When it comes time to detail a Team Fortress 2 level, the path most mappers take is one of trying to make everything look visually stunning, no matter how important or unimportant the area in question is. Even if detail is planned out beforehand, the initial reaction seems to be to make sure everything is a point of visual interest. Unfortunately, this is not the proper way to handle detailing: in TF2, gameplay and visual elements are closely tied together, and their relationship must be considered when detailing, because your points of visual interest are what the player should interpret as points of interest to the level’s gameplay.
This is why the TF2 world is static, with the exception of dynamic gameplay elements. There are only a couple animated props in the game used for detailing, and are not large or upfront in their presence. Smoke trail particle effects do not stand out, but silently add to the environment. Environment objects which do move or change are either direct gameplay elements (capture points, intelligence briefcases, payload carts, dynamic signs) or are environment hazards which affect gameplay (trains, saws) and have loud, clear sound effects to announce their presence. Any other dynamic elements are players, engineer buildings, or projectiles: things pertinent to playing the game.
However, detailing for TF2 does not just end at “keep the world static”. Detail is carefully distributed and allocated in the world for certain reasons, scaling the amount of it to where it is located. I’m going to call this the density of detail. This concept of density of detail can be found in any of Valve’s maps, but to demonstrate, I’m going to use a particular scene from Dustbowl that I think truly embodies it.
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