HOW TO CREATE LOCATIONS FOR SHOOTERS? THE BLACKSTEINN EXPERIENCE
Blacksteinn?artist?Oleg Stepanov?wrote an article about how game locations are developed, focusing on the first- and third-person shooter genre. The material turned out to be complex, including both the basics and very specific nuances and even a list of literature for in-depth study of certain aspects, which will be of interest to artists from small to large. And, of course, the text is unique, because it is based on the experience of Oleg.
But enough of the clues! We wish you a pleasant and informative reading!
WHAT IS A GAME LOCATION?
In simple terms, a place in which the game events. And it's not just a visual shell that immerses you in the right context. The location also limits and directs the player. In essence, it is a system consisting of points of interest, between which the movement takes place. A competently designed location at its core has a certain form of organization, where all parts are logically linked to each other by the rules. These rules are reflected in both the design and the structure so that the artist creates both beautiful and functional levels, and the player is not bored on the way to the goal.?
The location ties together the gameplay, the narrative, and the participants in the whole process - the players. It's far from just a setting, as many may decide - it's also a way to create an interactive experience and maintain the necessary gameplay dynamics.
Take the mechanics of climbing and gliding (floating in the air) as an example. To make it necessary for the player to use them, a lot of steep places with ledges are created on the location, buildings are grouped into multilevel clusters, artificial obstacles are formed - the same precipices. In this case, there are new ways to achieve the goal. The process of exploring the world becomes more complex and varied.
And if a dangerous monster is waiting behind the door, it leaves characteristic scratches on it, and traces of blood on the floor. This adds a number of visual markers to the narrative - the way we inform the player of the danger lurking ahead.
Developing a game location is a complex iterative process, full of both artistic and technical aspects. Specialists of different profiles are involved in this work. Of the main stages we can distinguish the following:
Of course, it is impossible to fully cover all the stages for all types of sets and genres in one article. Therefore, first, we will focus on the creation of assets and their integration into the structure of the location; second, we will take one of the set plans for a corridor-based sci-fi first- or third-person shooter as a setting. But in one way or another, the processes described may be present in the development of a wide variety of levels.
ITERATIONS OF DEVELOPING THE ASSETS FOR THE LOCATION
Preparing the Master Scene
Creating a location is a very complex undertaking. This is reflected both in the construction of a level structure of many individual elements, and in the fact that a large group of artists and other specialists are involved. Therefore, at the very beginning we need to create a master scene - a file in which the most basic elements will be set up:
Thanks to such a master scene we define the rules by which the assets will be further created and placed on the location. This will allow to balance the size of the objects relative to each other and the player, to make sure that the characters will be able to freely pass to the necessary points and hide from the enemies, and also that the environment elements will match in all expected variations and that the resolution of the textures in the frame will be uniform.
IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN MORE DETAILS ABOUT THIS STAGE AND UNDERSTANDING THE PECULIARITIES OF TEXEL CALCULATION FOR DIFFERENT LOCATION ELEMENTS, WE RECOMMEND READING THE ARTICLE?ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT TEXEL DENSITY
Partitioning the location into separate modules
Metrics is the starting point for further work on all the assets. Depending on the availability of draft geometry and concept art, it is necessary to divide the location into component elements, which will be further used not only for the current part of the game space but also repeated throughout the level or the game in one form or another. Thus, a separate master scene is created for each location in the engine, with which each artist can work independently, but still see the gradually expanding level.
FOR A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF HOW A MODULAR LOCATION IS CREATED, SEE THE?DEVCOM2020 WORLD BUILDING OVERVIEW VIDEO
By?Alec Cornet
Creating Assets
So far, the models are rough geometric figures, which for the most part simply describe the dimensions, give an understanding of the basic silhouette and some important elements of the future modular asset. At this stage, it would be logical to divide part of the location between different artists. Each will work on their own piece in a particular game's patchline. However, the pipelines from project to project can be quite similar. You can distinguish the following main stages typical of most of them:
This list intentionally omits the baking stage. Often, to simplify and accelerate the development process they use tile textures and procedural materials that are configured directly in the game engine, as well as decals and trims, which can be part of the geometry of the Asset. As for games in the fantasy setting, here the design relies on man-made elements made of artificial materials and often having regular shapes with rounded edges. Therefore, much of the geometry is modeled using mid poly techniques and custom normals. For example, this can be seen in Alien: Isolation, Star Citizen, Control, Atomic Heart, and Aliens: Fireteam Elite. With this feature, the artist focuses directly on design and functionality, actually creating only the basic geometry of the module, on top of which are added pre-prepared parts from ready-made kitbash or libraries of all possible types.
TO LEARN ABOUT THE TECHNIQUE OF CREATING MIDPOLY MODELS, SEE THE?VIDEO GAME ASSETS - WEIGHTED VERTEX NORMALS (MEDIUM POLYGON MODELING)
Generative Design
It may seem that using a Pipeline like this turns a location into a set of template assemblies. This is not entirely true, because the design does not end with the procedures described above. Subsequently, a variety of techniques helps to make each module unique:
The use of these techniques gives the models a finished look by varying the color palette, adding individual details like damage or dirt and so on. This allows you to hide the visual monotony. Therefore, well-designed libraries of assets and tools for their application can not only speed up and simplify development, but also add variety and realism to the locations.
YOU CAN FIND AN EXAMPLE OF HOW HOUDINI CAN BE USED TO GENERATE LOCATION ELEMENTS IN THE ARTICLE?PROJECT TITAN: TOOLS USED IN THE PRODUCTION
Integrating
Before proceeding to the assembly of the location from the Assets in the engine, they are checked for proper triangulation and other topology errors, assigned appropriate names to the geometry and materials, so that when you import them automatically and correctly loaded. If necessary, we manually create geometry that describes the physical boundaries of the object (collision), as well as a simplified version of the Asset (LOD) and adjust the hierarchy for their accurate work.
Since the location was originally divided at the blockout stage into separate modules, the imported models simply replace their draft versions when the level master scene is set up correctly, allowing you to load assemblies in one click and see all the changes at once. At this point, you only need to tweak the parameters of materials and textures, add physical surface properties - and you can test the location in-game mode.
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Even though many tasks are reduced to automation in the process of designing a location, it remains a very lively process. In the course of the process, all complex ideas take on a final grandiose form primarily due to the coordinated work of a team of artists, each of whom brings a piece of their vision to the small projected world. We have touched on a narrow layer of work within a particular setting and genre, some stages have been strongly generalized, some mentioned in a nutshell. Because to embrace immensity in such a relatively compact format is impossible.