Dungeon Escape is a first person adventure UDK level. The goal is escape, there is hidden treasure and speed bonuses.

DOWNLOAD
http://www.indiedb.com/games/dungeon...dungeon-escape


VIDEO

Dungeon Escape! UDK Level (Released!) - YouTube

SCREENSHOTS








*original post*

Feedback appreciated.

I wanted to play more with UT levels. Making quick layout tests in ut2k4 got serious after tossed in some unused art from a previous project. The main inspirations from this is Metroid Prime Hunters, Prey and classic Quake deathmatch levels.

Here's a construction shot showing the layout and the texture (single 1024x1024)

http://chrisholden.net/dm01_07.jpg

These are, right to left, max with normals versus ut2k4 game shots with a single diffuse. Most of this is tossed together, needs cleanup, ceiling in main area and detail.

http://chrisholden.net/dm01_05.jpg

The idea is to eventually port this all over the ut3. More of a test than anything too serious. Overall, this inspired me to start making some more interesting designs in UT. I'll see what I can come up with to post here.

Rad! Love the side by side comparison shots. Any plans to release it when done?

Pretty cool, although the whole scene looks a bit busy and uniform at the moment, i'd recommend breaking the floor/walls/ceilings up into more obvious separate values/colours just to make routes and cover really obvious.

At a glance the room is confusing due to the textures all looking pretty similar.

Looks great man. I'll have to try this. The way you made your texture sheet I mean. Yeah just add an adjustment layer to add a little color variation. For example make the floor or ramps look more steel color, or just at some of the borders.

Alex

Damn, that looks amazing. And only one 1024 map?!? Sweet level. I wanna play [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img].

Inspiring stuff man. I agree a little with the uniform colour. But I also love the classic Quake-style simplicity of the layout. Simple and action packed, lots of spots to kill!

A lot of this is engine and game-type specific, but commonly works with most games.

Visibility Study

Visibility refers to how much the player can see. Games have limitations to how much can be seen on screen at once, and you will have to build around it creatively to look as detailed as possible without a significant drop to frame rate. It can also be used purely artistically for a grand reveal such as exiting a tunnel into a beautiful mountain scene. Casino layouts are often a warped and distorted maze to keep the customers in as long as possible.

A few classic examples of blocking visibility:

The S-Hall is using an "S" shape between two rooms. This is the most basic visibility break between two rooms. The S hall has two close relatives, the Y-hall and U-hall.


The I-Hall is essentially breaking two rooms with a big letter "i". It is a great because it always works and gives the player the illusion of choice as well as double the play area as an S-Hall.

There's limitless ideas from there just be creative with your visibility.

http://chrisholden.net/tutor/ds_vis01.jpg



Deathmatch Level Design Study

Man to man combat based is reality takes place an arena type environment such as a boxing ring. An arena can be any large open area. Most levels are a series of connected arenas with the total number of arenas based on number of players or events to happen within that level. These are the fun rooms, where the big things happen.

Things that help make a level fun:
A room with at least two floors. The multiple floors allow for vertical combat Snipe your enemies from above or stalk them from below.

-Three ways to get between those floors. Be it stairs, ramp, elevator, jump pad or teleporter, the player must be able to navigate the room quickly and smoothly.

-Three exits is a great starting place for a fun deathmatch level. Three exits ensures an escape plan.

-Columns and propping. What better to hide behind in a quick situation, and make the level appear strong and supported? Crates is the classic prop to hide behind. Be creative and build unique objects that better tell the story of the level.

Here's an example room featuring those concepts.
http://chrisholden.net/tutor/ds_dm01.jpg

TIP: Build a human ref. It can even be a box, as long as it's the scale of the player character. This will help in judging the size and shape of things.

A larger, second room.
http://chrisholden.net/tutor/ds_dm02.jpg

Putting the two together by creating fun, small rooms out of the visibility halls for final result.

http://chrisholden.net/tutor/ds_dm04.jpg

Download final version in .MAX 8 and .3DS format
http://chrisholden.net/tutor/room01.rar


Test early, test often! The more that's right from the start, the less you have to change in the end.
http://chrisholden.net/tutor/ds_dm05.jpg


This is only the basic gist of deathmatch level design. The best ideas come from testing and designing the most fun environment to suit your game play.

More on this later...

Awesome stuff, Chris. Great tips there for Deathmatch level design. Its a similar technique we use here for all our levels, just block them out and get them in game. You'll see what works and what doesn't a whole lot sooner without having to spend months of polishing mesh only to work out the gameplay sucks.
Keep it up, mate.

-caseyjones

thats really cool chris. thanks for making this. I plan on trying this out. Some questions I have are: What size is each floor square? When you make the floor, do you copy and paste these panels, place them in order, then select all verts and merge them? or do you extrude, extrude, extrude? After completing a room and you want to test it out, do you save as .3ds and import into UnrealEd2? Apply a texture and a player start position, a few lights and hit play? Or can you do this from within max?
thx! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Building off a gimmick

Originally, the idea called for three bridges. They span across a room in a curved nature for multiple elevations using these circular shapes to make what appears to be an eye. The back sides of the walls were simply a walkway to allow the player to run from ground level to the top bridge.

http://chrisholden.net/wacky01.jpg

The downside to a gimmick layout is the game play might not be that fun. So I spent a lot of time testing new additions. I added ramps to the back for another way to the top, a lowered center area (creating another bridge) and a few strategic visibility blockers for game play.

http://chrisholden.net/wacky02.jpg

From there I started pouring on detail. Again for this I started with new details, but then scavenged an older, unfinished level. My plan was to simply go detail crazy until I liked it, then break it up into modular chunks I can bake down to low poly assets and recompile into a playable game level.

http://chrisholden.net/wacky03.jpg

Here's a quick color composition I doodled with



I'm still nailing down the main detail in the back area, once that's complete, I'll be ready to move on to making everything modular.

Really digging that bottom piece, as well as the uncolored one.
Very interesting

Love the sketchbook Chris.
I think i am actually learning from this.

Man thats hot dude! When you started modeling that detailing did you just end up symmetry-ing and turbosmoothing things a million times to get the lengths of the sections you wanted?

I too lovin your sketchbook cause its inspiring and knowledgeable at the same time!

I hop you keep the room to scale with that little dude you have in the corner.
It would definitely be something new in terms of everyday environments and makes you think about the room in more imaginative ways.
What is this room designed around? fusion reactor, robot building room? etc. Looks nice tho.

Recent WIP. Still a ton to do to the building itself (too perfect now) then interior/exterior props. Whole thing is based on pics of a miniature



Newer version with night lighting test and ground transition rocks/dirt.
http://chrisholden.net/blockhouse_wip04.jpg

I'll post some source files and maybe some steps once I'm happier with how it's coming together.

my gosh why hvnt i seen this before...this is awesome, really great insight

Right on man, its looking great. What about dropping the normal map on the straw roof and doing an opacity pass on it instead? The bump wrecks it IMO and if it were more 'hairy', so to speak, I think it would have a nice contrast of surface types.

cool start Chris looking forward to see where you take this. Reminds me of the huts in d2 act 1 and thats a good thing

I agree with Adam about the straw roof it's looking plastic now.

A doodle after work, not sure if I'll take this further. Still working on the house, but wanted to take a break

Sweet man, I'm still always in awe of how you get so much for so little. I need time to get back to my art!

Is that medieval building made from individual bricks? How many stones make up one lego piece? My guess is around 3 or maybe 5? In an interlocking pattern? I'm looking for texture/shape repeats but I can't seem to find any!

I posted this originally a while back, but I didn't everpost a final, so here it is:

2400 triangles, 1x128x128 texture, unoptimized.wireframe, based on this original UT3 screenshot reference.

Final Scene





Next, started helping out dummeh with his game.

The blocked out ship deck, and a few close-ups. All this will change as we nail the look in game. No real textures used yet.

http://chrisholden.net/deck05_01.jpg





Finally, I was ridiculously inspired by Kevin's pimp, I went back to my biotech themed level and made a column over the weekend. I'll give it a unique top, a mudbox pass for the organics, etc.

Really great work, Cholden, that's an awesome pillar. I hadn't seen Dummeh's game before; I sent him an e-mail

Thanks, here's another.

hell yeah Chris! Nice work man. I'm not feeling that bulge in the wall or floor panel in the second image though.

Originally Posted by cholden

A doodle after work, not sure if I'll take this further. Still working on the house, but wanted to take a break

I'm sorry but I can't allow anything that looks better than what's in many games today to be called a doodle