[Alex2the3gr8] 11-Day Level Design-summer

[alex2the3gr8]

11-Day Level Design Challenge - Rural Summer Alex2the3gr8

Release-http://www.l4dmaps.com/details.php?file=6614



DAY 1:
Idea, Research, Reference, Floor plan and Gameplay Elements.
Sketches, drawings.

DAY 2:
Geometry

DAY 3:
Geometry

DAY 4:
Geometry

DAY 5:
Texturing

DAY 6:
Texturing

DAY 7:
optimizing (props)

DAY 8:
Lighting

DAY 9:
Lighting, FX, Sound, Optimization

Day 10:
FX, Sound, FX, Optimization and Final Touches

DAY 11:
FX, Sound and Final Touches

FINAL:
Beta Release

I'm gonna start on the 4th since I'm busy today.
Good luck everyone!

[alex2the3gr8]

Day 01
-It's going to be for the survival gamemode
-I'm mapping for left 4 dead 2

-My idea I'm going to make a farm near a river.
-The farmhouse will be next to the river with a water mill.
-It will include a small hidden area of ancient ruins, just for fun.
-The water mill isn't moving because it's blocked by pieces of wood, when the wood is shot, the water mill turns and the panic event begins.

Here is my basic plan, it's not too good since I'm bad at drawing plus, I couldn't take a good picture of it so I had to go over it again in a picture editing software.


Here are some reference pics that I got.
-I want a nice warm feeling in the map since the zombie apocalypse hasn't reached the farm yet.
-I'm going to make the water reflect everything to make it look natural with an edited water texture.
-The ancient ruins is maybe just a cool little area mainly for the visuals, the forest area is for variety.



seeyah tommorow

[WyRd]

Like the Idea.

cant wait to see how this map turns out

[alex2the3gr8]

Day 02

So, I've started the geometry and it's turned out pretty well.
I mapped the basic floor plan, the farmhouse, bridge, and ruins.
I'm very happy with the farmhouse's exterior but not the interior, I'm afraid I've made it too small to move in. The ruins have turned out fine, it may look better when I've textured and optimised.
The bridge is too early to tell it's outcome.
Its looking quite bare but once I've added trees, plants and a skybox it should look pretty good.




The only bad thing is I think i've done most of the geometry in day 1, Well atleast I can do the displacements tommorow, oh well seeyah!

[alex2the3gr8]

Hey again, Today I started the displacements and other visuals.

The visuals include:
-Small kinda crappy cliff
-more open areas unavailable to access
-better looking beach, I deleted the old one

With the displacements I tried something different. I would usally make a giant block acting as the ground but this time I made lots of smaller squares (each the same size) then "displaced" them individually. you may think this would leave lots of gaps but I fixed that by using the "sew" button. anyway it seemed the make the map look alot more natural and it will also keep the texture from stretching as usual. Just to make a note, this is what the official maps do.

Here's some screenshots

[alex2the3gr8]

Hey!

I thought this post was a little bare so I added colours and smilies to fill the gaps

Today, I've made practically no progress so I won't be posting screenshots. ops:

All I did today was make the water mill, place windows in the farmhouse and add smaller details to buildings. :lol:

-Water mill, This took me a while to do since I was trying to work out how I should make it
but in the end I just made two cylinders and then filled the middle with small cubes, bad explantion sorry.

[AlexG]

Good progress so far.

[Nexusdog]

All I did today was make the water mill, place windows in the farmhouse and add smaller details to buildings. :lol:

Check out this vid to make the wheel rotate if you're feeling creative! :mrgreen:

[youtube:1koj3fwp]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggRuUq2ayo0[/youtube:1koj3fwp]

[alex2the3gr8]

Hey, sorry for the late posting but I was busy throughout yesterday and today,anyway heres my progress

Texturing-Day 05
So the texuring is pretty simple
All I did was place textures onto the map, ta'da!

With texures, the ruins are lookin' superb! and the mix of lighting from the sun just makes it look amazing but it's still looking out of place, some foliage will fix that though.

The farmhouse's exterior seems to look very new from the outside but I'm trying to get an old feeling to it, the interior looks old in comparison

The mill looks amazing plus I also got it to rotate, so when I'm doing the gameplay elements of the map I can add in the breakable wood with an output of when shot the wheel will turn causing the panic event.

The bridge doesn't look too different, so I won't say much about it.

UPDATE

Day 06 - Texturing (overlays and custom textures)

Hey! so as you know I'm texturing and in the recent post I had done simple texturing but now I'm starting the complex ones; blends, overlays, custom, skybox (better texture)
-so I started off with the floor, I got a blend of grass and mud and painted the main ground not inclduing the beach and small stream going through the centre of the map.

-The custom texture I made was a blend of the grass that I used with the ground and sand from my textures, I then used this to make the grass and sand blend on the beach and stream area

-overlays were simple. They were all maily used in the house to give it a destroyed look.

-The skybox that I had didn't really suit my environment so I had to find another one here http://developer.valvesoftware.com/w...ead_2_Sky_List
and I chose the predawn skybox

Here's some screenshots









seeyah

[Deltathunder]

This is coming along nicley.Looking forward too seeing this one finished, well done matey.

[Smog]

It's looking good, Alex. I like the look of the level, it feels very calm and tranquil. I imagine the infected will put an end to that...

Will you be refinining the Water wheel as it looks a bit chunky. Also, the level looks quite sparse.

[alex2the3gr8]

When I add in the foliage, props all that stuff it should all soon come together and less scarse.
The water mill was mainly a dev version and I will redo it soon.
I'll post the update of my work soon

[Severance]

coming together nicely...good planning, interesting location...really looking forward to see what it looks like once props and foliage are added!

[ZombieswithJetpacks]

Wow that is great! I'm very excited to play this, the environment looks fantastic, though, it looks to open, but I am sure you will fix that when u start to add foliage. The ruins look really great, what was your inspiration for this environment?

[alex2the3gr8]

Day 07-optimising
Hey, so today I did some "propping" and added in foliage to my map, and I think it looks good. The only critisim I would give myself is the kind of trees look different and one's dry the other isn't anyway I let you decide that here's my updates.

-I remade the watermill, and then textured it better than before

-I added foliage to my map and got it lookin' gooood especialy the ruins.

-I added props into the farmhouse










Day 08-lighting

Very slow day today so I will just write my progress,
I added very little lights since the sun practically lit the entire area. all the lights are inside the farmhouse.

Sorry for the very late posting I was busy most of the two days.