Adventure Postmortem
This project was a two month long journey. From not having touched any sort of level design to creating a fleshed out level. We were given a creative vision document that gave us a basic idea that we were making an Adventure level, the following are the specifications that we had to adhere to. Modern-ish time period, earth-like location with the same physics/gravity, no inhabitants. Using this creative vision I came up with an abandoned temple on a remote island. Below I will go over what went right and also what went wrong during the time working on this Adventure project.
What Went Well?
Waterfalls
The waterfalls were a part of my level from the start of my blockmesh 1 and continued throughout the final Gold build of my level. I wanted to have the video game trope of going behind a waterfall and finding something whether that be an easter egg, item, or secret path. But with my level I used that thinking to allow the player to enter a tunnel and find an abandoned temple in a massive cave. I am really happy with how the waterfalls turned out and how they add to the level by blocking off areas and itching that gamer's brain when they see a waterfall.
What Went Well?
Cave
The cave was the main place that I wanted the player to go “wow” and then make their way to the temple which was the main focus of the middle of my level. I first started out with a giant box room for the temple and it changed to a giant sphere that was hollow in the middle to place my temple, to the last iteration which I created using rock assets. Overall I am very pleased with how the cave turned out and how it works with the temple sitting in the middle.
What Went Well
Temple
The temple was my focal point of my level and it needed to be fleshed out enough to feel like it was an abandoned temple and not just have a bunch of empty rooms that you would have to run through. In my first iteration I had 4 floors of emptiness but once I redesigned my 1st blockmesh I cut it down to just 2 floors that had multiple rooms on each to allow for the player to have better flow when exploring and running through it. In the finished product once the temple was fleshed out with props and textures on the walls/floors it feels like a proper abandoned temple.
What Went Well?
Asset Replacement
When it came to asset replacement of the blockmesh I was able to figure out what I needed and where it needed to go fairly quickly. I think this is because I knew what I needed to put into the level and where to put it. Using my mood board pictures throughout the design process was very important to allow me to figure out what was needed and where to place the objects to get the vision that was in my head out into the level. Overall, I was very happy with how the replacing of blockmesh to assets went.
What Went Wrong?
Boat Asset Issues
One of the issues that I ran into when working on this project was a boat asset not showing its texture when placed in the level. Upon further inspection I realized that the texture itself wasn’t showing up in the content browser. I started by trying to replace the boat from the content browser, then I tried to migrate the missing files from my sandbox project back into the main project, when that didn’t work I ended up deleting the boat folder out of the main project and migrating all the files back over. Once I migrated the files back into the main project the texture showed up and the team was able to see and use the fully textured boat in whatever way they wanted.
What Went Wrong?
First Blockmesh
My first iteration of blockmesh was a nightmare, I had thought that it was solid and made a ton of sense but after getting some feedback from the instructors/peers I realized that it looked too manmade. Straight lines and hard 90 degree turns are great for streets and cities but not for a remote island. After realizing what was wrong with my level I hopped into a new project and rebuilt the level to be more natural looking and feeling. Once I had built up the new blockmesh I didn’t look back at this old iteration unless I was going to make a design choice and needed to see if I had already tried it, and if it worked well or not in the first blockmesh.
What Went Wrong?
Transition/Transition Waterfall
The transition and transition waterfall from my level to one of my teammates' levels was huge, around 3x to wide and about 100 ft drop to a small water area below. The transition part took a while to run through which introduced too much extra walking that didn’t need to happen. So I took the transition, reduced it by more than ½ its original size, and broke up the waterfall with small pools of water every so often so it didn’t break the player’s immersion dropping 100ft and not taking damage. After the changes I am very proud of how the waterfall looks and how the transition plays.
What Went Wrong?
Jungle
Originally my jungle was a straight line to a 180 degree turn and then into a waterfall, then in my second iteration I had more of a free flowing path through the trees but at the cost of having the trees to close together and also having the path be just wider than the playable character, this caused issues with the player/camera getting stuck on the trees as you ran past. In the final build of the jungle I decided to put the path straight through without any turns but allowed the sides to be trees/bushes to give the feel of a small jungle area. Overall I am happy with how the jungle area turned out as it is a nice setup to the big waterfall that you have to go through to get to the cave and temple.​​
What Went Wrong?
Pathing
The pathing for my level started out as very messy and confusing, which made it hard for the player to decide on where they were supposed to go and even if they were going in the right direction. In the first iteration it was very simplistic just follow the straight lines to get to the next wall to turn and follow that straight line. The temple also was messy as it was laid out in a way that was repetitive and didn’t give good feedback to the player. By the time that I had hit the final build I had redesigned how the player ran throughout the level by making the lines more natural and gave the level a good flow to get the player from one place to another. I also redesigned the temple to allow for less floors, rooms, and also blocked some paths that would have the player miss a collectible or key. But once the redesign was done the rooms had more meaning to the overall design of the level such as, tomb room, library, fountain entrance. I am happy with how the level flows and pulls the player in the right direction and draws the player into the collectables so that they don’t get confused when they need a key to open a door but have no idea where the key is.
Overall the project was a blast to build with a few roadblocks along the way. From seeing my blockmesh waterfalls turn into moving waterfalls, to my cave going from a box to a rocky sphere cave that houses a temple, to the temple itself going from a no fun walkthrough zone to a temple with gameplay and keys and doors. From blockmesh everywhere to having it all come together with assets being placed in. From no level design experience with minimal unreal experience to building a level in blockmesh, to fleshing out the level with assets and creating a playable build that not only looks great but plays great too.