Tango

those look stellar. I love the lighting contrast!

appreciate seeing everyone's thoughts so far. looks like a lot of folks are in the same boat! I definitely wouldn't disagree that this could be a big part of the issue, for me at least. however, I think the main reason I have been able to make so many basically-complete maps lately is precisely because I don't force myself to finish a map before starting a new one. if I don't feel like finishing that tech map today, but I'm feeling inspired to make a hell map, then I let myself do that and follow today's inspiration. without this mindset, I found it really hard for me to be as productive as I am now, even if I still am striving for ever-distant standard of quality yeah I think striving for something like this - bite-sized maps that you (the mapper) can complete in a reasonable amount of time, but not necessarily with the same roughness as speedmaps - might be the cure for me, or at least a stepping stone. if everyone took their unfinished dream project and downsized it by 50% or 75% (either in terms of map quantity or size), would it be complete by now? for me the answer is definitely yes, and I would be able to do so without sacrificing the integrity of my vision of the project. so... I guess I ought to do that, otherwise it's going to be another few years before I can get these maps out the door, and I don't want to wait that long

you'll get there :D

I've realized that I could have released probably a solid dozen or two maps over the past few years if I lowered my standards a bit for what I'd consider to be release-quality for myself. I've got a good handful of small-ish speedmaps of varying quality, and then a bunch of larger maps, which are either completely original works or reworks of previous maps, that seem to be taking me forever because my ambition for quality is waaay ahead of my current mapping velocity. As a result, I'm starting to question whether it's worth it for me to keep chasing some ever-rising bar of quality for myself that leads to things taking years to complete, or whether I need to more frequently just cut my losses and release less-polished work, in the hope that over time, the gap narrows between my mapping speed and my bar for quality. I'm interested in hearing how many other folks have dug themselves into the same hole, and how deeply (ie how many maps?), both for the sake of my own curiosity, and maybe to urge folks to lower their standards a bit.

that looks awesome @Scotty, I love the atmosphere and the texture combos you're using. on an unrelated note, I recently played your map in DMP2016 and it has become one of my favorite maps ever :D

what's wrong with making an account to ask for help?

looks awesome Scotty :D

lol i like the screenshot of the fireblu box. this looks really cool though, I am a big fan of this mapping style and have enjoyed your previous maps

this isn't to say that Gimp or some other editing program wouldn't have a place in your editing workflow - but I think things will be unquestionably harder if you don't have slade working. I have encountered the same dll errors as you before and I am pretty sure I fixed it by just finding the right dlls on the web and placing them inside my slade directory, and then the problem went away

looks absolutely beautiful. what is your mapping process like for working on things of this scale, @dobu gabu maru?

looks excellent. can't wait to get my hands on this texture set whenever it becomes public

here are some before/after shots of a very Gusta-inspired speedmap I made last weekend vs the final-ish product after a week of tune-ups:

I don't know the technical details, but anecdotally at least, running a mod like PB on my laptop led to excruciatingly bad performance, even with low resolution. I ended up switching up my GZDoom settings to run in software mode instead of hardware/GL mode and performance was instantly way better. so that might be worth trying, if you're currently running GZDoom with the hardware renderer!

this looks great! I am looking forward to play it :D

I really like the look of all these shots :D I think this gstone area could really benefit from some lighting contrast though. even reducing the lighting underneath the marbface cubes would help, but you could add even more contrast with more inset wall details with lower light levels (like the spine detail on the wall), or with some large architectural features (like beams) running across larger parts of the area