My
Leap Into Level Design (part 3)
So I'm going to keep working on this level to add new bits,
enhance the lighting, and to learn new skills and improve my
workflow abilities in UnrealED and Maya. (Over the next day or
so [as of this writing] I'll be working on movers. Gonna tackle
emitters after that. And so on, from there. I hope to post this
level up here eventually, preferably as a single-player
experience.)
As I said, my main goal is to use Unreal to build
gameplay-oriented geometry - to lay out the maps at the high
level, with crude geometry and an eye mainly toward the flow of
the level. When you do that, you aren't as focused on the
cosmetic aspects of decoration, texturing and intensive
lighting. But it was just so much fun to do this stuff! And,
anyway, learning it can't hurt.
Previously I've claimed to not to adhere to any particular
technical development platform because it tends to skew your
ability to approach a new game from a fresh angle when you get hired on to design from the ground up (you
become too entrenched in certain ways of doing things). Deciding
to learn some production skills takes me away
from this somewhat - gives me a bit of a specialist perspective.
However, I think my intensive years of paper-based design makes
me more than able to think outside the box that indoctrination
in any production toolset can put you in. I'm not a super
experienced, specialist level designer (not yet). I remain,
essentially, a generalist game designer.
But learning the Unreal basics expands what I believe is a good
combination of skills. Learning new tools is always fun anyway.
And its gonna let me have try totally new things...
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