interior decoration Created 18 years ago2005-08-24 17:55:06 UTC by Mariowned

interior decorating in my maps always gives me a headache... i was wondering if anyone would accept the challenge of making a "interior decorating tutorial" i would gladly do it... if i were half decent at it

hope someone is down for the challenge thanks

Whats interior decoration?!?

like designing a house (chairs windows computers) stuff to decorate a room

Ohh...stuff like furniture! On which are you talking about? Source based or Hl based? If it's source based then you need to know how to model(all these damn props) and if you mean for Hl1 then whats so special about furniture that needs a tutorial?

im talking about hl1, yea u could slap a bunch of furniture in a room but when i do it... it just doesnt feel right... maybe even an example map would help... just a suggestion

Well for this you just need to look at rooms,houses,movies,pictures,other maps/mods...ect and learn how every thing is orgenized in a room.(could be an office,living room...ect)

Let me translate for Elon...

Make your rooms like real life as much as possible. Go out there and look at rooms and buildings to get your ideas.

i no u guys are trying to help but if uve seen any of my maps i go for fun over quality.. i was just hoping someone could share a few tricks or something to make a room look nice without me spending too much time on it... thanks for the tips and if u got anymore let em rip

hmm... I wish I could bring my arctitecture class book home and scan a few pages off for you, but I can not. My only suggestion is what I said above, sit in a room in your house and sit down. Take a good... 5 minutes to look around at everything. You'll be amazed how much you pick up. Besides that, well, I guess it's really a time issue, the more time you spend mapping, the better you get at these things.

i found some pics to help me and i guess im just gonna have to sit down for a couple hours messing with furniture... thanks for ur help and this is gonna be my first more realistic map (scaling and stuff) but its still based on fun... well im gonna submit it when im complete so wish me luck

A brush up on arctitecture!

• Always make a border for windows: A window set directly into a slab of concrete or brick looks funny

• Add at least one support plank/beam to chairs, beds, tables, desks..: Almost nothing has just the four legs going all the way up to the actual component. Like add a (X) formatin of wooden planks to the middle on the char legs.

• Give floors borders, unless made of carpet

• Try not to fill your map up with completely flat walls, have some bent, sticking out (Aligned with textures) or have columns inbedded in the wall.

Here are just a few basics to think about, its really just about technique and techniques are personalized. So I suggest that you just practice.

I don't have stuff that stick out of my wall so sometimes it's not such a good advice! not all rooms have an intresting layout in reality and may make it look stupid!

I realize this, this is why I suggested that the map be not COMPLETELY made of flat walls, flat walls are fine if you do it right. But even reality hardly has completly square rooms and hallways for enitre structures

This may sound dumb, but with the proper lighting in a room, you can sometimes compensate the lack of detail. For example, the HL levels with the FIFTIES texture set look fine (at least they did years ago), but if you take a look at them in fullbright mode, they're really not that great.
With low lighting, you can also highlight which part of that interior space is really important. (Think about the scientist with the flashlight hidden in a crawlspace in Blue-Shift)

Dark spots can speak to a player's imagination, making him think the stuff that should be there, is there, while it's really just not there. Yes, lighting plays an important role.

Another thing is, I think, just feeling. The best thing is to just spend some time on it, familiarizing yourself with detailing a map. Looking up on reference photo's and all is definitely a good thing to do. Look at other maps and try to figure out why they feel right - or why they don't. What did other, better, mappers do to make the player feel like he's in a real environment? How could you translate that to your map?
What would people definitely notice when it wasn't there? What would people normally expect in an environment like that? Ask yourself those questions.
Often, there's a form of logic behind it. While couches do fit in a living room, placing them in front of a door doesn't make sense, and therefor destroys that feeling of place you tried to create by adding the couch in the first place. I've seen some maps that had oil pipes in them. That was good - it was an oil refinirey or some sort of pumping station. What didn't feel right was that pipe on one end of the wall, and no pipe on the other hand. Where did the pipe go? Those little things are just logic - but failing at them could make your map feel that much less 'right'.

If you want to add some detail to break up the plainness of a room, don't put them all in one place. That only enhances the lack of detail in the rest of the room.

Coming into a square room with a picture over a table with a lamp, an ashtray, a book and a bottle on it when the rest of the room is comprised of a couch and a chair makes the couch and chair look pretty plain.

Spread the details around.