Overall Mapping Help Needed

[Sowaka]

Hey, I'm very new to mapmaking and I'm using both polyworks and mapmaker to create a new map, the only problem is that I'm a total newlet when it comes to doing anything other than placing polygons and I am even having trouble with that.

Here is my map so far:
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c66/Sowaka/infiltrationtesties.jpg

It's meant to be an INF map and the five red bars to the lefti n the blue base are set so that only plays collide, they are meant to be more like camping spots for blues to defend. How does it look so far? Are there any suggestions? I purely made this for the leo servers and the INF server has FF and realistic on so it's mostly designed with that in mind. If anyone could help it would be greatly appreciated, if anyone wants, I could send them the map file for them to tinker with and make any improvements they want. Right now the shading really sucks, it's all just black and white and the polygons arnt really placed in a way that would help the shading process.

[Keron Cyst]

Wow. Even if it is only gray, nice shading on that middle rock for your first prototype! Some extremely good maps simply have gray shading if you view their untextured versions; a colored texture takes care of the rest, so go change it to something 1337 (easy in MM; central-top).

I've never played Leo's inf. server so I don't know about gameplay tweaks. Might want to change the bland background colors and throw in more scenery, possibly sandbags and boxes (lay colliders over them to give them an easy bullet-blocking effect).

[Sowaka]

Alright, well I'm no good with anything to do with textures so I ended up shading the polygons and made a copy of the black & white map just incase I wanted to go back to add in a coloured texture to see if it's better or not. I also made a few small changes around the map like a small ramp to guide people to the upper levels of the tunnels and added a few sandbags, although nto many and they arnt placed very strategically.

Here is the rseult:
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c66/Sowaka/inf_longcamps.jpg

I'm trying to avoid putting in scenery that isnt mine or that some people may not have so I think I'm limited to the default scenery that comes to the game, only problem is that I dont know which ones those are so I'm stuck using ones that I see in almost every map like the sandbags. How does it look so far? Anymore tips or pointers or help?

[viggoloniggolo]

here's a good tutorial

Help how to use polyworks here