[ZensDeath] 11 Day Level Design - Summer

[ZensDeath]

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

DAY 2:
Geometry

DAY 3:
Geometry

DAY 4:
Geometry

DAY 5:
Geometry, Texturing

DAY 6: (revised) August 24, 2010
Geometry - Village

DAY 7: (revised) August 25, 2010
Geometry - Lower Mountain Background

DAY 8: (revised) August 26, 2010
Weapon / Item Placement, FX

DAY 9: (revised) August 27, 2010
Lighting, Post Process

Day 10: (revised) August 28, 2010
Sound, AI Pathing

DAY 11: (revised) August 29, 2010
Optimization and Final Touches


FINAL:
Beta Release

[ZensDeath]

DAY 1:

Ok, I guess I have procrastinated long enough and I really need to start this project before it passes me by. The really bad part about starting late is that now I don't have very many free days to give myself in the middle of the project, it's almost has to be a 11 day marathon. Oh well, lets' do this!

I really didn't know where to start at the beginning so I looked over Alex's “How to Create a map in 11 days� for some pointers. He added a list of questions he asked that I found extremely helpful to get started.

The idea: A small Asian temple complex and village high in the mountains. The temple is built upon a shallow pond where the water flows off the side of the mountain down by the village. The small cluster of homes are set right on the edge of cliffs, with a thousand foot fall just inches away from their front door step. The Summer festival was fast approaching the village before all of the inhabitants fled.

GAMETYPE
Single Player or Multiplayer: Multiplayer
Game Type: Team Death match
What game is this map for: Unreal Tournament 3
(I answered more questions but it made the post way too long. You can find them here: Day 1 .pdf ,if you really want to read them.)

REFERENCE PICS

I jumped on Google real quick to see what i could find for Asian temples and mountains villages and I found a few really good pictures that I think communicate well what I am trying to make.

(The water temple)


(More temple ideas)





(The village clinging to the cliffs)


(Pathways to the village)


(Color and vegetation of the area)



(The land beyond the arena will be lush and green, at the bottom of the mountain)


CONCEPT SKETCH (TOP DOWN VIEW)

After I found some reference pics that really concreted the idea in my mind I sat down real quick and drew out how I wanted the layout of my level to look. I wanted to do a small map with a circular design, that went from the village to the temple. My artistic skills end at top down views so I did not try to do any other concept art.

(Pencil concept of the map)


After taking a step back and looking at the concept, I realized that those of you looking at it might not understand what is supposed to be where without me explaining it. So I decided to drop the concept in Photoshop and put some color to it to help explain what the shaded areas are better.

(Colored concept of the map)

Red squares are buildings, blue is water, light brown is paths, green is trees and shrubs, and the brown is default land.

Well with that done I think I will call it a night and wait till tomorrow to open up the editor.

[ZensDeath]

DAY 2:

Well Day 2 started off slower than I would have liked. I am attempting to make the majority of the landscape in the Terrain editor, only problem is that I have never touched UT3 terrain before. So I spent a little while looking up tutorials to help me get started, but now I believe I have the hang of it.

I started off with a plain old box and dropped some roof meshes and the bridge mesh to act as place holders for my buildings. I did some quick adjustments and jumped into play mode quite often to get the size of the map right. I wanted this to be a very small map, with only a little bit of run time to get from one side of the map to the other.

After I had the size of the map down, I laid a terrain sheet over my box and roughly drew in my path ways where I could form my terrain around.

(Place holder meshes and rough pathways)


From there I just played around with the paint tool and raised my mountains to where I wanted them. I also placed a temporary snow texture to serve as a place holder for my lake.

(not bad for day 2)


(Forgot my island in the lake, had to fix that)



I don't think Day 2 went as bad as I feared, hopefully the rest of the challenge will go as smoothly.

Day 3 I believe that I will start placing the main feature meshes of the map and detail out the terrain a little more.

[ZensDeath]

DAY 3:

Moving Along. . . slowly. With the area laid out I focused most of my time on Day 3 on the Temple, I believe I may have spent too much time on it. The lighting isn't where I want it and the water needs a boost in reflectiveness, other than that I think it is a good start.

(Building a mountain, one rock at a time.)


(Need to fix the water.)


(Not too shabby.)


I always appreciate comments and suggestions on design. Thanks guys.

[DonCornholio]

-i would almost double the size of the bridge in front of the lake and the size of the isle and the tree .
-And maybe an old cave behind the, temple would look nice, like they got ancient holy stuff in there ^^ .
-the blue lampions don't really fit in, maybe a violett tone would be better.
-maybe you should consider lowering the water level about half a meter

Anyways, keep on going the map has a real potential

[ZensDeath]

DAY 4:

Worked on the Waterfall and started on the village today. As well as made some progress with the area between the village and the temple. Tomorrow is the last day for geometry so I need to step it up so I can get this thing finished.

(The progressive overview.)


(Just the start of the small village area.)


(Waterfall from the bridge, like to see this with more dramitic lighting.)


(Behind the village)


Just to clear things up, I don't have internet so I don't actually get to post this when I am done with the day. I have to write this out and then put it on a flash drive and take it to a place with internet. So actually I am working on day 5 now, but I won't get to post that until tomorrow afternoon. Just so you know.

[ZensDeath]

DAY 5:

Ok, so I totally failed at finishing the geometry part of the level last night. I realize that while doing this challenge I have been getting lost in detailing out the level to the point where I want each part to look finished when I am done with it. (I almost did the post processing when I made my mountain top. . .and post processing should be one of the last things I do.) In response to my insight I am rearranging my schedule and trying to focus on what is on the list for the day only. Hopefully that will make things move a little smoother.

On day five I only worked on the sniper area on the lower side of the lake.

(The progressive overview, not much has changed.)


(Sniper Rifle will be in the little building, on the right the position looks over the bridge to the village.)


(Lighting still needs to be fixed, but I'm not even going to work on it till my schedule says to.)


(Added reflection to the water.)

[ZensDeath]

DAY 6:

Day 6 I worked on the buildings and the area approaching the village. Wish I was able to get more time on the computer to work on it today but oh well. Sorry short post but I need to get back to working on the project.

(The progressive overview, not much has changed. . . again.)


(The path leading from the village to the bridge.)


(My small mountain village.)


(Poor people in the mountains really know how to 'rough it'. )

[ZensDeath]

DAY 7:

Day 7 I worked on the rest of the village and added a cave area to give an alternate route into the village. This pretty much finishes up the village and the main portion of the mountain village. Next will be weapon and item placement.

(The progressive overview.)


(The middle of the village.)


(North path into the village. Cave is off to the right.)


(Path by the lake.)

[ZensDeath]

DAY 8:

I just had a little time today to place weapons and items. I gotta say going for 11 days straight is pretty tough, I just hope I finish without any more distractions showing up. I will get some pictures up tonight when I post day 9 tonight.

Ok, well I wasn't able to get on the internet last night, but I made it on tonight. Hopefully I will make it on tomorrow to post the final map.

Anyway, I made up a overview of where I put the weapons and items. I haven't played UT3 too much so the locations of the items are probably a little off. I did test it out with about 4 bots and it seems that we are spending alot of time around the village area. I will have to do more testing then tweek the locations. Any insight you guys have would be great.

(The progressive overview.)

[ZensDeath]

DAY 9:

Day 9 I focused on lighting and the post process on the map. I started off with the idea that I was going to make the map during sunset with the lighting coming off from the side. With that idea, half of the village would be in shadow which would allow for some very nice lighting in the village.

(The sunset.)


I found the issue that my map was almost too dark and it really didn't give off the sense of summer that I wanted. So I switched out the skybox and made the TOD mid afternoon.

(Mid afternoon - Green post process.)


I haven't worked with the post process very much, so I generally just tweeked the settings until I found something that I liked. There were many different variations (from an almost glowing orange red level to extra blurry deep green level). All the variations looked very cool on their own but it wasn't something I wanted to fight in.

(Back to Basics.)


I found that I really wanted the effect to be very subtle, so I stripped the post process back to the basics and gave it a slight blur effect to the distance. With that I added a little green and red to the highlights and mid tones to make the colors stand out more and called it good.

(Make the color go POP!)


(Middle of the Village.)

[ZensDeath]

DAY 10:

Day 10 I focused on clean up. Basically going back through the map and fixing everything that wasn't finished, passed over quickly, left out, etc. Also I wanted to focus on finding some internet today to post on the forum the days. You people with internet at home, be thankful for it. Love and caress you modem, give it treats and take it out to dinner once in a while! Stop being so selfish! One day you might wake up and it will be gone. Out of your house and heart forever. Oh, you will cry when that day comes my friend. Believe me, you will cry like a little girl who just lost her favorite doll in a store parking lot when it was raining and no one noticed till they got home, because they all were in too big of a hurry to watch LOST. And when you finally uncurl yourself from the fetal position and turn your eyes toward heaven, silently begging "why!?!". Remember this day, remember when I came to you in a gesture of friendship and told you that golden truth. . .Cherish thy internet.

cherish it.



Day 11 I think I will focus on more sleep.

Lol.. I loved this post. Were you writing this from a field from one of those hand-crank laptops they give out for free? Well, we have 6 computers in my house and two wireless laptops. You're making me feel guilty about playing L4D wirelessly from bed, WHILE watching Lost. And, as an IT guy in a hospital with 1200 computers, I guess we are spoiled. Sometimes, we'll play online in our conference room on the 100" screen with the overhead projector. Spoiled Americans.

The map looks incredible, by the way. The skybox looks amazing!

[Nexusdog]

tron, you're such a tart! :mrgreen:

100" screen, sheesh...

[ZensDeath]

DAY 11:

Well here it is, 11 Days, 35 Redbulls and 9 Rockstars later. DM-Tranquility. A Deathmatch map created in UT3 for 4 to 6 players. This was the first 11 day contest that I have done and I must say that it was quite fun. Most of my maps that I create take a lot longer than 11 days to complete. Now I've come to realize that during this contest that I usually get side tracked on minute details and loose focus of what I am working on. This happened to me quite often during the first few days of the contest and I started to fall behind on my schedule. Once I made a new schedule and stuck to it, I found that things went a lot faster and smoother than they normally do. Now I am happy to present my entry for the contest. Enjoy.

Kind Regards,
ZensDeath

DM-Tranquility
DM-Tranquility Zip File