Level Design Help Files

[von*ferret]

Collection of Help Sites for Level Design themed Files
If you wish to add to this, simply reply and I'll add your link in its appropriate category. Thanks to everyone who contributes!

General Level Design Articles & Best Practices

• Common Sense vs Level Design: http://www.johnsto.co.uk/design/common-sense/
• Ten principles of good level design: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DanTaylor/20130929/196791/Ten_Principles_of_Good_Level_Design_Part_1.php
• Starting a new level: http://designreboot.blogspot.de/2010/02/level-design-primer-starting-new-level.html
• The visual guide to multiplayer level design - http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/BobbyRoss/20140720/221342/The_Visual_Guide_to_Multiplayer_Level_Design.php
• Multiplayer 101 Level Design - http://www.slothy.com/composite/MP_101.doc
• Lunaran's Deathmatch Encyclopedia - http://lunaran.com/page.php?id=9
• Designing FPS Multiplayer Maps - http://www.ongamedesign.net/designing-fps-multiplayer-maps-part-1/
• Deathmatch Map Design: The architecture of flow - http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/195069/deathmatch_map_design_the_.php
• Deconstructing "Favela" (COD:MW2) - http://blogs.wefrag.com/channie/2010/02/28/deconstructing-favela-part-i/ 
• Designing better levels through human instinct: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6411/designing_better_levels_through_.php
• Composition in Level Design - http://gamasutra.com/blogs/MateuszPiaskiewicz/20140817/223513/Composition_in_Level_Design.php
• Level-Design.org Knowledge Base - http://level-design.org/?page_id=2468
• Push & Pull: The art of guiding players through an environment - http://www.clement-melendez.com/portfolio/articles/push-pull/introduction/
• Ben’s Small Bible of Realistic Multiplayer Level Design - http://www.benb-design.net/Articles/benb_article02.pdf

GDC

• GDC 2010 Level Design Notes - http://worldofleveldesign.com/gdc-2010-level-design-part1-sylvain-douce.php
• GDC talk on Level-Design Pre-Production: http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1012660/Level-Design-in-a-Day
• Iterative Level-Design at Bethesda: http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1020171/Level-Design-in-a-Day

Source SDK

Communities

• HALFLIFE2.NET - http://www.halflife2.net/
• Interlopers.net - http://interlopers.net/
• Wavelength - http://forums.thewavelength.net/
• Slackiller - http://www.slackiller.com/
• HLGamer.com - http://www.hlgamer.com/
• Half-Life 2 Files - http://halflife2.filefront.com/

Modding

• Valve Developer Community - https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Main_Page
• Modding Resources - http://forums.filefr...ad.php?t=173279
• Mod Making Tutorials - http://tutorials.mod... ... =61&diff=0
• Mod Making Tutorials - http://tutorials.mod... ... a-single-/

Team Fortress 2

• http://forums.tf2maps.net/showthread.php?t=4674

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

• http://www.worldofleveldesign.com/categories/cat_csgo.php

Tutorials

• Mod Making Tutorials fogs - http://tutorials.moddb.com/70/?fpage=0
• A (rare) French tutorial on a lot of things: http://nyko18.free.f...misation#II_3_B
• Halfwit2:http://halfwit-2.com/?page=tutorials&action=view&item=44
• Custom Sky Box Creation: https://www.mapcore.org/topic/19547-tutorial-make-your-own-skybox-for-csgo/

Props

• Creating a simple model for HL2 with StudioCompiler - http://www.chaosinca... ... r_help.php

Tools

• Cannonfodder's Half-Life 2 Tools - http://www.chaosinca...der/cftools.htm
• Wall Worm's Tools - http://wallworm.com/
• Compile Pal - http://a.pomf.se/ephara.mp4 / https://github.com/ruarai/CompilePal
• Materialize - Free Texture Map Generating Tool - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtnJToPxBNo

Unreal Engine 2

• Unreal Developer Network - http://udn.epicgames.com/Main/WebHome <-
• Unreal Wikipedia - http://wiki.beyondunreal.com/wiki/
• Unreal Forum - http://forums.beyondunreal.com/forumdisplay.php?f=13

Unreal Engine 3

• http://help.hourence...orialsindex.htm
• http://www.roboblitz... ... l:Allpages
• http://www.avld.org/...s/tuts/tuts.htm
• http://www.chrisalbeluhn.com/3D_Tutorials.html

More UE3 related links here: http://itu.dk/people/peder/

 Quake 4

• http://www.iddevnet.com/quake4/

Cryengine 2

• Crytek's official developer portal - http://www.crymod.com

Literature

• The How's and Why's of Level Design: http://www.hourences.com/product/the-hows-and-whys-of-level-design-2/
• Level Design for Games: Creating Compelling Game Experiences: http://www.amazon.com/Level-Design-Games-Compelling-Experiences/dp/0321375971/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273437833&sr=1-1
• Game Level Design: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1584503696?ie=UTF8&tag=wold-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1584503696

Other Useful Resources

• Free sounds and sound effects for everyone: http://www.partnersinrhyme.com/
• Many useful links regarding level design (among other topics) can be viewed here as well: http://csyvertsen.net/?page_id=242

Great Mapcore Topics

Updated by FrieChamp on August 14th, 2014
Updated by 'RZL on June 10th, 2018

[von*ferret]

Bumping this,

IF YOU FIND ANYTHING PLEASE POST SO THAT WE CAN HELP THE COMMUNITY.

I dont care which engine you find ANYTHING, but anything and everything is helpful as long as its of some quality!

[Furyo]

Killing Grounds has closed (AKG) and now redirects to the Valve wiki. I'll post my Source links tonight when I'm home.

[Minos]

Nice stuff. I think this might be useful too:

http://www.mapcore.net/forums/viewtopic ... 34&start=0

[insta]

Here's a mirror for AKG :

http://www.gmodcentral.com/mirror/akg/index.htm

[Furyo]

I'm sure most of you on the Source engine know these sites already, this is for the newcomers:

Snarkpit: http://www.snarkpit.net/

A (rare) French tutorial on a lot of things: http://nyko18.free.fr/Hammer/?p=optimisation#II_3_B

Free sounds and sound effects for everyone: http://www.partnersinrhyme.com/

Halfwit2:http://halfwit-2.com/?page=tutorials&action=view&item=44

Obviously the Valve wiki should be listed as well:

http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Main_Page

[-HP-]

Here's my 50cent! =)

Yet another great bump han?

Source engine resources

Communities

HALFLIFE2.NET - http://www.halflife2.net/

Half-Life 2 Online Source - http://www.hl2source.com/

Cannonfodder's Half-Life 2 Tools - http://www.chaosincarnate.net/cannonfodder/cftools.htm

Edit Life - http://www.editlife.net/

Slackiller - http://www.slackiller.com/

HLGamer.com - http://www.hlgamer.com/

Half-Life 2 Files - http://halflife2.filefront.com/

Interlopers.net - http://interlopers.net/

Mod HQ - http://www.mod-hq.com/

Half-Life 2 Mods - http://www.hl2mods.co.uk/

HL2Mapping.com - http://www.hl2mapping.com/

Iwannamap.com - http://iwannamap.com/

Forums

Wavelength - http://forums.thewavelength.net/

Hammer

AMMAHLS - http://ammahls.com/index.php?page=downloadcat&cat=tools

Category:MappingTutorials | HalfLife 2 Knowledge Base - http://www.hl2world.com/wiki/index.php/ ... gTutorials

Gamewag - http://www.gamewag.com/hl2.html

Modding

Source Blog - http://www.sourceblog.net/

VERC - http://collective.valve-erc.com/

Valve Developer Community - http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Main_Page

Tutorials

..:::MNeMiC Tutorials:::.. [V4.0] - http://www.mnemic.tk/

Modding Resources - http://forums.filefront.com/showthread.php?t=173279

Mod Making Tutorials - http://tutorials.moddb.com/?search=true ... =61&diff=0

VMT - http://0mfg.co.uk/hl2_mod.html

69th Vlatitude - http://www.vlatitude.com/tutorials.php

Mod Making Tutorials - http://tutorials.moddb.com/106/Complete ... a-single-/

Mod Making Tutorials fogs - http://tutorials.moddb.com/70/?fpage=0

Gamewag - http://www.gamewag.com/hl2.html

The SnarkPit - http://www.snarkpit.net/editing.php?pag ... s&game=HL2

HL2World Knowledge Base - http://www.hl2world.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Edit Life - http://www.editlife.net/tutorial.php

Interlopers.net - http://www.interlopers.net/index.php?page=tutorials.htm

Props

Creating a simple model for HL2 with StudioCompiler - http://www.chaosincarnate.net/cannonfod ... r_help.php

Static Models - http://www.hl2world.com/wiki/index.php/Static_Models

Textuting

Hammer Face Edit Dialog - http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki ... ture_Group

[Hourences]

Unreal Engine 3 tutorials:

http://help.hourences.com/tutorialsindex.htm

http://www.roboblitz.com/RoboBlitzEdito ... l:Allpages

http://www.avld.org/pages/tuts/tuts.htm

[FMPONE]

Source Panorama technology tutorial:

http://blog.johnsto.co.uk/?action=view&id=57.

other random wisdom from DaveJ:

http://blog.johnsto.co.uk/

the best map directory on the web as far as I'm concerned (perhaps this could go under PR category or something):

http://lanmaniax.com/

[Rick_D]

i've decided to pick up unreal engine, all the links here are dead (i don't want to learn unreal3 just yet) - can anyone recommend some good tutorials on just using the engine - also getting static meshes from maya (preferably 8.5) into the editor/engine?

big thanks in advance

[Hourences]

http://architectonic.planetunreal.games ... level.html

http://www.3dbuzz.com

http://facweb.cs.depaul.edu/JBrzezinski ... rkflow.htm

http://udn.epicgames.com/Two/StaticMeshes.html

http://udn.epicgames.com/Two/ActorX.html

There is no reason not to learn UE3, knowing UE2 is pretty much entirely useless right now.

[-HP-]

There is no reason not to learn UE3, knowing UE2 is pretty much entirely useless right now.

Yeah, I guess so...

If anyone knows any useful links regarding UT3 editing, post away please.

I know the game isn't out yet, but RoboBlitz has been released ages ago, I bet there's already some tut's and articles around the internets.

[Hourences]

Unreal Engine 3 tutorials:

http://help.hourences.com/tutorialsindex.htm

http://www.roboblitz.com/RoboBlitzEdito ... l:Allpages

http://www.avld.org/pages/tuts/tuts.htm

?

Theres not much more than that, or at least not any large sites.

[-HP-]

ok, I guess we'll have to wait...

In a few weeks, we're gonna put our hands on the official Epic tutorials that come with the collectors edition, so...

[Buddy]

":3quxqsuv]ok, I guess we'll have to wait...

In a few weeks, we're gonna put our hands on the official Epic tutorials that come with the collectors edition, so...

Collectors edition of what? gears?