So I wanted to share some of my knowledge of level design with you. When I first started using UDK I knew I wanted to become a level designer. My first few outings as a level designer were admirable but weak. I want to take apart a few of my first early levels and break them down, analyze them and most importantly learn from them. In this series of blog posts I will critique and scrutinize these maps while handing out tips on how to improve your level design.

   The first map we are going to look at is called Chambers. It is a deathmatch map I made a few years ago when I was still attending college. I made it in the span of a week for a homework assignment. It supports 8 to 12 players and it is a fairly small map.

   There are five large rooms on this map. It is designed to keep the action moving from room to room and to discourage camping. Each room is designed with a different theme in mind. Players will have to keep moving quickly or else they will become a sitting duck as enemies can attack from all sides. The thin diagonal corridors provide a fast way to get from room to room but are also dangerous chokepoints for anyone caught in them.

   Each room has a different theme. The room themes are as follows: Jungle, Storage, Cave, Invasion and the Main Hall. The storage room is full of crates and items. The cave is wide open with some cover. Invasion is full of crates and a few items. Jungle is spacious and open. The main hall is in the center of these rooms and can be accessed by the four main halls. The main hall is very empty and drops down into the center corridors that connect all the main rooms together.

   Let's talk about what went wrong here with this level. If you watched the gameplay video you might have noticed that many of the areas in the level are really narrow and crowded. In a FPS game like Unreal you want there to be plenty of room for players to run around. The design itself was made with this in mind but was poorly implemented.

   Hallways should be 512 units wide to comfortably support a 2 player skirmish. The size of the hallways connecting the 4 main rooms is 512, length and width. The diagonal intersecting hallways are barely 256 units! That is half the recommended unit size! Small tight spaces coupled with the poor placement of cover really make this map feel smaller than it actually is.

   Squares when done right can be great for cover and when used properly they can really create dynamic flow, a circular flow that will have both players moving around the map. The problem with Chambers is that it was designed to keep the flow of the map fast and aggressive but they way it plays out is just a mess. Many of the cover pieces require players to double jump over them so they can reach items that are hidden on stacked crates. Why do we have this platforming element in a FPS level? How easy will it be for players to jump and double jump on stacked crates when they are being shot by hostile players?

  Two of the main rooms, the Storage room and Invasion both have crates stacked in a manner where they can be jumped onto and climbed to access items. The problem with this is that the jumping isn't intuitive at all. In one of the hallways leading to the jungle room there is a low piece of cover that looks like it can be easily jumped over but it takes two jumps to clear! Anything that requires two jumps to clear is a "Skill Jump". These kinds of jumps should be kept to a minimal.

   Cover is very important in a first person shooter. The problem with this level is that there is cover everywhere but most of the time it is useful by chance and in no way is it useful in a meaningful or tactical manner.

   What I am saying is that when you're running you're just running. Very few pieces of cover allow for the player to consciously utilize it. Some areas are completely devoid of cover, which in turns makes them deathtraps. 

   The places where cover is most lacking is in the diagonal corridors that connect the rooms together. The worst part of all is that tat the cover that is in these halls impede the player. The player can only continue moving forward when they are attacked, if they try and retreat they leave themselves exposed.

   Cover is just dropped in the map with no rhyme or reason. The Cave and jungle room have the least amount of cover but still lack any real purpose. The best way to describe the cover in these levels is "Cluttered'. As mentioned earlier there are parts where cover pieces are stacked with items set on top of them, as if the player is supposed to climb on top and retrieve them.

   The lines of sight in this level are really obscured. Lines of sight need to be clear when you're designing a first person shooter. Having a clear line of sight allows for the player to make decisions quickly. Having a clear line of sight allows for players to figure out where they need to go and how to get there.

  The level suffers from some poor decisions design wise. The corridors leading to the cave and jungle room are wide and mostly clear, however the corridors leading to the other two rooms are narrow and restrictive. You don't know what you're getting yourself into when you're walking into those rooms.

   The result of poor lines of sight is a very chaotic gameplay experience. Players are running around the map, not because they are having a good experience but because they are trying to figure our where they need to go and what they need to do. The way cover is laid out, combined with the terrible lines of sight lead to some very frustrating encounters and experiences.

  When I first made this map the theme I was going for in my head was kind of complicated. I wanted this level to be the interior of an alien spaceship. Each room would be a different theme representing a different environment that the aliens have recreated aboard their ship. The hallways are supposed to be the alien ship's corridors and the main hall was supposed to be the alien command center that over looked the whole map.

   With all that being said, do it look anything like that? The answer is no. It doesn't really look like anything. I mean you can kind of see what I was originally going for but without me telling you what it was would you have known what the hell I was doing?

   When you build a level you want to build it with a certain theme, look and fell in mind. If you make a level called "Jungle" and you're inside a mansion the whole time it makes no sense. People will call your level house and not jungle. If I would have stuck to one central theme in level that would have improved it greatly. What is the strongest theme in my level? Let's say it was the cave theme. If I were to have made a level that was the interior of a cave that would have been much better than having a single room strangely transition into a room with tentacles coming out of the walls.

- Fix the spacing issues. Make sure there is enough space for the players to move around it
- Widen the diagonal hallways and keep checkpoints to a minimal
- Make the doorways wider
- Pick a single theme and stick to it
- Place items on the floor. Avoid platforming
- Cut back on double jumps aka "Skill Jumps"
- Better placement of cover
- Make lines of sight clearer
- Make cover dynamic!

PRO TIP: Make sure to sketch your idea down on paper first! When I started this map I did it all inside of UDK. I should have set the dimensions on paper before trying to figure them on inside of UDK.

   This was one of the first maps I made. It was during this time I took my first steps into UDK and my career as a level designer. Looking back at this map I can easily spot all the mistakes I made. The purpose of this post is for all the up and coming designers to read. I want people to read this and walk away with a better understanding of what it takes to bring a level together. I will be sure to breakdown a few more of my older maps in the near future. Stay tuned to get the latest info from my blog.

- Danny Q
@Dannylv100

   While working on our project I was in charge of modeling and rigging the place holder (proxy) weapons that would be used in the game. The purpose of these place holder weapons were to allow us to test the weapons in game. The kind of testing we did with the proxy weapons were for numerous things. We used them to test animations (reloading, melee, blind firing etc), the character rig and the weapon properties (ammo capacity, damage, reload time etc).

Disclaimer: This does not reflect the current build of our game. These images are from an older build of a game from almost a year and a half ago. These are placeholder weapons and do not reflect the look, art style or content of what will be or is currently in the game. 

   After the initial placeholder mesh weapon is made it is time for it to be rigged. The rigging process for a placeholder weapon is fairly easy because the weapon just needs to be held by the characters in game. It needs to be something that as the name suggests will hold the place of the finalized asset.

   To rig the weapon you need to make sure the weapon is aligned and centered. That means the weapon mesh is set to 0 in the X,Y,Z. Once that is done you can add three bones into the mesh. The first bone is in the handle of the weapon and it will be called b_gun_root. The second bone goes in the foregrip of the gun or wherever the character would be holding the weapon. That bones is called b_gun_lefthand. The final bone goes in the muzzle of the gun, just poking out of the barrel. This bone is called MuzzleFlashSocket and it is where the particle effects such as muzzle flash and bullets will be appearing when the weapon is fired.

   Once the bones are all set and named it is time to skin the bones to the mesh. I begin the skinning process by going to the modifiers tab and selecting the skin modifier. I need to make sure that I have the mesh selected before I select the skin modifier. After that I make sure to go to Edit Envelopes then I select add. After that the bones should be skinned to mesh. To end the skinning I just click on edit envelopes once again and it's done.

   After that it is time to open up Actor X and export it as a psk. When exporting the mesh you need to set a path and name the mesh WeaponName_Mesh. For example, the AK-47 would be exported as AK_Mesh.psk.

   Once the mesh was imported into UDK and coded into the games code  it became available for us to use in game. From the properties window we can see that it is a functional placeholder.

   With the weapons in the game we were now capable of testing out animations for the character and the code for the weapon stats. I spent a lot of time with the weapons tweaking their attributes. Having the placeholder weapons in the game instead of the generic shock rifle or link gun. It helps us distinguish between the guns we have in the game. 

   For the latest build of the game I modeled some new place holder weapons to go along with the latest build of the game. Here are a few of the newest placeholder models that I made, rigged and exported out of 3Ds Max.

- Danny Q
@Dannylv100

   After a few playtests it became evident that the courtyard area of the map was too tight. I needed to expand it in order to give more space for the combat that will be taking place in this area.  

   I had to make a fairly large addition of space to the courtyard to make any real difference. I made sure to evenly distribute the space to the left and right side.

   The walls of the courtyard were now further away from the center of the map. I would then have to push the center house (The mansion) back further away from the center of the courtyard walls in order to add more space for combat.

   Expanding these areas out more is absolutely necessary, the flow of combat needs to be fast and fluid. The more space I build inside of 3ds Max, the more I have to work with inside of UDK.

   The walls in the courtyard were being broken up a lot to give the player more room to move around and to escape. I originally planned for there to be openings in the walls like this so the player can climb up and down them quickly, sort of what Uncharted was doing with it's multiplayer. 

   Inside of UDK the level was shaping up nicely. The garden area had a lot of room for the player to flee and the courtyards combat potential was increased with the expansion.

- Danny Q
@Dannylv100