Is it a good idea to create map using in-game map editor for a level designer?
polycounter lvl 2
Hi there,
So if i want to be a level designer , where should I start? I am learning environment art using Maya and other software. But what if I make maps using in-game map editor like hammer editor in source games or far cry map editor? Can i put that maps in portfolio?
I am asking this because in editor like far cry map editor , you dont have to make any objects in 3D, you just have to place objects in different places and create map, So is it cheating or it's the right way for level designers ?
What other things I should be doing to be level designer ? Should I start creating small games using UE4 ?(which requires programming and game art) ?
So if i want to be a level designer , where should I start? I am learning environment art using Maya and other software. But what if I make maps using in-game map editor like hammer editor in source games or far cry map editor? Can i put that maps in portfolio?
I am asking this because in editor like far cry map editor , you dont have to make any objects in 3D, you just have to place objects in different places and create map, So is it cheating or it's the right way for level designers ?
What other things I should be doing to be level designer ? Should I start creating small games using UE4 ?(which requires programming and game art) ?
Replies
A mod engine will not come across as professional, as an art director may be looking into developing their next game in a specific engine, cryengine, unreal, unity, etc, and if you show them your maps on that same engine, it'll be a big plus and incentive to hire you instead of all others.
If you do well enough, place the objects, lights, paths correctly on a mod map, it'll still be good, it shows that you know what you're doing, however it'll look like student work.
I've personally never seen a level design portfolio that's shown levels created using an INGAME level editor though (do you mean something like Forge?) so I'm not so sure that would go well. I would stick to the traditional methods.
So creating small games in unreal engine 4 would be a better idea right? As it'll show combination of scripting, game design (where enemy spawns or where to go etc.) , level design,AI and game art?
and what about creating multiplayer maps for games like Counter strike or insurgency using hammer editor?
That said....IMHO If you want to make levels for big games, MAKE them. Find a big game with a mod community and get involved a LOT. Just make your work super pretty and make your levels super fun and make them *public* so you can learn from what strangers complain about. These days there's no shortage of tutorials to help you get involved with making custom TF2 levels, custom Skyrim missions, custom Counterstrike levels, or getting involved with the community UT4 project...and TF2 level downloaded by a half million people is a helluva portfolio piece.
goodluck!
yes i was thinking to start creating maps for cs and insurgency.
beefaroni said: oh thanks , thats a good idea and site.
At least in my experience, the level designers I work with never use Max or Maya or anything like that. All of their work is done in-editor, either with primitive shapes or artist-created assets. Every studio is different though, some places may not have tools like that.
Your best bet seems to be checking out mapcore. Polycount is mostly filled with artists, I'm not aware of too many level designers here. You will probably get better info over there.
should not be confused with environment artist.
their main task is to make the gameplay fun.
if you want to use editor, make sure, it not just another area map that uses default gameplay tempelate.
you need to prove yourself that you can create game design from scratch.
use of 3d app, will help you a lot to the style flexibility.
imagine if you use crysis tempelate/asset to design cartoony game./
it would be much easier if you can start from scratch.
what artist want from game designer if they were to design /build stuff :
clear logic , on scale , proportion, and perspective/compositon.
If you really want to do leveldesign then get into Mapping ASAP.
Pick between CSGO / Insurgency or Unreal Tournament (the new one) and get into building maps as much as you can.
Do something for both at best so you know both engines. Knowing engines is important. Don't make your own games.
Make sure to try out unity so you know the engine, but this is very easy so do this last.
All the good level designers come from a mapping background. Use their assets no need to make your own.
Making some top down drawings of layouts also helps.
Personally I want to create the level ART. I.e. the assets, textures, the composition of those elements, and extending further into colour correction and lighting. Does that fall into either category?
As for the original post, I've been mapping in HAMMER for 6 years now and the funny thing about hammer is 1. It's really old and 2. It's really different to UDK / unity. So I think you should do as little "mapping" inside of hammer as possible, because you will not be able to transfer in-editor skills to any other level.
Yes Hammer is very outdated and you can be an amazing mapper in HAMMER but you want know how to make modular level assets or PBR materials. Hammer 2 is coming out soon (already out for DOTA) keep an eye on it
Environment Art is creating assets for environments or environments, the leveldesigner will ether take your assets and place them or you build after a blockout that has been done already or something in between. In smaller team or at a senior role with experience in both field you could also make something in between, but that is not too realistic for now. Ether concentrate on 3d modeling > asset creation or leveldesign. Art or Design. As an artist you better just choose an engine and make assets to fill small environments with it, should look good thats the most important part. Unreal or Unity in that case. No CSGO or Insurgency modding then. You could make UT stuff tho as it uses a modern engine that is worth learning.
At some studios level designers only grey box out the flow and that's IT. That's what a lot of people have been describing here, but I don't actually see that too much. Those are the more pure designers who are also working on mechanics and scripted work also. I think that Halo games used that flow, based on a talk I saw once.
On the other extreme, I've seen studios where level designers are responsible for the final look of a level too--they control the flow first, but also the lighting, atmospherics, set dressing, etc--which means they answer to the art director as well as the design director...if not some hybrid "level director"...and thus they need to have a good eye for composition and artistry--but these artist/designer hybrids still don't need to do very much Maya/Max modeling--all their work is in engine. That's how Titan Quest and Reckoning were both handled, irrc. I *suspect* all the Bethesda Softworks games are done this way as well, based off their asset libraries.
I think most places are somewhere between the two--with level artists and level designers working in close collaboration. Every place will have their own definition though.
But no where on the spectrum have I seen a full time level designer bust open Max/Maya for anything other than greyboxing though (so no asset work)... and likewise I've never seen a any designer bust open Visual Studio and do any low level codework...so I wouldn't say that a strong foundation in code or art is a requirement--if you've got that, you should just go be an artist or coder, where the job security is higher (sort of) and the pay can be significantly better (especially true for coders).
That said, having a basic survey of pipelines and tools is just smart, and it's *always* smart for designers to have at least some basic experience with a high-level scripting language. I think that sort of familiarity is what Tidal is referring to.
but in my experience, level designers rarely get that choice...things need to get into a game and be playable, yea...but on big games these days so many hands touch a single level that teams tend to (but not always) adopt single chains--that way they know exactly how to address issues and iterate on the content further.
I *have* heard of studios doing all their level design in Max or Maya though, like you say...heck, not too long ago there were some big name studios that had NO editor, but they'd simply extended Maya/Max with additional tools for designers and they built EVERYTHING in them...letting the engine interface directly with the 3d files. I dunno if any companies still do that...most of them seem to have jumped on the UE3/4 bandwagon over the years I think.
And not only that, but modern GPUs are built to handle mesh data much better than BSPs anyway (which are not simple verts/polys behind the scenes). I've been told it's not optimal to have a lot of BSP in the end.
On the flipside, as crude as the BSP tools are in most engines, they DO take ten minutes to learn. Max/Maya/Modo take a lot longer to learn--especially for someone who just wants to be a designer, and not an artist.
However, I don't think it's just a question of "Brush/BSP" or "3d App"...neither of those methods are representative of how I've seen things evolve at places I've worked (which, again, made more open-world type games).
If the art team has built their meshes in a good modular fashion, then those pieces should be robust enough to use for the greyblock itself--IE, the level designer plays with legos, not BSPs, in engine, with maybe an occasional sprinkle of BPS...and maybe a request for a custom asset from the art team. Usually there's a simplified set of meshes for this, rather than all the detail meshes, but it's a MUCH faster iteration process than either BSP OR fully cycling through the 3d app. That method also gets something into engine as soon as possible for evaluation and iteration, which is usually preferred by stakeholders.
There are a few issues with blocking out a level solely in the 3d app too; if you build one big piece, it never gets culled..and can play terribly with collision..if you divide it up manually then you're dealing with managing pivots, which means you can't reuse the asset as gracefully...if you're building in the 3dapp you're not thinking re-use first, so it's quick to run over budget walls without meaning too...etc.
None of those are dealbreakers. I've used the solely 3d-App method on projects before....and a lot of better/more technical artists than me would swear by it--especially for special "hero locations". Heck, parts of Epic's more recent stuff looks like it's been greyboxed out this way (shooter game's arena, and maybe parts of Outpost23)....but as fast as authoring in the 3dApp may seem, that philosophy is better suited to games with linear/smaller/unique levels imho. If you tried to build a game with MMO or Skyrim-eque amounts of level design content, the 3dapp method would quickly get replaced as an asset-library naturally developed (at least, it did in my experience).
But I have some questions...
1) Should I just stick to hammer editor and create maps for source based game or should I start making levels in Unreal engine (or Unity) ? because compare to new engines (UE4) hammer feels very old and also this is just for multiplayer so I should also make maps for SP right?
2) What about skyrim's creation kit ? It's for story mod but then it'll be completely different genre from other (FPS and RPG)
3) Should I do something like buy assets from asset store(unity or UE) and then create levels that looks great but does not have any gameplay in it ? Would it be good if I put something like that in my portfolio ? ( There are many speed level designing videos in youtube who does the same)
4) Can I buy/download assets from unity assets store and use them in Unreal engine 4 ? is it legal and/or possible?
Is it good if i put different maps from different games in my portfolio ? ( for ex. one from source based game, one from Red orchestra 2 editor , one from skyrim's creation kit) ?
It goes without saying that if you want to be an environment artist creating assets, then of course you want to create your own. But if you want to specialize in level design/game design, that's a totally different story. Some people are great at both, and are fantastic to have on a team because they act as bridges between disciplines. Some are great at one specialty in particular, and are paramount to the success of a game project too.
Again : just focus on becoming the best person ever at whatever you enjoy doing. There's no secret really
The engine is just a tool to do that. You should be learning unity and unreal either way, and these don't take too long, so really the focus should be on designing, testing and iterating good levels that players can actually play in a working environment, so no, I think this statement is plain wrong. Learning an engine is a minor task anyone can do in 2 weeks.
Source engine uses predefined "entites" where as unity and unreal will teach you to script your own interactions within a map. Asset creation - Source models do not use PBR materials and the engine doesn't support height maps. The models aren't linear scalling and due to the brush creation system you will do not use external 3D systems.
So mapping in source means you won't be creating materials, you won't be creating "next-gen" models or even current gen, and you won't be scripting. Which I believe all are pretty important things to have!
You will however learn how to map maps with good gameplay and you will learn a lot about lighting (at least baked lighting, source doesn't do dynamic lighting well at all). As well as all that there is a lot more support for unity and unreal.
The only advantage source has is that the brush system makes blocking out levels a lot easier / faster. Don't get me wrong once source 2 is released I will be using that very often.