Xen-Crisis mod for Half-Life

Мод где?

Hello, I like the atmosphere of the screenshots you posted! The lighting is pretty good.

However, I have the feeling the way you go about mapping is creating a fairly basic architecture then filling it with details to make it more visually interesting.

My personal opinion is that you should prioritise the architecture over details, especially with Goldsource. By architecture I mean the shapes and textures of any structural element, like walls, ceilings, or floors (i.e. what forms the layout of the map) as well as the map lighting. This could be having different room heights, non-perpendicular shapes like rounded corners or inclined walls, beams supporting the roof, a network of pipes running through the map, etc. Those are just ideas. Texture and lighting diversity are also important.

Not only will this generally result in less polygons that just filling cubic rooms with as many details as possible, it’s also a more pleasant process (at least to me) to think of an overall interesting architecture than to fill rooms with details. I think it also results in maps that are more interesting to look at, and it can also help the gameplay. (Props don’t add anything to the gameplay, the architecture does.)

Only once you are satisfied with the general aspect of your architecture should you start adding details.

I know those are early screenshots though.

As for the details already present in your screenshots, don’t forget to put trims around glass, it really looks bad without. You should also use at least the VHLT v34 and its FGD, it can make your glass look better in dark areas with the "ZHLT Embed Light Map" keyvalues.

Interesting, I'll put it on the list.

The screenshots doesn't look bad but mind the scale, some of the rooms look too empty, others look too big.