Dev Log #2 - Level Design & Environment

Level Design is the glue that ties all elements & mechanics of a game together. Even with stellar mechanics and systems, poor level design can turn an engaging and compelling experience into a rather dull one. In my experience, at least, the level designer should work closely with the artists and designers to produce the best levels they can - ones that both please the mind, and the eyes.

In this project, given our limited time & roles, I had the task of producing environments based off of level plans provided by my groupmates, KaskCask (for Level 1 (Spaceship) and Level 2 Part 2 (Office)), and Eboote (For Level 0 (Tutorial)). A rough idea of what the map would look like would be completed in Unity using basic shapes, and occasionally with help from the 'Probuilder' addon for slightly more advanced shapes. These were our whiteboxes. I would take several screencaps of different angles from these environments, and begin to produce something in Blender that would fit the environment and theme of our game. These would later be imported into Unity as FBX files and set up with lighting, item & enemy placements.


Starting area of tutorial level. (Whitebox)


Starting area of tutorial level. (Rendered in Blender)
The blocks at the start of the level act as an obstruction for the player to get used to the movement and jumping mechanics within the game, and are done so in a safe environment.


First enemy encounter. (Whitebox)


First enemy encounter. (Rendered in Blender)

Having a whitebox to refer back to when designing environments in blender was extremely useful, as it gave me an idea of the layout & flow of the level. Unity's lighting system is unfortunately, not quite as powerful as Blender's Eevee lighting & rendering system, However, the scenes still make use of many point & area lights, to try to emulate the lighting featured in blender.

A few aspects of the environment needed to be changed and improved upon, particularly in the first "proper" level of the game. Though an isometric view was originally planned, this changed as development progressed into a free-cam view. Needless to say, this affected level design, as certain areas of the map were designed with "open areas/walls" so that the player could originally see where they were going and what they were doing. These spaces, however, in third person view, felt more like walls that were forgotten about. Obviously, this needed to adjusted for the final product.

The only level/environment in the game that was designed without a whitebox was one that I produced myself. However, I did so with a clear vision & inspiration in mind. Being the final environment in the game, I wanted something interesting to traverse, that would call back to games of yesteryear, in particular, one released in late 1998, to critical acclaim.


The Anti-Mass Spectrometer, featured in Half-Life. (1998)


The final environment within our game, in which a sample is ready to be analysed - Perhaps to catastrophic results. (Rendered in Blender)

In producing environments, I have always thought that lighting can play massive role - Not only in aesthetic appeal and character, nor even mood & ambience, but also in communication. Subtle lighting can be used to give hints to the player, for direction within the game world. Players of our game may notice that certain lighting is used to draw the eye to specific game objects, as well as entrances & exits. The hope is that the player will understand the meaning of this visual language, and will use it almost instinctively, creating a more intuitive experience.

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Though we made good progress  on our game in many respects, we unfortunately did not have to time to implement one of the other environments that I produced myself ; that being, the office scene in the facility. This scene was planned to have more lore and other story-related items.