I needed to get all my "notes to self" about age building organized and decided I may as well start a thread here and share my little tidbits of knowledge. Besides, this way maybe someone else will share too .
- Increment. Every single time something is added and I get it right, increment the age. Sooner or later, I'm going to make a big mistake and not discover it till it's too large to correct. Incrementation will save my butt when that happens.
- Don't get too ambitious when a "great" new idea comes to my mind. It's much better and faster to try a new texture idea out on a cube or a sphere in a test age than to build a great big landscape and then discover the texture I wanted to use looks awful in the actual game.
- Perfect lighting is directly dependent on perfect geometry. Don't blast out a quick messy model and expect the lighting to make it all better. It won't work.
- It's better to build something simple and build it really well than to attempt to build the most fantastic, awesome, never-before-seen age and mess the whole thing up.
- Other people actually do know things that I don't. When in doubt, ask.