Paladins

I've started my next Level Design and I wanted to share it. I'm designing and building a Paladins payload map in Unreal 4.

I haven't played that much Paladins, so I started by pulling up as many overhead pictures and blueprints of current payload maps as I could. I looked through them, counting tiers of elevation, corners, cutoffs, ect... until I got a sense of what the Paladins LDs considered viable for the game.

After this I sat down to brainstorm some locations and concepts that I didn't see in any Paladins map. I settled on Swamp pretty quickly. I wanted to do something interesting the map so I started to poke at what I could add (in terms of interactive environment). Swamps make me think of poisons and sinking into the muck so I thought I'd make some sort of poisonous environment piece.

Of course swamps aren't actually that toxic on their own. They could also be a bit monotonous. So I put a big sci-fi factory in the middle of the swamp, pumping out toxic sludge, and making for a nice visual contrast. After brewing up a few concepts and set piece ideas, I went to Draw.io to make a sketch. I have and love my whiteboard too, but I'm trying to be modern.

This was the first attempt:

The stuff on the right in a hill with ridges marked. The big curves are a river path. The payload itself is an oversized airboat that's big enough for multiple players. There is a very tiny little human shape on the boat for size.

I looked at this and thought "Meh, it's ok." I felt like the factory was too far out of the way, and would only be a visual not a playable space. I didn't like that. But the factory was BIG; how could I get it into the map? So I put it in the middle.

I liked it, a lot. It was still a simple Paladins map, but it took one simple rule and twisted it, it was no longer back and forth along a line. Instead, we're going back and forth through a circle we can cross.

I don't know how it's going to be different, but I have no doubt that this small shift is going to make for some very different game play. We'll see what it looks like in grey box.

New Frontiers

This is a short post simply to declare, I'm finally starting to seriously study C#. It's awesome.

It started a few weeks ago when I was cleaning up Flux Firefight, I top-down shooter I made with Lukas Nikola in grad school. There were a few bugs inhibiting me from getting a clean play through video, so I said, "I'll fix them."

And I did. It wasn't easy. Some simple tasks took hours, but I did it. It was really satisfying.

Now I'm programming a text-based RPG while following this tutorial: https://scottlilly.com/learn-c-by-building-a-simple-rpg-index/. It's been great. I've been changing things up too, both to experiment with what I'm learning, and to fit the story inspiring the game.

I'm going to finish the tutorial at least, we'll see about finishing the game. Rick Hall suggested that if I'm going to learn to program, I should do something ambitious. I'm thinking about programming a pass&play version of Settlers of Catan. I think that's attainable, and it's definitely more ambitious than a text-based rpg. 

Shepherd of Shepherds

I know it's been a long time since my last post, color in your own excuses.

I'm a a design lead now on a lovely little game called Oracle. We're more than half way through production and I'm working with a team of just one other designer. Still, being the lead means that I do a lot of design with the rest of the team, and it has really reformed my understanding of the people and the types of people who work in this industry.

I am a designer. Through to the core I put things together or take them apart constantly. It shapes my worldview and my understanding of life. But when something is so core to your system, it's often hard to realize that the same way of looking at the world does not, necessarily, go double for the people around you. This is one of the most important things I've come to understand in my position as lead designer, NOT EVERYONE IS A DESIGNER.

I keep thinking, "Oh, we need some animations. I bet the animators would love to concept some cool flips and attacks." But they don't. They're still creative -I have no doubt about this- but they don't want to design things. They're Builders. Their creativity comes in execution, not conception.

And the whole industry is filled with people who's great creativity is somewhere other than design. I know this as a general point of knowledge, but It's so far from my conscious thought that I tend to forget. In my mind it makes sense that an animator would design animations because I assume that everyone uses thought processes similar to my own. I assume everyone is a designer in addition to whatever it is they do. And I need to stop that.

Today, my co-designer and I were talking about the world map and we were trying to fill a design hole involving backtracking through the map without backtracking through the story. I kept trying to prompt him for an idea as I didn't want to trample on his map design, but after a few minutes he just flat out said, "I need an executive decision." He isn't a high concept designer. He's a builder with design sensibilities. He doesn't want a big blank slate, he want's someone to draw the outline so he understands what he should build. And that's more than ok, that's great. We couldn't survive without him. But it means I need to be more conscious of when I'm heaping blue sky design onto people who are, for lack of a better word, agoraphobic.

So I'm going to do just that.

Modular Design

I've been putting together a level using Bethesda's Fallout 4 Creation Kit. It's my first time using the Kit and my first time using modular pieces to make something, needless to say, it's been a learning experience.

Modular stuff is great in it's own right, I feel like to could pump out level at an incredible speed this way. That being said, I've run into a few problems typical of modular kits. While I won't list the others here, I've just discovered that somewhere in the level, a piece got tilted about 0.9 degrees. Every piece placed afterwards followed the trend because when you're snapping things together, you really only care if they are snapping together. Now that I'm doing some more precise work, I'm trying to duct tape a solution that doesn't leave holes or cause noticeable Z fighting.

The lesson here. Check the transform details every once in awhile. Probably every time you save.

BP Homework 2

So the homework had some ups and down. I managed to put together a pretty night scene, but a some of the terrain ended up rough, and it took a lot longer than expected. This was my first real foray into making rocks from smaller rocks. Honestly, that was a lot of work, or time at least. The finesse that goes into making them smooth and realistic looking is significant. Overall, I was pleased with the blueprints I put together, and I learned a lot about getting different blueprints talking to each other, in addition to getting rock blending experience.

A glow light you can throw that illuminates dark areas. You only have one, so the BP destroys your old light if you throw it again.

Allows Mushrooms to be picked up.

Spawns a bounce mushroom if the hit surface is "mushroomable."

All of the Player Blueprints for throwing things, making the HUD, and others.

Color Picker

I know I'm a few posts behind, but I'm up to my arms in work, you'll see it soon.
I just wanted to pop in to say that Photoshop can color pick from anything, including an open UE4 project. Fantastic. Very useful when your sky sphere won't tell you what color it is (because it's hooked to the sun height).

Blueprint Homework 1

So, this week I'll be working on a level design homework that is all about blueprints. The requirements are simple. Make a level with 2 areas, and 5 different functions blueprinted, that's it. I've decided to make a level where the player traverses a tropical forest by collecting and deploying bouncing mushrooms.

BP 1 will be something like a grenade, except it will spawn a bouncing mushroom.
BP 2 will be that mushroom
BP 3 will allow the player to pick up these mushrooms.
BP 4 will display the number of reserve mushrooms on the UI
and BP 5 will be a light source that floats up into the air and illuminates an area after it hits the ground

The trickiest part, so far has been the grenade component for which the tutorial I followed was severely lacking. So, instead, I'm going to start from scratch and steal bits and piece from the premade FPS level that Unreal has. The gun projectiles are similar enough that if I reimagine the blueprint with my new mechanic in mind, I should be able to make something work.

Wish me luck.

New Side Project

Decided to start a new side project. I'm going to build a Fallout 4 mod because working for Bethesda is a not-so-secret dream of mine. I've come up with a unique an interesting mechanic too. The game includes some power armors that can gain a jetpack upgrade. However, the jetpack is weak and lasts for maybe 5 seconds at the best. I am going to make a special jetpack armor that allows significantly increased flight time, and then design a fun and vertically inclined area to play with it.

The concept for the map is based on the Boston Aeronautical Society which, unlike in real life, stayed open up until the nuclear war. At the time, they were prototyping the fun new jetpack that the level is built around. The reason that no one has yet found the jetpack (or building remains) is that during the war, a massive chasm opened up below the building and most of it's contents fell down into the hole. I'm going to have the player use their new found toy to ascend out of the chasm fighting super mutants, ghouls and a behemoth along the way.

In anycase, this is the first small piece of the grey-box, and I wanted to share:

Though they are hard to make out from this angle, the 2 tilted rectangular prisms are hollow and represent actual chunks of the building that has split into a number of pieces which I will use to guide the player up and out of the chasm. The rest of the flat surfaces are chasm floor. As to the colored objects, Player's start on the blue space, green and bright green are ghouls, pink is for super mutants, and yellow is for junk/loot. Not visible from this angle are 2 spots where I have used a blue box to demarcate more valuable treasure.

This will make a whole lot more sense when I'm done. I promise.

Race Car Finale

Managed to get the shaders working and to properly render my car in Maya with mental Ray. This may have been due last week, but I'm glad I, at least, got it done.

Oh the places you'll go.

Decided on a ice rink course. This is the beginning.

Looks kind purdy.

The general curves laid out. Lots of texture to add.

A texture blend with Landscape Coordinates so I could scale things up to an appropriate size.

Such texture.

A nice track. Laid stone, cause I'm fancy.

Some beauty shots post foliage and asset placement.

Race Car UVs

Today I leaned that Maya Bonus Tools don't work in Extension 2. This is probably for the best as doing UVs the proper way was probably a worthwhile learning experience. It took a little while, but was relatively stress free. I forgot to take pictures on the way, so these pictures are all of the final results.

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Model tuned with spoiler. Look at those clean clean lines. No retopoing here.

Collapsed a few lines on the bottom. It's not like I'm animating the underside.

UVs. I know some weird lines are straggling. Those are the inner linings of the windows where they were extruded inward. Would you say intruded? Probably not...

Probably definitely my final texture. Totally. What a beauty.

And here it is matched up to the UVs.

Finally a photoshop image with some basic colors painted under the UVs. I left the UV lines visible for now but they will be hidden for actual texturing.

My First Model

We did our first real modelling this week. It was... actually quite enjoyable. I won't call it easy, but a friendly artist showed me a few very useful tools and then I worked without getting distracted (no small feat) for 10 hours. I'm quite pleased with the result, particularly as I miss-sized a reference image and had to go with my intuition.

I didn't snap any pics of the first few steps so we're starting here where I'm sculpting a front window.

We had some extrusion trouble, because I was extruding relative to the world instead of the object (or vice versa, I can't honestly remember).

Headlights

Making it fit to the better image. You'll see my side image is too small.

This is before I worked the tail. I saved the end for last, so to speak.

Hood, why?

2 Wheels is plenty, my guy.

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Windows for seeing things.

I decided I wanted pretty lines and so I straightened everything out, all around. Glad I did, too.

Spoiler alert

Pretty close, chief.

There we go. Rims and everything.

And finally the one thing I forgot, the front window.

Pretty Pass

This week we went back and improved upon last week's level using asset packs and player feedback. A lot of my feedback revolved around lighting and platform speed. People also pointed out that my platforms flickered and it looked "weird" but I was unable to fix this. I changed the lighting, made it static, added more, and toned down the intensity of most of them. It helped make the area feel more full with real light instead of having extremely bright points in space.

I did a major terrain change for the level when I found the "Cave Entrance" in the Arid Desert asst pack. I decided that my level was not a random building in the desert, but built into a rocky outcropping in that desert. I wanted to cover everything in rock and sand, but at this point I was having trouble.

I realized I could add a second terrain piece and sculpt that over the top of the building.

I decided that I deserved some better textures, so I found some good ones in the Arid Desert pack, made a fresh set of layer blends, and got painting.

One criticism I got was that my finale didn't look like a finale. I was originally just 1 coin on top of the building. I made a new room, expanded the coin, and put a particle effect above so you knew, this is it!

Lighting was my biggest flaw in the previous pass so I had to make a major change. WHile these bubble look weird, I find them fun, and I'm glad I chose to use them as the fixed lights throughout the level. Again, I recognize that they don't make much sense.

Bubbles

Bubbles

Video:

Blueprints For Real

A second shot at blueprints. I think I actually learned something this time. It was a crazy struggle. this level took my more than 30 real work hours. however, a lot of that was either watching tutorials, rewatching tutorials, or struggling to find tutorials to teach me the things I didn't know. In the end I found that its easier to just grab a programmer and apply logic.

Terrain in the back, brushes in the front.

We have a lovely entrance. This includes the original stonework pattern on the ground before I started painting.

Soon to be moving platforms. For now, they are static and kinda ugly.

My original pressure plate. I went with the fancy scifi texture later as gold didn't really fit the scene.

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Making coins and portals

Door pt.1

Door pt.2

Suns out guns out

My first paint. I did the whole level in sandstone.

Much better.

3 of the eventual 7 moving platforms.

Ahhh real materials on my stuff, and the second floor is finally done (though it's empty inside for now.)

Not anymore.

Making walls move.

La grande finale

And most importantly, my vid:

https://youtu.be/EKVEAVXV1Ik