Becoming a Level Designer/Environment Artist

    Hello,

    I'm new here. My name is Johnny and I go by the nick 'SpronyvanJohnson'. This site was recommended to me as THE place to get [professional] advice and I could really use some.

    For years I've fantasizing about becoming a freelance Level Designer/Environment Artist. Now I've decided to finally pursue that dream. I used to mess around with Gtkradiant and Quake 3, but I made nothing worth mentioning. I do however, have some basic experience with editing in general.

    Google tells me that a Level Designer takes the assets that environment artist has created and assembles them into an environment that we can all play in. They design gameplay elements, create scripted events and test game play. An Environment Artist is someone who builds the assets that go into the environment. They model, often texture and sometimes light their environments. I basically want to do both.

    I've also read, that before starting with an editor, you should have a basic design understanding. It would help if you can draw and color your concepts so that you learn about composition, color and design. When you've 'mastered' that, you should pick the 3D and 2D software you want to work with and learn those. The final step would be choosing an engine and editor to create content for. Which leads to my first question: Is the information and order mentioned above correct?

    If so, then I know I would want to work with Maya. Browsing different forums has taught me there is no clear winner between most programs. A friend of mine already works with Maya and that's the reason I picked it. Because in case of problems, I'm not solely dependent on the Internet for help. Due to a webdesign course I took, I already own a license for Photoshop, so that's a no brainer. Engine wise I would go for Unreal since it's the most licensed engine in the world and the UDK is free to use. Which leaves the basic design understanding open.

    I'm from The Netherlands and I've searching for an appropriate drawing course to take here. I'm just not sure what to pick. Do I need to go with interior design, landscapes, architecture, etc? Also, do I need to start on paper or is it better to start with a tablet and make digital drawings? My wife already bought me a Wacom tablet so it would not cost me any additional money. I'm still looking for the right book, article, article to help me educate myself in color use and basic design and composition. Any suggestions would be really appreciated.

    That brings me to my fourth and final question: Is this the best direction to take? Again, I would appreciate any feedback, pointers, links or information you are willing to share with me. Also, I'm not sure if this is the right forum to ask this, but it looked like the most appropriate one.

    I apologize for starting my stay here with a long post filled with questions. Regardless if you reply or not, I would like to thank you for time.

    Sincerely,

    SpronyvanJohnson

    Advice: Think less, jump head first into it. UDK and Maya have great amounts of Tutorials available, just do it. Don't go too much by the book and getting all the courses, just pick a project and work on it.

    My advice would be to decide on something you want to make, and start making it. You'll run into problems straight away which will cause you to search for solutions - this is exactly what these type of forums are for hehe, in my opinion this is one of the best methods for learning and remembering.

    i did it exactly the other way around, first learned the editor and played around with other peoples assets and now creating my own stuff which is much harder.

    Quote from e-freak

    Advice: Think less, jump head first into it. UDK and Maya have great amounts of Tutorials available, just do it. Don't go too much by the book and getting all the courses, just pick a project and work on it.

    Quoted for truth.

    Also, when you say you want to become a "freelance level designer", do you mean professionally? This is just a wild guess, but there's probably not many paid positions in that category (unless you want to make virtual marine training camps for 200 bucks). Studios generally only hire people to work on location.

    download 3dsmax, download udk, google for tutorials on modeling, use 3dsmax help function, check out polycount wiki, check out 3dbuzz for some (still) good max tutorials, consider getting the unreal tournament 3 special edition with all the unrealed video turoials, check out eat3d, start building stuff, get semi-good, join a mod, work at making art, take crits, improve, make a portfolio, get a job.

    Quote from Rick_D

    download 3dsmax, download udk, google for tutorials on modeling, use 3dsmax help function, check out polycount wiki, check out 3dbuzz for some (still) good max tutorials, consider getting the unreal tournament 3 special edition with all the unrealed video turoials, check out eat3d, start building stuff, get semi-good, join a mod, work at making art, take crits, improve, make a portfolio, get a job.

    yeap, that might be right

    Thanks for all the advice guys. So apparently, it's not that common to start with drawing and stuff? I want to do a map for the upcoming Doom 4. The game is still some time away so that gives me room to learn. I heard that Id Software works with Modo. Is it better to learn that program if you want to do a project for their game?

    I own the Unreal 3 special edition, so I should have those videos. Good advice, I'll look into that.

    Puddy: Oh, if that's the case, freelancing might be difficult. Here in the Netherlands, options are limited so that's why I said freelance. We'll see what happens. First, I got a long road ahead. Let's see how that goes

    Quote from SpronyvanJohnson

    Thanks for all the advice guys. So apparently, it's not that common to start with drawing and stuff? I want to do a map for the upcoming Doom 4. The game is still some time away so that gives me room to learn. I heard that Id Software works with Modo. Is it better to learn that program if you want to do a project for their game?

    If you want to plan out your map by drawing it out for quick ideas, by all means. There's no hard set rules when it comes to just about anything in game development. Everyone has their pipelines they're comfortable with for their own reasons. It's going to take some experimenting to figure out which pipelines you like and what situations they can come in handy.

    I'm not sure if UDK or CE3 supports modo but even if they do, you're better off just using 3dsmax or maya for now as that's what most companies use. Id hasn't released an sdk of any kind for idtech 5 anyways so why bother when you can't even test the engine you want to make a map in. The easy part is learning the software, once you get around the UI and the key differences between programs, they're all essentially the same thing.

    Well ok, honest advise: You don't seem to know much about the games industry yet or how games are made. It's cool to have an idea of what you want to do, but just try to really look into everything, cause it might just be that Level Design is not what you're looking for. There's tons of different jobs in the industry. Start out with doing Level Design but don't limit your self in any direction - try to pick up as much as possible on the way and see what fits you best.

    It doesn't matter what 3d app you are using, there is most of 3ds max users out there, so in general getting any help with max is easier than for Maya or Blender for instance, (but i work with Maya, and the studio that i'm working with is using Maya as well) so it is your choice

    Unless you want to work for a small studio, you might want to figure out which specialization you enjoy more, level design or environment art.

    Edit: Or technical designer (aka scripter)

    Again, great advice guys!

    Rick_D: I apparently don't have the special edition. Are these the videos you are referring to?

    e-freak: I thought I knew a little, but apparently, I have a lot to learn about industry positions, workflows, etc.

    I've downloaded the UDK. Reinstalled UT 3 and I'll start with learning the editor. Those video tutorials I mentioned earlier should keep me occupied for a while. We'll take it from there and see what it is I really like to do

    Thanks for the warm welcome.

    Apologies for that, occasionally a few slip by the radar. I approved your last one of the repeat posts; hopefully you've crossed the threshhold now where you should be able to function normally.

    Post approval is doing wonders for bot spam, but I wonder if it might be a wee bit aggressive right now. :\ I'll bring it up in the moderator forum. Sorry for the delay!

    Quote from KungFuSquirrel

    Apologies for that, occasionally a few slip by the radar. I approved your last one of the repeat posts; hopefully you've crossed the threshhold now where you should be able to function normally.Post approval is doing wonders for bot spam, but I wonder if it might be a wee bit aggressive right now. :\ I'll bring it up in the moderator forum. Sorry for the delay!

    No problem, thanks for the quick reply. I agree that post approval is a very effective way against bots. But you also disable the PM system and have no contact information on the site. In case of problems, like I was having, there is simply no way to contact the staff. My reply on the welcome's email was a gamble since those are normally no reply emailadresses.

    Anyway, thanks again for the quick response. Now let's get back to my topic here.

    You should really figure out what interests you the most.

    Great looking environments

    or

    Great playing levels

    They are too hard to tackle at the same time. I have a ton of coworkers who could only do one well but rarely both. Their weak points in the level usually gets fixed by feedback from other coworkers.

    If you pick the great looking environments option ( Environment Artist) you should learn maya and some game editor. Just find a cool picture of one building and build it. From geo to textures to lighting. Then figure out how to export it into an engine. Unity is a pretty robust, free one that might help.

    If you are going for level design (the great playing option) you should start breaking down the games you play. Why are they fun? Why did they suck? What is the designer doing to get these responses from you? You will need to build geo for this job at some companies but at others you might just be placing triggers and spawns. This job is the harder of your two options. This industry is full of pretty environments but severely lacking in solid game designs.

    The best way is to learn both of these and then learn some scripting, maybe c. However that would take the longest so maybe focus on one area and get great at that. Then if you get in somewhere you can learn the others from the company.

    Hope that helps,

    G

    I missed this last reaction. Somehow I don't get the notifications emails anymore. Anyway, thanks for the advice. I'm currently finishing some old Quake 3 stuff to see where my interest takes me. As in, making it pretty or getting it to play well. I'll take it from there.

    I know this is really just a bump, but does anyone know of some really good colleges where I can learn more about level design and game dev in general? Preferably on the East Coast of the U.S.

    Quote from kanine01

    I know this is really just a bump, but does anyone know of some really good colleges where I can learn more about level design and game dev in general? Preferably on the East Coast of the U.S.

    Yeah, good one is called "Self Taught" college, which is located everywhere. Another one is "Just Keep Practicing", it's quite time consuming, but usually results are good. When you're good enough, get your papers in "Mod Team" or "Indie Team" colleges and work.. erh, study there, improving your skills and learning new ways to develop stuff.

    Also, if you want to really to go real school/college, you should at least tell where you're from, unless you can afford traveling/moving to new country.

    Quote from SotaPoika

    Yeah, good one is called "Self Taught" college, which is located everywhere. Another one is "Just Keep Practicing", it's quite time consuming, but usually results are good. When you're good enough, get your papers in "Mod Team" or "Indie Team" colleges and work.. erh, study there, improving your skills and learning new ways to develop stuff.

    Also, if you want to really to go real school/college, you should at least tell where you're from, unless you can afford traveling/moving to new country.

    I'm already exploring a lot about this sort of thing and I'm involved with the Conscript mod. I live in Connecticut.

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