Level Building

Finally got around to building levels last month.

It's one of the most tedious things i've done, I think. The results are nice, though.
I started with Level 3, as it is the most complex and difficult level we have and more time is needed for it.

I begin by laying out the basic tiles to get a sense of the shape and scale of the level and each room. Of course, I'm following my floor plans as I do this.

Problem faced: Since the tiles are snapped to each other, one offset tile can really mess up the rest of the level. Overlapping faces and tiles that don't follow the grid is a huge pain to fix.

I take things slowly (not too slow, I hope) and systematically. Everything is put into layers and I try to keep things simple. The room above is for the Aegis. The boss fight takes place here. As you can see, I build it level by level. When I begin propping each level, I can just turn off the visibility of other floors to make life easier for me.

Problem Faced: Making levels takes a lot longer than I anticipated. I always underestimate the amount of time it takes. I tell my group, "I'll be done with this level in 2 weeks."

Two weeks later, I'm like, "Fuuuuuuuuck, I'm not even halfway done."

I work more than 9 hours everyday and a couple of hours on weekends, mind you. It's still not enough. We only have 3 months to finish this game and I fear we may be running out of time.

This is only about half of the 3rd level. To give you a sense of scale, he player is about half a tile wide.

Thanks for reading.

Shafi

The Modular Level Kit

Before the semester break, I already had a rough idea of what the modular level kit should have. I had a start, too. Simple tiles and stairs were built for the prototype (which went well, albeit a little buggy).

Over the holidays, and after much procrastination, I managed to get things going again. It started with some simple sketches.

It was very important to make sure these concepts would scale together nicely when modeled. Thus, I added a scale - the tile! I had to make some impromptu changes here and there, but the end result definitely resembled my concepts very closely.

Ta-da! As you can see, I added a couple of stuff like the terminal, TVs, a 3rd type of pipe set, doors, a door frame and the input nodes.

Lets take a look at my favourite part of the Kit; the Creep!

Awww yeaaa. I loved making these things. Tedious as hell, but the result was so satisfying.

"Holy shit look at the amount of polys you have! Thats gonna cause maya to explode!"

Well, no, it isn't. Truth is, its mesh looks like this!

I used normal maps to keep the number of faces down. Yes, i still had to sculpt every damn bit.

Here's a little comparison:

Without normal maps (Level 7 Subdivision)

With normal maps (Level 0 Subdivision)

You can tell that the depth is faked from extreme angles like this. But from a regular angle, you cant tell the difference.

After all that, I start painting!

It just doesn't work well without the normal maps, though.

Just textures, no normal maps

Here's the same process, but for the creep tree.

This is the ambient occlusion pass, also baked into the final texture.

Finally, heres the Modular Development Kit in action with a simple render. Perhaps I will post a rendering tutorial sometime soon.

Shafi out!

I/O Development 7

Designing levels, or attempting to design levels, has made my appreciation for games soar to new heights. It takes a genius to design a great level, and i'm not a genius... yet.

Still, i've been trying my absolute hardest to apply what i've learned so far. I started off planning level 1 of our 3 level game in the form of floor plans.

I wrote little guides and descriptions on the plans so readers would understand.

While I found it fun to be making these levels, I felt as though i couldn't properly visualize in 3D and through a perspective. I got really frustrated at this halfway through level 2.

Sure, my floor planning abilities seemed to have improved just after one level, but at this stage, i realized that there was no way to create more sophisticated levels and objectives. I had to start conceptualizing in 3D.

I still spend days wondering how the designers of Portal, Q.U.B.E and Antichamber think up of their puzzles. Its absolutely mind blowing. I assume that they have level builders to help them streamline the process.

A rough 3D model that took me a whole day looks nowhere as nice as a 2-hour drawing, but it helped a whole lot more. Visualization was a lot easier and I could make changes and walk around in it immediately.

Doing it this way will probably make Production more streamlined for us too, since we will already have models at our disposal.

I just hope I finish it on time.

Cheers,

Shafi

I/O Development 6

 One of the more important things i've done this week is the colour palette. Sticking to this will give our game some consistency and rhythm. Its not actually finished yet because i'm pretty sure i've left some things out.

This is our final look of the Aegis in all 3 stages. His deterioration is obvious and the change of colour reflects his gradual shift to the dark side.

I really like the simplistic look. I got the idea from one of those really cheap paper masks you get at art stores.

Here's a little alien creep/growth/colony texture i did. I plan to use it as a template for modeling the actual thing. One idea we have is to consistently offset the normal map in Unity, creating the illusion that it is actually alive and slimy rather than just another game object.

I did a quick design of the Input/Output nodes. I don't know if i like it, i might want to change it in the future if we have the time. One problem i faced with this design is the animation. I kinda cheated by putting a ramped texture behind it that we could animate... but nyeh. Theres a better way to do this. For something that should be rather simple, i think i made it too complicated.

Here's a fun piece I did. Its a little room that helped me generate the colour palette, mood and feel of the alien creep. While i would love to do some fancy art techniques, I just don't have the time to try new things. I just have to stick with simple linework... which is okay, but i really want to try something more realistic one of these days.

I/O Development 5

Hi there.

This is the final design for our main character. We still don't have a name for him yet, unfortunately. Even if we give him a name, he will always be Mr. Player to us.

These are some initial concepts for our Pathfinder's crew uniform. Very Star Trek inspired, but i tried to make the lines reflect the design of the I/O Suit. It's like the ships own 'style' or fashion statement.

These are some 'screenshots'. The bottom one is drawn over a demo level we made. Its meant to show what our game is supposed to look like. The grids are a way of telling the player that he's in Input Mode. Also looks damn cool.

These are some concepts for our Projected Character (the avatar the player controls while in Input Mode).

Since the suit -is- a prototype, I figured the projected avatar would also be 'incomplete'. I tried to be very abstract with it and make it look like a mannequin or a base mesh model.

I also had some ideas of the effects it creates while standing on platforms.



While school is fun and shit, the work is starting to pile up like crazy. I only see it getting more intense in the coming months. Theres so much to be done, but so little time.

Pfft.

We got this.

Cheers,
Shafi

I/O Development 4

Here's some character development. Very close to finalizing the character, I'll probably get a turnaround done for the next update.

These are a couple of concepts for when our character projects his conscience onto the 2D world. The rest of the group liked the last one. Its basically something like an inverted version of the normal suit.

More environments!

I'm pretty proud of myself for being able to knock each of these out in about 2 hours each.

The alien planet is meant to be like a carnivorous plant, luring its prey (in this case - space objects) to crash land onto its surface. The inhabitants, uncountable amounts of microscopic aliens that form the surface of the planet, then feast on these objects. 

Alien World

Ship Interior

Tile studies. Trying to keep it simple. Too many lines will clutter up the player's view.