I love how you have it looking, the overcast just adds to the feel. On the other hand you're starting to get a bit tooo detailed. You can get way to detailed and have it start lagging for those with medium to lower end computers. Seems like you're spending a bit too much time on the center unless you're expecting this to be much like King (Chris's map) which took him about 3 years to complete
I'm not planning on it to take that long. I'm just trying to create and empires map that has great gameplay, and looks good. I'm currently doing the main layout of the whole map. There will be no other resource point besides a few in the main bases and in the middle. So when a team has been entirely push back into their base, they still have a chance to win. Since infantry combat brings the best out of teamplay in Empires I'm making most areas infantry friendly. But I still leave enough room for armour combat to keep the map fun and balanced.
A general rule of thumb whilst mapping is to make the action-intense areas , aka "the center" not as graphically intensive because they will have to handle the most players/vehicles etc. If you want to put super nice details in, do so somewhere on the way to the center. Not to say the center can't look nice. Just don't go crazy there, of all places.
nicely put, i can remember a map named emp_railroad that had the same idea you had there Mr. Sunrise. It had it's moments.
I was looking at the shots and think the space between the buildings could use a little bit more work as right now it is just kind of flat. Put some more props/decals in or vary the terrain a little bit? Just don't go crazy. .. .
By my standards, this has very low detail in it. I know Empires requires a completely different mapping style. Ill try to get a Alpha vesrion ready soon. Maybe then you could help me with testing the map on framerates and gameplay. Ill post some more images tomorrow.
I like it. I'll help you test it for alpha if you like. It's easier to get a feel for the map in game, but I was thinking maybe a dumpster or something between those two buildings.
