The changes you'd like to see and some others are now on the FPSBANANA WiP section...
http://www.fpsbanana.com/studios/wips/view/20032

I'll update here and there.

Just had a quick go on a11, and it's looking good.

A couple of things;

When you go up the fire escape stairs, it looks really odd. Probably due to their steepness.

The roof could do with alternative access. Maybe add some stuff indoors on the top floor that allows you to jump up (not stairs, but behaves like them)

Ladder needed on fire escape bottom, though I'm sure you know that.

The back of the building is kinda dull, maybe add something here to make it interesting, a backdoor to the maintenance shaft, perhaps? Or even something more elaborate, just to make the area useful.

The maintenance ladder can be awkward to get onto and off on the various floors. Also, you can get onto the edge of the ladder and be blocked by the next floor for going up. Maybe stick the ladder on the opposite wall to the entrances (so you go to the lift and look left, it's directly infront of you) and extend the floor a bit into this area (so the whole is full except for the ladder hole, and you can get off the ladder to the left/right (depending on where you place it).

I like your ideas here. Yes the fire escape needs a bit of work and generally everything outside of the building needs a lot of work (more so than the inside now).

I'll add something interesting on the top floor

By request, the glass on the roof is no longer breakable in a12.

I didn't get chance to do much on the map last night, Hammer was crashing and my compiles were taking over 5 minutes compared to the usual minute or so. I think I had a background virus scan in progress (company laptop).

a13 introduces a front car park with steps leading up to the building, with a small pathway running underneath between the two maintenance entrances. At the moment it's very bland and my measurements aren't very good so I might be changing back to developer textures here... I've added concrete steps, and cover points in this car park already, but the textures are messy and the compile seemed to take a long time after adding this - I may well have some overlapping brushes.

Sounding good.

I just realised something else - you only have Windows on the front, I take it you plan to add them elsewhere?

Yes. All the windows need to be redesigned... they are 'faulty'

So who wants to have a bash on a12 again tonight? I added something funny that I forgot to show off...

Skillers knows about it though I connected at about 00:30 this morning just so I could show him.

Heh, that's a brilliant egg.

Don't show them Aaron! Let us pwn them with it!

Agreed

I should be on tonight but not really for very long. I'm helping my girlfriend to cook something, not that she needs any help, she's a bit of a whizz when it comes to filling me up... with food.

I should be revising tonight, lol.

Same, I should be doing some tests/exams.

I am working hard to clean up de_tchs_office for a beta release some time soon.
I'm adding some major components now... and spicing up the access points and filling things out.
I'm adding a 3D Skybox with buildings on the horizon - surrounding buildings, and other small buildings that you can actually access...

The next release will be in about a weeks time. Unfortunately I don't think that I can release something between now and then as some parts of the map have actually been removed (dev stairs for instance) making it unplayable - also, all textures have been removed and replaced with nodraw. nodraw is my best friend.

Looking good!

You could release a version with the nodraw textures for fun, lol.

The thing about nodraw is that it is not drawn at all! It isn't just a texture saying 'nodraw' on it, it's just ignored when compiling so it would be like trying to work your way through a maze with invisible walls

When you looked at one side of my ladder, it had the nodraw texture on it and you could see completely through it - if you looked at the building through the area where the ladder should have been - the building disappears also. Intersting...

I know what nodraw is, and I think it would be fun xP

LOL OK.

It would be impossible to play... no walls, floors, no nothing!
If you really wanted it though, then I don't see why not

Also, there's no skybox at the moment

Impossible is easy! I think it would be a really good laugh, though, lol.

Call it de_tchs_office_a12_nodraw or something, lol.

Here's another update I made at work:



I've found a really quick way of making spiral steps... I'll make a YouTube tutorial and post it on here I couldn't find any external tutorials for it. Well, to be honest, I couldn't be bothered to look - I had a dream about how I would make spiral stairs in Hammer and when I put my dream in motion it worked first time.

That looks really cool... I don't know how you do it, mate... good job!

What are all the white blobs for?

They are cubemaps, they make the reflections and shading work properly. I've scattered them uniformly at the moment but I'll scatter them constructively during a beta.

They are supposed to be used where a dark area meets a light area, to make sure that the correct reflection shows on your weapon, and on brush faces with reflective textures. It doesthis by taking 6 snapshots (6 faces of a cube) and working out how much brightness there is, what colours there are etc. They do not show accurate reflections and only show low resolution reflections - check out gg_tchs_simplemix and look at the glass on the top level, you'll see a super-low resolution reflection of the bright orange TCHS text above you. If you had a cubemap in a light area and forgot to put it in a dark area - your weapon would appear bright and reflective textured brush faces would reflect a bright light incorrectly. The de_dust maps have the best cubemaps in the world!

Ah, ok, weird things.

the stairs are looking good, though you might want to tighten the sides up a bit.

The stairs are still really incomplete... untextured and everything, they need handrails and realistic supports instead of just glued on to the pillar in the middle. Each time the stairs are modified, they need to go through a type of compilation process... but that will make sense when I show you how it's done.

Hmm, I personally think they look quite cool unsupported, but maybe need connectors between each step.

I like the design at the moment too... as long as people don't find it too distracting I can keep it we need to play-test them yet, I don't even know if they look the correct size!

I also think that simply by adding handrails to something makes it look a lot more sturdy... I mean check out the fire escape - it really doesn't have that much outer support and people didn't say anything!

Want me to release a quick alpha tonight?

I think minimalist handrails would be cool - make it modern looking.

You are right about handrails making things look sturdy, lol. (probably because they usually do).