Level Design Blog
1/28
I started on the metrics gym for my current project. I needed to cover the basics for each major part of the experience from a gameplay and design perspective. I started with the scale with which I had a good starting point and only had to make some small adjustments and do some further research on tables and other objects. I also made a physics playground so that I can make sure I'm aware of how the physics objects work to hopefully prevent things like getting objects stuck won't occur.
I also needed to make sure I understood how each puzzle interactable worked.
So I made a list of each puzzle scenario I'd need and put a small puzzle walkthrough together to test and make sure they do what I need them to. This required some digging through object settings and referring back to the original asset pack but otherwise lead to some interesting discoveries that will help a ton when it comes to putting the actual level together and how I should go about it. For example the cameras on the monitor appear very bright so I may need to ensure the side room they occupy is very dark to compensate.
1/21
I've begun the work on a new level as another side project. This level will be a puzzle room with a couple of steps and a horror atmosphere. The level I based it on had about 7 major steps so I tried to keep a similar amount to that. I wanted to strive to not make it linear as that would make the puzzle overall more engaging. I found an asset pack that will help a great deal with the programming aspect. In this asset pack there are numerous assets that will help with the progression like, keypads, wheels, keys, cameras and more. I will use these assets in combination with careful layouts to flesh the level out.
The horror atmosphere and size of the room with help me keep a great attention to detail as well.
With the size of the room being small, I will be able to put forth a lot of effort into the small details, like lighting, set dressing, and clever design. I hope to vastly increase these skills in contrast to my last project which was much more open and lengthy. With these two experiences together I believe my skill level will skyrocket. I hope to build a lot of atmosphere in this level and create a great sense of disturbance and urgency to urge the player on and hopefully even make mistakes along the way.
1/14
I had started a new project recently where I was assigned to make an outdoor level. The level is a version of purgatory with a cathedral and a pool of blood beneath it. The walls used to prevent the player from moving forward are large grey sandy hills. I blocked out my first iteration based on the spectacle of the reveal. I made a large distance between the starting area and the actual cathedral itself.
I then received feedback from my lead and began reworking it.
I started fresh to try and get a different perspective. I needed to shorten the critical path while also adding in some new starting details to define the area more. So I cut it by about 60% while keeping the general shape the same. I also added invisible walls to prevent the player from falling into the void. Then I began working with Unreal's Niagara water system. I needed to shape it to fit the area, change the color, and make it more reactive. Changing the shape was simple enough once the default sphere was removed but the color proved a bit more difficult. I had to go into the blueprint and search for the shader which thankfully I did. Then it was a matter of actually finding the right color which made a new obstacle which is the density of the water didn't lend to the color well. My solution was to make the floor black which instantly brought the color back. This will work long term as well since the terrain will also be a similar color.
11/19
I've made extensive additions to my level since last week. I was able to add the next hallway, staircase, and the first two major rooms. The main challenge I faced here was getting the scaling correct and size of everything correctly. Using the player character and other size scaling sizes made in the metrics gym made it easier to adjust as needed. Making sure everything was cohesive and in a correct position was also quite hard but it was made easier using different perspectives in the source material to make sure I got the locations right as well.
I've met with most of the other designers to approve the start of my personal project.
Before I start work on it I'll need to wait for the teams to provide me with a framework they will provide so that I can more accurately gauge what style and gameplay the teams will be going for in their games. Ideally I'll be able to further their own ideas and make level design as well as many other elements of their games more cohesive. In the meantime I'll continue working on the level I've been working on and I'd ideally like to get 3 more major rooms plus some downtime in between for better game feel. I'll need to adjust my LDD quite a bit which will come later once some more final decisions are made to ensure accuracy.
11/12
I began working on the full level that my metrics gym last week was based on. Working on the first room for a bit and getting close to finishing it. Thankfully the door I made a few weeks prior will streamline the process a ton. The locking system as well, as the level I'm attempting to replicate does have a keycard system that should emulate the same thing. I'll also need to begin formulating the combat design a bit more as the actual combat will be coming soon.
I also have scheduled a meeting with other designers to confirm my other personal project.
With the talk I am hoping to get approval from the leads to go forward with my project to help them get a basis for level design through the videos I make. I was delayed due to some of them being gone but I can now start in earnest! So I will begin analyzing the types of games they are striving for and do my best to explain conventions and designs so that they can plan and make better levels and therefore, better games! Right now the main challenge will be fitting time in my schedule to make these videos and keep up with my other projects so they don't fall behind or lose quality either.
11/5
This week I worked on constructing a metrics gym for a level I am working on. The main goal was to establish scale and ensure the asset pack's integration was successful. It will need further development as well as I work to incorporate more mechanics. I'll also need to work around the blueprints to authenticate the experience further. I have some tools I can lean on such as my locked doors from previous work but other's will need to be tampered with.
I also now have a basis to work on with my personal project,
as the games being worked on where I work have been announced. Now I can begin analyzing and interviewing genres and team members respectively. With this project I will be breaking down and finding patterns and methods of thought behind the level construction in said genre and in service of the games in question. Through this I can help these teams establish some base line reasoning that they can use should they choose to do so.
10/29
This week I faced a major setback in terms of my future plans which is unrecoverable. So I decided to shift my focus and work on another personal project to fill the void and still work on improving my skills in a equally meaningful way. This project was recommended by a professor and I've begun planning out how to go about it. The project is a few videos, ideally 4 breaking down how certain genres of games treat level design differently for different reasons. These will be based on some 9 month projects beginning soon that I'll ideally help out with these videos giving some insight on various subjects and making the level design process easier.
I also have been continuing to work on blueprints.
I worked on making a locked door function with a key that can be picked up. The door also automatically opens in a scifi fashion. It's also easily copyable and could be a useful tool for the future and other levels I design later, making the process easier.
10/22
I began this week with the goal of beginning to learn Blueprints in Unreal. This is something I hadn't been taught in undergrad and yet another area of code I struggle with if not more so than standard C#. I started by trying to make a basic spline tool to allow for evenly spaced copies of the same asset. I worked through the process for both pillars and a pipe to accomplish this. By slowly understanding how and why blueprints work they way they do I realized I can reuse this tool if need be in the future.
Then I also started a replica project of a DOOM Eternal level.
I wanted to challenge myself to make a level in a game genre I was generally uncomfortable with in shooters. This unfamiliarity and discomfort will force me to think of different unique solutions to problems compared to normal action adventure games. I chose the Hel on Earth level from DOOM Eternal since it is generally basic and easy to build off of while understanding most if not all aspects of level and how everything works and interacts with each other.
10/1
This week I began working on a short term project where I needed to create a level for a grid movement based side scroller. The main gimmick of this game is to take environmental clues and find animals while making sure to stay alive and not get "lost" by not staying on the screen. We want it to be a infinite runner somewhat but we have a presentation deadline where it would work best to have a temporary beginning to end level then work on the rest in the following week. I needed to make a intuitive self taught tutorial and followed a similar mentality to the previous project giving players impasses that require experimentation but then are easily solvable and able to be iterated on later. I also tried to add a legend on screen this time to better understand the the visuals.
I then tried to turn my attention back to my personal project
by widening my understanding of things like skyboxes to use in the level as from the LDD I was getting a night time vibe and need to know how to foster that image and feeling from the level at a high level. I can make the most effective night time level ever but if it isn't at night time then the effort was moot. So I watched a video to try and fill in that gap in my skill and focus more directly on it.
9/24
This week I finalized and created a level for a short 2 week project. The game was meant to be a iterative speedrunner based loosely on pinball. My process began with discovering and finding a good understanding of what obstacles we had and how they could interact together. After that I began to blockmesh the tutorial sections with a focus on teaching the player in a natural non-intrusive way. I slowly introduce the player to each obstacle in an iterative fashion. First I introduce the basic barrier. Even an inexperienced new player will quickly figure out that they can't pass through and experiment until they are able to pass effectively. Then once the basic triangle opens up the player will be guided towards the middle where I introduce the next concept of speed boosts. Once the speed boost is introduced the player can then identify a fork in the road and make a choice. Once that choice has been made and the player has played through a few times they will realize there is a clear disparity between the benefits of both paths. This concept introduces the concept of willingness to explore other avenues in order to improve the players time. Then shortly after I introduce the player to the bumper which bounces players back. Then I complete what ends up being the basic game loop where I introduce a longer section bringing all four concepts together in order to let the player test the knowledge they have so far and effectively master that segment of the game.
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(Legend: Rectangles = barriers, Arrows = boosts, Circles = bumpers, Pentagons = fans. The entire floor is a constant even decline)
Next I began to work on a personal project.
I was challenged by some peers to create a level based on a already created LDD in order to refine my skills. I sadly didn't have a load of time to begin this task but I've had some time to brainstorm and research some features and ideas. The main idea here is to just test out and flex my level building muscles as best I can and make something I can show off to potential employers. I have a presentation I plan to show off the progress with so I'd like to get a detailed level map laid out and some basic shapes at the beginning or end of the level to show in actual space.
9/17
This week I continued relearning Maya and specifically worked with the polygon tool. This was a tool I wasn't taught in undergrad. Learning it's purpose and how to use it was very useful to add to my skill list. I started by using the polygon tool to outline the building I was attempting to remake UCF Downtown which has some varying heights which I struggled to follow at times. I tried to extrude it from a specific height so that I could accurately replicate the height variation. I then tried to do some retopology but ran low on time in that aspect.
Then I moved on
to working on some basic shapes to help with making quick white boxes. I attempted to make a tree. I started with a basic sphere and used the smooth function to make it more ridged. Then I added more spheres of smaller but varying sizes to simulate the variation of branches and leave for the tree. Then I added a simple cylinder to the tree to simulate the trunk. I plan to work on this a bit more in the future with other objects in order to help be more effective in white boxing especially in order to reuse these assets as well as help with early testing as all of these assets won't be particularly taxing on any given system so that raw code or effects won't take the system in conjunction with the rest of the level.
9/10
This week I started to brush up on my skills in Maya. It has been a while since I had worked in Maya and that was for good reason. My initial trips into Maya were horrendous. I worked with it in my undergrad program and it was the most unfruitful slog ever making any future endeavors either unlikely or unwanted.
However,
Now that I've had a new fresh look, following much better instructions with much better and more accessible feedback Maya has become a lot less of a boogeyman than it had been. Now I can sort through files, insert basic shapes, and most importantly for my complaints, move about in a MUCH easier and much more efficient fashion. I mainly worked refamiliarizing myself with the basic systems. I worked through scaling, the cutting tools, ways to select different parts of the shapes (vertices, faces, etc.), I also worked with extrusion and a few other tools. I did learn one new thing which was how to create artificial doorways by cutting out segments of objects and adding more thickness to the inside to prevent transparency.
9/3
My first two weeks constituted refamiliarizing myself with building in Unreal and further developing my skills with the engine overall. I went into the first section with basic, whitebox oriented, tools such as basic shapes, BSPs, scale tools, etc. I played around with the basic tools a bit to get a feel for them again. I also had to unlearn most of what I learned in my undergrad, since I was taught how to use the Unreal Engine in a very poor manner so my confidence in building in the engine feels a lot better and am looking forward to furthering these skills in the future!
My second week,
Similar to the first, was further developing my Unreal skills by actually making an attempt at whiteboxing a real life place in Unreal. The idea was something along the lines of a government building the the Lincoln memorial was the focus of this session. I looked for some good reference images and videos then tried to follow along with the scale and basic shapes I could put together to make it similar. To start I worked from the ground up basing the size of the ground off of the player character and the perception of scale based on that. Then added the walls and pillars, again based on the scale of the player character model. I then counted out the number of pillars and tried to get accurate spacing for it as well. Then I raised the initial platform to add the stairs playing with the BSP there. I then layered the stairs for accuracy with the middle flat platform between them. The main challenge I faced here was the scaling with the pillars. I lined the character model up with my initial two pillars and tried to scale them based on that but could never quite figure out the accurate scale. I micro adjusted to the best degree I could but may want to look into ways I can more accurately scale things like this in the future. Another issue I encountered was the nature of moving and scaling the BSP stairs. They work differently from other basic shapes and even other BSPs since they keep each stair to scale and add stairs as needed which took some adjusting. If I plan on using them again in the future I should spend some time playing around with them to understand their quirks betters.
