Level Design Series from Digital Cannoli Games
Pacing and Flow | 2/28/24
3D Art and Level Design | 3/6/24
Responsibilities Part 1 | 3/27/24
Responsibilities Part 2 | 4/3/24
Modular Kit Workflow
Modular assets are an important part of level designers and level artists tool kits. They can reduce environment art workloads through reuse and can save on memory as they reduce the total number of assets. They can also be used in tangent with trim sheets to reduce the total texture count. In this post, I will be discussing how level designers can work with artists to create and utilize modular kits.
Snapping Grids
Kits generally utilize a grid so that pieces can be snapped together to create different environments and scenes. It important that a level designer establishes the spatial metrics they want to use so that they can decide on grid sizes that they will utilize when developing their level.
Recently, I have been working on a modular prototype white box kit as I develop my level. The kit establishes spatial metrics and grid units, but also creates an asset list for environment artists that showcases where I would like pivot points orientated.
These pieces can also be anchored or parented together to create larger set areas that can be more easily moved or put together as a level instance or a packed level actor within UE5. In UEFN, these combined modular asset pieces are called prefabs.
Organization
Generally, I like to split my bigger, building pieces like walls, roofs, and floors into one folder while my smaller props and set dressing pieces in another folder so that I can have one content browser opened for each folder. This allows me to quickly grab assets and make adjustments without having to constantly change folders or scroll through massive folders containing all of these assets.
Naming conventions are also an important part of organizing your assets and can be used to efficiently communicate what the asset is. There is no right way to name your assets but the convention I am currently using is SM_PT_nameofasset. SM stands for the type of actor, which in this case is static mesh, and PT stands for the name of the kit, which is prototype in this example.
Level and Technical Art Techniques
Once a level designer establishes the level and the environment artist creates the pieces for it, a level artist is handed the game space to put the pieces together. The beautification of the level can be a tedious process but artists can develop tools to allow for variation and speed up their work.
For example, let’s say there is a dresser which has a series of booleans that are checked when an instance is constructed. These bools could potentially close and open its drawers or make meshes visible within those drawers. Another example could be a stack of logs or a group of barrels, where a script rotates the individual logs or changes the color of the different barrels based off world space.
3C Design and Level Design
The 3Cs of game design: character, controls, and camera are fundamental to every game experience. Even though they are fundamental, most 3C game designers tend to be senior or leads as their choices will greatly impact the experience and the remainder of development.
3C’s
Character: The design of the character and how they traverse space. Everything from the size and silhouette of the character to their traversal metrics i.e. movement speed, jump height, etc. are important distinctions of the character. It’s extremely important that level designers have a great understanding of the player character as it is the most influential element of the 3C’s on the game space and spatial metrics.
Controls: The inputs the player utilizes to engage with the experience. The controls are the most limited of the 3C’s as they are established by the hardware of the platform, but can also provide the player with expression via controller settings. Inputs are not limited to buttons but can also include physical movement or sound to impact the game world. Controls can be used to limit the player, ‘tank controls’ like in Resident Evil 4, or provide them great freedom, like in the recent Spiderman games.
Camera: The lenses in which the player visually perceives the experience. The camera angle used will provide different feelings and perspectives to the player. A lot of designers tend to pick out the camera extremely early and never test out different angles and perspectives. Regardless, the player should never have to wrestle with the camera in order to play the experience. Camera perspectives tend to be on a range of being very immersed with the character, 1st or 3rd person, or far away/unattached to a character, top down/isometric.
The 3Cs are important to pin down early, especially for level designers, as they greatly impact the design of game spaces. If they aren’t truly established, game spaces that the LDs have already created may become incompatible as the old spaces won’t work with different 3Cs. This is another reason why level designers should practice with level editors as these key elements are already established for them. As a level designer, it is paramount to have a good sense for your 3Cs. Many LDs will constantly move around as the character and fly around in the viewport so that they can develop a good sense of the spatial metrics, framing, and orientation of their spaces.
LD Responsibilities Part 2
Narrative - Level design has a few overlapping areas where they work closely with writers, narrative designers, and artists to execute on narrative elements of the game fantasy. Story pacing and non-gameplay, narrative content has a direct correlation to level flow and needs to be properly aligned and fitted via great communication between a writer and LD. Environmental story telling is another element where a level designer, artist, and narrative designer come together to communicate story and depict atmosphere shifts. This responsibility varies greatly depending on the game genre and the emphasis on narrative within the studio.
Quality Assurance - Like any analyst, designer, or programmer a level designer needs to create reports for bugs they find while working on the game. In some cases, they will need to be able to work around bugs with their own design solutions. In other cases, you may be able to take care of a bug on the spot but it’s still important to communicate it in your source control push, Jira, or documentation.
Playtesting - A level designer will be responsible for running playtests in order to receive feedback on their levels. Playtests always need a goal and should retain both qualitative and quantitative data. When I run playtests, I usually break it up into two phases. Phase 1 is watching the player and taking notes with minimal questions/comments from myself. Phase 2 is the interview where I alternate between short and long form answer-based questions in order to gain a range of data but also to not overwhelm the play tester with many long response questions
LD Responsibilities Part 1
Due to the nature of level design, the responsibilities and day to day of level designers can be very different from studio to studio. However, regardless of project a LD is usually prioritized to create the game space and/or gameplay content of a given space. In this post I’ll discuss a few different responsibilities a level designer can have and what they can entail.
Scripting - At the very least, a level designer is expected to be able to implement gameplay assets or work on the code from the outer most ‘front end’ for their levels. Sometimes, a level designer will script their own quick and dirty mechanics while prototyping. In other cases, a LD will script events; for example, the lights being turned off after the player runs through a collision in a specific location of their level. Sometimes, a level designer will take ownership in their own features like small mechanics or mini games if a studio lacks the numbers.
Layout - Most LD’s, expect in some mobile games, will design the spaces in which the player will play through. In order to design the space, they will need to have a good feel for the movement, locomotion, and the types of content for their spaces. As discussed last week, 2D layouts can be a great way to iterate on potential games spaces as a low lift method, but grey boxing and testing will be more definitive.
Balancing - Level designers, in many cases will work with others designers, to balance gameplay and tweak values. In order to achieve this LD’s have to play and replay their levels many times to get a good feeling for the difficulty, while listening carefully to feedback. Having a foundation and practical knowledge of excel and spreadsheets is a fundamental skill for many designers.
Aesthetic - How closely a level designer works on the aesthetic of their levels greatly varies from one studio to the next. In some studios a level designer will pass along the level to an environment or level artist once the white box is completed and will never touch the aesthetic. In some cases, the art team will even take your initial shipyard map concept and make it a city from your block out. In other studios, the level designer will get the aesthetic started by doing some quick and dirty look development and the art team will beautify it from there. In some studios, the level designer is responsible for the aesthetic from set dressing, lighting, look development, etc.
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Level Layouts
Intent and execution of a well-defined purpose are key elements that apply to all aspects of design. Level layouts are no exception. Within the planning phase of many maps, 2D top down-level layouts are often utilized to showcase or document an early concept of the game space in a low lift, efficient way. However, many designers will tend to spend too much time in this part of their process as they will beautify their layout for presentation. Layouts should be readable and communicate the orientation of the map, but should also be ‘quick and dirty’ enough for iteration and speed. In many cases a designer will want to get to prototyping and playtesting as soon as possible as they seek to learn if their ideas are actually fun for the player in practicality.
Here are a few tips for laying out a level:
Create a template – Utilize custom brushes, shapes, grids, etc. to get you started
Understand Limits - Verticality is something that is hard to depict in a layout which will either potentially require additional time, specific communication to showcase, or just needs to be showcased in the white box
Less is more – Readability is key to a great level layout; excessive use different colors, lines, and shapes will make it harder for the viewer to read it but also cost more time during your iteration
Use Grids Sparingly – Relying too heavily on a grid can make your maps ‘blocky’ and boring
3D Art and Level Design
The fundamentals of 3D art is a key knowledge area for all level designers working in 3D. If you are a level designer you probably have at one point or another dipped your toes into maya, 3ds max, or blender.
Usually a 3D art application can a bit confusing at first, especially for those just getting started in 3D game development, but once you get used to the software, you will develop a better sense of 3D space and will start to see the real world around you as groups of vertices, edges, faces, and triangles. You will be able to imagine how you would model or sculpt people, props, and environments as you see them. If you get more advanced you will also be able to see normals, face orientation, and maybe able to pick out LODs or what objects in your view would be higher and lower poly counts.
Once you have this knowledge base established it will be exponentially easier to talk with artists, especially environment artists. Environment artist are level designers best friends and vice versa. Building great communication and understanding with environment artists is an important skill for all level designers and is something that can be easily overlooked in some pipelines.
I have recently asked by several people about the different vertical (deep) and horizontal (fundamental) T shaped skills for level designers. 3D art related skills such as color theory, visual composition, set dressing, and lighting are some horizontal art skills within 3D fundamentals that designers should consider developing within their skill sets.
Pacing and Flow 2/28/24
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Every time a designer intentionally or unintentionally pauses or slows down gameplay, they are breaking the player's flow, especially in game experiences with faster paced and intense gameplay. It doesn't matter if its for narrative, tutorial, or other reasons; in some cases it will also break immersion. Pacing is a skill that most applies to linear content, but is a fundamental skill for all level designers.
Over the past weekend I started playing, Gungrave G.O.R.E., a 3rd person shooter, hack and slash. I was immediately hooked with the game’s combat and the player character's aesthetic design. However, my enjoyment started to quickly vanish as I was constantly hit with cutscenes and tutorial panels. Not only did this break my flow constantly, but the game was also asking me to care about the story while trying to get me to learn and master an unreasonable amount of controls in a short period of time.
This is a major issue within the genre, but also with many games in general. When designing the levels for your game it important to slowly breadcrumb different types content so the player can digest it in an enjoyable and frictionless way. Here are a few tips:
- Start designing the game from level two. Save level 1 and the tutorial once you completed most of the game.
- Teach the player new mechanics throughout the game.
- Tying together extrinsic gameplay progression with player character's narrative development can work very well especially with character focused games such as Ratchet & Clank.
- Narrative content should be used to give the player some downtime after intense gameplay.