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.