Making an Isometric Level Design- FPS

Setting: Kunar, Afghanistan
Time: Modern Day
Time of day: Daylight, morning/sunrise
Terrain+Architecture: typically destroyed ruins of previous inhabitants and heavy pine forest as well as very squirrely terrain with rocks and elevated levels

While difficult to shoe in an Isometric Map, my level design for a FPS map is Unreal takes place in the Afghan highland with much elevation difference for dynamic fighting and combat.

As an asymmetrical map, both sides need adequate balance to make sure the firefight is not a one sided fight, however with the dense foliage beyond the river and the ruins on the opposing side, both factions or team should have decent cover in combat.

The flow is based off the the three lanes format from previous FPS and allows for players to start at the given spawn points and quickly find action without being overpowered by enemies.

Landmarks like the river, the outlook and the ruined walkway allow for players to recognize areas they've been and strategize on how to best maneuver around the enemy.

Analyzing Multiplayer FPS--- Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare: Backlot

For my First Person Shooter multiplayer level analysis I broke down the mechanics of Backlot from the critically acclaimed Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare. This Modern Day FPS takes place in several locations around the world as 2 groups of special forces operators attempt to dismantle an insurgency rebellion in a middle eastern country and stop a Russian warhead in an Ultranationlaist Base.

The level Backlot takes place in this fictional Middle Eastern Country where a dictatorship uprising has begun. The level id worn torn, littered with leaflets an bullet holes. Specifically this area is stripped from one of the missions in game featuring a heavily infiltrated construction zone, and major landmarks of the level include a large site, 2 setup light machine guns, a parking lot and a building with roof access.

This Level is playable on all game modes for the game and is well received as one of the best and most balanced maps in the game because of its perfect mix of tight corner firefights and long ranged engagements. Because of this, any weapon class is a viable option.

Backlot also features the Typical FPS 3 Lane format seen so commonly in Call of Duty games. IN this format, the level is essentially a rectangle, broken down mainly into either 3 long lanes or lengthwise in to 3 shorter, but wider lanes for flanking. Backlot, being the latter allows for no major choke points, as one of the mounted machine guns has firing access to the other, and both guns leave the user open and an obvious target.

All in all, Backlot's multiple second story buildings, and narrow walled grid layout allow for snipers, close gunners and rifleman to make easy and swift decisions and allow for balanced and fun gameplay for all play types.


In addition, here's a video of a massive killstreak on Backlot, note that I am not responsible for this, but have surpassed this player's score, many times before.
Backlot Gameplay

Platformer Tutorial Level Design

Designing a tutorial level is one for the more difficult tasks a level designer must accomplish. Tutorial Levels require the player to learn all the basic mechanics of the game in a short area, and have fun while doing so to then hook the player. Here is my basic tutorial level design for our in house Satire Platformer, Jumping Jim.

In this map, Jumping Jim must collect all the coins and follow the flowers to the end to further progress and save the garden. By passing the flowers he is checking the area for the Evil Gnomes native to the Level/Game. The entire Level "The Bloom Tomb of Doom" takes place in a "tunnel" or area of domestic wildlife in the modern age springtime. In addition, the swinging chain ball acts to serve as a type of foreshadowing for the more complex dangers and individualities of certain levels and how each will feature new challenges. 

As he checks for the evil gnomes in the day the game will further progress to the pint where he sees them come alive at night and start to take over the area, where Jim will then have to intervene.

Analyzing Platformers

This is the intro of the game Limbo before the player enters the second part of the game containing the forest. As an introduction level, there are several paces where the game's core mechanics and controls are introduced almost subliminally as the player progresses. There is no danger at the beginning, allowing the player to learn how to move, then they are given a lethal obstacle to jump over, teaching them how how jump. This type of teach and learn through environment mechanics continues until the end of the game as the player learns to climb, slide, and strategize around some of the more complex puzzles and lethal attributes.

Because there are no lives or health in Limbo, all things that are deemed hazardous are instant kills. Due to this harsh learning technique, the player has multiple save points all across the game so that when a new and deadly puzzle is introduces, the player doesn't have to start all over, rather, just reanalyze the obstacle.

The story of Limbo remains nearly an absolute mystery until the very end (no spoiling) however their are enemies and later environment features that allude to what is happening in the game as this boy wakes up lost in the forest.

Programing Tool-- The NORMAL Solution

In Programming our objective to create a script that solves some major issue in the modeling to texturing to production pipeline and with this solution then offer a simple tool for any basic user to understand and implement. When importing into UDK I often find that forgetting to check all of one's models face normals can lead to backfacing inside the engine. While a simple fix, it would always make life easier if one could check normals, display them, see which ones need be fixed visually, and them proceed to fix them all in one application. This is my goal for the assignment done in Python in the Maya script editor.

PSEUDO CODE: (Has no physical function yet)

import maya.cmds as cmds

selected = ls(sl=True)

selected object runs this on tool activation

Maya command- toggle face normals on selected

Maya command- toggle backface culling on selected

Activate interface

Upon second click

Maya command- unlock normals, set to face normals, conform normals

RACE TRAILER

Now that the Kaisei Map is finished, the time has come to make an attract trailer for my mp in the Sophomore Spinout Game 2014. However, studying existing trailer for racing games is a good way to better understand shot composition and how the professionals convey their idea for the market and most excitement. I analyzed this NFS Rivals Trailer:


NFS Rivals Trailer

Racing Level HUD

The next step in making our racing level is adding a HUD to the in game playing for a better understanding of speed an improve immersion. For the  assignment, we had to research our car's speedometer and create one using this reference based on it or not. Heres what I came up with based on the Honda S2000 speedometer.

Honda S2000 Speedometer

 

Speedometer I implemented