4/5/2018 0 Comments Level Design...The time had come to actually put all the elements together, but rather than just haphazardly chuck models into a map I set about deciding on a rationale behind the layout. This process had begun with the research, so I knew that I wanted certain elements to dominate the city. The most obvious being the Palace, which would dominate the skyline as did the temples of old (see Athens, Edinburgh and several others in the research). I wanted this to serve as a focal point, so players would see it as soon as they entered the gates. This would then serve as a navigational lodestone, they would always be able to tell where they were in the city, thanks to this structure being visible from almost any angle. In order to aid this positional marker I also set a bridge leading up to the gates. This bridge spanned the twin peaks of the central hill/mountain. The reasons for the bridge are two-fold, firstly it looks kinda cool and adds a sense of the hyper-real which fantasy settings can use to make their worlds interesting. Secondly it provided players with a marker, as to which side of the palace they were looking. Think of it like a compass needle, that (in this case) would always point West. Players could look at where the bridge is compared to the main area of the palace and extrapolate where they were in the city. The first impression (that “bloody hell” moment if you will) upon entering the city should entice players in and give them a desire to explore in several directions at once. I wanted a few unique structures to be visible as they walked through the gates, to set the mind reeling as to what they should explore first. Looking at a screen-grab of the opening vista (seen below) there are three main important structures that all fit in the player’s field of view, 1) the Tree Temple, 2) The Palace and 3) the Wizard’s Tower. These structures all occupy a different sector of the city and players will decide which they find the most interesting. To immediately draw players into the city is 4) a magic well, topped with a spinning crystal. This was placed to draw players into the scene and give them a first point of interest. The well is located at the first main crossroads, so when the player has arrived at the well, then they have to make a call as to which direction they will continue in. All of this relates back to the three routes on the map which was drawn up before the building took place. There were also a few practical considerations to make as well. Seeing as this was a setting somewhat grounded in partial reality I knew players invariably want to find a trader or market upon entering a fantasy city in a game. The passage also describes a cluster of market stalls, noisily hawking their wares, so immediately inside the gate is a market. There are additional markets dotted about the map, as sometimes it can be tedious criss-crossing a game environment just to sell something to the only bloke in town that deals in goblin teeth or is willing to accept 50 “slightly stabbed” wolf pelts. The three bridges would serve as a way to entice players to the West of the city, as each one was unique for its own reason. The fact that they are bridges should also entice players to cross them, hopefully opening up new areas to explore. The Kingsway was a way to carry players directly towards the Palace and pillars were used to break up the positive space. The use of pillars separates the road, without actually separating it, in that it feels when travelling up the road you are in a self-contained space, but in reality you can wander from the path whenever you choose. This was a method of separating spaces used frequently in older cities, Ancient Rome being a notable example. The opposite side of the city is where the affluent live. Here the houses are more impressive and spacious and overshadowed by a wizard’s tower. As an entrance way to the posher side of the tracks is the Temple of Law. I decided to make this a gateway landmark, so the streets which lay beyond are foreshadowed by the impressive structure. I also added a buffer between the more middle/lower class dwellings by adding in a town square. I imagined it would be here that the two sides of the city would meet to attend important events, such as public executions or official celebrations.
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11/4/2018 0 Comments Building...I always get a kick out of the horrified expression people adopt, when I tell them that I’ve been modelling all day. The mental imagery of me "dolled up" and pouting at the camera is quickly erased when I go on to explain I mean 3D modelling, as in building 3D models. The look of relief is always tempered by the knowledge that the image will come back to haunt them over time. I debated as to how low res to make the assets for this project. I toyed with the idea of just using the brush shapes in UE4 to put the scene together (a traditional 'grey-box' approach), after all the important aspect to demonstrate was the layout and the design choices. On reflection however, I thought if I added a bit more character to the assets, then the scene could be enjoyed by more than just level designers. I would shy away from fully texturing, or fully modelling the assets. Yet I thought it a worthy step to include a bit more character than the simple cube shape, to make the project a bit more accessible to a wider audience. I set about quickly knocking together versions of the sketches I had undertaken. I used Maya to build the models and imported them into Unreal. I kept a plain texture to everything, so colours and details wouldn’t overshadow the simplicity of the design layout. My first step was to initially sculpt the landscape, and as Overkember is named after the twin forks of its river I would start there. I also had a call to make concerning the time of day. Initially I thought a night-time setting might be nice, with lighting playing a large part of the visual appeal. After some rumination I rejected this as it would reduce the distance players would be able to see, and detract from the scale of the scene.
If this were to be a larger project than I first envisioned, then a whole raft of building types and models would have to be created. As it was a bonus feature to have partially detailed structures I settled on a few distinct types and would use them as a sort of placeholder, a suggestion of the type of structure that would appear in a more detailed scene. A warehouse, a mid sized house, a tavern, a hovel - these were the basic building blocks I settled upon. The next step was to put things together in the engine. 23/3/2018 0 Comments ResearchNow I had an idea of what the city would look like, I scoured the web, looking for some inspiration. I looked at old city plans, and some flavour shots of buildings and architecture. I knew that in more ancient times it was customary to place impressive (especially ones that carried religious significance) at the highest point in the city. This would make the building appear closer to the heavens, it would also dominate the skyline and look down upon the less important constructions below it. It also instilled a sense of awe in any visitors, as the first thing they noticed when entering the gates was the temple/castle/palace looming over them. Notable examples are found with the Acropolis in Athens, Edinburgh Castle (although with castles the high placement also has strategic value) and Wat Phra That Doi Suthep in Chiang Mai, a sight that used to great me each time I strode out to my balcony when I lived in Thailand. I also looked at the older maps and city plans, and attempted to get a feel of how the cities were laid out, along with a selection of famous landmarks. Landmarks and unique features are useful when creating a space for players to navigate. They can be beacons, interesting features for players to discover, they can lend a sense of place or flavour to a certain area but most importantly they help orient players and provide memory triggers for navigation. It is usually the unique landmarks we recall when finding our way around a new environment, they are also the signposts which we use when giving directions to others; “Just head down the road until you come to the old oak tree, then take a left, you’ll see an old church with two spires then your location is just on the right.” Thankfully there were a few of these landmark structures detailed in the passage, so now I had to link them together. In order to put the whole city together it was time to refer back to an urban planning theory, that of “Figure Ground Theory”. This is a method of exploring the shapes created by buildings and the negative space which surrounds them. An ideal urban plan should include a series of open or positive spaces for people to congregate, such as piazzas, parks and town squares. Linking these would be a network of negative spaces, shaped by the buildings around them. The negative corridors would shepherd people from positive to positive space, and provide easily recalled routes of transit. With all this in mind it was time to start some scribbling, so I set about putting together a series of concept sketches. When I had a fairly good idea of how the city would look overall it was time to layout the streets and start detailing individual structures. 19/3/2018 0 Comments Open World CitiesI love Skyrim, in fact I love all the Elder Scrolls games I've played since Morrowind. Something struck me as I was playing through the latest version I've acquired, the Skyrim Special Edition on PS4, and that was that the population of Skyrim must be about 80... The "cities" in the game have around 6-8 houses in (one of which is put aside for you to buy) and if each has 1-3 people living in them, then that doesn't add up to much. The Imperial City in Oblivion felt far more grand, but the general copy/paste nature of the architecture and the "same-ness" of the layout detracted from that somewhat. The outlying cities in Cyrodil however, had a more unique feel but in scope fell into the same trap as Skyrim. The inverse of this problem was a game I remember playing on the PS2, True Crime: Streets of L.A. The map was huge, the trailer boasted "400 square miles of true L.A. streets" but by jove it was boring. Getting from mission checkpoint to mission checkpoint felt like a morning commute. Most people play video games to escape the drudgery of their daily lives, not to role-play the part of California highway traffic jam simulator. I think this is why Rockstar's approach to their open world design is the winning formula: Don't accurately recreate a city, but design a pastiche, a caricature. Take all the interesting bits, all the landmarks the aspects that define the city and eliminate the dull stuff in between. Driving around Los Santos feels like a "best of" hits tape of L.A. You have Venice Beach and Hollywood Boulevard, South Central and Beverly Hills, but the areas that link them have been truncated to keep things constantly interesting. Another game which has a good city is The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Novigrad is the main city in the base game, and has a balance of size to scope which feels just about right. When you first arrive it all feels a bit overwhelming, with numerous houses, stalls, warehouses and taverns. Nestled between are a selection of shops, guard towers, cattle pens and temples. The game also orients you by sending you to the main town square to complete a few objectives, and from here you also get to know the Kingfisher Inn, which houses a lot of the early quests. By becoming familiar with the location of the Kingfisher you also quickly get to know that the main square is a hub for the city and each subsequent district can be accessed via this plaza. It’s a clever merging of urban design and quest design which gradually eases the player into the space and unobtrusively orients them.
With all this in mind I thought it would make for an interesting project to design and layout a 3D city, and if I used Unreal Engine 4 would be relatively easy to make a playable prototype, which players could navigate around. For inspiration and content I approached my brother, who for years has been crafting a fantasy world to use in his attempts to become a fantasy author. I thought it would be a good test of design skills to take a space he had already dreamt up and convert it from the written passage to a fully realised 3D space. This way I could work through the process of adapting existing works into a game environment. I started by asking him for a suitable place and he sent me a passage he had written detailing a dwarvern party encountering the human city of Overkember. My challenge was to adapt the city into something manageable. For anyone interested, the original text passage is available at the link on the main game page. |
AuthorIan is an avid player of video games, a watcher of movies, a reader of comics and books and occasionally a dad. Archives
May 2018
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