Level Design Workflow / Pipeline
I and going to be starting my 3rd year of games desing at university next year and decided to get some practise in over the summer. I will be creating 3 levels in unreal as part of a project and wanted to ask some opinions on my planned workflow. I've done some research and i think i may have something good here. Please feel free to point out my "mistakes" and give me some of your opinions.
Many thanks in advance, workflow bellow..........................
Level design workflow:
The following contains the workflow I will use for each environment.
- (RESEARCH) Find inspiration as well as reference images for the overall level/lighting/props ect.
- (CONCEPT) Top down rough design to work out how the level plan will look
- (BLOCKING OUT) Blocking out in Unreal with BSP objects. Helps get the correct scale and positioning.
- (1st LIGHTING PASS) Create mood lighting as well as basic lighting of the overall level.
- (Modelling) Slowly introduce modelled assets.
- (2ND LIGHTING PASS) Tweak lighting to suit new level as more complicated object will be present.
- (ADVANCE MODELLING) Unwrapping final assets and finalizing their positions.
- (TEXTURING) Texture the assets in the environment either with unique “Hero prop” techniques or with tillable/ master materials/ vertex painting.
- (EFFECTS PASS) Adding in specific particle, flares, ect.
- (FINAL TWEAKS) Inspecting final lighting as well as textures making small adjustments.
Detailed workflow
RESEARCH
- Establish a Location/ Theme and Setting, conduct research on the final choice in a broad scope. (Right down to the trees in the area)
- Find main reference images for overall level, included but not limited to: Landscape images, Prop Images, Lighting Reference, Colour Reference, and Inspiration Images.
CONCEPT
- 1ST Draft top down concept, this will be used to help plan ahead so I have some sort of idea of what I want to create when I open up the engine.
- 2nd more refined design, created in Photoshop. This will take into account more details scale as well as misc props. This will act as my base plan
BLOCKING OUT
- Translate the top down design in the engine as best available using BSP objects.
- Fix problems that will occur. Scale, placements as well as tweaks
- Place objects that represent more complex shapes, mountains, rocks ect
1ST LIGHT PASS
- Set the basic ambient lighting for the scene with the directional light
- Add in secondary lights that will be used to set the scene (Flame lights ect)
MODELLING
- Creating Low poly models to replace the blocking out BSP’s
- Fix position errors
- Start adding more miscellaneous details, medium to small props.
2ND LIGHT PASS
- Re adjust lighting if necessary (due to new props, which may have transparent/ translucent properties)
ADVANCE MODELLING
- Create higher fidelity models baking down the normal maps and adding the new geometry to the level
- Adding in all props at this point
TEXTURING
- Create tillable textures
- Creature “Hero Prop” textures
- Assign them to materials in engine and apply to environment.
EFFECTS PASS
- Insert particles that will enhance the atmosphere of the level, fire, snow, emitter objects for example.
FINAL TWEAKS
- Re adjust prop positions
- Re adjust lighting
- Fix texture issues
- Misc tweaking
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