Freerunner ~ Unit 7
Research
The elements that make games exciting are:
• Start with a Challenge
• Include a Story Narrative
• Provide incentives for good work
• Include the element of chance
• Effective design of the user interface
Planning out your level:
Planning out your levels is the first and most important step in creating a great level design for your game. It can be tempting to go in and start placing random assets, corridors, rooms, enemies, etc., from the built-in library a lot of game engines come with. In order to create a level design that keeps the player engaged, you need to give it much more thought than that. You need to think about how this level moves your game forward.
Lead the player:
A good level design will lead the player, but won’t give them all the answers. The player wants to feel like they are figuring something out on their own, but it also shouldn’t be too difficult where you leave too much up to the player and it only becomes frustrating. You need to find that fine line of player discovery and level design influence.
Vary the scenery:
Find places in your level where you can vary the scenery. No one wants to see the same building 50 times, just in a different location or level. You can create a four-sided building, each side with a different look and texture to it, and display it at different angles to make it look like a different building on each level, instead of having the same one repeated over and over.
Reward the player:
If you have an area in your level that looks important and there is some type of challenge to reach it, you should be rewarding the player, whether it’s a little extra ammo, health, etc. This is especially true if you have areas on your level that don’t really require completion in order to finish the level. This could mean a room with extra enemies that the player can choose to enter or not enter. If the player wants to go the extra mile and accomplish everything possible on your level, reward them for it.
Test the level:
Another very important step to creating a level design is to have a strong testing phase. Get other people to test your map, and don’t give them any pointers! You know your level inside and out so find people who have never seen it before and have them play through it. If any problems occur, take notes and adjust your level accordingly. Are there too many enemies in a room? Or maybe too few? You also might see they’re having problems figuring out where to go. This is the best way to determine if your level is working how you want.
Experimentation
During this part I have experimented using different features of the program to create different things such I learnt how to texture place trees and create skyboxes, which create a very realistic looking sky, I also learnt how to alter the ground by increasing the height and smoothing it down. Unity also has a lot of features to it such as creating fog, rain and all kinds off detailing that I can include in my new york rooftop so that I can create a unique and realistic feel of a new york city rooftop and what kind of atmosphere I am trying to pursue.
Final project
Evaluation
I think that my unity project based on developing my New York City rooftop was fairly successful as it does create a very rough and scrappy looking rooftops which create the urban new york city rooftop. I also thing that the rooftop is modelled and textured to a good standard as the map does look realistic and uses the idea of making the main walking part far more detailed compared to the buildings in the dark which is usually used when creating game maps in the industry. The thing that I could mostly try to change and improve is the idea of scale, even though it has already been altered some structure seem to look a bit off scale therefore the map does not look like its made to the highest standard
Comparing the real life games
When comparing my new york rooftops to real time games I can tell that my project has far less detailing and less rubble to make to map look realistic therefore when I would like to improve my map I would then have to include planes overlaying each other with different textures to create an illusion of there being a lot of rubble I could also model and texture small object to create a far more 3d effect and fill up the empty space on my map,
Another thing that I noticed when comparing my new york city rooftop to call of duty I can tell that there’s a lot more going on in the background and you cant tell that its actually jus a plane also you cant see the horizon whereas in my project I can tell that it looks out of place because of not much going on in the background and that the horizon if very visible therefore when I improve it I will make sure that the map is surrounded by a lot of building ranging in designs so that no horizon is visible.
Time Leap:
Research:
The time zone that I decided to model is the 1700 pirates. I have researched both real and game like photos to represent what I’m trying to model and used this collection of images to inspire both my modelling and how to make my model look as realistic as I could make it and also what style of textures and the atmosphere that is made within these pictures so that my project shows clearly what I wish to model
Expermentation:
From my research I have tried to model all kinds of buildings that represent my idea well and looked realistic and well modelled compared to the images that I have found. Also when modelling my buildings I had to take into consideration the amount of polygons that were made due to all the altering’s I did to the basic shapes. From my images I tried to create a fairly broken down town with a shipwreck, broken down buildings markets and docks and to incorporate as much small detail as I could to really create this small pirate town as realistic as it could get
Textured models:
When texturing my buildings I had to take into consideration the type of style all of the research has shows and what kind of materials and shades of colour are mostly used within those pictures so that my building looked as realistic as it could be and that it would create an obvious feel and atmosphere of the 1700's pirates. Once textured I exported my project into unity where I created an isolated island far away from any land as you can see when looking into the horizon and animated palm trees, I also managed to create realistic rain around the whole map and altered my buildings so that the scale fitted well with my character. The final step was to create a general atmosphere by adding sky boxes lighting and a blue tinted fog to create a very gloomy and dark stormy atmosphere.
Final video
Evaluation:
I think that my final project turned out well and seems to look fairly realistic compared to what I wanted it to be I feel like the texturing is good and really creates the scene as most of the colour is very dark and dull which emphasises this feeling of a storm. When editing this video I added in the sound effects which created a far more intense feel to it which seemed to combine everything together into a game map. When I look back at this final video there are some aspects that I would change and or improve such as creating a more fuller look as the island has far too much open space which I could of filled in my added smaller objects to create a more fuller look and or creating less detailed building surrounding some the main ones. Id also experiment more with adding different scripts and effects into the scene such as lightning strikes and experimenting with adding sounds straight into unity. The final adjustment that I noticed is when looking into the ocean I can see where the land end which could have easily been improved my making the map bigger so that the player cannot see the end of the land as this makes the overall island look fake and not well made. Overall I think the project turned out well and creates the feel and atmosphere that I wanted it is also fairly clear as to what time zone the map is trying to represent.