I want to make a BTS area for the player to kind of run through, but I'm not sure how exactly to create that BTS feel. What kind of textures are most commonly used in those areas? What kind of lighting or props add to the atmosphere?

play the game?

rellikpd wrote:
play the game?

Seeing what the BTS areas look like is one thing. Knowing the names of textures, the lighting values, and the atmosphere sounds used is completely different.

Let's assume I'm not a professional level designer who's been using the Source engine for very long, and I don't know what prefabs are used for the railings of the staircases, or what kind of metal textures look best as the steps, nor do I have any knowledge of color theory, so picking out a proper lighting value doesn't come as second nature, and then go from there.

There are 1 or 2 Wiki articles that have common prop and texture names, but I'm not sure if they have any BTS models or textures. Really your best bet would be to just search using keywords like "metal". I'm not sure if "bts" is in any of the texture names, but there might be a Category for them. If not, you can always just change the Category to Portal and search through there.

Filter name by bts and keyword by portal.

Profit.

You'll spot the BTS textures easily. The concrete is all dirty, and the metal is not box-like but rusty plate-like.