Level Design for Computer Games - Summary, current level and future steps for further improvement.

Through this unit, I have basically been adding visual upgrades in an effort to make my level a bit more realistic or believable to an end user.
I am aware there is work to do from where I currently stand but I am happy with my progress thus far.
As my level currently stands, since the completion of Unit 76 I have implemented a terrain, some foliage in the form of bare trees and a series of meshes to create buildings in the form of a modpack.

In terms of the terrain, I am new to the process and have yet to use multiple avenues of terrain creation, in the sense that I will be looking into Houdini 16 terrain creation as and when I can, this will depend largely on time and software availability.
I feel I have created a reasonable terrain with the tools provided within Unreal Engine 4 and the have created a procedural reactive material, reacting to the angle and height of any given slope within the terrain itself. The terrain material could do with some work in places admittedly, and painting it simply with terrain paint layers is also an option for further development.
Everything accounted for, I am relatively happy with my current terrain and material.

Where the foliage is concerned, my level by design is lacking somewhat in foliage presence, as thematically, my level is set in a post-apocalyptic environment as already stated. This can be interpreted in many ways, but my interpretation is that the apocalypse would destroy much of the foliage and plant life in the game world.
I currently have trees with varied types of bark applied to them, but am aiming to expand more at a further point in development.

With meshes and textures in mind, whilst I have been using procedures I am already familiar with, time restraints and circumstances out of my control mean I have not upgraded as many assets as I would have liked to, I have managed to upgrade the buildings featured within the level, a very important part of any level, they have been modpacked, UV'd, lightmapped and textured. Any spare time I get from this point onward before the deadline which I can dedicate to this unit will be spent improving and further developing whatever other meshes I can within the level.

Whilst for now I am reasonably happy with the progress I have made, there are certainly improvements to be made as and when possible. Further improvements across the board include further research and development into foliage types and implementation, further terrain development, researching into using other softwares, and further developing my meshes throughout my level. I would like to make the fountain/statue at the centre of my courtyard a priority for improvement, as this is seen immediately upon entering the settlement.

Level Design for Computer Games - Texture creation, importing and application.

When it comes to textures, I had two approaches I could take to the resourcing and creation of textures.
If I had the time, I would have created low poly meshes, and also high poly meshes, baking down onto the lower of the two, however as I have not had the time to pay attention to solely the modelling with other work to be completed also, I have had to use a simpler method of texturing, from the sourcing of textures to the application, this does allow me to make use of a multiple material setup within Unreal Engine itself however, which will be valuable knowledge in the future.

I sourced a portion of my textures from CGTextures.com, a lot of which are already designed with practical game engine application in mind and as such are tileable. Following this I used a simple software to generate normal ambient occlusion, specular and roughness maps from the diffuse texture.
This allowed me to simply create a set of textures using the sliders and values within the software, to then be combined within Unreal.

Below are a couple of examples of some texture sets created;

The application of my textures required a slight modification to the general material setup in Unreal. The modification in question was a "TextureCoordinate" node that needed to be added, these nodes allow the texture to be doubled up via the UV values on both the X and Y axes, referred to as UTiling and VTiling within the node itself.
This allows me to tile the texture to have 4 times the details in each texture, as long as the TextureCoordinate, as can be seen below;

I really wish I had had more time to spend baking and texturing my meshes, as it is generally better practice, and expands my knowledge of texturing as a whole, however with the time constraints, I have used simple techniques and gotten reasonable textures.

I ultimately plan on properly modelling high and low poly meshes and baking where possible at a further point in time as and when I get the chance, this will give me better results than simply generating maps from diffuse textures, which the current time constraints have not really allowed.

Level Design for Computer Games - Modpack creation and importing to Unreal

To resume transforming my level from a simple blockout into a fully formed level I needed to create modpacks for buildings. This began with figuring which pieces I would need to make a full building and for which building within my level the pieces would apply

To make my high class house, my modpack consists of 4 wall sections, a foundation segment to allow for the steps in front of the house to remain functional, and pillars to match the height of both the full wall section, and the foundation height also.

• 1x Wall - 400x400 units
• 1x Windowed Wall - 400x400 units
• 1x Wall with Doorway - 400x400 units
• 1x Half width wall - 200x400 units.
• 1x Pillar - 100x400x100 units: applicable to corner of house
• 1x Foundation wall - 400x100 units
• 1x Half width foundation wall - 200x100 units
• 1x Foundation pillar - 100x100x100 units: again applicable to corners.

I constructed my meshes in Maya, followed by the UVing and light mapping process and then exporting each piece with the pivot point snapped appropriately and centred in the world. These were all saved out into a named folder within my file structure.

To note, the half wall sections are used in conjunction with pillars mostly, to avoid any occurrences of texture seams as the texture, whilst tileable, still presents some errors when spread across a half width wall, even with Texture Coordinated nodes in place within the material editor. I have also left the roof flat for the time being, with an eye to maybe change this in the future, dependent on design decisions.

I then applied the same processes to my second and third building with some slight differences, for the second building I required a lower window than the third, however all the other pieces were relatively re-usable for the current pass with this unit. I felt this was an acceptable sacrifice for the necessity of speed with the deadline approaching within this unit.

I created the appropriate meshes again, with the slight differences mentioned, UV'd and lightmapped them, followed with the export process again, this finished roughly three buildings worth of modelling.

I could have spent more time and put more detail into each individual piece, though I don't feel I would have physically gotten much more out of the meshes without pushing too close to my deadline maybe a little too much.

If I get more time to develop further on my models at this point, it will be largely focused on the smaller pieces of my modpack, the chairs, tables and most notably the fountain/statue at the focal point of my courtyard area, as with an eye to a final end product, I would ultimately like this to draw the eye more upon entry to the town.

For now however, I am relatively happy with the point at which my modpack stands. I am aware I may still have some work to do to improve the meshes as and where necessary, but as this will inevitably run over the deadline, this will now become a future aim to keep on improving my level.

A shot of my high class house can be seen below in modpack form;

Level Design for Computer Games - Foliage Creation and importing into Unreal

As a requirement of this unit, to add both some set dressing and some life to my level, I have implemented some foliage, this is currently only in the form of trees currently, which are also bare of leaves due to my surrounding.
This was a thematic design decision I made to keep the trees simply restricted to a trunk and branches, as being based in a post apocalyptic desert type setting, no leaves would remain on the trees, the trees would in fact possibly not survive themselves dependent on the conditions of the apocalypse.

For this part of the level design process, I have used an external software in order to create trees without leaves, leaving only the bare trunk and branches, I took a Joshua tree and an Elm tree and placed them scarcely, with a couple of small groups at the entrance to my town.
I placed them scarcely for the same reasons as I took away the leaves as I feel if the trees were too common it would take away from the apocalyptic feel.
I varied the sizes of the trees slightly within groups to give effect that they are not in fact the same mesh, and at the same time used multiple different types of bark texture to give a different visual effect.

The trees I have imported into my level can be seen below;

I will be looking to implement some form of weeds, in dead patches, saturated of most colour with a colour value allocated appropriately for the theme, though this is currently in progress.

Level Design for Computer Games - Terrain Creation and Editing.

As this unit has been effectively merged with a second part, this is where I will be breaking into the next steps, starting with Terrain creation.

To create my terrain I used a procedural material, based on angular values and height combined, I sized a terrain mesh and hit create, with the mesh in place I could begin sculpting, my original theory was that the boss arena would be set in a small crevasse in the terrain, this may still happen at a further point, but for now I have simply constructed a general rocky type terrain around the perimeter of the level.

Taking into account that this is set in a sort of post apocalyptic, desert-type surrounding, I went for general sandy, rocky textures within the material which was applied to the terrain.

I began sculpting peaks into the terrain, varying the strength, falloff and size of the sculpting brush in different areas of the mesh.

I intend on looking into more methods of terrain creation, including height map creation and other softwares. Ind would have tested implementation with World Machine, however the lack of resolution allowances resulted in me deciding not to use it, with a resolution cap of 512x512, it would not be applicable to a level without creating multiple terrains and attempting to link them together perfectly, edge for edge.
I will also, when given the opportunity to use the brand new Houdini 16, be experimenting with the terrain creation features within the software, this does hinge on access to the software however.

Below is a shot of the first rough terrain pass, this is obviously still subject to change and I may indeed implement the crevasse type area into my design, as this would potentially add to the feel of the level. This will however require other design modifications which I will make in due course.

Level Design for Computer Games - An understanding of Ludic, Aesthetic,Technical and Narrative game design aspects.

To gain a deeper understanding of games design as a whole, I must understand the Aesthetic, Technical, Narrative and Ludic approaches to games design.
In terms of aesthetics, this concerns the functionality of design aspects in tandem with the representation of said aspects.
In my level, the overall aesthetic is that of a desert settlement, set post-apocalypse, the surroundings are designed to show exactly that, with a lot of lower end, makeshift housing and much smaller amount of higher end housing as an end user would expect for the setting.
Whilst giving the player an aesthetic feel for the level is also allows me to utilise the functionality of the aesthetic choices made, in a sense that I could potentially use the compact style of the shanty town to hide enemies, in an attempt to catch the player off guard.
Taking only the aesthetics into account however, this from the outset gives the user a pre-determined idea of the area to come, which may be included further in any end product.

With Ludic game design aspects in mind, as I did not know what the term meant, I looked up a definition, the Oxford dictionary definition for ludic is "showing spontaneous and undirected playfulness".

From this, I began thinking about methods of guiding players to areas resulting in play in the aforementioned 'undirected' sense. Also about guiding players using subtle methods so as they feel they are not being guided. Effectively following like a sheep, not realising you are in fact being led.

A perfect example of this in game is within the Destiny content for The Taken King expansion, in which a small white light guides you through early stages of the content, with the light appearing less and less. This subtlety tells you subconsciously to follow the small light as it appears later in the run up to the final boss automatically, running into battle without thinking about it, therefore not realising you're actually following.

An example of this in my level can be seen via flashing lights, subtly guiding the player in the right direction following the target.

Translating this through to my own level, whilst not as subtle as the light effects used within Destiny I have implemented some flickering lights, placed strategically throughout the starting area and the high class district of my level. These are designed to subtly guide the player in the appropriate direction they should be moving toward the endgame, eventually guiding the player without thinking about it.

This, when coupled with an intended objective based system, may take away from some of the subtlety but would add in other veins of game design, hopefully evening out, though the obvjecitves given could be made vague in an attempt to maintain the level of Ludic value.

Below is an early capture of the flickering lights I have implemented, prior to modpacking and texturing processes.

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The Narrative gameplay aspects of my level are not yet really implemented as in the player being vocally or textually guided with speech or captions.
However, with the implementation of cutscenes and lighting yet to come, these will be implemented further. This may be implemented in the form of a small radio, with vocals being transmitted to and from another radio, with the narrative passed between referring to the gameplay and the objectives within.
Examples of well executed narrative gameplay aspect in particular can be found in a few games, firstly, The Stanley Parable, in which the story is narrated as the player progresses through the world, and is essentially told what to do in the world, with the option to do the exact opposite. For example early on in the game, upon arriving at a pair of doors, the narrator says "When Stanley came to a set of two open doors, he entered the door on his left." This then gives the player the option to progress the story in two directly opposite ways.

In a lesser narrative context, although equally perplexing for its time, Metal Gear Solid 2 has a very well thought out narrative aspect to the latter stages of the game. The player is contacted by what would appear to be the Colonel, who then speaks very realistically about the realities of society mixed in with a speech about mapping of the human genome and the digitising of life itself, referring to the Human Genome Project, a real life research project undertaken to identify and map every human gene.
Slightly later again within the game, the Colonel makes contact again, commanding the player to "Turn the game console off right now!", followed by the statement "The mission is a failure! Cut the power right now!". This is an elaborate way of breaking the fourth wall, and combined with the previous rhetoric, the narrative is used in a way which is known to have resulted in confusion amongst some players, and was actually known to have made some players turn the console off when instructed to do so.

A goal for future development within my level, potentially within the HCI module, is to add an objective tracker, starting through text driven goals and then at a further point in time potentially spoken commands, though spoken commands would be more subtle, and maybe use different wording to the written goals.

As previously mentioned, this may take away from the ludic design decisions within my level, so I will need to be careful about how much text of vocal based narrative I actually use.

Also from a narrative angle, the intention to have the courtyard populated with people from both in and outside of the settlement, could work well in my favour upon the primary event triggering within the level, in which info could be gained through civilians in the courtyard as to the direction or actions of the target which the player will be following.

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In terms of Technical gameplay, this is more down to the functionality of the gameplay itself and what lies within. The mechanics of the game are much more in question when it comes to Technical Game Design and these are much more present when it comes to less subtle games.
Whilst there are game mechanics in the titles which make more use of ludic design techniques, a good example of technical game design comes from rail shooters, in which a user is forced to follow a set of more strict mechanics to complete objectives and complete the game.
Within my game the mechanics come more into play with the boss fight, and within the games industry in general, Destiny can be used as a good example again, as some boss fights in the more advanced 6 man raids contain a large series of specific mechanics which must be completed in certain ways to be completely successful in quest to defeat the boss.

To reflect this back on my own level, the current mechanics that are involved, aside from the regular combat mechanics, include forced walk volumes which can add to both the narrative and technical aspects of my game design.
In a sense of technical, these directly impact the gameplay, slowing the players pace to a walk, allowing them to take in the surrounding narrative game design elements, providing a double hit of design elements.
There is a point also in my level at which a few shipping container doors open, this is intended to force the player into a fight with multiple enemy combatants trying to stop them from reaching the target. This direct drawing of the player into a battle is a mechanic which could be developed on even more so, allowing for the final bosses health to be chipped away with each minor enemy beaten, possibly beaten in a specific way to drive the mechanic even further.