[Skyrim] Delera Dungeon

    Project name: Delera Dungeon (will probably change the name when used ingame)


    WIP Download: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/49000/?

    Goal: Playable Dungeon with an entrance somewhere in the skyrim world. Has a playable quest inside the dungeon, good lighting and atmosphere.

    End Result should be a portfolio piece.


    Quest Idea: I was thinkin about a typical kind of quest where you have to kill a boss at the end of the dungeon.

    I would add a side quest aswell where you can find a strong weapon and if you do this side quest the end boss might be a bit easier to defeat.


    First Milestone - Block-out of the dungeon:

    I know the screenshots don't give that much of an idea what I'm planning. But I might upload a video of a walktrough later.
    Basically I have my start zone that leads up to the first big encounter no matter what way you go.
    In the big encounter you have one place that goes to a side place that has an small award for the explorers.

    And other path that takes you to the end boss. In the hall up to the end boss I have one more extra room where I will put some items that tells the player there will be a boss soon.


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    Feedback:

    This part is for you guys. What do you think about it so far? I know it's still very basic, but I want feedback on every stage of this project to get it as good as possible.

    Screenshots are indeed a bit hard to gauge what you're going for. You got a top down layout where you have notes scribbled or anything? Since it's a dungeon that should be a pretty clear format to tell us what you're after, unless there's a ridiculous amount of different floor levels that would overlap on a top down map.


    Got a moodboard for what you want visually? Any environmental story telling? (Why does this dungeon exist at all? What happened, etc) How are the different zones gonna stand out? Got a puzzle planned out or is it just gonna be about combat?


    What I usually like about the dungeons in Skyrim is when they sort of break from the usual dungeon format. What I mean by that is that for instance there's a hole in the wall that takes you to a cavern which takes you to a spider cave and then you go back to the concrete environment. Or a small outdoor-ish area to break it up.


    So basically: Got a plan to make it stand out from a generic dungeon? What's the selling point?

    Keep it up.

    Chimeray

    Thanks for the reply and asking those questions. Made me realise I should dig into my own design abit more.

    But what I had planned already is basically a cultist hide-out, with at the end a temple/altar where they do rituals and offerings.

    For the other rooms: The first one should be a rather basic guard room to hold out people that are not from that cult. Then the big room in the middle is the main room where they work and have tables, books, etc.
    One secret room where they keep their valuables and a small room before the altar room with some items that they don't need to run to far from the altar to get something they need.

    And it will be a combat dungeon

    Sigma
    Thanks for the link. I Think I've already read that once before. But I should probably read it again before continuing with this project.


    UPDATE

    I got feedback from my teacher and other students.

    They said the end room was to hard to find.
    So I made a new path that is more obvious and highlighted. But kept the old hard to find path for a "secret room".

    Equally important to your layout is lighting. I'm not saying you should have final lighting already, but even functional at this point is critical to good feedback. Generally calling out the exits to different rooms is a decent starting point. A good article on this;

    http://magnarj.net/article_funclight.html


    I haven't played Skyrim in a long time so I can't remember how the flow of things often goes, but I don't know if it makes sense to have the secret room very hard to find in the final encounter area. From a pacing or player mindset, the final encounter room is going to be the peak intensity of this quest. Only players who wipe the room and then explore every corner will find this thing (and that's fine if that is what you want). From the perspective of time you put into creating this content, you may want to consider something like an obvious tease of this treasure/secret room earlier on in an area without combat that players are likely to see. That way players are going through the dungeon with the goal, "I have to find and kill this named guy..." and then they can create a second goal once they see this room, "How do I get inside that room?" Maybe the entrance to the room is somewhat hard to find and is in the final area, but at least players are anticipating it. This way you can also make players feel smart for seeing it, remembering it, and finally getting inside.

    Quote from Algor

    Equally important to your layout is lighting. I'm not saying you should have final lighting already, but even functional at this point is critical to good feedback. Generally calling out the exits to different rooms is a decent starting point. A good article on this;

    http://magnarj.net/article_funclight.html


    I haven't played Skyrim in a long time so I can't remember how the flow of things often goes, but I don't know if it makes sense to have the secret room very hard to find in the final encounter area. From a pacing or player mindset, the final encounter room is going to be the peak intensity of this quest. Only players who wipe the room and then explore every corner will find this thing (and that's fine if that is what you want). From the perspective of time you put into creating this content, you may want to consider something like an obvious tease of this treasure/secret room earlier on in an area without combat that players are likely to see. That way players are going through the dungeon with the goal, "I have to find and kill this named guy..." and then they can create a second goal once they see this room, "How do I get inside that room?" Maybe the entrance to the room is somewhat hard to find and is in the final area, but at least players are anticipating it. This way you can also make players feel smart for seeing it, remembering it, and finally getting inside.


    This is entirely my fault for not placing enough visual info on this thread, but you got things mixed up a bit.

    The secret room is not going to be in the final encounter area.

    I had a path that wasn't that easy to find to the final encounter at first. but since I got feedback that it was to hard to find I changed my map arround a bit and created a new path to the final encounter.

    Leaving the old path open to use for something else. And since it wasn't that easy to find I used it for a secret room. There is a small window that shows you that secret path, so players who look arround just a little bit will know there is something extra to find.

    Thanks for the feedback and I'll certainly look into that article you posted

    Very cool to see some skyrim stuff, it could be very interesting


    I can't really judge on the level design, but i know i've seen so much of these tombs in skyrim to the point of exhaustion. Maybe you could vary the "biomes" in your level, start by the tomb then have a path in an iced cave, or an underground forest. The reward of the dungeon can also be the discovery of an unique and original environment.


    An idea would be to use unreachable heights to place items that you have to shot with the bow to get them, i always liked that in the recent elder scrolls, it is unexpected and makes you feel really clever


    Looking forward to see what you do mate


    Some good ideas in there Thanks.

    Should have new update pictures and info at the end of next week

    [sMALL WIP UPDATE]

    I started cluttering the first room in the dungeon. You're going to be directly in this room when entering the dungeon.

    This is the place where the people who are on guard live during their duty. Since the dungeon is a hidden cultist dungeon I made the entrance rather rough to show the entrance is somewhere between some rocks.

    The doorways that lead to the next rooms both have trapdoors with a pullchain. since the cultist offer people in their rituals they don't want them to be able to escape.

    And the other way arround, when unwanted visitors get into the dungeon they have to deal with the guards and can't run straight into the dungeon because of the trap doors.


    Like someone suggested before, I added some basic lighting to see how it looks. no where near final lighting.
    Feedback is very welcome


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    Cluttering Halls, creating first NavMesh and creating first enemy encounter
    I continued on cluttering my first room and it is finished for now. So I continued on the halls connecting the first room with the main room.
    Since this task takes a lot of time and I was a bit curious on how enemy encounters work. I skipped my cluttering work for a minute and searched how to make an enemy encounter.
    Basically you have to create a NavMesh over your entire dungeon, over all the paths enemies can follow. I generated a quick NavMesh since I would have to redo it when I fill my rooms with props anyway.
    But it was good enough to get my first necromancer in my dungeon.
    Now I can continue on filling my dungeon with props and will be able to create enemy encounters fairly easily because I tested it out today.


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    How hard is that? I mean when comparing to other tools how much it will take time to learn new tool and get used to workflow, shortcuts etc.? Nice job there, looks like you know what you're doing Lighting time now, right?

    Quote from seir

    How hard is that? I mean when comparing to other tools how much it will take time to learn new tool and get used to workflow, shortcuts etc.? Nice job there, looks like you know what you're doing Lighting time now, right?

    Well, I don't have that much experience with other tools yet. (basics of UDK, Unity, Game Maker and some other ones)

    But I found a very good tutorial on youtube that explains the basics of Creation Kit. So I watched those and experimented and I try to create something better.

    So it didn't take me too long to learn the new tools and shorcuts.

    The workflow comes really natural because of the modular level design in skyrim (became a big fan of it while making this).


    Next step would be lighting, but since I skipped some of the parts out of curiosity what would be next. I'll have to go back a few steps first and finish them first

    Today I made an exterior entrance in the skyrim world. (close to riverwood, so it would fit my story that the cultists abduct people from a town to sacrifice them)
    And I connected that entrance with the entrance inside my dungeon. So now people can actually find my dungeon while playing skyrim.
    I have also made a trap door puzzle that is protecting the treasure room (if you solve it you’ll be able to get some loot from the treasure room)


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    Any chance of a playable version soon-ish or is it not in an Alpha stage yet? Looks pretty promising.

    Btw I'll be at the school next Friday for a bit to talk with Regis and just get a tour of the new premises, been 2 years since I stepped foot in anything DAE related If you're interested we could try setting something up.

    PM or send to my gmail.

    Problem is that I can't do a decent Nav Mesh until my entire dungeon is filled with props.
    Otherwise when I place new props on the nav mesh I've built before, the NPCs might do strange things I suppose.
    Since filling up the dungeon with props is what takes most time it might be a bit longer untill I have a decent playable dungeon. But I am getting there
    I could post the file with what I have so far.

    Anyway, could be cool to have a talk when you are at the school. I'll mail you

    Does that mean you haven't tested the map yet? I mean, redoing stuff is part of the job. Just test it, redo the navmesh later, get something temporary running.

    You should be able to playtest the map without all the bells and whistles, props can come in later? It's ok to upload WIP stuff...

    Quote from Chimeray

    Does that mean you haven't tested the map yet? I mean, redoing stuff is part of the job. Just test it, redo the navmesh later, get something temporary running.

    You should be able to playtest the map without all the bells and whistles, props can come in later? It's ok to upload WIP stuff...


    Yea I did test the map and it has been changed arround a few times already. But as I go along there is more to change.

    But I should probably place in all the enemies and test my level with a more finished version.

    I'll be sure that I did that before next friday

    [uPDATE] Improving light, adding more enemies, creating custom enemies and loot


    Lighting was an important aspect I hadn’t learned about yet in creation kit. So since I’ve been working on this for a while now I tought it was about time.
    I did main lighting for the entire dungeon and the detailed lighting in the first room (apart from some scripts for enemies and improved navmesh the first room should be finished).
    Then I added some enemies so I was able to test certain areas and concepts like activating one with a trigger.
    Also, I made a custom enemy that drops the key you can use on the door leading to the main boss fight.


    I was going to add my dungeon file here, but Mapcore doesn't allow me to upload that kind of file :s


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    Quote from ChA1NsAw

    Screenshot 1: I can feel the warmth now. Much improve, such doge.

    Screenshot 2: This situation can be way cooler with interesting lighting. It's like the candles are unlit, and give no lighting. And the candles won't be enought of a lightsource to make the mob look interesting.

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