Sunday, January 8, 2012

Beginner Level Design Tips by Kyle

Everyone has to start somewhere, even sometimes you will have to refer to your foundations when it comes to making something. Here in this topic I will give you some tips before it comes to blocking out or modelling your level. This is a workflow that I have used that can help you get started.

The Idea


Movies, games, history, music, photos;  anything can be your references and inspiration to create these epic and memorable play spaces.

Here are some sites to help:

Fuck Yeah Concept Art
Reddit
Bioshock
Mongkok, Hong Kong
Nasa - Image of the Day

My Idea: Space Station on a meteoroid.  

Restrictions/Limitations


Once you have constructed your idea, there are a few questions that you have to ask yourself.

  • Is it single player or multiplayer map? Multi-Player

  • What is the gameplay like? Deathmatch

  • What kind of Engine will be used? Unreal Development Kit

  • What will make this map memorable? You are able to launch players in space

  • What is the story that this map will tell? A warehouse in the shape of a bio-dome controlled by a mercenaries now being raided by cops.

  • What is the deadline (if none give yourself one)? One week. 

  • What is the theme? Sci-fi,

  • Where do my limitations lie? Shortage of assets


Draw it Out/Reference


Now comes to bring the look of what you had in mind. Start looking about on the internet on where you can grab photos on what you want your map to look like. When grabbing your photos you also want to try to grab some ideas of the lighting or maybe how you want your background to look. Here are some images grabbed from Google and Flickr.





This is the time you want to also draw something out. Personally I love doing a bird's eye view of what the map could look like. Only start thinking about how this map is fun; there is plenty of time to worry about balancing out the map, placing  power weapons, and making play spaces used more but that is to be done later during play testing. By the end you will have many iterations of your level.


This is the basic pre-production on how to create your level. Thanks for reading!

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