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lots of questions regarding level creation and environmental modeling.

So far I've found out a workflow for character creation, and prop creation.

One of the last thing I'm really curious on, is level creation. Creating an actual level. I understand unity plays a big part in it, but I have a lot of questions, I'll try to organize them somehow.

1.) How do you create ground planes / a world ground for a game? Would I create something tilable, like a plane, or would I bring in an entire huge mesh, and how would the topology look on the ground?

2.) As far as showing off for a portfolio a level you created, or a part of the level, how would you show that off? I'm thinking of just creating some kind of environment, whether it's a town or whatever (I'm still looking at concept art and deciding what to do), do I just show off the different parts? How would I show off the entire thing?

3.) Speaking of portfolios, do you guys know of any really good portfolios that include entire levels and wireframes that I can kind of use as a guide or reference back to?

4.) Would I have the entire level modeled in Maya? Or would I just create a bunch of assets, like a house, lightposts, mailboxes, cars, etc. and import / position them in Unity / CryEngine?

5.) Would a 3d modeler in a game industry ever be responsible for laying out all the assets, or would they be typically involved in just creating those assets?

I might have some follow up questions, but this so far lays it out for me! I really want to get into creating environments.

Thanks!!

Replies

  • cmtanko
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    cmtanko polycounter lvl 10
    yup, that's a lots of questions indeed, Other might join to reply your each query till then you can look over the Polycount Wiki http://wiki.polycount.com/CategoryEnvironment

    That would answer most of your questions.
  • grimsonfart
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    grimsonfart polycounter lvl 4
    1.) How do you create ground planes / a world ground for a game? Would I create something tilable, like a plane, or would I bring in an entire huge mesh, and how would the topology look on the ground? Can you elaborate?

    2.) As far as showing off for a portfolio a level you created, or a part of the level, how would you show that off? I'm thinking of just creating some kind of environment, whether it's a town or whatever (I'm still looking at concept art and deciding what to do), do I just show off the different parts? How would I show off the entire thing? Focus on the most detailed areas, but depends on what type of enviornment

    3.) Speaking of portfolios, do you guys know of any really good portfolios that include entire levels and wireframes that I can kind of use as a guide or reference back to? http://www.martinteichmann.com/, a good portfolio for CryEngine enviornments

    4.) Would I have the entire level modeled in Maya? Or would I just create a bunch of assets, like a house, lightposts, mailboxes, cars, etc. and import / position them in Unity / CryEngine? Create a bunch of assets then import them into the engine.

    5.) Would a 3d modeler in a game industry ever be responsible for laying out all the assets, or would they be typically involved in just creating those assets? Alot of the time there are modelers and texturers, one departement modeling the asset, the other one texturing it. But that said, alot of 3d artists do both.
  • Mark Dygert
    1) There are a few different ways to do it and which method you choose depends on what type of game you are making and what engine you are using. Since you mentioned Unity, you might want to check out some basic tutorials for "unity Terrain Toolkit" it has some pretty extensive terrain tools that will probably be easier to use than importing large meshes. https://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/Manual/Terrains.html
    Other engines has similar tools that all have a mountain of documentation online.

    2) Smaller is better, remember that it takes quite a few artists to put a level together. It takes them a long time and they are fast at what they do. If you're new to craft it will take a lot longer, so start small and build up. If you take on too much, you will more than likely fail, it will crush you and it will be a long time before you understand what you actually need to do in order to find success.

    3) http://gameartportfoliowall.com/ or just google "environment artists portfolio".
    90% of the time, simple images and snap shots of the level with some break down shots are all you need.

    4) Again that really depends on the game, the engine and the people working on it. Bungie used mostly max and their fully custom built engine to create levels for Halo, so yes you CAN make rocking games using mostly the 3D modeling app, but if another studio has those tools built into the engine instead, then you'll use them wherever they are. There are a lot of ways to put a game together and there isn't one method that everyone follows for every type of game. Even the same type of game might be built differently.

    5) Generally the smaller the studio the more hats a person wears. The larger the studio the more specialization they want to see. The old seperation between 2D and 3D has broken down quite a bit in a lot of places. The 2D/3D split mostly took place when a lot of models where textured by hand and a lot of lighting info was painted into the diffuse textures. Now a lot of detail is baked into models and the lighting is mostly handled by the engines with some help in the diffuse, that too normally gets baked in with a little tweaking by the person doing the baking. 2D artists mostly do concept work and storyboards, the might unwrap models do puzzles, UI elements, handle promotional material and maybe do some baking or work on tile textures. It all really depends on the style of the game, the engine, the studio and how much time they have to crank out assets.
    A place that doesn't have a lot of time for sculpting and baking will probably do it the old way.
    A game that runs on low end hardware might not be able to have a robust lighting engine so they might use a hand drawn look with mostly full bright worlds.
  • ahendowski
    That polycount wiki keeps helping me lol it's great. I always forget, I'll bookmark it this time.

    @grimsonfart
    I was wondering about like, when you walk around in a forest in a game and the map isn't just a flat plane, do you create a geometry of where they walk on, or how is the ground plane of a level created? Also, that helps a LOT, thanks!

    @Mark
    That's great advice and knowledge. I'm just thinking in a smaller studio, with the hats, will I typically be level creating as well as modeling? I know that's a very broad question and has a case by case answer, but it's just something I'm wondering I should prepare for.

    I'm assuming 90% of the time, there's a specific level designer / creator, and a modeler that creates the objects to populate the world.
  • grimsonfart
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    grimsonfart polycounter lvl 4
    In CryEngine its controlled by a heightmap. You can create it within the engine or use a program such as World Machine to create different effects. You do not need to make a plane in Maya/Max and then import it into your engine.

    In CryEngine, you can paint the terrain manually or generate a random one. You better checkc it out your self
  • ahendowski
    In CryEngine its controlled by a heightmap. You can create it within the engine or use a program such as World Machine to create different effects. You do not need to make a plane in Maya/Max and then import it into your engine.

    In CryEngine, you can paint the terrain manually or generate a random one. You better checkc it out your self

    That's exactly what I was looking for. Thanks!!
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