Posts by Deets

Don't be shy to post ideas

This is a new experimental project that I want to try out, take a look yourself

https://www.facebook.com/CNProjectAlpha

Hi, it has been a while.

But don't worry, I have been busy. In fact, my dungeon is fully playable now.
It still needs some tweaking, a better navmesh, need to implement the quest I've been talking about before and give the enemies a path to walk. Because now they are basically just standing there waiting for the player.
But the deadline for today was getting a fully filled with props and enemies and playable.

Anyway, I'll only post the link to download the dungeon and a walktrough video. If you want to see pictures they are on the download link aswell

DOWNLOAD LINK: Delera

For people who want to try out the WIP version of this dungeon:

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

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.

[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 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

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

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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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

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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[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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Quote from KoKo5oVaR

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

Display More

Some good ideas in there Thanks.

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

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

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".

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.

Don't worry ChA1NsAw, I'm not a rager and understand you need to accept feedback to become better.

And you got some really good points, some of them I didn't even noticed untill you pointed them out.

A lot of them were not even mentioned by the teachers...

For now I won't change this map, cause I simple don't have time to do so. But I'll keep your tips in mind for my next map

Anyone else who can provide some more feedback?

Quote from KungFuSquirrel

This is pretty solid first map material; the UDK content and lighting helps a lot (you should've seen what first maps looked like in my day when you had to build them going uphill in the snow both ways) but you've got some good layout elements going here. Good use of elevation, some interesting connectivity in the main arena, and a good sense of space.

For your next efforts, I'd start looking at ways to break up the boxiness of the layout and work on connectivity that isn't so reliant on jump pads. Jumps are great in a pinch, and have their place, but pads + teleporters and the like can also be kind of a crutch if you're not careful. There's nothing wrong with right angles or axial layouts, but you can get some really special layout flow by integrating angled or curved routes, especially in terrain where you have a lot of free-form control.

Visually you're off to a good start; try to work on adding some more weight to your structures (the roof of the building is way too thin, for example; in the first shot it looks like it's not even there). You should also keep practicing your lighting; the outside looks great because of the UDK lighting engine, but you might get stronger results by experimenting with a few different angles to highlight different parts of the level (an awful lot of the level is in shadow right now). The interior lighting is very flat (probably from having just a handful of large-radius lights); try playing around with some pockets of light and dark, or maybe even open some of it up to the sunlight. Use small radius but higher intensity lights around your light sources, and use dimmer large radius lights to fill the space. You could also get some nice mileage out of adding little accent lights to the shadowed parts of the exterior - the bridge in shots 5 and 6 immediately comes to mind.

Thank you for your feedback for lighting I prolly was a little bit to closed minded. I just used UDK light engine for outside and inside I just placed a light on every place there actually is a light mesh.

If I have time I'll try to update my map, but the new school semester started and alot of new projects are flowing in. Also a new map with own created assests! (Yay )

But you gave me some really good points to think about and keep in mind when making new maps

Hi, I'm a new member on this site and rather new to level design.

This is my first map I made. It was an assignment for school, my end project for level design semester 1.

We had to make a 1vs1 multiplayer map and since it was our first map we were allowed to use standard UDK assets

I really enjoyed making this level, so I would love to get better at this.

So I'm open for feedback!

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