Level Design
History
Level design, environment design or game mapping is an aspect of game development which involves the creation of video game levels, stages or missions. Although commonly done using a level editor, some games feature built-in level editing tools. As a role in the process of creating a video game, level design is both an artistic and technical process.
During the early days of video games, a single programmer would create the maps and layouts for a game, as a discipline or profession solely dedicated to level design did not exist. Most early games often featured a level system of ascending difficulty as opposed to the progression of a storyline, which is more commonly used in today's games. The first game genre that required significant amounts of time to design the areas were text-based games, such as MUDs. This meant that promoted users were often assigned to create new paths, rooms, equipment and new actions, by using the game interface itself. Doom (1993) and Doom II (1994) were two of the first games to attract focused game modding activity. One of the main reasons for this was due to a clear separation in between the level files and game engine itself.
The process in creating a level in a modern game typically starts with concept art, sketches, renderings and physical models. Upon completion, these concepts transform into extensive documentation, environment modelling and the placing of game specific entities, usually with the aid of a level editor. Although there are various steps involved in laying out a map and these steps may vary across different game genres, general steps include: Laying out large scale features on the map, determining environmental conditions, specifying certain regions where certain gameplay activities or behaviors occur, specifying non-static parts of a level, specifying locations of various entities, specifying the start and exit locations for one or more players, adding aesthetic details such as graphic textures, introducing scripted event locations and also placing pathfinding nodes that non-player characters take as they walk around.
When designing a level, a wide variety of tools may be used. Sometimes, professional 3D editing software, such as 3D Studio Max, Blender, AutoCAD, Lightwave, Maya, Softimage XSI or Grome is used.
Influences
Much like the original Doom, the 2016 Doom aims to both impress and daunt the player by dropping them into expansive maps, and thus inviting a sense of curiosity and uncertainty in the player. In addition to this, it heightens the sense of adventure that the player gets, whilst exploring the various interiors and exteriors for hidden secrets and pickups that are evident in each map. With the inclusion of such wide open levels, they help to invite the player to explore the different possible exploration routes, giving each map a unique identity, in terms of both presentation and gameplay.
Although the sheer breadth and depth of the levels is impressive in their own right, what really compels the player to explore them is the speed of which Doomguy moves around. When designing the environments, the exploration was designed to to ensure that the game had the same sprawling and interconnected level design as its predecessors. Doom 2016 takes the old-school virtual space idea up a notch by incorporating a large sense of verticality into the designs. In conjunction with this, by combing the intricate and detailed environmental layout of the classic Doom games, along with the multileveled approach to level design, Doom 2016 manages to build on the value of secrets within the game, scattered in each level, therefore helping to convey the idea that each collectible is worth obtaining.
From looking at this, I can identify that when designing a level, you need to create it in a way where you could picture yourself in the environment you have created. Furthermore, its important to note that when designing each level, to make each one unique, in both the presentation of the level and the gameplay aspects. As well as this, when designing my own levels, one thing that I will bear in mind is the importance of collectibles and secrets, which can be used to further engage the player, and thus make them want to explore every part of each level, in order obtain each and every collectible.
From looking at this, I can identify that when designing a level, it's important to create it in a way where you are constantly asking yourself as to why you have designed assets or placed assets in a certain way. By doing this, it will enable you to get a better understanding of your own environment, as everything will have a reason as to why it is where it is and why it exists in the first place.
Another influence for me in choosing level design, is the environments and locations seen in Skyrim.
When planning the initial ideas and design for either an environment or level, most work starts on paper or with discussing an idea. However there are some key aspects to take into consideration. These things include what do I want to portray?, what would be inside when the player enters?, which tools have been used?, what would the basic structure be like?, how would it connect to the rest of the environment/level?, how does it connect to the players quests? and where should I place events to give the player points of interest/points of sight? In addition to this, when designing a level its good to make sure that you are not using duplicates and that most if not everything is original to the player. Moreover, a level will be even more successful if you balance the density of the objects in it, and therefore avoiding any dead space. As well as this, its important to stay non-symmetric and organic when designing a level, in order make it more successful. In conjunction with this, when designing a level its also important have a good understanding of light sources and where to place traps and loot items. By doing this, it will help to make the environment feel more complete and realistic, as well as being more interesting and interactive for the player.
Career Pathway
Level design is one of the most common "new designer" responsibilities, although doing a good job as a level designer requires a strong sense of space, pacing and composition. Intern, designers without a knack for it are quickly moved out from level design. Crafting an experience requires critically looking at your own work and improving it. As a level designer you have to step into the role of a new player over and over again, even as you yourself become familiar with the level your building. Moreover, being a level designer often includes having compressed schedules, and therefore means that the level "white boxes" which are built are handed off to the artists before the code, allowed for the playtesting has been written. In addition to this, once a white boxed level has been handed off to the artists, and is also untested, it makes it difficult to modify it anymore without incurring additional development expense. Intern, level designers cannot play the level until later, which therefore means they can often find things which could have done better and feel bad as there often isn't time to fix them.
Here, I have looked at both a junior and senior job role for one of my chosen job roles, being level design within the video games industry.
For the junior job role, I have specifically looked at a permanent level designer role at Field Grey. In order to be successful within the job role, the candidate will need to be both passionate and self-motivated within a hands-on environment. As well as this, it will also be important to be able to prioritise effectively and manage your workload through good time management skills.
Responsibilities:
- Accurate execution of design briefs in line with customer profile
- Managing time to deliver ranges in line with the critical paths
- Executing the development process in a timely manner with the client and working as part of a team to deliver the project
- Source and develop fabrics, trims and accessories as per the customer designs and requirements
- Good knowledge of garment construction and specification drawings
- Ensure accurate and commercially viable project pricing according to designs
- Value engineering design to ensure the cost effective production (with senior team) as well as upholding brand values
- Job profitability - ensuring actual costs in line with the budget and effective time management
- Reviewing FGDL operational processes and procedures making it fit for purpose alongside a creative director
Presentations:
- Communicating and negotiating Field Grey's offer
- Ability to contribute to presentations and organising proposals and pitches
- Providing support to the creative director with proposals, pitches and promotion of new business
- Excellent organisational, communication and negotiating skills
- Researching and developing design presentations and inspiration boards, proposals and pitches
Production and product development:
- To communicate designs and product development details to technical and product developer
- To meet deadlines for products planned by creative director and team
- Activating design changes following meetings and fit reviews. Updating designs and technical packs with design amendments
- Assisting the team in preparation of development trips, ensuring all required information is prepared for the travelling team members
- Assist technical staff with audits, comments and quality control on all relevant Proto samples (Red Seal), pre-production samples (Gold Seal) and production samples (Black Seal)
- Assist technical staff with wearer trials and client fittings, monitoring feedback and next steps with the team
I believe that this job role would be suitable to myself, as I believe that I could successfully cope with the responsibilities of the job role. In conjunction with this, I believe that this job would benefit me in the long term, and intern would help me to progress into more of a senior role, like the one below. However, I believe that I would need to work on certain aspects of my work in order to ensure that my work for this role could be as good as I can get it to be.
Here, I have looked at both a junior and senior job role for one of my chosen job roles, being a senior level designer within the video games industry.
For the senior job role, I have looked at a permanent level designer role at Sony PlayStation, located in London. In order to be successful within the job role, the candidate should be an experienced senior level designer and be skilled in creating level layouts, player objectives and enemy placements to deliver high quality, exciting missions.
Responsibilities:
- Designing and creating compelling and memorable missions, blending core game mechanics in varied and exciting ways
- Ensuring the level design fits within the overall creative direction and intended audience of the game
- Ensuring level designs respect the technical constraints of the game technology
- Creating level layouts and implementing scripts/blueprints
- Testing and debugging of your levels
- Revising your levels based on feedback, user test results and telemetry data
- Collaborating with the rest of the team to ensure consistently high quality level design across the game and well balanced difficulty and progression
I believe that this job role would be suitable to myself, as I believe that I could successfully cope with the responsibilities of the job role. However, if I was to work towards this job role, I would need to ensure that I would be the best at what I can do, by practicing and gaining experience in a similar junior job role.
Experimentaion
For the experimentation part of this particular job role, I have created two very basic level design blueprints, first on paper, along with some level design sketches/concept art, and then have taken these blueprints and have digitalised them in Photoshop, whilst also adding colour, in order to give a sense of what each object represents, in terms of the level/game environment. In addition to this, I have also added a key for each of the two level designs, as a way of informing people who look at them what each of the objects is representing, in addition to giving people a sense of what age rating and target audience the level would be best suited to.
Here, on the right is both the initial sketches/concept art, as well as the finished, coloured and digitalised version of the level design which I have created for a fantasy adventure game, with the target audience being gender neutral, 7-11 year old's.
Here, on the left is the is both the initial sketches/concept art, along with the finished, coloured and digitalised version of the level design which I have created for a sci-fi, fist person shooter game, with the target audience being gender neutral, 15-18 year olds. For this particular level, I mainly took inspiration from the level designs evident in the 2016 edition of Doom. One of the main reasons for this, is the fact that I believe Doom's overall level designs provide the player with just enough space in order to fend off the attacks from the enemies within game, by giving the player objects and structure to hide behind, to gain the player both some time and space and to reload. I believe that I achieved this, by adding large structures and objects within my level design, whilst also giving the player enough room to roam around, in order to escape enemy attacks.
Here, on the right is a whiteboxed rendition of the sci-fi level blueprint, in which I had previously designed in the form of sketches and concept art, and which I had also put into Photoshop, in order to digitalise and colour.
Firstly, after finialsing my level design blueprint in Photoshop and feeling satisfied with the outcome, I needed to turn what was a 2D level design into a 3D one, with the use of the game-making engine, Unity. Although having some prior experience and knowledge using the programme for the first time earlier in the year, I felt that I could still navigate my way around Unity quite efficiently. So the first thing I did, was to bring in my 2D level design blueprint into unity, by importing the image as an asset and bringing onto the terrain. Following this, I then imported the Standard Asset Pack from the Unity store, in order to scale my objects appropriately, with the use of the first person character/camera asset. I then brought this onto my terrain, upon adding the mesh collider component to the terrain. This meant that the character would not fall through the terrain whilst trying to navigate around the level. Following on from this, I also added walls around the edges of the terrain, and gave them the mesh collider component so that the character could not walk off of the terrain. After this, I could begin to start white boxing over my level deign blueprint and on the terrain.