Down the slippery slope of detailing
Detail passes are almost complete for map 1, while map 2 is slowly coming together. Map 3 is almost finished now, with a final detail pass or two to come. The problem being, once you start detailing, it can start getting out of hand to the point that you want to detail absolutely everything! One building starts to look trash, compared to the more detailed version. So you go back and start detailing that one. Then the next. Then the next. It's not such a bad thing when you're aiming for a super detailed and 'real' world, but sometimes the engine doesn't want to play along.
Map 1 hit the entity limit once before, so some lesser seen decals were removed and the beam wall at the end of the train ride was replaced with a good old Combine shield wall to start with, cutting out around 30+ entities in one go! These savings were then used to help add extra details and bits and pieces to the rest of the map.
Heres some comparison shots below of before and after detail passes were made:
Befores:
Flat, boring, not very inspiring. They did the job, sure, but after beginning to add some extra details, it very quickly got out of hand.
As you can see, there is some finishing off to do, but by adding the extra building details, taking the time to do some extra 'fancy' brushwork and adding small detail props here and there, it's completely changed the look and feel from 'suitable but boring' to something that looks so much better. These will be available as VMF's after release, with the buildings and their detail brushworks included to use as prefabs and building tools.
Next time there should be some updated gameplay videos and lots more screenshots, hopefully with some new areas completed.
-Agent Ataraxia-
