basic mapping tips 10 importain ones if you have more please post them

[cactusfrog]

#1 Do not overlap brushes ever! The main reason for this is because it creates errors in your map where you loose rooms that you have been working on for hours. brushes that appear in gtkradiant don't appear after a compile things basically end up a mess.
#2 Plan ahead before you start mapping plan it out and follow your plan exactly. There is nothing worse then ending up with a bunch of rooms that don't connect. This also ends up saving you a lot of time because when you map you can just map you don't have to think about layout or anything else.
#3 If you have a problem search for the answer in this order.
A. Google your problem
B. go to a site with good tutorials and read them
C. go on an IRC
D. go to the tremulous forums and find the AIM of good mappers or contact me
E. only if have talked to a smart mapper and existed all other resources should you post on the tremulous forums. Make sure you follow these rules:
    a. use proper grammar and spell check everything
    b. provide as much detail as you can in your can select the faces of  brushes and texture them different instead of making whole new brushes.
#5. Don't use more detailed textures then you need because you will end up with a 40mb map like mine.
#6. use texture aligner when gesturing a brush. the default key for it is S
#7. Don't use ATCS textures.
#8. add stuff to your map don't make long boring hallway.
#9. make your map interesting. Don't make another atcs remake or a water treatment plant. Add interesting Triggers and cool shaders make your map fun they don't have to be cannons ether they can be the lockable doors on pulse or they can be transporters just make it different.
#10 Dont make only one way to get places add at least two ways tyrants can enter a base.

[Archangel]

all of these are sorta obvious. except #7. what's wrong with ATCS textures? as long as you don't use them exclusively, they're fine ...

[nubcake]

From my experience

1) Use lights with no greater strength than 200, as 2x lights with 200 strength spread out look better than one 400 strength light.
2) Shader lights look alot more natural than entity lights
3) It is better to texture walls from the start, rather than build you map from caulk.
4) When you start caulking, you can do it after you have finished your map (which means you may not get every part), or as you go along (which saves you doing it at the end). I prefer the former, as it allows to go through your map and pick up texturing flaws, overlapping brushes or any other flaws you may not have noticed before.
5) If you are stuck on something. Take a break then go back to it. If you keep at it, it usually turns out to be something else.
6) Generally, for outdoor maps, make everything in the map detail, then go back and select the structural brushes. This is because there are generally more details than structural brushes (depending on map also....)

[Evoc]

My three tips:

-use caulk
-always ctrl+shift+click to select one side of a brush
-gameplay > visuals

[n.o.s.brain]

gameplay = visuals 

also, some of those rules are subject to personal mapping style.

[Samurai.mac]

I'd have to argue with Nubcake's #3 and #4. It's almost impossible to find every non-visible surface to Caulk it once your map has been built, it's better to Caulk everything first then texture it. However, since texturing can be an incredibly long and boring task, I often build a small section out of Caulk, texture whatever is visible, then move on to the next section. It strikes a nice balance between efficiency and sanity.

[Kaleo]

Never use an _ambient value, and if you feel you must, don't ever, EVER make it more than 5.

[Archangel]

a very super low ambient level, actually can look nice, if it is a shade of colour representing your map.

[Kaleo]

If you need to use an ambient value, it means your map doesn't have enough lights.

However, yes, an _ambient 1 value with, say, a red tinge could add a certain something.

If you're having Q2 nostalgia, try slapping a orange tinge on everything.

[Archangel]

When I was working on my volcano base map I had a slight red tinge via ambient, along with my normal lights. It looked really good, because the red was only noticable in the darker areas.