New Path Goal
polycounter lvl 6
I now realize that level design is actually my true passion. I really enjoy placing assets into game engines and creating/populating the world itself. But I'm not quite sure what skills that I need to show in my portfolio, and what I can do to improve. Does anyone know of any great examples of level designers? Thank you.
Replies
StarCraft designers have been brought on because they've made something solid with Galaxy Editor and its previous iterations.
Bethesda has been hiring designers based on their level creations/mods in the Creation Editor.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but level designer, at its core, does less aesthetic population of a world, but more actually designing the player experience within the framework of the game's capabilities. You are a game designer at your core, not an explicit visual artist.
I'd say making a small mod is a good place to start.
Make sure to document the entire process and show it off in your folio.
And keep making levels! Show skills of more then just placing assets. You need to show off that you can script events too and think of gameplay space logically in whatever kind of game your making and provide plenty of options for the player. You need 30 seconds of fun over and over; how do you tackle this? These are skills, and also questions, that you need to ask yourself when making stuff and putting it together.
Like Tidal Blast said, you need to focus more on the LAYOUT of the level, rather then art. Gameplay is a focus here. Level designers usually block out environments and hand them off to artists who take the gameplay space and polish it to what you see.
Look at this thread for some links to level design portfolios, or simply just google "level design portfolios".
Are level designers not the ones who take the finished art models/decals and populate the scene?
For example:
Level Artist: "set dressing and asset placement"
https://jobs.zenimax.com/requisitions/view/720
Environment Artist: "texture creation, and 3d modelling"
https://jobs.zenimax.com/requisitions/view/857
The link above doesn't say level designer, it says level artist. Basically another type of environment artist, I've seen them called set dressers, world builders, world artists etc...
It depends on the company, really. Depending on the team size sometimes level designers are one in the same, but other times they are not. More often then not, though, a level designer is going to be doing more then just creating scenes in whatever editor your using.
For example, working as a level designer on Skyrim or Fallout would entail you using a majority of modular assets to build levels - but you'd still be scripting in AI, events, dialog, etc.
I've seen some GDC presentations at Naughty Dog however, whereas they just blocked out the level in max, got gameplay working, and handed them off to environment artists to do their work. Same could be said with Bungie, too. I've seen they've had positions open for level designers and world builders, which in that case imply's two different types of construction of levels.
I would personally suggest learning to do both. You will widen your skill set and become much more valuable to whatever company you end up working at, and both are equally important to making something immersive and interactive when it comes to level design.
e: I see you posted some jobs from Zenimax.
Here is a level designer position at BGS: https://jobs.zenimax.com/requisitions/view/74 so you can see what they are looking for in that kind of role.
If you enjoy building scenes and level layout then start doing that in other engines. In particular, get involved in making TF2 levels, helping with the new UT project, and building Steam Workshop for various games!