Outdoorsy/swamp maps?

[MajorRawne]

Hi all, I was wondering if anyone could point me towards good outdoor-themed maps, with particular reference to hills, valleys and swamp terrain? I'm looking for ways to make my terrain seem more natural and slightly more attractive than it is now.

Here are shots of my map in its current state:

[joe-ilya]

Community chest 2-4 has some impressive nature layouts.

[scifista42]

Thy Flesh Turned into a Draft Excluder E4M3, or Knee Deep in the Jungle.

[esselfortium]

There's a lot of outdoor terrain in MAP20 of Back to Saturn X episode 2, including swamps, a cliffside climb, and a beach.

[scifista42]

BTSX E2's hub maps (MAP05, MAP11, MAP16, MAP23) also have nice outdoors.

[MajorRawne]

Thanks, chaps, I'll check all of these out. How do my screenshots look? I now respect how difficult it is to create a moody, bleak environment without it looking like Doomguy's toilet.

[Gez]

Play some Hexen. Especially hub 2 in the original game. Also won't hurt to try Kaiser's Shadow of Chronos.

[Varis Alpha]

The Talosian Incident has some canyon levels set on an alien world (it's only really alien if you read the backstory, where your ship crash lands on a planet called Talos IV, i believe), but most of its levels involve you running around old ruins, castles, and tech bases.

[scifista42]

MajorRawne said:

How do my screenshots look?

They look okay and quite natural, except that the ZIMMER and ASHWALL2 pillars look anything but natural. I also don't recommend to abuse grainy textures like ASHWALL7 and FLAT10, unless you have a specially fitting usage for them.

[Salt-Man Z]

Gez said:

Play some Hexen. Especially hub 2 in the original game. Also won't hurt to try Kaiser's Shadow of Chronos.

This exactly. Darkmere in particular for swamps.

[mouldy]

MajorRawne said:

How do my screenshots look?

I think adding some trees would help make it look more outdoorsy

[Dave The Daring]

This is something I'm interested in improving as well.

MajorRawne said:

Thanks, chaps, I'll check all of these out. How do my screenshots look? I now respect how difficult it is to create a moody, bleak environment without it looking like Doomguy's toilet.

Your screenshots look pretty good to me. One thing I'm starting to introduce into my maps is height variation, by essentially wrapping sky sectors around the edges of cliffs and buildings and changing the ceiling height. BTSX episode 1 has some very clever examples of this technique. It can be tricky to get right, but when you do, it's very effective.

[Not Jabba]

Mordeth E1 is pretty much all set outdoors, in a swamp. Looks very nice too.

[Jimmy²]

*coughs hoarsely*

Might be dropping another beta soon so stay tuned or whatever. :P