After the 6 weeks of working on this project I am happy with my finished level which I have called frostbite. The level was a good learning experience for me as I learned many new things in UE4 and Maya that I previously was unaware of.
My level has a snow particle system that covers the map and is set a nighttime which I am very happy with as it makes certain ares of my level stand out from the rest and redirects the players to the main lit area where most combat will occur.
Creating a particle system for my level was a good touch as it has helped me bring my level to life and will restrict vision a bit more when combined with fog so that all gunfights will be in close range and will hopefully keep my level exciting.
I am very happy with my levels landscape as it features high cliff faces connected by snowy bridges all the way to frozen interiors of a dome and room with set paths for the teams to follow. The level is surrounded by an ocean which is occupied by submarines and more icebergs even including an ice shelf to give my level more life and not just have an empty horizon. I am very pleased with how this came out.
The thing I am not too happy with in my level is my main research building as it was one of the first models I made for my level and so as time went on I learned many new techniques that really would have helped me when creating this and gave it a bit more life and structure as it only has one room on the bottom floor, the reason I kept this is that it ultimately worked out better for me in the long run as it opened up many routes around my level and prevents people hiding in many different floors of the building meaning that there is a quicker flow to my level which I would prefer than having to actually search for the enemies.
Another thing I would change is the tent area I made, I originally wanted igloos with tunnel systems running underneath but thought that they would have hindered game play and make it slower as the map was already big enough in my opinion, I also could have added the NPCs I originally wanted but decided that they could be a nuisance and block pathways thus yet again slowing the pace of my level.
My favorite part of my level is the snow and the lighting, this came out so much better than I had originally anticipated as it was going to be set during the day but whilst making the level I decided to experiment with lighting and figured that a nighttime theme with a sole campfire will give the level the abandoned and mysterious feel I aspired for. Once the sky was dark and I had the warm lighting for the campfire I decided that adding snow and fog would be the next step and overall help my game look appealing, both physically and when playing it as there is always something around the next corner instead of an empty space. This was a big target for me as I didn’t want there to be downtime in my level and big unused spaces and so there were many spontaneous routes that were opened up which inspired many ideas which I am very happy with in my finished product.
Some of my models could have been improved though, I would personally say that my weakest models were the observatory, the tents and the main building as I feel I could have done so much better with these and really made them stand out but when playing it feels like they are just background decoration which I did not want them to be.
The design process for my models all started with a rough sketch of what I imagined they would look like, After this I used google images and a source of inspiration and started to create a block out for my level which was very basic and looked very dull,
You can see from the above image the original block out and design for my level, there were many things that I changed but for the most part you could tell this is my level.
From the block out I started to create the models to fill my world in and add some basic textures which gave me something that looks like this,
Still a very bland level but as you can see there were new routes that were opened up by the constant development and production of my level which ultimately benefited my final level.
During the creation process I changed each spawn a total of 4 times purely because I couldn’t get the design I wanted and so kept thinking of ways that could look good on my map.
The watchtowers on my level went through a completely different design compared to the original concept which I used in my blockout, the original designs looked something like this –
Compared to what they are now at this –
The new design of watchtower is so much more player friendly and actually serves the intended purpose now, be usable and provide sight lines for players to shoot each over from.
If I was doing this project again there would be many things that I decide to change, this time around I would allocate myself time slots to focus on certain parts that needed it most as my creation process was just everywhere and I put a lot of focus into the smaller things rather than into the main features of my level and I really feel that this does show. This being said I am very happy with my final result as it was everything I expected it to be and more, with all of the lighting and particle effects I can really say I am proud of my project.
This is my final result, of which I am very proud.
Jake Ling's Game Development Progress Blog. 