Making sure the project remians focused on the original goal.

When i started this project i wanted to use it as a way of demonstrating my understanding of design techniques and game balancing. I am not an artist, i dont want to let this project deviate and be drawn towards a showcase of any artistic skills i may have. This means i wont be creating the most beaufitul map ever seen, or the most intricate models, all i want to showcase is my understanding of the design techniques and processes that go on behind the development of a map. This should become evident in the peices of readings that are put up on this blog in the coming weeks.

Hopefully come the end i can present a respectable peice of work and be able to explain, why i chose to place certain pickups and the size of rooms or the amount of escape routes the player has. All choices which at the end of the day ensure that the player enjoys his experience and finds the map fun to play. If, to produce this peice of work i have to learn and demonstrate some basic modelling/artistic skills then that is an added bonus, i am happy to add that to my bow.

Im really committed to working on a daily basis on this project from now on, to make up for lost time. Im still confident that with that amount of work, i can still acheive what i set out to acheive 5 months ago.

Depending on how portfolio work goes tomorrow, (as the deadline is Friday) i hope to have screenshots of my new greyboxed level up by Friday, if not, over the weekend.

Back to the drawing board

I needed to revisit my floorplans and rethink the scale of my map. I looked at ship layouts from reallife for inspiration and ideas of how ships make use of space and how rooms link into each other. I need more than just one big main chamber and a few corridors around it.

The main thing to notice from this image is that cruise ships are alot longer than the design i currently have. If this was to be translated directly to a UDK map it might provide some difficulty as it would act as a 'funnel' forcing to make the players move in one direction. Although if the amount of access between different floors was plentiful then it would add more of a vertical dimension to the map, not just horizontal.
 
I am currently in the process of redesigning my greybox layout. I have hand-drawn floorplans, and i shall post these up as soon as i can scan them in/reproduce them in photoshop. This should be ready by Friday or the end of the weekend.

Once this is done i can get started on the main bulk of the project, filling out the details and importing static meshes. Main features of the map will be moddelled such as the doorways, staircases and general 'props' such as tables and chairs, which will be help to fill the empty floorspace.

Planning and greyboxing

Out came UDK and i started to greybox simply the layout of my map. This would help to flag up any issues and from this i could reassess what needed to be changed before i settled on a final layout.

Here are some screenshots from my greybox;

 

 

 

This shot shows the main atrium staircase to the left, and i have blocked out a few cabin doors which will go along this wall to help break it up abit and not just being a long flat surface. In the center is a revised staircase which leads up to the first floor. When modelling the stairs i encountered a few problems. To ensure that players could run up the stairs with the need to jump up each step, every step had be less than 20 pixels high, thus meaning that the angle of inclination is quite considerable lower than i imagined. To fit a staircase in this are i had to make the staircase double back on itself. This was the first sign, that at this present scale, my map would be too small.

An overview shot of the atrium from a first floor balcony. The balcony wall was intended to be small enough to allow the player to jump over and have easy access down into the atrium. But by making it short enough to do this, the wall looks terribly out of proportion with everything else on the map.

A view from the top of the first floor.

This is a view of the back of the ship. I am yet undecided how to tackle the problem of not having a wall along this side, allowing players to potentially just fall off the side. Ideally i want to keep from having a wall here, so that the players can see out into space, but normal methods of inserting invisible walls to stop players, kind of ruins the illussion and the players immersion in the game.

One of the corridors running alongside the main chamber. I need to rethink my floorplan, as this doesnt offer much space. There is potential for alot more out to the left and at the moment this space is quite poky and dingy. Although having several access points out onto into the atrium does mean the player isnt trapped in the corridor.

The main doors in the atrium.

This first greybox flagged alot of problems. Mainly to do with scale. The whole map is way too small. A player can run the entire length of it in about 15 seconds which is ridiculous. Each room needs to be scaled up, to allow not only the map size to increase but make it easy for the player to navigate and provide each area with more light and space to place spawns and weapons etc.

Planning and greyboxing

Taking some of these points into account, i set about drawing up some floorplans for my map.

Bottom floor (Top Left) Middle Floor (Bottom Left) Top Floor (Right)

I tried to structure the area so that player always has a route to the atrium. I wanted to include a corridor system that looped all the way around the atrium and provided access to balconys which overlooked the area. With so many vantage points it makes the centre of this room a good place to place a powerful pickup/weapon as it is a high risk route to take. Each room has at least two exit points meaning players are never 'trapped' in a room without a safe route out.

Planning and greyboxing

The next stage was to start greyboxing the level. First though i needed to draw up some floor plans, and think about the layout of the map. A usefull article for this was Cliff Bleszinkis peice on rules and general tips to follow when thinking about creating a balanced map.

Ive selected a few of the most relevent and important things he says, and will breifly talk about them in relation to my project.

Misc. Design Tips

- Put more valuable weapons like the Flak and Rocket Launcher in higher risk areas. Try to space the weapons as evenly as possible; make sure the 'great' weapons are at opposite ends of the map so that players have to 'run the map' in order to control it. the same goes for powerups.
(I tried to make each end of the map offer the same amount of vamtage points and areas in which weapons pickups can be placed. When i come to decide upon the final weapon placements i will bear in mind the accessiblity to the more powerful weapons from both teams perscpectives and make sure it offers a balanced oppurtunity to grab the more powerful weapons.)

- There is a direct correlation between the sixe of an area and what weapons are effective in this area. Tighter aeas make the flak more valuable, more poen areas make the sniper rifle and minigun better.

(My map offers both of these types of areas. The atrium is a large open space, whereas there are many tight corridors running down both sides. To make sure that players dont feel enclosed in these corridors, i shall try to make sure that there are frequent escape routes back out into the atrium, so that the players dont feel too vulnerable once they decide to turn down one of the corridors. If a corridor is too long players will feel at risk of enclosure and easy death from enemies with Rocket Launchers in these areas. Conversely a player could abusee this advantage and 'camp' in the tight corridor areas waiting for people to venture down.)

- The location of playerstart, or spawn points should not be an obvious thing to players. This encourages spawn killing and Bleszinki admits it was a mistake he made in one of his early games 'Elsinore'. 

(Each 'base' will offer enough room to vary the spawn points. I will make sure that these spawns arnt in obvious places like in corners of rooms or in front of doorways. The more variation there is in spawn points, the harder it is for the poosing team to predict the spawning pattern and exploit it.) 

- Try to avoid 'room, corridor, room' syndrome. Try to make your rooms interlock nicely with one another. Remember a good map is always returning back into itself. Good DM levels have multiple entry and exit points to each room. Dead ends should be avoided. Good DM levels also have a lot of variation in height so your constantly above or below your opponent.

(In my map, the atrium offers a variation in height. To make the most of this height difference, as well as prevent the 'room, corridor, room' effect, i will try and make sure the player always has an access route back to this area not too far away, whether it be a balcony outlooking the atrium or a doorway, or a hole that has been blasted in a wall, providing the player with an unconventional route out of the room he is in. 

 I shall add the entire document soon. He also talks about Sound, Lighting and things to consider when creating a CTF map.

Getting back on track

My last blog entry was a long while ago (November) so first of all i'll make sure everything ive done since is up to date. I have various peices of work that are going to go up in the next few hours, from concept images to greybox builds and feedback, to extra background reading regarding techniques that i will need to use later in the process.

First of all, here are just a few images which i drew quite a while ago now, just scribblings really and rough sketches.