A complete remake of Portal on the Portal 2 engine. I'm first going to recreate the entire game, with the same puzzles, story, etc. Also, if you see an update of a chamber further on in the game, this doesn't mean I'm that far, I'm not going to make the maps in order.
Chamber 09 More Foliage
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There ya go!
Good, but I don't like how the plants come from the ceiling and go back to the ceiling in the middle of the room. If you agree, I think you should make those plants smaller, and just let them react to gravity (so they would be placed vertically). And the plants near the door are too widely spaced. But I like how the button looks like ;).
Wow. This, uh, needs a lot of work. Those bushes are clipping terribly, and plants shouldn't grow straight out of the tiles like that. Personally, I think you should just keep to making the clean test chambers. The textures are good, though.
What texture clipping?
You really have to add fog! But hey, the rest looks okay! Only the walls are looking too clean and straight.
Needs a lot of work. You should add holes to the ceiling and create light sources coming from them so it looks like natural light is shining from the sky, the old light sources need to be turned off, There should be missing/damaged wall and floor tiles, needs to be darker, The plant's should be hanging down from the holes in the ceiling or just hanging downwards from walls, this does need more work.
I really wish you guys would try to understand that my style doesn't have to be identical to Valve's. I'm keeping the isolated feel from Portal, so no, I'm not going to have huge gaping holes where you can see endless nothingness. Instead you'll just see more of the structure
But is sill just makes logical sense to break abart tiles with a decayed test chamber that's experiencing overcrowth. Plus the sunlight would be the only way to sustain the plant life, which should be growing from damaged tile, not undamaged, nearly pristine tile. This screen just looks like you went apeshit with the vegetation tool without any sort of planning ahead of time.
Don't try to act like you know what you're talking about, you must have no idea how the source engine works if you really thing there's a vegetation tool.
Each of the vines and plants are carefully placed props, and by the looks of you're profile you don't have any experience with mapping, so I disregard your advice.
Disregarding the advice of someone who isn't in the same league as you is elitist and rude. AAA developers often take the advice of fanbases and game publications, even if they aren't developers themselves. I'm not trying to pretend I know anything about the technical aspects of mapping. I'm just trying to offer constructive criticism from the eyes of a gamer. Each of the plants should look like they belong there and were grown there, not like they were tacked onto tiles.
Okay, go ahead and play some of Valve's maps. All of the ground plants are just coming out of the tiles, and the only reason nobody notices that is because they have the idea in their head that Valve's maps are flawless.
You sure about that?
I went throught the entire overgrown stage for you, and this is what I found:
Steamcommunity.com
Ground foilage grew from debis piles, broken tiles, and dirt mounds, and hanging vines draped down only from scaffolds. No plants grew randomly out of tiles.
I'm agreeing with Kevlar here. I've recently just got into Portal 2 mapping and I always draw out a quick 'foliage diagram' so I can interpret where sunlight is coming through, where foliage will be unobtrusive for the player and I then plant the props in hammer accordingly. You are basing these off Portal maps so you don't really need to draw diagrams. But open your artistic imagination a bit, maybe add some sunlight coming in from the ceiling etc.
Also, Kevlar has given some pretty solid advice. Please don't judge him based on his "visible" mapping experience. If everyone did this, then nobody would learn and the mapping community would just be killed off.
This is not true, and I'm not saying this is bad advice, but that last statement you said is not true at all. I don't know about you guys, but I have certain contributors that I look up to, reeplue, skinnycap, groxkiller, and the list goes on, but this does not mean I have to emulate their mapping styles. If you want to give me some advice that doesn't majorly alter the mood of my mod, then please do so. For example, logical sunlight whilst keeping the isolated feel.
There might be a way to have the sun light and keep the isolated feel. When I go through test chamber 04 at the start of p2 I feel lonely because you can hear the sound of wind going through the chamber and the sound of metal creaking adding an isolated and lonely silent theme, try it, it might work. :)
In terms of using sunlight whilst still keeping an isolated feel. As geoffegg mentioned, mood can often be portrayed through sounds, so try and experiment with a few. You could already have some excellent sounds in there, it's just impossible to tell, being a screenshot. :P
Also, Valve seem to create the isolated mood by having sunlight from above, BUT having it very high up from the test chamber with non-portable surfaces on the walls. Maybe add some broken pipes and stuff blocking the way. It sort of creates the "Civilization is up there, but there is no chance it hell I can get up to it" feel.
Alternatively,make all your foliage 'dead' and suggest (using panels or something blocking the way) that sunlight used to shine in this chamber, But has now been cut-off. Possibly a better option if you want to player to feel really isolated.
The last option you stated sounds very probable! I may actually do this, but for now I'll work on some more clean chambers.
Good start but the plants need to come from somewhere, maybe a small hole in the ceiling or somthing?