Lost Campus v2.0

Played through it, and it's not too bad for a first Source map, but there's still plenty to improve.

The first thing I noticed was your awkward use of the gravel texture on those spikes all over the walls and a few pillars. Something like concrete or stone would fit better. Much of the other texturing left much to be desired as well. The texture you used for the ceiling up stairs didn't tile at all, and down stairs it looks like you've used the same texture for both the walls and the ceiling. Type "walls" or "ceiling" into the search bar when you're browsing textures to find some more appropriate candidates.

Looking at the pillars, as well as some of the windows, your vertex manipulation seemed pretty sloppy. There were visible cracks in the window and the pillars, not very nice.

Some ambient sounds would have been nice as well, like a wind effect outside. Soundscapes would have also made things more interesting.

You've also got a lot of things to learn about Source (of course). The reflections in the windows, for instance, were unnatural looking. To fix this you have to put and env_cubemap in each room at about eye level to the player, and after you've compiled type "buildcubemaps" into the console. After it's done, restart your map and the reflections will look just fine.
Another thing that reminded me too much of HL1 was the brush based doors, it generally looks much better to use models for that sort of thing. If the door model doesn't seem to fit, there's at least 12 other skins to choose from.
The drop off at the edge of the map was also pretty awkward, the displacements were cut off in a very unnatural way. You could have at least rounded them off so they curved underneath, or better yet added a skybox. I'm not going to outline how to do that here; it would make this post even longer than it needs to be. There are plenty of tutorials here and on other sites to help you out.

Overall, I give it a 2/5

Damn, that comment was way longer then I thought it was! Sorry if was too long winded about it.

Ok, thanks. I agree with most of your complains, but there are some elements in the map, which I think need some explanation:

Textures: I actually browsed the textures alot, to find the right texture for the walls, and this white wall came closest to the building, which I reconstructed. I know, I coud have used nicer textures, but I wanted to stay at least a bit true to the original building. And about the gravel texture...well the same story. The pillars in that building are covered with polystyrene, painted gray, and it looks kinda rough bumpy...but I can't really describe it, how it looks. I didn't find any stone texture, which came close to that colour / effect.

Here's a picture of the actual building, it's low-res, but at least you can see, what I was trying to recreate:

http://mastakilla.atw.hu/10_04.jpg

About the cracks: I know that there are cracks in those little pillars in the end of the ground level, guess because just resized from the bigger ones...gonna fix it. Aside from that, I only know of one crack, which is in one of the windows on the ceiling. I don't know how it has a crack, because in the editor it doesn't...well maybe I'll make a new one.

Ambience: Yeah, I was lazy. Gonna add some.

Cube maps: I actually have two env_cubemaps in the map, one for outside, and one for the tile floor inside. I actually tought, that the windows were ok, but if another cubemap can make it better, I'll try it.

Doors: Again, I searched the doors, but no-one came close to that ueber-design doors in the original building I think I'll stay at the brush-based doors, but agree, that it needs moar detail.

Displacements: Kinda fucked up when I made it, because once I finished with that huge-ass cliff, I noticed, that it was too small. Stretching and rounding them in the current state, that they are now, would make the textures more blurry. Well, whatever, gonna have to rebuild the whole cliff...

I see what you're trying to say, but those textures just make it look like shit in game. You should ether take some creative license or make your own to fit the building.

For the cubemaps I was referring to the doors leading into the two inaccessible classrooms on the first floor.

And as for the cliff, you could split it into two displacements to avoid stretching, or you could add an appropriately sized block down there and convert that to displacements.

I quite liked it, it's pretty good for a first Source map. It has problems, but I'd say it's worth more than two stars.

Most of your glass textures tend to flicker when you're moving your viewpoint across them. You can avoid this by texturing the glass solids entirely with the nodraw texture - and then just applying the glass texture to the one side that you need to be the glass window. Don't worry, this works no matter which way the player is looking through the window, even though it doesn't look like it will in Hammer.

And, although this doesn't affect all the windows, quite a few of them sound like wood when you whack them with the crowbar.....

It really needs a 3D skybox. A good one would add a lot to this map.

Your texture variety is good, but your actual use of the textures is only average. For example, on your wooden handrails you've applied a wood texture to all sides. This looks ok - but a bit Half Life 1'ish. If you spend time resizing, rotating (when needed) and lining up the textures so that the edges of them correspond to the edges of the solid as far as possible, then you'll end up with a much neater looking piece of work. It might seem a lot more work at first, but you can compensate by making a small section of what you're doing with this kind of attention, and then cloning that part to make the rail longer. That's what I do to make repetitive things like long railings.

As said earlier, your doors do leave something to be desired. However I liked the decoration you put on one of the inside ones. It's only a simple thing, but I thought it looked quite nice. And generally, I've seen much, much worse doors in other people's first Source maps.

Also as said before, you need to practice neatness with your vertex manipulation. There's nothing wrong with the VM in this map (IE the map works) but it could be somewhat neater. Improper VM can easily cause map-crushing errors, so it's worth being precise with it, for the sake of saving frustration in future projects.

Despite the flickery glass, the ornate window on top of the building looks very nice, especially when the sun glares through it There are also some other bits of architecture which are fairly impressive.

You have lots of potential.

Make some singleplayer stuff please.

Thank you for your review aswell K, I'll try to fix these problem zones.

And about SP mapping...well, like 5 years ago, when I started to map for HL, I wanted to make a small SP mod for Op4, but it was just waaay too much work for me (I wanted a huge-ass city, being split to approx. 5-6 maps, where the player can just explore, and then begin the main story, when he wants to) and I also didn't had a detailled plan. Maybe if I'll have enough inspiration and a cool story, I'll make a SP mod, but untill then, I'll stay at small projects.

The download died. Do you still have this map, Taylor?