Looking for good tutorials/reads about level design

ZacD · Jul 2010

Working on a project where i kinda got stuck in a level design/environment art role, although I think I'm heading in the right direction, I'd still like to read some stuff about it to make sure I'm making something fun and easy to navigate.

Zipfinator · Jul 2010

Cliffy B wrote something pretty good a while ago around the UT2004 era I think. There was also a really nice write-up by the creator of Dust2 somewhere. Sorry I don't have the links, I read them quite a while ago. Shouldn't be too hard to find them through a bit of googling though.

LoTekK · Jul 2010

Polycount's very own gauss has a really good level design blog (he also touches on game design principles).

Design Reboot

Nysuatro · Jul 2010

http://www.worldofleveldesign.com/

cman2k · Jul 2010

Polycount Wiki to the RESCUEEEEE

http://wiki.polycount.com/CategoryLevelDesign

Hourences has some especially good stuff.
http://www.hourences.com/book/bookgameplay.htm

Blaizer · Jul 2010

Architecture is something to look for, and more for level designers if they want to do solid environments and not nonsense hallways and walls with repeated prefabs.

If you can have access to architecture books, the better, you can find measures for ALL. I also have decoration magazines and catalogs of building materials from the most important manufacturers, and it's a good resource for references (all types of cornices, balustrades, tiles, etc.). For lighting as example, i have catalogs of all kind of lights i can find in the market with real photos and .dwg files. It's very helpful and inspirational.

And, don't forget to plan all the design on a paper.

This is in spanish, it's what i commented before with links to manufacturers, but i'm sure you can find similar things in english.
http://www.soloarquitectura.com/favoritos/iluminacion.html
Some magazines
http://www.soloarquitectura.com/revistas/index.html

Amazon is great when we need to learn something, do a search with "arquitecture", and another with "arquitecture lighting"[ame="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_1_12?url=search-alias=stripbooks&field-keywords=architecture&sprefix=arquitecture&ih=16_3_0_0_0_1_0_0_0_1.112_305&fsc=19"][/ame]. The lighting is something very important to know, to master. You can have simple forms, but a cool looking place, very "atmospheric"

hope this helps!

Neox · Jul 2010

the thing with real world measurement is, that it doesn't always apply for every game and genre, knowing such thing is nice, but it doesn't count at all if the game plays bad, because of to small corridors, doors and other stuff. If a door gets deathra in a shooter because you have freedom to move its bad no matter if the 90cm norm door has been used, as well as small tiny supermarket levels won't work for most 3rd person games as there is just no space for camera movement.

Blaizer · Jul 2010

Of course, but if we are doing realistic environments, it helps a lot because we can do our work more credible. For a level designer, all this is like the human anatomy for a character artist.

Also, we don't need to know too many measures, and in games it may be an approach.

Looking for good tutorials/reads about level design

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