THE HOWS AND WHYS OF LEVEL DESIGN SECOND EDITION by Sjoerd “Hourences” De Jong http://www.Hourences.com This book “The Hows and Whys of Level Design - Second Edition” is copyright 2008, by Sjoerd “Hourences” De Jong By possessing and/or reading this book you agree to the usage terms. See the Copyright and Permissions chapter for more information. I am an independent author and am not supported by any company, group, or organization. I put hard work, effort, and my personal knowledge into the creation of this book. By stealing the content within, or illegally reproducing this book, you affect me, the author, not a multi-million dollar company. Please respect the time and effort I put into writing this. If you obtained this book through illegal means, please buy it if it proves helpful. Knowledge is precious and if the wisdom contained in this book can garner you a (better) job, then the small purchase price is worth the money you will gain from putting the knowledge to use. TABLE OF CONTENTS 8 ABOUT THIS BOOK 9 ABOUT THE AUTHOR 11 INTRODUCTION 13 INTRODUCTION 13 THE BASICS 15 THE HISTORY OF LEVEL DESIGN 16 THE CHALLENGES AHEAD 17 PROFESSIONAL LEVEL DESIGN - OVERVIEW 19 PROFESSIONAL LEVEL DESIGN – COMMON PROBLEMS 23 DESIGN 25 INTRODUCTION 25 THE CREATION OF A NEW WORLD 26 THE CHECKLIST 32 THE FLOORPLAN 33 GROWING PAINS 33 SUCCESS AND EFFICIENCY 34 ORIGINALITY 35 ORIGINALITY CONTINUED 36 CLICHÉS 37 HYBRID SETTINGS 37 CONCEPT ART 39 GAMEPLAY 41 INTRODUCTION 41 BASE PRINCIPLES 43 FLOORPLANS 45 MULTIPLAYER 45 FLOORPLANS 48 ITEMS AND POWER-UPS 50 TRAPS 50 PHYSICS 51 COVER 51 AURAL FIXATION 52 IN-DEPTH EXAMPLES 52 CTF-CORET 54 CTF-LOPO 56 FINAL THOUGHTS 57 SINGLEPLAYER 57 THE BASICS 58 AI PLACEMENT AND BEHAVIOR 60 SCRIPTED EVENTS AND GAMEPLAY VARIATION 62 FLOORPLANS 64 LANDMARKS 65 INTERACTIVITY 66 TRAPS 66 ITEMS 67 DIFFICULTY 68 PACING 69 FINAL THOUGHTS 71 AUDIOVISUALS 73 AUDIOVISUALS 73 INTRODUCTION 74 COMPOSITION 74 INTRODUCTION 74 THE BASICS 76 STAY ON THE PATH 77 COMPOSITION OF NATURAL OBJECTS 77 MOVING GEOMETRY 78 ATMOSPHERE THROUGH COMPOSITION 81 LIGHTING 82 IN-DEPTH EXAMPLES 82 SAE 82 KRODAN 84 GEOMETRY AND ARCHITECTURE 84 INTRODUCTION 84 COMPOSITION AND BASICS 87 UNITY AND CONNECTIVITY 89 CUBISM 89 WEIGHT AND BALANCE 90 THEMATIC DETAIL 91 TERRAIN AND NATURAL LANDSCAPES 91 TERRAIN 92 TERRAIN TEXTURING 94 ROCKS 98 HORIZON 99 THE SKY 102 TEXTURING AND MATERIALS 102 INTRODUCTION 102 BASICS 105 COLORS 109 MATERIALS 110 LIGHTING 110 INTRODUCTION 110 THE SOURCE 112 LIGHTING COMPOSITION 113 BLACK AND WHITE 114 COLORS 116 COLORS CONTINUED: COMPOSITION AND CHOICE 121 TEXTURING AND LIGHTING 122 REALISM AND THE EXCUSE 123 SOUND 123 INTRODUCTION 123 USAGE 124 SOUND VARIATION AND PITCH 125 THE POWER AND STRENGTH 126 IMMERSION AND ATMOSPHERE 126 INTRODUCTION 126 BASICS 127 HISTORY AND SIZE 127 MOVEMENT 128 DETAILS AND CLICHÉS 128 STORY AND DEPTH 130 IMMERSION AND DEPTH IN MULTIPLAYER 132 THE CONCLUSION 135 APPENDIX A - LEVEL EXAMPLES 135 SAE 141 REDKIN 148 KRODAN 153 APPENDIX B - INTERVIEWS 153 CEDRIC FIORENTINO – GENERAL LEVEL DESIGN 157 ROGELIO OLGUIN – GENERAL LEVEL DESIGN 159 ANDREW WELDON – SINGLEPLAYER GAMEPLAY 162 TOM HANRAHAN - ARCHITECTURE 165 DANIEL LUKA - TEXTURING 168 MATTHEW FLORIANZ - SOUND 173 LIST OF SCREENSHOTS 175 CREDITS AND THANKS 177 COPYRIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS ABOUT THIS BOOK T Level design is the core of a video game and forms the backdrop upon which all the other U elements in a game are hung. O It is also, however, one of the most complex aspects of game development. Level design is an amalgamation of a wide range of specialties including architecture, materials and textures, lighting, gameplay, sound, special effects (FX), and more. It is this combination which makes B it so complex. Each aspect needs to be controlled individually, and balanced against the others while a consistent overview of the whole is maintained. All the individual elements must remain in harmony with each other and the rest of the level. Producing a good looking A and, at the same time, well playing level, is not easy. This book covers the artistic/visual side of level design as well as the gameplay side. This book does not include technical ‘how-to’ tutorials. This is an explanation of the ‘why’ behind level design. Instead of writing yet another tutorial about how to create a virtual area, this will be a larger treatise exploring the reasons behind making that area look cool and play well. There will be tips, techniques, and explanations of the logic and theory behind design choices. How does the gameplay in a level work? Why does this type of architecture evoke this feeling, or why does it look better in situation A rather than situation B? Why does this color combination work better than that one? What kind of floor plan could best improve the gameplay in this area and why? What kind of sound setup should I use? These are the types of questions that this book will attempt to provide answers to. The book is divided into four primary parts: Introduction, Design, Gameplay, and Art; and two appendix chapters: Examples and Interviews. Each of the four primary chapters are broken down into multiple parts consisting of a brief introduction, followed by portions dedicated to certain aspects of the overall theme, for example floorplans, sounds, textures, lighting, etc… Each chapter has illustrations portraying examples of the items discussed. The book, as a whole, is intended to be universal in scope. Most of the information presented can be applied to a wide variety of games, game types, and themes. However, most of the author’s experience is with 3D action and/or First Person Shooter (FPS) games, so these will often be the focus of examples and discussions, especially as regards gameplay. The sources to the many screenshots used in this work are all listed in the image index at the end of the book. Also, some of the screenshots represent levels that have been changed to suit the example better and thus may not represent the actual level. Some of the examples given may seem rather obvious at first glance. However the difficulty, and thus the reason for the exposition, lies in identifying these ‘obvious’ problems when they have been interlaced with other situations during development. Spotting them in a clearly drawn example is much different than spotting them ‘in the wild’ with several layers of, for example, art passes and FX passes applied to them. The book uses two symbols to let the reader quickly identify good and bad examples. The green symbol obviously stands for a good example, the orange one stands for a bad example. This second edition corrects some grammar and typos and features a new layout. In addition, it includes an updated cover, dozens of updated example screenshots, and a number of new topics. 8 A ABOUT THE AUTHOR B I began developing my skills in the online Unreal Tournament mod scene, in which I remain active today. I am entirely self-taught. O I have worked as a level designer and environment artist on-site and remotely for both U small startup studios, and for large established studios. These have included Guerrilla Games, Streamline Studios, Psyonix Studios, Digital Extremes, Epic Games, Webzen, Prophecy Games, Khaeon, and Starbreeze. I have worked on titles such as Killzone, Shellshock nam’67, T Unreal Tournament 2004 and its ECE add-on pack, Warpath, Huxley, and The Chronicles Of Spellborn. For UT2004 I created two of the most well-known levels: DM-Rankin and ONS- Torlan. Both were featured in the UT2004 demo and have each been played literally millions of times. In addition to this book, I am the author of The Hows and Whys of the Games Industry (2007) and have also written a few dozen tutorials on various subjects, that can be seen on my own tutorial website. I have also been an Unreal Engine Instructor for game studios Playlogic and Vstep. As a mod developer I have created dozens of free, stand-alone levels for a number of games. I have also worked with teams on several large mods including ‘The Ball’, ‘Operation Na Pali’, ‘Xidia’, and ‘Jailbreak’. My mod work was also recognized by Epic Games when they awarded me several prizes for my entries into their million-dollar ‘Make Something Unreal’ Contest, including first prize. Level design is not an exact science, and different people always have various opinions as to what is beautiful, what plays well, and what is fun. Some of the content in this book could be considered more subjective than objective, but one can always choose what to keep and what to throw away. However, over the years, I have learned that certain methods do work better than others and that the basics of level design can be boiled down to two basic tenants: What to do and what not to do. One could, of course, ignore all the lessons and attempt to find out what works best independently, but why do so when one can learn from others’ experiences and start with a solid base before experimenting? The content covered is aimed at those at an intermediate or advanced skill level. A certain basic level of knowledge is necessary before starting this book. For those who have little to no experience with game editors, or the concepts behind how a current video game works, the information will be of little use. 9 I INTRODUCTION N This small introduction chapter will focus on the basics of level design: its history and its T function as a profession.