Unit 70 Level Design for Computer Games Static meshes and texturing

Since my level was created in terms of terrain and foliage, it was time to then create static meshes to populate my world with, i did this in maya and then dragged them to the center of the world and centered the pivot then exported this meant when importing them into unreal that they would have pivots on the meshes and not it different positions.

 Also created the textures in maya since my aesthetic and narrative points to the colorful low poly style that i wanted the level to look like to do this i simply added colored textures to faces, this meant i didn't need to do to much UV and saved a lot of time when in my production phase.

Unit 70 Level Design for Computer Games Evaluation

i have learned a lot from this unit in terms of level design and i have managed to implement some terms and uses of level design into my level just like some of the new modern games from industry, i have also learned what ludic means and can now implement ideas from this into my future development.

Taking this unit forward i will continue to implement these ideas throughout the remainder of my development and will continue to try focus everything i make into some kind of level design so im always making something that is of industry standard. In the next unit i can also do a lot more in terms of narrative fro my level with the use of cut scenes and rendering.

Level Design for Computer Games Ludic, Aesthetic, Technical and Narrative Design

To finish this unit  i had to research and make use of 4 key element in games design especially apparent in level design these were Ludic, Aesthetic, Technical and Narrative Design.

Ludic
this was difficult to research in a way since i had never heard about it and when it came to descriptions from dictionary and over places i found the answer to be cryptic and never quite get to what it means, but after many hours digging through the internet i found that the description was about subtle hints in game and level design which is used every where to either guide the player or change the players thinking in some way, like a form of subliminal messaging only with the goal of help the player achieve goals this can be used in many ways like faint lights in the distance or slight changes in coloured objects of the environment used to help guide the player on the path, this is prominent in most third person action games in which there is a climbing mechanic in almost all of them game the ledges you can use to climb will have a different shade of colour to show that they are there.

I have done this in my level making a fire visible on a far cliff that will always be visible to the player in some way basically draw them in like a moth to the flame, seeing some of interest high up will always make players have interest to discover the unknown especially if they know they can reach that location.

Aesthetic
in terms of Aesthetic design this simply means how the level looks or the style of art used, but this can also be key to directing players in terms of objectives and such even time of day can make big changes on a level, for example my level is at night so i can use things like fire and light to my advantages much easier than if it was day time in my level since its all set out doors this mean that i would be locked out of certain ways to direct the player depending on something so simple as the time of day.

Technical
Design is basically anything in the level that you actually do mechanics wise so this could be something like fighting enemies or moving blocks, these kind of mechanics plant in your mind a certain set of navigation queue's which can be different in every game but just fighting enemies means that if you see enemies somewhere that there must be something of interest there by making you navigate to that area, this one of the main corner stone to many games design which is something that is practised so much you dont even noticed its happening.

Narrative
When it comes to narrative in the level/game design this is anything directly influence by the story be this pieces of information in a conversation a mission objective or even a piece of extra lore to read, these are all things most modern games use narrative to aid in progression of the game and make them more immersive, in most case not having this is a death sentence for a game. in terms of narrative iv tried to do as much as i could with narrative in terms of the design of the level and the environment its self but this wont fully come into fruition until next unit when we focus on cutscenes and rendering which will further push the narrative in the level by giving some context to what kind of design im going for.

Unit 70 Level Design for Computer Games Foliage Editor

Once my terrain was created i then had to populate it it with some king of plant life or fauna, since my narrative design places my level on an island, to begin with this i initially hand placed my collection of trees and other plant life in the level  whcih i had created while making my static meshes for the level, which ill talk about in another blog post.

After this i had been told about a experimental way to add foliage to my terrain so decided to make a new land mass to try this on to compare the 2 different ways and see which one i ultimately wanted to use for my level,

to do this experimental i needed to create foliage types using my static mesh of trees and other plant life, once this was done i put it inside of the the foliage box that auto generates the the foliage over the landmass it covers and then simply initialise it, its an easy and straight forward tool for quick generation and has some tools to change the out come of the result but i think it lacks the ability to really perfect the placement unlike placing them yourselves. of course doing it in the auto generated way is quick and can give you some shoddy results in certain places which will render it useless, so i believe its fine for the use of backgrounds or decoration but for placing foliage in places the player will be exploring i think i would personally like some more control.

Unit 70 Level Design for Computer Games Terrain creation

When beginning my level design my main focus was to create a terrain that  fits with islands natural design, this meant i had the trouble of making my landscape/terrain look very natural while keeping game and level design in mind when it comes to its narrative and traversal.

My terrain started out flat with one end slightly stretched to a point this was to house the players beginning to create some feeling of narrative to the level since we have not learned and implemented cut scenes for narration yet.

In the opposite side from the player start i pulled the terrain vastly higher this was done to give a point for the player to focus on and head towards, like a s silent objective, i thought  of this while researching my level technical design and narration, this was then further implemented on by adding fire to the buildings on the cliff so they immediately stood out on the island.

Conclusion

To finish my block out id like to review what i did so to conclude, i believe my block out turned out very well and has given me a good stepping stone to get a really good quality level by the end of my year, i'm happy with the design iv picked as well as the aesthetic since it will help me finish the playable level easier especially being a 1 man team, in terms of my character i'm also happy but my boss may change to just another humanoid character.

As for things i didn't like i would if i could back make more assets for the block out because being able to glimpse at how it looks helps the design process a lot. As well as this i think i could of done alot more base functionality in my block out for previewing game play because you couldn't get a full fell for how it would play when finished, this is similar to the feedback received from my peer review.

All in all i think the block out came out well and i'm looking forward to fully developing it into my complete idea.

Functions

In terms of functions i have a lot planned for this level but for now i only have a basic matinee funtion in my level and an animation on a key press, a lot more are planned through throughout my level to give a great boost to gameplay.

for the simple matinee when you get close to a section on the map some rocks simply get the there simulate physics turned on and they roll down the mountain towards the path i did this to test some simple functionality for later development

the second is a simple rotation on a key press on the spit asset by the characters house i did this so i could see how player interactions would look in my level and find out how i can plan more and what ones i can do to make the level more interactive.