Get ready to build:
I'm sure everyone CAN build, It's just a question of quality, and patience. Here's a small list of things you should think about:
1. Make a good template for your bricks. (Press "B" ingame, and re-arrange the bricks as you want them)
2. Make your self comfortable, get some snacks, sit down and relax before you start building.
3. Focus. Ignore the chat for a second, or make a closed server. It will help.
4. Patience; It's the key to good build, don't rush it, a good build can take weeks to finish.
5. Go get yourself a good color palette, I use Zonearks, but ask your friends wich one they're using.
6. Download the tools needed, I use Multigun, Duplicator, and the Fillcan.
A few notes:
If you spend enough time
not fussing over your brick load, you will get so fast at getting the next brick you need that you don't need to worry about brick load at all.
Also on 4, if your build is taking that long you are probably spending the time getting everything just right before you move on to the next section. Learn from the pros:(no, not "building pros", I mean people who level design for a living) Block it out first before fine tuning and detailing. Valve, for example, blocks out levels using "orange" dev textures before texturing and applying detail.
The difference of course being perspective. Valve maps are meant to be played, builds are meant to (usually) be looked at. This is an issue as your brick count will increase exponentially for all the extra points of view you have to cover. Say the player is in an inescapable trench. In this case only the parts the player will see(inside of trench) need to be created. But when that trench is a build, things wont look right if you don't make everything created.
While this looks awkward from above
It looks fine(aside from lack of detail) from the players perspective.
This is all part of making your build seem larger than it really is, a carefully crafted illusion skill that is underused. If you keep the player within certain bounds, you can use this and other shortcuts. For example, the barred off area. As you can see, the trench turns and disappears after the bars. Another shortcut. We don't have to build what they wont see, and we can get by
without creating an actual end to the trench. This keeps the knowledge of just how far it might go away from them, and presents a feeling of an actual world rather than just a build.
