Multiplayer Level Blockout : Seventh Pass - "Emperor's Square"

7/16/2012

May 25th, 2012

One of the ramps was uneven for no real purpose. I sat down and thought, what could go here instead? I drew up a sketch in my notebook and came up with the idea of replacing this area with a bridge, one that would connect the walled area near the bunker house with the stairs to the garden shrine.

I replaced the old mesh and began to fit it to where the old stairs were.

Once the new mesh was in place I began to shape into into a bridge shape. I wanted it to have enough space under the bridge so players can run around under the bridge, take cover and have it as a more interactive spot.

The sides of the stairs had to be redone. I decided to add some place holder statue meshes along the stairs as a form of softcover.

The shrine area was not a a bit too small so I had to stretch it out to fit. The shrine area now gave the player much more room to move freely.

I added some placeholder rails to the bridge and after that I added a few pillars.

I made sure that the pillars have at least 128uu of space between them. I want the pillars to be able to used as cover and possibly allow for the player to "Swat Turn" gears style in between them.

May26th, 2012

With the construction of the bridge done for now I decided to focus on the other side of the garden. The ramp was a boring design to be honest. It also didn't lend itself to the cover mechanic. I decided to take a page out of the Gears of War book.

I began to block out what would become a classic "Stairs flat stairs" design that Gears of Wars makes use of.

The flat part is where we would add cover for the player. I made sure to design the stairs to be big enough to support a minimum of two characters. I also designed the stairs so that the player can roll up and down them in one roll.

The side garden area so far.

I began to add some placeholder railing to the stairs and the bridge area.

The area just above the stairs to the left of the shrine was too small so I expanded on it.

The finished stairs area of the side garden.

The side garden area so far.

The side garden area inside of UDK.

May 27th, 2012

The walled area house was a place that had really bad flow. It worked ok with the Ai but it also forced the Ai to run in a big circle to get to the other side.

I took apart two of the house and combined them into one bigger house that was level. Before one of the houses in the back was higher than the other two.

There was a small ramp area before that was nothing more than just a ramp. I added some new pieces to it and made it more interesting. It now lead into the house section but also had a window where players would be able to take cover at.

I wanted to emphasize the flow of this new area. The old flow sucked and was clunky, the new one had to be better. This meant opening up the house more. I added a new circular stairway on the outside of the house that would lead to the smaller covered area and to the new house structure.

I made sure to give this house a lot of breathing room. That meant windows and doors.

Once I was done with the right side of the house I carefully rebuilt it on the left side.

Once the new walled area was complete I placed it back into the level.

The new walled area inside of UDK.

June 1st, 2012

After a few days of play testing iteration seven I took it back to 3ds Max and make a few minor and major changes. One of the changes I made was to fix the placement of statues on the side of the stairs near the bridge.

I made the fence on the other side a bit taller so the player is now more visible and can shoot and be shot through the fence.

The bridge was one solid piece, which didn't really work. I decided that the best thing to do was to open it up a bit so players could shoot through the bridge.

I even added an opening in the railing where players can jump down from the bridge and climb up in the middle of a firefight.

In the area beneath the bridge I added a door that would lead to an extended garden. It is a small aesthetic change just so the artist knows what this area would look like.