vonSkellington

a Narrative Designer with extensive experience as Level Designer and Cinematic Designer for games

[vonskellington]

New year - new life

I had planned to finish the Ut4-level before the new year - that didn’t quite pan out...

I was stuck on the third major section of the level for almost a month. Did like 10 iterations before I decided to take a step back. Came back a week later and realised that the whole section wasn’t needed at all. Nuked it and focused on making the other two feel tighter.

Then I got sick and was unable to work for some weeks.

Then came christmas and christmas things.

Then the new year. And after picking it up again I’ve come to the conclusion that progress is slower than it should need to be (for reasons listed below) and that I need to start over to move forward. 

I will re-make it with this in mind:

1. Power of two. The 5x5 grid is nonsense. Haven’t found a good reason for it. It only slows me down. I try to stay on the 50 cm grid when blocking out stuff, but then when I need to do something smaller than that (usually half of that) need to switch to 5 cm grid, zoom in and count to make sure I am placing things on half of 50 cm. Might seem like a minor thing but it is enough for me to question why I force myself to not use a classic grid.

2. Blocking meshes. I’ll create several simple blocking meshes or a clever entity that has different options for shape and size. BSP just aint working anymore. I used to think Unreals BSP was superior compared to other editors 15 years ago but today it is too stiff and cumbersome. It needs to be as quick as placing meshes for me to use it.

3. Use the 3d-view only. I've rarely needed the orthographic views when level designing professionally the last 10 years, but that is also because I’ve relied only on meshes/entities with different snap options instead of BSP.

Unfortunately though, I need to move on to other projects now and I’m not sure when I’ll pick up this level again.

[vonskellington]

Been travelling the last couple of weeks. Spent some time in Vienna and took some reference images of the environment. Vienna used to be like my second home and I just love the architecture there. One of my favorite architects, Otto Wagner, was a big part of Viennese architecture around the turn of the last century. If you are interested in architecture - especially late 1800 and early 1900s Jugendstil - I would recommend a visit.

[vonskellington]

I mentioned in an earlier post that I tried to limit the view between larger areas. The image above illustrates two cameras/players placed in separate halls with a connecting corridor in between. As long as the camera in the North hall stays in its own hall it should not be able see anything in the South hall and vice versa. And if they are in the Connecting area they should not be able to see both the North and South hall at the same time.

There are three reasons for doing this:

1. Gameplay. To avoid creating unintentional camper spots it is good to break up areas like this as they limit the view. Although you don’t want to make the transition area to narrow or maze-like as that could have a bad impact on the player navigation flow.

2. Optimization. If geometry and assets are loaded (or shown/hidden) by line of sight you might end up loading more than needed if you see only a small piece of it, which can affect performance badly. And if areas are loaded by area triggers you might accidentally show empty spaces or hall of mirrors if you don’t have enough transitional space between areas.

3. Cosmetics. If two large areas have very different environment light properties you will end with very obvious light fades as you go between these areas. And if for instance the North hall has an out-doors-y bright lighting with far fog falloff and the South hall has an in-doors-y dark thick fog it will still look out-doors-y if you stand in the North hall looking into the South hall. Therefore it is a good idea to block line of sight between these areas and also hide the fade between light presets with a transitional area.

Even if these points do not apply to this map or game engine I still try to obey these rules. It is an old habit that doesn’t hurt to follow.

[vonskellington]

Current version of the lower hall is more open and more outside than I first had in mind - more of a backyard. The exact layout will have to go through some testing, but I’ll leave it like this for now.

[vonskellington]

This is where I am at right now. Area A is outdoor and more open than areas B and C. And because of this I am trying to make sure that the view into A from B or C is limited - without breaking the movement flow as you go between the areas. It’s a bit of a struggle and again I am reminded of why it’s sometimes easier to design the floorplan by letting the areas grow organically outward from one point instead of trying to connect several points.

[vonskellington]

I’ve had a hard time making sense out of this section. It was a case of visual/contextual idea not working with gameplay idea. I wanted it to be smaller and rely more on jumppads, but the jumpads felt forced on such a small area. After a number of iterations I just wasn’t feeling it on any level and questioned how much of the idea was worth going forward with. So I slept on it and tried to come back with fresh eyes. With gameplay as starting point I managed to comprimise the visuals and it now feels better than my original idea.

Part of the issue is that I tried to force a contextual idea that didn’t work, but another part of the problem was that I didn’t have enough margin (big enough block) to carve from. I defined the exterior footprint before gameplay in the interior area felt right.

[vonskellington]

The room on the left side of the map has been carved out some more. Still very blocky and everything is kept at a 45 degree angle. The corridor connecting this side room and the other parts of the map has gotten some detail as well. Everything looks slightly off the grid here, which is intentional as this will be rocks and terrain in the end. I have also made a walkway above the terrain here. This should be a slice of a perfect circle, which is not easily done with BSP, so I decided to use simple (temporary) static meshes for this.

I am not pleased with the result so far and will most likely redo it later.

End of log.

[vonskellington]

A few things I consider as I block out the main playable area on BSP maps.

[vonskellington]

So I have the footprint for the whole map laid out. Some areas (like the left side on the top-down view) are obviously very rough and will need some more thinking and designing. But at this point the distances and connections between rooms are roughly where they should be, so spawns and pickups could be added and playtests could in theory start.

This way of laying out rooms roughly where I think they should be is mainly so I have something to work from. It is very likely that distances will be shortened or extended or that whole rooms will be cut later on. I prefer to work as low poly as possible in the beginning and then add or chop off more and more detail in passes.

[vonskellington]

After some gameplay tests and a number of tries on this particular area I now feel like I am on the right path. I did not feel that way during the first two versions and thought maybe I should just give up on the idea. But then I threw most of it out and re-did it with fresh eyes. It can be hard to believe in your idea early on when measurements feel awkward and everything looks like you just had a seizure, but by iterating and maybe even starting over a few times you will eventually get there. Start by just throwing out a rough sketch and then massage the geometry until the sore spots disappear.

But sometimes you just gotta kill your darlings - heck, none of what I have done so far might make it to the finished map.

[vonskellington]

Regarding the 5x5 grid - this is definitely something Epic has pushed for. I don’t understand why they chose this, but I’ll go with it for this map since I intend to use their assets. Maybe I’ll discover the genius behind this measurement.

Also it seems there are a lot more wood, stone and rusty metal type of assets available - rather than say sci-fi stuff. This might affect my choice of setting...

[vonskellington]

I usually start a map with one or a few ideas that I use as a starting point from which the rest of the map grows. This is to avoid starting with a “blank canvas” and so that as I block out the map things have some kind of context. These ideas can come from anywhere - from other games or movies to simple household objects around me. What I look for is a unique landmark, setting or theme that gives the map its on identity. Or interesting shapes and silhouettes that inspires gameplay, like pillars, bridges, overhangs or simply just corners. Very rough shapes - trying to only think of map layout.

For this map I’ve done some searching on Pinterest to find inspiration through art by others - some of it is concept art for games and some of it is illustrations by legend artists - I’ve just picked pieces that gives me a few ideas. And since this map will be for UT4 I have verticality and trick-jumps in mind.

[vonskellington]

It feels good to be back in this editor and digging a few updates already. But what’s up with the 5x5 grid? This completely puzzles me. I see that there is an option to switch grid type, but why would you not want to use a power-of-two grid? My instinct tells me to fix this, but since I plan on using Epic assets - which seem to (mostly) follow the 5x5 grid - for my first map, should I follow their lead? They seem to not use any bsp at all in the final maps as well so how much bsp can/should I rely on? I need to investigate this some more...

[vonskellington]

Weapon of choice

I have been investigating platforms to level design for:

* Would love to do something for Duke3d in BUILD - partially because it's my 20 year anniversary, but also because I’ve been romanticing the thought of doing something for Duke3d a few times the last two years. Unfortunately I felt nauseous the last few times I ran BUILD and also I’d prefer to do something I can evolve further.

* Reflex - looks awesome in its "retro" quake-gameplay and editor that looks like some kind of realtime bsp editing. But maybe it’s too narrow in gameplay choices and not very accessible as a portfolio piece.

* Doom - Snapmap is excellent in its user-friendly-ness and Doom is probably very accessible for sharing content with others, but is currently very limited in its available assets.

* UDK - Isn't called UDK anymore(?) - familiar grounds for me, very user friendly, possibility to scale from just level designing with existing assets to creating completely custom assets. And probably very accessible to others.

* Unity - good for creating a new game, but not as good if I just want to level design.

Based on this I’m going with Unreal - or UT4 to be specific - as I am familiar with it and it has a strong foundation to do something with existing assets. I intend to do a simple dm-level using existing assets to start with. After that, when I am up to speed with the latest workflow, I’ll do something more complex with custom assets.

[vonskellington]

20 years of level design

This year marks 20 years since I started level designing and tenth year in the industry. I should celebrate this anniversary with a new level on my own...

[vonskellington]

Just Cause 3 - DLC - Level Designer

During my last year at Avalanche I got to do some good old fashioned level design for the Mech Land Assault DLC & Bavarium Sea Heist DLC.

[vonskellington]

Just Cause 3 - Lighting Artist

I got pulled in the last few months of production to help with lighting cutscenes and additional locations on Just Cause 3.