the map pretty unusable for ctf modes unless the flag is contested. I doubt this area will get much traffic, and is kinda just excess map. The next issue is running into things. There is a lot of walls and such that are easy to run into when fighting. Going through the map again I'm exactly sure on the problems, but they were definitely there when playtesting.
Average: 6.67
ac_agora by MathiasB
Theme: 7
I couldn't really see greek in this. But your explanation made sense. I guess I was hoping for more stereotypical greek pillars and such.
Textures: 7.5
Your texturing is decent. I didn't notice anything special. With desert themed maps, its kinda hard to get anywhere new with the textures provided. It map very much falls more in the "classic AC" mapping style. The fact that you've been around for awhile comes through with this map. The layout and style is more 1004 esc to me. Its nice!
Lighting: 7.5
Again, your lighting is decent. You didn't do much with it. In this map, its just so you can see, rather than to look pretty. I guess on a desert map its harder to come up with good lighting. I saw no issues with it. Textures weren't blown out, dark places were dark.
Detail: 8.5
Detailing was good. I actually quite liked what you did with this map. Unlike the copious amounts of detail you commonly see with some newer maps (/me looks at Halo), which is good, this takes another route. The detailing done was just what you needed, however it didn't overpower you or hurt the experience. You didn't lag down the map with detail, you didn't hinder movement. You just gave it some depth and that was all that you need. Perfect AC style. One issue is that you need to make sure you never can (as a player) see the ground and skymap collide screenshot. Even when you jump. This is one of my pet peeves.
Sounds: 0
No sounds.
Layout/Gameplay: 8
Your gameplay was balanced. Although I didn't get a chance to test this in pubs (which seems to be the target audience for this map), it seemed like it could be quite fun in a pub of 6-12 people. It gave enough feasible routes to escape with the flag, and you had vertical movement, which I always appreciate in maps. It just seemed to work well. One problem I saw was with the north-east end of the map. I never could understand how those paths went. It was all very confusing for me.
Average: 6.42
ac_springtime by YesWeCamp
Photo album
Theme: 7
I suppose I'll count this as history. Your setting was nice. I'm interested, what actual historic events was this map based off of?
Textures: 8
Your texturing was actually quite well done with a desert style map. Here are a few places I really liked: screenshot, screenshot, screenshot. You found more textures that worked than what you normally see on desert style maps.
Lighting: 7.5
Standard lighting, not too dynamic, not super interesting, but works. Its lighting and you can see quite well throughout the map.
Detail: 9.5
Your detail was very interesting. I really enjoyed it actually. All of these places were done really well. screenshot, screenshot, screenshot, screenshot, screenshot, screenshot, screenshot, screenshot. Most of them displayed some sort of technique that I haven't really seen before. Your detailing was mostly with the geometry, and that earns extra points. This really shows how when detailing you don't always need to rely on mapmodels. Good job!
Sounds: 6
You added in sounds. Avoided the classic error of a sudden wall of sound when entering a not-so-special area. You may think about adding more sounds in.
Layout/Gameplay: 6.5
Your layout could've used some work. One thing is that it feels like it is mostly pathway rather than paths leading room to room. Another thing is having a center path that just dead-ends and leads to the outside paths are nice, but really confusing for awhile. It takes a bit to realize how to navigate around them. The map is also slightly biased towards RVSF. Another issue I found with the map was the abundance of pickups. Leaving the RVSF base, I can go down the center and pick up three healths in a matter of seconds.
Average: 7.42
ac_tut by Nightmare
Theme: 6
Well, this is most obviously a pyramid. But I believe the egyptian pyramids were a little taller, also I don't think you could walk up them like stairs.
Textures: 3
Three points for all three textures you used.
Lighting: 2
The lighting is really splotchy and undynamic. Not much done with this
Detail: 2
Your outer rectangles changed sizes.
Sounds: 4.8
You had sounds. Granted you didn't have much to work with, but they didn't really fit the map.
Layout/Gameplay: 5
This actually was fun to play. You had vertical movement, which made it a little more difficult to hit people with nades.
Average: 3.8
sr_deadwood by SrPER$IAN
Photo Album
I'd suggest looking through the photo album I posted and reading the captions after you read this review so you have an understanding of what I am talking about.
Theme: 8
Wildwest theme. Sold it well. Looked like a rundown wild west town. One thing preventing a good score is that this isn't particularly hard to achieve.
Textures: 6.5
Your textures weren't particularly cohesive, nor consistent. Your wood flooring was also used as the siding on a building. The same building in fact.
Lighting: 6
Lighting has one primary reason, provide illumination for players to see. Unless there is a spot that has a tactical reason to be dark, players should be able to see clearly every. Half of your map succeeded at this. It was too dark in many places. There are other secondary purposes that light fulfills. Light provides context for sections of the map. You seem to understand this, yellow lighting for rooms that had lamp light. Outside was much more flat light without warmth. The one issue is that your inside light isn't always inside. Sometimes you let it flood outside in confusing areas. Its hard to contain lighting in AC, but the trick is to use many smaller radius lights. Another secondary purpose is to bring depth to your textures. You didn't really understand this it seems. Your sand wasn't lit consistently lit. Sand tends to take light pretty evenly, and isn't splotchy. Even in the evening. I couldn't quite tell what texture your buildings were sometimes, in fact to judge the textures I had to turn on fullbright. Unless there is a good reason, you should be able to tell what each texture is. A good reason mostly contextual. Another reason to use lights is more thematic. Similar areas of the map should be lit the same, and there should be some reasoning behind the lighting. One common occurrence you see of this is the red base being red, the blue base being blue. This is more of a choice than anything. You don't need it, but when you start making more complex maps, this will help guide your players and make your map more intuitive.
Detail: 5.5
Your detailing was there, but subpar. I could walk through logs, barrels, and your doorframe was hanging away from the actual doorframe. I did appreciate the height fielding you did with the sand, although you need to work on it a little to make it a little less awkward.
Sounds: 6.5
Your sounds were there, sparse but there. Your whistling did add a nice effect. You could've added a wind sound to add to the effect of abandoned streets.
Layout/Gameplay: 5
Because your packaging was a mess, I didn't want to ask other people to help me test the map. But it isn't a terribly complicated layout. Its just a line with a bend in it, with a shortcut. In fact, a lot of wild west maps (across games) use this layout. Not particularly imaginative, nor does it fit AC very well. AC generally needs around three routes with some interconnections to have a good layout. This is a really broad generalization, but you get the idea.
Average: 6.25
RKTnoob never conesented his map to be submitted, because he thought it not good enough.
Persian came second on the custom content. As a man of my own heart, loving the wild west
Ronald, sorry to of left you in the dark. as "chairman" you can understand how annoyed I was that no one assisted me.
If I say overall, Whilst zero's content looked the best, Halo's played far better, so from the three, Halo wins.
RONALDS PM:
svn_chernobyl by Halo
Photo album
Theme: 7.5
Your theme is definitely historic, so no problems there. You didn't really do much to sell it in your map. You had the obvious (radioactive barrels), but you didn't really put your map anywhere in chernobyl as far as I could tell. Just a random structure somewhere.
Textures: 8.5
Your textures coalesce quite well. I really enjoyed the black brick walls used in the center room. Nothing quite special about the rest of the texturing. It works. Standard Halo texture set, nothing wrong there.
Lighting: 8
I've always liked your style of lighting. This map isn't anything super special compared to your past stuff. I am wary about marking your score down for this (so I wont) due to you can't always fix it, but make sure you make sure your mapmodels are always the same light value screenshot. You probably already know, but putting a light on top of the mapmodel and making it very small radius and adjusting the light output is a good method for making sure you have consistent lighting. Works for me at any rate.
Detail: 8.5
Your detail is really what sells this map. Your skymap is a wonderful choice for a powerplant like map. Your piping is also quite appropriate. Your ability to detail without mapmodels is probably undervalued. Example: screenshot, screenshot, screenshot. What is marking you down here is your number of mapmodels here, for instance your desk and storage cart and other areas have much more mapmodels than needed. Remember that people wont notice the extra cigarette while playing. You could probably knock your mapmodel count down to 600 by doing that. That being said, I love your usage of pipes: screenshot.
Sounds: 6
Nothing special, nothing bad. You added in sounds. Avoided the classic error of a sudden wall of sound when entering a not-so-special area. Maybe a touch slim on the sound?
Layout/Gameplay: 7.5
Your map was a bit confusing to me, however I think that probably is just me. Your bases were a bit too similar for my liking, and the enclosure in front of the RVSF base seemed a little superfluous and added some advantage for the RVSF. If you removed that or blocked it off you could also save some of the fps drop some people reported probably. Nothing special about your layout, but its decent and pretty balanced.
Average: 7.58
ac_pompeii By Z3RO
Photo album
Theme: 9
You sold your theme very well, possibly did the best job in the contest.
Textures: 8
You did a good job choosing your textures, however your chimney kinda lacked something or another. It was odd seeing a chimney without a hole screenshot.
Lighting: 8
Good job lighting, not much to say about it.
Detail: 8.5
I really like your detailing, it does a great job of selling the theme. Your bags of whatever, the torches, the wall vines, and the gates were all very nice touches. On problem was with a nook holding kevlar and akimbo screenshot. It seems superfluous and a little confusing. You can't pick these up, but yet they are pickups. It detracts from the map. It might work better in a present time military base, but not pompeii
Sounds: 0
No sounds.
Layout/Gameplay: 6.5
I hate to see this part of your map falter, because the rest of it was so very nice. The main issue is with your base location. They aren't on opposite sides of the map, it makes one huge chunk of the map pretty unusable for ctf modes unless the flag is contested. I doubt this area will get much traffic, and is kinda just excess map. The next issue is running into things. There is a lot of walls and such that are easy to run into when fighting. Going through the map again I'm exactly sure on the problems, but they were definitely there when playtesting.
Average: 6.67
ac_agora by MathiasB
Theme: 7
I couldn't really see greek in this. But your explanation made sense. I guess I was hoping for more stereotypical greek pillars and such.
Textures: 7.5
Your texturing is decent. I didn't notice anything special. With desert themed maps, its kinda hard to get anywhere new with the textures provided. It map very much falls more in the "classic AC" mapping style. The fact that you've been around for awhile comes through with this map. The layout and style is more 1004 esc to me. Its nice!
Lighting: 7.5
Again, your lighting is decent. You didn't do much with it. In this map, its just so you can see, rather than to look pretty. I guess on a desert map its harder to come up with good lighting. I saw no issues with it. Textures weren't blown out, dark places were dark.
Detail: 8.5
Detailing was good. I actually quite liked what you did with this map. Unlike the copious amounts of detail you commonly see with some newer maps (/me looks at Halo), which is good, this takes another route. The detailing done was just what you needed, however it didn't overpower you or hurt the experience. You didn't lag down the map with detail, you didn't hinder movement. You just gave it some depth and that was all that you need. Perfect AC style. One issue is that you need to make sure you never can (as a player) see the ground and skymap collide screenshot. Even when you jump. This is one of my pet peeves.
Sounds: 0
No sounds.
Layout/Gameplay: 8
Your gameplay was balanced. Although I didn't get a chance to test this in pubs (which seems to be the target audience for this map), it seemed like it could be quite fun in a pub of 6-12 people. It gave enough feasible routes to escape with the flag, and you had vertical movement, which I always appreciate in maps. It just seemed to work well. One problem I saw was with the north-east end of the map. I never could understand how those paths went. It was all very confusing for me.
Average: 6.42
ac_springtime by YesWeCamp
Photo album
Theme: 7
I suppose I'll count this as history. Your setting was nice. I'm interested, what actual historic events was this map based off of?
Textures: 8
Your texturing was actually quite well done with a desert style map. Here are a few places I really liked: screenshot, screenshot, screenshot. You found more textures that worked than what you normally see on desert style maps.
Lighting: 7.5
Standard lighting, not too dynamic, not super interesting, but works. Its lighting and you can see quite well throughout the map.
Detail: 9.5
Your detail was very interesting. I really enjoyed it actually. All of these places were done really well. screenshot, screenshot, screenshot, screenshot, screenshot, screenshot, screenshot, screenshot. Most of them displayed some sort of technique that I haven't really seen before. Your detailing was mostly with the geometry, and that earns extra points. This really shows how when detailing you don't always need to rely on mapmodels. Good job!
Sounds: 6
You added in sounds. Avoided the classic error of a sudden wall of sound when entering a not-so-special area. You may think about adding more sounds in.
Layout/Gameplay: 6.5
Your layout could've used some work. One thing is that it feels like it is mostly pathway rather than paths leading room to room. Another thing is having a center path that just dead-ends and leads to the outside paths are nice, but really confusing for awhile. It takes a bit to realize how to navigate around them. The map is also slightly biased towards RVSF. Another issue I found with the map was the abundance of pickups. Leaving the RVSF base, I can go down the center and pick up three healths in a matter of seconds.
Average: 7.42
ac_tut by Nightmare
Theme: 6
Well, this is most obviously a pyramid. But I believe the egyptian pyramids were a little taller, also I don't think you could walk up them like stairs.
Textures: 3
Three points for all three textures you used.
Lighting: 2
The lighting is really splotchy and undynamic. Not much done with this
Detail: 2
Your outer rectangles changed sizes.
Sounds: 4.8
You had sounds. Granted you didn't have much to work with, but they didn't really fit the map.
Layout/Gameplay: 5
This actually was fun to play. You had vertical movement, which made it a little more difficult to hit people with nades.
Average: 3.8
sr_deadwood by SrPER$IAN
Photo Album
I'd suggest looking through the photo album I posted and reading the captions after you read this review so you have an understanding of what I am talking about.
Theme: 8
Wildwest theme. Sold it well. Looked like a rundown wild west town. One thing preventing a good score is that this isn't particularly hard to achieve.
Textures: 6.5
Your textures weren't particularly cohesive, nor consistent. Your wood flooring was also used as the siding on a building. The same building in fact.
Lighting: 6
Lighting has one primary reason, provide illumination for players to see. Unless there is a spot that has a tactical reason to be dark, players should be able to see clearly every. Half of your map succeeded at this. It was too dark in many places. There are other secondary purposes that light fulfills. Light provides context for sections of the map. You seem to understand this, yellow lighting for rooms that had lamp light. Outside was much more flat light without warmth. The one issue is that your inside light isn't always inside. Sometimes you let it flood outside in confusing areas. Its hard to contain lighting in AC, but the trick is to use many smaller radius lights. Another secondary purpose is to bring depth to your textures. You didn't really understand this it seems. Your sand wasn't lit consistently lit. Sand tends to take light pretty evenly, and isn't splotchy. Even in the evening. I couldn't quite tell what texture your buildings were sometimes, in fact to judge the textures I had to turn on fullbright. Unless there is a good reason, you should be able to tell what each texture is. A good reason mostly contextual. Another reason to use lights is more thematic. Similar areas of the map should be lit the same, and there should be some reasoning behind the lighting. One common occurrence you see of this is the red base being red, the blue base being blue. This is more of a choice than anything. You don't need it, but when you start making more complex maps, this will help guide your players and make your map more intuitive.
Detail: 5.5
Your detailing was there, but subpar. I could walk through logs, barrels, and your doorframe was hanging away from the actual doorframe. I did appreciate the height fielding you did with the sand, although you need to work on it a little to make it a little less awkward.
Sounds: 6.5
Your sounds were there, sparse but there. Your whistling did add a nice effect. You could've added a wind sound to add to the effect of abandoned streets.
Layout/Gameplay: 5
Because your packaging was a mess, I didn't want to ask other people to help me test the map. But it isn't a terribly complicated layout. Its just a line with a bend in it, with a shortcut. In fact, a lot of wild west maps (across games) use this layout. Not particularly imaginative, nor does it fit AC very well. AC generally needs around three routes with some interconnections to have a good layout. This is a really broad generalization, but you get the idea.
Average: 6.25
RKTnoob never conesented his map to be submitted, because he thought it not good enough.
Persian came second on the custom content. As a man of my own heart, loving the wild west