[WIP] 11 Day Level Design Mr. Chop Winter

[Mr. Chop]

Hello, I'm Mr. Chop. I am a member at Interlopers.net and I've decided to challenge myself through this contest. I learn a lot from doing projects, but never finish my own work. I believe I have the potential to be an excellent level designer, but I have not finished a single map to the point of release. My latest WIP, a map for HL2M focusing on quality, back flopped due to disregard toward proper layouts. I have since then done multiple case studies on objective and non-objective layouts in popular games.

I started a small preproduction phase to gather ideas over the past few days, and have settled on making a HL2M map with a layout inspired from a popular Multi-Player level in a game called "NightFire."

Since this is both an entry and introduction for myself to the community, I will show a bit of my recent work. I specialize in skybox and textures and have gotten multiple jobs contributing for mods and other personal projects.

Some of my semi-recent skybox work.

Some of my semi-recent mapping work.

Pictures from my failed HL2M map.

I will begin working on this 11 day project tomorrow, the 16th, and if my math skills are correct, end on the 27th. I wish all the entering mappers good luck. I just hope I can finish this. It's very daunting, especially since I'm used to extremely long development cycles.

[Oilcake]

Hey! Welcome, and good luck!

*EDIT* Nice work, btw!

[Mr. Chop]

DAY 1:

- I looked for the original map from the game. It turns out someone did a direct port. I looked at it and drew my own layout taking elements from it.

dm_nightfire by: Nico_schum





My First Projected Layout:



-Blue areas will be visible, but not accessible.
-Yellow areas are stairs.

-I made a reference sheet with mall and atrium architecture using PhotoShop:



In the developing Earth, lots of construction occurred at any given time. The 7 Hour War left many projects dead in their tracks. Now, during the winter months, refugees take shelter in large, abandoned structures like this outlet mall. The entire map will be indoors.

Popular malls during the 80-90s had glass ceilings. I've decided that over time, the glass has fallen out of its' sockets and left the ceilings bare to nature. I haven't decided what kind of weather there will be outside, but I know that snow will come in through the roof and into the main areas. A lot of space in the mall will be visible, but not accessible due to construction. This allows for a greater feeling of space along with a more believable mall. I want the mall to be open, but not have long eyesights.



Today, since I had some extra time, I decided to start mapping out the layout. Areas to be blocked by construction have been filled by a hazard-textured brush.

[Mr. Chop]

Day 2:

With the basic layout blocked out, I ran around a bit in-game to get a feel for the flow. I noted down some bad connections and long eyesights. I decided to edit the layout a bit. (not in ps) The map is now much smaller with little gaps between rooms. After deciding the flow was good, I started detailing. I made modular storefronts that fit together nicely on the 2^ scale and started moving and adjusting walls to better fit them. I made placeholder lighting and started roughing out supports.



I actually got a little help with the atrium design from Left 4 Dead 2's Mall Campaign. I did a quick play through to see some elements it had. It turns out the mall in Left 4 Dead 2 is a lot more like the previous version of my map. It is much too large and open for Deathmatch gameplay, so I just focused on roof, ceiling, and shop elements to bring over.

Here is how it looks now:







(I added some simple textures to show more detail in brushwork along with giving a better idea for future texture layout.)

[$oup]

Those light rays/shadows are really nice

[Mr. Chop]

Day: 3

-Today I just did some more rough detailing, made construction barricade prefabs and put them around, reworked the ceiling in one area, filled in most gaps, and changed the layout a bit more in some areas. The lines of sight have been reduced.

[Oilcake]

Man, that's crazy! I love your lighting... Great.

[Mr. Chop]

Today the normal regime of schooling and after hours started again. I had less than 2 hours to work on it today, but I feel I got a lot done as far as set geometry pieces. I closed off all exits and broke up long eyesights and large open areas with wood panels. I made more detailed window pieces, and redesigned some rooms. Now, on to texturing and detailing tomorrow!

[AlexG]

Really nice.

Is there a reason you are using the 50% reflective dev texture?

I love the wip look it creates.

[Mr. Chop]

Is there a reason you are using the 50% reflective dev texture?

I use dev/reflective textures for many reasons. The main one is that it provides a smoother transition from basic brushwork to texturing. I can create different tones for different building materials and see how they might fit together before searching out or making the material I really want to test. The reflective textures also allow for better light testing. (Valve used them instead of orange textures from beta Half Life: 2 to Left 4 Dead 2)

If I ever see a texture that 'clicks', I just use that texture for the rest of the scene and can base some other textures off of that. Most of the wooden stuff I just prefab-ed in so I slapped some materials on. That stone texture is just sexy at .5 scale.

It might sound a bit weird, but I just work better that way.

[Mr. Chop]

Day 5:

-Today I started making and applying textures to surfaces inside the map. I also nodraw-ed unseen surfaces to improve performance. I plan to fix up and edit some things tomorrow geometry-wise. I also need to get a 3D skybox put in, but it will be easy. For some reason, the skybox texture has been giving me lighting problems, but using cordon fixes them... no leaks found... whatever. I didn't compile the map because I have nothing too big to show for today. I'm really busy this week.

[Nexusdog]

This is outstanding work, and the lighting is sublime - I'd like to know what you did for this alone, it's very atmospheric.

You are to be congratulated mate, well done.

[Mr. Chop]

Thanks for the compliments, everyone!

Day: 6

-I finished up my texture work from yesterday. There's still a bit of color tweaking to do here and there. There's only 5-6 custom textures so far. There will be no custom skybox. I'm quite surprised I got this done with so little time in my schedule to work on it!









Tomorrow I will finally get to start work on lighting. I will also be working on the 3D skybox and some more detailing and geometry shifting. As of this moment, I don't know whether to keep the blind outside HDR effect...

[Oilcake]

Haha. I thought the lighting already looked great! Can't wait to see!

[Wisecraka]

start working on the lighting? holy crap i thought you already did that. This map looks AMAZING!