Hello other developers! Often I find myself stumped when it comes to level design. I can envision a scene in my mind, exactly how I want the level to look, but when it comes to actually turning that into an actual level I always get stuck! I don’t get stuck on the modeling, but more of just piecing everything together.
I want to know what your guys’ workflows are for level/environment design. Do you start by morphing the terrain, or by building assets like buildings and then building the terrain around it. I have been battling this issue for a long time, and would love to know how you guys do it! Thank you.
Well, from my own experience, when I do level design I try to never look on the level as a whole.
Try to position your scene camera in the same way as you’d be playing a game and try to put the pieces together. Only with this approach you’re sure if a certain object looks OK or needs to be repositioned.
For house, apartment or mansion interiors, I tend to go to Google images and look up floor plans for living structures. You can even review tunnel blue prints for subways and city sewers for inspiration or guidance.
I start with a pencil and paper and focus on the important things: what sort of gameplay do I want, and what environments do I need to enable that?
Then I start to think about the kinds of environment themes that will fit. Do I want lots of firefights in tight spaces? Sounds like corridors. Do I want more of an arena? Corridors won’t work so well there - I probably need an exterior, unless I’m going to do something like a big ballroom.
Then I work it from the other end a bit - if my gameplay is taking place inside corridors, what building am I in, and what context does that building exist in? Is it a block of flats in a residential area - and if so, what kind of exterior environments would I find right next door to a block of flats?
Most importantly: I never try to make any one particular part ‘perfect’ before moving on to the next. It’s always an iterative process - you move back and forwards across the level, hashing out the bits you know how to hash out and gradually filling in the gaps, and changing stuff over and over.