Just been wondering what tools people use to sketch out levels. I myself am not savvy with photoshop. So what tools do you use when sketching out levels? Preferbly something that can be easily shared over the web.
The good old pen and paper is probably your best bet. If you want to share it, scan it in to your computer or take a photo of it. If you have a tablet I would suggest the app paper by 51. Easy enough to sketch level layouts. Don’t even have to be super savvy. All my ideas are chicken scratch.
The pen is mightier than the code.
Pencil + paper. What I do is make a rough sketch in pencil (doesn’t have to be anything pretty) and then scan it in. Then I use that as my blueprint when modelling the level.
Yeah, I love pen and paper for design. Between work and hobby stuff I go through about one ring-bound A4 notebook per month.
The best thing about pen and paper is how easy it is to throw things out. Plus, you can’t “undo”, so you’re forced to live with imperfection, which means you create more new ideas instead of backtracking to perfect the one you’re currently drawing - at this stage perfection really isn’t even vaguely relevant, you just want to get ideas out of your brain to somewhere you can physically see them.
Here’s an idea: create a flat terrain and add some 2x2px splat textures of different colors, then draw the rough shape of your level on the terrain. Once you have a rough idea how it’s supposed to be laid out, layer in your models right on top of it.
if you want something more digital than pen/paper, check out pixlr its like an online photoshop. they also have an express version now, havent tried it yet though. i haven’t used it for level sketches (actually haven’t done any level sketches yet… maybe i should get on that) but i thought you might want to look into it. its also great for other image work when you don’t have anything good installed.