Amira's Room
This week, i have designed, Amira's room, really happy about the results.
The Approach:
for designing the environments i usually use grided paper, and sketch out my level, but for this one i decided to use a different approach than my usual, which is using the camera view to design the levels instead of a grid and a paper, it was a nice approach, that yielded some results that i am quite proud of, it that worked pretty well for me, obviously, it has some downsides, and upsides.
Progression:
progression was basically, for quite the first time, it was actually, pretty straight forward.
the camera is just, still in one place, which is the view that i chose, and then i simply keep adding prefabs slowly.
obviously, before i started making the room, i had a sort of small vision, that got formed over few iterations, and you can clearly see the progression in the images, i simply, placed the main layout, walls and floors first, then tested with camera view, then it was all about propping it up.
The Up Sides:
It was far more straight forward, not everything have to be placed perfectly in like common sense, things can be placed unrealistically as long as they look realistic on the camera.
it consumed less time, than doing it on paper.
i was far closer to the game, play testing movement and whatnot, and making changes as i go.
i managed to get the right scope and size of the level on the second try, as things were far more close to the engine than before.
The Down Sides:
Cameras were forced to be static or at least only look at the player, because if cameras move to the wrong spot, the horror of the placements will show up, but static cameras, suit well with my game so that was no problem.
its quite the different mindset, from the more static, rigid, and precise grid layout levels, in this case, the level, was placed, perfectly on grid (atleast the main layout), but the props, were definitely, not placed on grid, and in other levels, i am not even on a grid at all, so it is different mindset to the snappy, grid type of levels, but once we get used to it, it really becomes simply smooth sailing.
Conclusion:
do i see myself, as well, ignoring the grided paper level design process entirely?
no most likely, not, but, sure it took me time to learn (and discover) this new method, i even had to reorganize my entire prefabs folder structures for it, but after one understands it, and has a sense of how things flow, it becomes a very powerful tool in the tool box.
what i am working on now, it is basically, a level, that mixes the two approaches, the grid, and the static (constrained) camera.
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