Improvements over last design

If we have a look here at the previous floorplan of the map, and compare it with the updated versions. I think ive been careful to introduce a few improvements to the layout and flow to the map.

The map is now much longer than it was before, allowing more space between each base and more room to manouvre an attack or defensive strategy.

Each base now has more entrances, which lead off around the sides of the map. Although there is still the obvious 'route 1' approach through the middle which i think is a great feature of the map. It acts a bottleneck area by being an obvious route between the bases, but on the flip-side it is a foolish route to take because it is so heavily overlooked on both sides from various heights.

These vantage points are also easily accessible by each team, the blue team which starts up top has an excellent vantage point just beyond thier base overlooking the length of the map, whereas the red team below has easy access around the sides of the map to various other vantage points. This creates a balance between the two, each cancelling out the other teams main advantage.

One of the points raised in the previous articles, pointed out that you want to have seperate 'flag rooms' at each base. I have included this the blue team having an area at the back of thier base which can be styled as the cabin or navigation room of the ship. Whereas the red team below has a seperate wall blocking off direct line of sight from the blue base. Whether this is a room or a wall of bookshelves once it comes to crafting out the level will be seen.

Now i have a floor plan, i wanted to start of greyboxing it all out, making sure i jept the shapes as simple as possible blocking it out in large simple dimensions.

Photoshopped floorplans

Ground Floorplan

First Floorplan

Top Floorplan

Combined floorplan

Floor plans

Heres a shot of a few of the 'better' sketches which i drew while drafting out my ideas.

Theyre not really readable so i recreated them in photoshop, splitting each floor out into a seperate level, much like i did for my first plans.

Design readings

The first place i went was to http://www.worldofleveldesign.com/. This is an excellent site offering tips on the whole process of creating your own level. I'll come back to this site and where it helped me out later. The page i was interested in at the start of the project though, was this;

http://www.worldofleveldesign.com/categories/level_design_tutorials/how_to_plan_your_next_map/how_to_plan_your_next_map.php.

This goes through the basic workflow of a level/map creation pipeline. It details steps such as generating ideas, and gathering reference photos, steps which i had already been through.It also highlighted to importance of generating top down views and sketching locations from your map. Before i could do this though, i needed to analyse my previous greybox and decide what was wrong, and what needed to be improved. For this i went over my floorplans, and found readings on map design principles and hints and tips on how to set up the flow of your level. Again, worldofleveldesign.com came in very handy here. Here are a few very useful pages which i used when thinking about my new layout.

https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/TF2_Design_Theory#CTF_-_Capture_The_Flag
http://praliedutzel.wordpress.com/2010/07/28/tips-tricks-making-ctf-maps/
http://bit7.org/quake/mirrors/team3/CTFMapGuide.html

Of particualar interest was the last link, although talking about Quake and some of its unique gameplay features, it discussed and listed several compenents which he tries to stick to while designing his levels;

• Distinct bases.  A wide open field with 2 flags in it may be considered (by some) a CTF map, but it won't be much fun to play.  Having two separate areas for each base normally works the best.
• Flag rooms.  While there are some maps that really don't have a flag room per say, most maps have something they consider to be a flag room.  The goal is to have something for defenders to defend -- instead of a huge base they concentrate on a smaller flag room.
• Choke point(s).  The best maps being played right now have at least 1 choke point.  Simply put a choke point is like a funnel -- players coming from various rooms are "funneled" through a specific area of the map.  There can be several of these, but it's best to not have too many.  Having 10 distinct, separate hallways between bases will frustrate defenders and after a while there will be nobody left but flag runners.  If you want a lot of action, limit the choke points.
• Alternating paths.  One popular technique is to inter-link the paths out of a base -- that is have 2 paths out of a base join together at some point.  This doesn't have to be a choke point, but rather a hall or hole in roof/floor etc.  This offers both flag carriers and defenders a way to change their path in/out of a base (useful to lose defenders, or intercept the FC).   Be careful to not have too many or you'll end up with a maze.
• 3-D.  Quake2 is a 3d game so take advantage of this and go vertical as well as horizontal in your map designs.

So, with these articles in mind i started work on drawing floor plans!

Catching up

Its been a while since this has been updated, apolgies for that, but i'll try to catch up with where i am, and what has been done over the last few months.

So back in January i had just presented my first greybox of my level, before opening UDK again, i needed to do the background research into various aspects of level design which would help me when drafting out the levels layout. The reading can be split into two sections; Design/pre-production and technical such as UDK/3DsMax tutorials.

I'll start of by going through some of the readings i did before redesigning my map.

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.