2d-chris

The following article contains quotes from interviews with Todd Papy, Design Director at Cloud Imperium Games, Geoffrey Smith, Lead Game Designer at Respawn Entertainment, Paul Haynes, Lead Level Designer at Deep Silver Dambuster Studios and Sten Huebler, Senior Level Designer at The Coalition. A big heartfelt 'thank you' goes out to these guys who took the time out of their busy schedules to answer my questions!
On the MapCore.org forums many amateur level designers ask for feedback on their portfolios or for advice on how to break into the games industry. But once you have signed your first contract and you have your foot in the door you will realize that this step marks merely the beginning of your journey. It is a winding path with many diverging branches and without much information available on the road ahead. This is the reason why I decided to interview professional designers in Senior, Lead or Director positions to share their personal experiences and advice with others trying to navigate this field. It is worth mentioning that the questions were not selected and phrased with the goal in mind to compile a ‘how to get promoted fast’ guide. Instead I wanted to give level designers insights into the careers of others - who have stood at the same crossroads before - in hopes that they get the information to pick the path that is right for them.
Hands-On VS Management
At the beginning of his career, Todd Papy started out as a “designer/environment artist” – a job title that dates back to times when team sizes were much smaller and one person could wear both hats at the same time. As the project complexity and team size grew, he specialized in level design at SONY Santa Monica and worked on the God of War titles. During his time there he moved up the ranks to Lead Level Designer, Design Director and eventually Game Director. From level design to directing a game - a career thanks to careful long-term planning and preparation? “It wasn’t even on my radar” says Todd. “I just wanted to build a game with the team and soak up as much information from the people around me as possible.” 
So how do level designers feel who step into positions where the majority of their daily work suddenly consists of managing people and processes? Do they regret not doing enough hands-on-work anymore? Todd says he misses building and crafting something with his hands, but instead of going back to his roots, he decided to look at the issue from a fresh perspective: “As a Lead or Director, your personal daily and weekly satisfaction changes from pride in what you accomplished to pride in what the team has accomplished.“ Today Todd is designing the universe of 'Star Citizen' as Design Director at Cloud Imperium Games.
Geoffrey Smith - who created some of the most popular multiplayer maps in the Call of Duty and Titanfall series and who is now Lead of the ‘Multiplayer Geometry’ team at Respawn Entertainment - says his output of levels remains unchanged thus far, but he can “easily see how being so tied up with managing would cut into someone's hands-on work”. Geoffrey calls for companies to provide the necessary training to employees new to management positions: “Managing people and projects is hard work and is normally a vastly different skill set than most of us in games have. Maybe that is why our industry has such problems with meeting deadlines and shipping bug-free games. A lot of guys work for a long time in their respective disciplines and after many years they get moved into a lead position. They certainly know their craft well enough to teach new guys but managing those guys and scheduling would be something brand new to them. Companies need to understand this and get them the training they need to be successful.” At Respawn Entertainment, the studio provides its department leads with training seminars, which helps the staff immensely, according to Geoffrey.
Sten Huebler, currently working as a Senior Level Designer at Microsoft-owned The Coalition, in Vancouver, says he definitely missed the hands-on work when he worked in a Lead capacity on 'Crysis' and 'Crysis 2': “I was longing for a more direct creative outlet again. That is why coming to The Coalition and working on Gears of War 4, I really wanted to be hands on again.” To Sten it was the right move because he enjoyed working directly on many of the levels in the game’s campaign and could then experience his fruit of labour with others close to him: "After Gears 4 shipped, playing through the campaign, through my levels with my brother in co-op was a blast and a highlight of my career. He actually still lives in Germany. Being able to reconnect with him, on the other side of globe, playing a game together I worked on...So cool!"

'Gears of War 4'  developed by The Coaliation and published by Microsoft Studios
Paul Haynes, Lead Level Designer at Deep Silver Dambuster Studios, encourages designers to negotiate the amount of organizational tasks and hands-on work before being promoted into a position that makes you unhappy: “I always told myself that I wouldn’t take a Lead position unless it could be agreed that I retain some hands-on, creative responsibility, after all that’s where I consider my strongest attributes to lie. I agreed to both Lead positions (Cinematic/Level Design) under that principle - I never understood the concept of promoting someone who is good at a certain thing into a position where they potentially don’t get to do that thing anymore, as they spend all their time organising others to do it. So far I’ve managed to maintain that creativity to some degree, though I would imagine it’s never going to be quite the same as it used to be, as I do have a team to manage now. On the flip side though, being able to control and co-ordinate the level design vision for a project and having a team to support in fulfilling that is quite an exciting new experience for me, so not all the organisation and planning is unenjoyable.”
Specialization VS Broadening Skillsets
For the level designers who aren’t afraid of management-related tasks and who are willing to give up hands-on work for bigger creative control, what would the interviewees recommend: specialize and strengthen abilities as an expert in level design further or broaden one’s skillset (e.g. getting into system design, writing etc.)? Paul believes it doesn’t necessarily have to be one or the other: “I think it’s possible to do both (strengthening abilities and broadening skillsets) simultaneously, it would really depend on the individual involved. I would say that a good approach would be to start with the specialisation in your chosen field and then once you feel more comfortable with your day to day work under that specialisation, take on work that utilises different skillsets and experiment to see if you find anything else you enjoy.” He started out as a pure level designer but subsequently held roles that involved game and cinematic design at Codemasters, Crytek and Dambuster Studios. “I’ll always consider myself a level designer at heart”, says Paul, “though it’s been incredibly beneficial for me to gain an understanding of multiple other disciplines, as not only has it widened my personal skillset but it has enabled me to understand what those disciplines have to consider during their day to day job roles, and it has helped me to strengthen the bond with those departments and my level design department as a result.” This advice is echoed by Todd who encourages level designers to learn about the different disciplines as “that knowledge will help solve issues that arise when creating a level.”

'Homefront: The Revolution' developed by Dambuster Studios and published by Deep Silver
Sten also gained experience in related disciplines but ultimately decided to return to his passion and do level design. He explains: “It’s a good question and I feel I have been wondering about this myself regularly in my career. I think those priorities might change depending on your current situation, your age, your family situation, but also depending on the experience you gain in your particular field. (…) In my career, I was fortunate enough to try out different positions. For example, I was a Level Designer on Far Cry (PC), Lead Level Designer on Crysis 1 and Lead Game Designer on Crysis 2. Each position had different requirements and responsibilities. As a Lead Level Designer I was more exposed to the overall campaign planning and narrative for it, while on Crysis 2 I was more involved in the system design. However, my true passion is really on the level design side. I love creating places and spaces, taking the player on a cool adventure in a setting I am crafting. My skills and talents also seem to be best aligned on the level design side. I love the combination of art, design, scripting and storytelling that all come together when making levels for 1st or 3rd person games.”
Picking The Right Studio
As you can certainly tell by now, all of the interviewees have already made stops at different studios throughout their career. So each one of them has been in the situation of contemplating whether to pass on an offer or put down their signature on the dotted line. This brings up the question what makes them choose one development studio over the other? To Geoffrey it depends on what stage of your career you are in. “If you're trying to just get into the industry for the first time, then cast your net wide and apply to a lot of places. However, ideally, someone should pick a studio that makes the types of games they love to play. Being happy and motivated to work every day is a powerful thing.”
This is a sentiment that is shared by all interviewees: the project and team are important aspects, but as they have advanced in their career other external factors have come into play: “It’s not just about me anymore, so the location, the city we are going to live in are equally important.” Sten says.
Paul is also cautious of moving across the globe for a new gig. “The type of games that the company produces and the potential quality of them is obviously quite important – as is the team that I’d be working with and their pedigree.  More and more over the years though it’s become equally important to me to find that balance between work and life outside of it. Working on games and translating your hobby into a career is awesome, but it’s all for nothing if you can’t live the life you want around it.”
And it is not just about enjoying your leisure time with family and friends, but it will also reflect in your work according to Todd: “If my family is happy and enjoys where we live, it makes it a lot easier for me to concentrate on work.” He also makes another important point to consider if you are inclined to join a different studio solely based on the current project they are working on: “The culture of the studio is extremely important. I consider how the team and management work together, the vibe when walking around the studio, and the desk where I will sit. Projects will come and go, but the culture of the studio will be something that you deal with every day.”

'Star Citizen' developed and published by Cloud Imperium Games; screenshot by Petri Levälahti
But it goes the other way around, too: When it comes to staffing up a team of level designers, these are the things that Todd looks for in a candidate: “First and foremost, I look for level designers that can take a level through all of the different stages of development: idea generation, 2D layouts, 3D layouts, idea prototyping, scripting, tuning, and final hardening of the level. People that can think quickly about different ideas and their possible positive and negative impacts.  They shouldn’t get too married to one idea, but if they feel strongly enough about that specific idea they will fight for it. People that approach problems differently than I do. I want people that think differently to help round out possible weaknesses that the team might have.  People who will look for the simplest and clearest solution vs. trying to always add more and more complexity.“
For lead positions, it goes to show yet again how important a designer's professional network is, as Todd for example only considers people that he already knows: “I try to promote designers to leads who are already on the team and have proven themselves. When I am building a new team, I hire people who I have had a personal working relationship before. Hiring people I have never worked with for such positions is simply too risky.”
Ups & Downs
While the career paths of the designers I interviewed seem pretty straightforward in retrospect, it is important to note that their journeys had their ups and downs as well. For instance Geoffrey recalls a very nerve-wracking time during his career when he decided to leave Infinity Ward: “We had worked so hard to make Call of Duty a household name but every day more and more of our friends were leaving. At a certain point it just wasn't the same company because the bulk of the people had left. The choice to leave or stay was even giving me heart palpitations. (…) After I left Infinity Ward, I started working at Respawn Entertainment and by work I mean - sitting in a big circle of chairs with not a stick of other furniture in the office - trying to figure out what to do as a company.” But he also remembers many joyful memories throughout his career: Little things like opening up the map file of multiplayer classic ‘mp_carentan’ for the first time or strangers on the street expressing their love in a game he had worked on. To him, shipping a game is a very joyful experience by itself and the recently released Titanfall 2 takes a special place for him. “The first Titanfall was a great game but we had so many issues going on behind the scenes it felt like we weren't able to make the best game we were capable of. (…) After all the trials and tribulations of starting a new game company, Titanfall 2 is a game I am very proud to have worked on.”

'Titanfall 2' developed by Respawn Entertainment and published by Electronic Arts
As a response to the question of what some of the bigger surprises (good or bad) in his career have been thus far, Paul talks about the unexpected benefits of walking through fire during a project’s development and the lessons he learnt from that: “It surprised me how positively I ended up viewing the outcome of the last project I worked on (Homefront: The Revolution). I’d always thought I would aim to work on big, successful titles only, but I guess you don’t really know what’s going to be a success until it’s released. Obviously it was a disappointing process to be part of, and a lot of hard work and effort went into making it, despite the team always knowing that there were some deep lying flaws in the game that weren’t going to be ironed out. We managed to ride the storm of the Crytek financial issues in 2014, coming out on the other side with a mostly new team in place and yet we carried on regardless and managed to actually ship something at the end of it, which is an achievement in itself. I see the positives in the experience as being the lessons I learnt about what can go wrong in games production which stands me in good stead should I decide to take a more authoritative role somewhere down the line. Sometimes the best way to learn is through failure, and I don’t believe I’d be as well rounded as a developer without having experienced what I did on that project.”
Last Words Of Advice
At the end I asked the veterans if they had any pieces of advice they would like to share with less experienced designers. To finish this article I will quote these in unabbreviated form below:
Geoffrey: “I guess the biggest thing for guys coming from community mapping is figuring out if you want to be an Environment Artist or a Geo-based Designer and if you want to work on Single-Player or Multiplayer. Each has its own skills to learn. I think a lot of guys get into mapping for the visual side of things but some companies have the environment artists handle the bulk of that work. So figuring out if making the level look great is more enjoyable to you or thinking it up and laying it out is, will help determine which career you should follow. Other than that, just work hard and always look to improve!”
Todd: “BUILD, BUILD, BUILD.  Have people play it, find out what they liked about it and what they didn’t.  Build up a thick skin; people will not always like your ideas or levels. Try out new ideas constantly. What you think looks good on paper doesn’t always translate to 3D.  Analyse other games, movies, books, art, etc. Discover what makes an idea or piece of art appeal to you and how you can use that in your craft.”
Paul: “The games industry is not your regular nine to five job, and everyone is different so it’s difficult to lay down precise markers for success. Different specialisations have different requirements and you can find your choices leading to different routes than your fellow team members. You need to make sure you carve your own path and try everything you can to achieve whatever your personal goals are within the role; success will come naturally as a result of that. You need to be honest with yourself and others, open to criticism and willing to accept change. I’ve seen potential in people over the years hindered by stubbornness, succeeding in the games industry is all about learning and constantly adapting. Also it’s important to keep seeing your work as an extension of a hobby, rather than a job. The moment it starts to feel like a means to an end, you need to change things up to get that passion back.”
Sten: “I always feel people should follow their passion. I firmly believe that people will always be the best, the most successful at something they love. Of course, it is a job and it pays your bills, but it’s also going to be something you are going to do for gazillions hours in your life, so better pick something you like doing.”
Written by Friedrich Bode for mapcore.org
What are your personal experiences? Do you agree with the statements made by the interviewees? Any advice you would like to share with fellow level designers or game developers in general? Let us know in the comments!

Creative Airlocking: streaming in action games
This article will discuss the loading and unloading of areas in linear single-player action titles, and look at contemporary examples of how the best games mask these so they appear seamless.
Background
When designing levels, Level Designers and Environment Artists must consider that their assets all have to fit within memory at once. While older action games like Wolfenstein 3-D and Doom would load the entire level with a Loading Screen at the start of each map, games like Half-Life started a trend of loading smaller sections gradually so they could squeeze in more detail and also provide a more seamless experience for players, making the game feel like one long adventure.
At the time, going from one space to the next in Half-Life resulted in a seconds-long hitch with the word “Loading” on screen. There was no warning that it was going to happen, although Valve’s Level Designers oftenplaced these level transitions in smart places; usually down-time between combat and in a natural chokepoint. In later years, with faster computers, these load times decreased and are now almost seamless.

Half-Life displays a small loading message when transitioning between levels.
Currently, blockbuster series like Gears of War and Uncharted provide truly seamless transitions. After one long initial load for a new chapter with a completely new location (with new art) – sometimes masked behind a pre-rendered movie – “buffer” Streaming Sections are used, in which the previous area is unloaded, and the next loaded, on the fly. Since a lot of the globally-used entities are already loaded, and the environment is usually the same, assets can be shared, which can reduce these transition load times to much less than the initial level load.
Essentially, these games take the smaller loading bar/screen of a more continuously-laid-out game like Half-Life, Portal 2 or Fallout 4 and make the player spend that time in the game world. If done creatively, players won’t even notice it. They might even enjoy the down-time if it’s well-paced, like The Last of Us where it can be spent on a thought-provoking puzzle or with the characters discussing something interesting.
Overview
Most action games budget out large areas, and then connect those with these smaller Streaming Sections.
 

Section (A) is a huge space with lots of combat, Section (C) is another. Players in Streaming Section (B) can’t see into both (A) and (C) at once. Section (B) is where Section (A) is dropped from memory and (C) starts to load in. Section (A) being dropped shouldn’t happen in view of the player, and unless the game supports backtracking it is wise to place a back-gate to stop players returning, for maximum efficiency. As soon as Section (A) has been dropped, Section (C) can start loading in. It must have been loaded by the time the player exits Section (B), so it is also wise to front-gate players in case they rush through.
The best way to think of a Streaming Section is as an airlock; the “door” behind the player is locked, the next area is loaded, and the “door” ahead opens. Ideally, these sections aren’t literal airlocks but instead nicely-disguised puzzles or narrative spaces between the action.
Back-gating, and Unloading
Back-gating, as the term suggests, is when the player is prevented from returning to a previous area. The ‘gate’ behind them is closed, in a lot of cases locked. This doesn’t have to be a literal gate or door, though. A ceiling can collapse causing debris to block the path behind the player, the player can fall through the floor and not be able to climb back up, they can pass through a one-way portal and not get back.
Back-gating after entering the Streaming Section is usually done around a corner where the player can’t see Section (A) being unloaded.
One-way animations are the main manifestation of these in modern action titles. Think of how many doorways your player character has held open, only to have it collapse behind them. The level section behind that door is now being unloaded, to make space in memory for the next large section. In co-op games, these animated interactions are a great way to bring players back together so that Player 2 isn’t left behind, only to fall through the world, in the section that is just about to be unloaded!

The Last of Us has a huge variety of bespoke, painstakingly-animated back-gates.
A cut-scene can also serve as a good back-gate, as long as it makes sense in the context and/or story so as to not feel tacked on, and is within development budget!
One-way drop-downs are also a great and less flow-breaking back-gate. If the L-shaped area just before the drop-down can be kept in memory, as soon as the player drops down a ledge they can never climb back up, the previous area can be unloaded. The only down-sides to this softer back-gate are that they can feel contrived unless the game’s art and world can support it (terrain and collapsed structures are great for this), and that co-op players may have to be teleported to the dropping player so that they don’t fall through the world when Section (A) is unloaded.
Slowing the player down, and Loading
As Streaming Sections are usually connectors between two larger areas, they naturally make for slower-paced breaks in the action. Since Section (C) is being loaded in, slowing the player down in (B) – either literally as with Gears of War’s infamous forced walks or cerebrally with light puzzle gameplay – can be more efficient and interesting than just making a large footprint which has to cater for a player, say, sprinting for 30 seconds.

Even when rushed, this plank puzzle in The Last of Us takes time and offers a nice respite.
“Popcorn” encounters with just 1-2 enemies can be a good trick to allow loading to finish and slow players down and prevent them from simply rushing through a short Streaming Section. They also keep players on their toes and vary the flow from, for example, combat to puzzle to combat.
Interactive Objects such as the slow-turning valves in Killzone 2 and the Gears of War games can also buy some loading time, as can environmental obstacles such as jumps or mantles or animations where the player’s buddy looks around for, and then finds, a ladder to kick down for the player to climb (also a good front-gate).

Interactions like the valve in Gears of War slows players down and can also act as a front-gate.
These approaches can also be combined in ways that fit the feel of the game, such as a Grub locking the player in a room and flooding it with frightening enemies in the first Gears of War game.
Batman Arkham Asylum does a great job with additional ‘softer’ methods of slowing players down by playing a captivating well-acted taunt on a monitor from The Joker, or by encouraging exploration with The Riddler’s location-specific riddles or any number of collectibles.
Front-gating, and Loaded
As with Back-gates, front-gates are quite self-explanatory – the exit to the area the player is currently in is locked until certain conditions, such as all the enemies in the room being dead or the next area having loaded in, are met. Again, this doesn’t have to be a literal gate or door, just an obstacle in the world that can change its state from closed and locked to open.
A lot of games from the Call of Duty series to Killzone 2 to The Last of Us extensively use friendly characters to unblock a front-gate; chain-link fences are cut through, doors are kicked open, wooden beams are lifted. New waves of enemies can also open a front-gate for the player and offer the bonus in that noisy, gun-firing AI attract players, like carrots on a stick, to the newly-opened exit. Many action games have excellent examples of enemies blow-torching open a door to get in or a huge monster bursting in through a wall; not only are these cool enemy entrances, but oftentimes their new unorthodox entrance-ways become cool exits, sign-posted by their un-gating event.

Previously-locked doors in Halo often flash and make noise when opened by new enemies.
Not all games front-gate the exits of their Streaming Sections because the time needed to load a Section (C) can usually be accurately gauged, and the acceptable fallback is a slight hitch. However, front-gates do provide that extra failsafe to ensure the next area is loaded before leaving a Streaming Section – in this case, a player with a scratched disk or corrupted file could see out of the world, at best, or get stuck or fall out of the world, at worst (though it could be argued someone with a scratch or corrupted files might see worse issues regardless).
The biggest issue here is that front-gates need to fit the game or the level art – neat doorways or bottlenecks aren’t always possible. The other big issue is repetition; if a specific door interaction animation is always used, the game needs to provide a lot of variety in that animation!
One trick that can be used to alleviate repetition, however, is if the front-gate is out of sight near the end of the Streaming Section (A). A check can be done to see if Section (C) has loaded, and if it has, the door can potentially be pre-opened saving the player another potentially-repetitive interaction but also holding as a true front-gate if a player does rush through.
Batman Arkham Asylum had an interesting front-gate in the penitentiary sections; a security camera scanned Batman once before opening the door. Given the backtracking-heavy structure of the game, when racing through at full pelt, if the next area had not finished loading, the camera would loop the camera’s scanning animation. This is a great compromise because the camera scan completely fits the fiction of the world, and an extra scan animation would probably go unnoticed by many players.

Batman Arkham Asylum’s Penitentiary’s doors only open when loading is complete.
Conclusion
In most linear action games, keeping the player immersed in the world is preferable to seeing a loading screen. If developers can create interesting activities, take advantage of slower pacing through narrative, or just make smart use of assets and an interesting space to traverse, Streaming Sections can be part of the world and not feel like generic winding corridors that stand out even to uninitiated players as padding.
Copyright © Martin 'Alf-Life' Badowsky 2016

This article is the first installment in a three-part article that looks at the considerations for creating a single-player combat space, using a walkthrough of the first battle in ‘Killzone Mercenary’ as a working example.
Creating a Single-Player Combat Space Part 1
This article will explain how to create a combat space for a single-player campaign, using my work on ‘Killzone Mercenary’ (hereon referred to as KZM) as an example.  There is already a fair amount of literature on the different methods you can use for creating a combat encounter, but I felt that none of it really discussed how to arrange the layout in closer detail, nor did they discuss where the different elements were appropriate.  In my early work I tried to jam in all the concepts for encounter design without fully understanding how they affected the player’s experience.  As strange as it sounds, I discovered there were times when it was better to restrict the number of elements being used to provide a much more focused and coherent experience; sometimes less is more. I will take you through an example to explain what I mean and how this can be the case.
I will use the very first combat arena in KZM as it’s a small encounter where I can explain in depth what goes into even the most basic combat space. This encounter is a fight against assault troopers who are trying to stop the player from escaping the building and reaching the objective building; the ‘Halls of Justice’. I designed bigger encounters that featured many flanking opportunities and complex circular navigability but focusing on a simple encounter allows me to explain certain techniques in detail and where I purposely removed some elements to balance the difficulty and give the player different experiences.
First of all I will explain two important aspects that must be considered for combat creation; AI metrics and weapon choice. I will then take you through a step by step walkthrough of this first encounter explaining in detail the reasons how it was designed and constructed for optimum player experience.
Metrics
The design mantra ‘form follows function’ should be the basis when creating an arena layout; that is that the arrangement of geometry should derive from its purpose. The arrangement should support the function not only of the style of experience you want to create (is it a tight corridor section with close quarters combat or an open space with multiple routes and options, for example) but it should also support the main element that makes up the combat encounter; the enemy AI.
When considering the layout for the AI or non-player characters (NPCs) that will populate your environment you have to consider their metrics. These are the numerical values for how the NPCs move around and use the environment and the differences between various NPC enemy classes. This isn’t something people tend to talk about and so it can be easily forgotten or missed, yet it directly affects how your enemies will move and react.
For example, in KZM the standard enemy NPC class were the Assault Troopers. These soldiers could be given patrols and animations to perform whilst they were in an ‘unalerted’ state, just like every other enemy class.  However, when they were in an alerted state their behavior changed so that they used cover points to move around the combat space. The maximum distance between cover points that an assault trooper would move was 10 meters. This meant that any cover point that was further away would not be considered, so we needed to make sure when creating combat spaces which used assault troopers that there were enough cover islands so they could move around. If there weren’t, the assault troopers would just stay in the same spot and could risk looking less intelligent.
The assault troopers also tried to maintain a distance of 15m whilst they were trading shots with the player. The behavior was that if the player got closer than this range, but not so close that they were in melee combat distance (5m), the assault troopers would retreat to this mid-range distance of 15m. They would also never choose a cover position that was closer than 15m to the player, so when we created combat spaces we had to make sure that there was enough variety of cover positions in the >15m range.
For the production of KZM we used the ‘Killzone 3’ engine and modified it for the PS Vita. In ‘Killzone 3’ the assault troopers picked their cover within a range that was further than 25m from the player, but we discovered that this was too great a distance for the enemy to still be clear and readable on the PS Vita screen. In our modified version of the KZ engine we had to reduce the combat distance to 15m, which meant that the original combat spaces we had created using the ‘Killzone 3’ metrics also needed adjusting in order for the NPCs to still work. It is an unfortunate truth that the game metrics, be it for the AI or otherwise, can change within a game’s development, which means that your combat arenas will also need to be adjusted.
Weapon Consideration
The metrics for both the player and enemy weapons were also considered. As this is the start of the game we can be more certain that the player is using the default starting weapons, at least on their first playthrough, before they have earned enough credits to buy a new arsenal. Therefore, the combat distances of enemy placement were considered to be comfortably within range for the player’s assault rifle.
The enemy assault trooper archetype used assault rifles that were balanced to have a short range of <10m, and a long range of >20m. This meant that their behavior was to try and keep the player within these ranges and would thus move around the environment to try and maintain this. This was important to consider when building the environment so we could determine the amount of movement the troopers were likely to perform. This is important for balancing difficulty as a moving target is harder to hit.
Foreshadowing
As this was the opening of the game, we wanted to make it compelling in order to grasp and hold the player’s attention; we wanted to start with a bang. If the first lot of encounters in the game only included assault troopers with nothing else to differentiate them it may not have been so compelling. Therefore, we decided to include a significant Killzone enemy vehicle; the Helghast Dropship.  Of course it would have been far too difficult to fight a Dropship at this point in the game, so instead it was used as an impressive introduction of enemies into the arena using the rappel ropes from the ship itself.
Using the Dropship at the end of the encounter, it was important to foreshadow its existence prior to its introduction. The level’s opening cut scene introduces the buddy character, Ivanov, and the narrative that he and the player are infiltrating the building whilst trying to avoid the searching eye of the Dropship.

The foreshadowing of the Helghast Dropship
Once the player has control they make their way up a flight of stairs learning how the movement works and feels whilst being in a safe environment. Once at the top of the stairs they enter through a door where they are introduced to the new melee attack which utilizes the touch screen on the PS Vita.
First Wave
After a successful melee attack the player enters through the door to the first combat area. The composition shows the exit of the arena in the top left third of the frame.  Central to the player’s view is where the first pair of enemies enter from, ensuring that their arrival is not missed.

The exit to the arena is in the top left section of the opening composition
Starting on the level above, the two assault troopers vault down into the gameplay space, to give their presence a more dramatic opening than merely walking in through a door. Their animation and movement also ensures that they catch the player’s eye if they aren’t looking in the desired direction. These vault down animations were 4m high, the standard height for a room in KZM, which meant this was a metric we had for the balcony and floor above.

Two assault troopers drop into the environment from the level above
Once the assault troopers had landed in the arena they became a lot less mobile than their standard behavior so that they were easier to shoot because, as previously mentioned, a moving target is harder to hit.  As this is the very first section of combat the player encounters in the game it was important to ensure that it was easy to get to grips with.
None of the enemies were waypoint/navmesh restricted to certain areas in order to limit their movement as this could potentially lead to NPCs not behaving correctly under differing circumstances. In fact, there were only a very select few instances where we waypoint/navmesh restricted any characters in the whole of KZM; we instead crafted the environments to support the behavior we wanted from the NPCs. This was important for consistency; if you restrict areas and zones for the AI then they won’t behave consistently with what the player has learnt. This would lead to the player not being able to predict their behavior and therefore won’t be able to plan how to attack effectively.
Here, in this first section, the two assault troopers took cover at two upright pillars of high cover and an overturned sofa of low cover. They didn’t tend to venture further into the environment unless the player had for some reason retreated to the edges of the level. The reason they wouldn’t move and advance on, or flank the player was because the other cover options in front of them were within 15m of where the player was likely to be stood. This caused them to be more static and thus easier targets to allow the player to get to grips with the shooting mechanics.
I also chose to mainly use higher cover here so that when the enemies lean out of cover their shooting positions allowed the player to shoot their full body, which was a bigger target than when they poked their heads over the top of the low cover positions.
Low cover positions are great for seeing the enemies move around and change their positions, as the tops of their helmets are visible over the top of the cover. Enemies are much harder to track when they use high cover as it breaks line of sight to them, so this is usually the harder option. However, as they have restricted cover positions and weren’t moving around in this specific situation, it was the best option to use for less difficulty.
First Combat Front
A ‘front’ is the perceived line or boundary that faces the enemy and is the nearest position which combat should be engaged from. The ‘fronts’ used here create boundaries between the two sides; a front for the player and the buddy character and an opposing front for the two assault troopers. This was the simplest setup to start the player off with and it only required two sets of cover points as I didn’t want to encourage the enemy to flank the player at this stage. This section of the encounter only needed these few pieces of cover (in the image below) in order to work and the other pieces of cover were actually for further waves of combat.

The two fronts and the cover setups providing it
It’s also worth noting that the cover object which the buddy character crouches behind is positioned further forward than the arrangement of cover that the player is drawn to. This is so that the buddy character is in the player’s view so they always see the buddy’s actions and involvement. It wouldn’t be optimal to have a buddy NPC that the player rarely saw. The buddy is also kept near to the player in order to maintain a close relationship and the feeling of being a team. Empathy is directly related to proximity between characters, so if the buddy was further away from the player they would experience a much more detached feeling towards them.
Continue to part 2 or go back to the homepage. 
Index:
Creating a Single-Player Combat Space Part 1
Creating a Single-Player Combat Space Part 2
Creating a Single-Player Combat Space Part 3
Copyright ©Peter Ellis 2016. Killzone™ Mercenary is the property of Sony Computer Entertainment © 2013. Killzone is a trademark of Sony Entertainment Europe. Killzone: Mercenary is a trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment America LLC.

Now that you've had a month to digest part one of Sentura's dive into the lovely world of Unreal Engine 4, it's time to get your teeth into the second part. This time, discover the wonders of debugging, comparisons, and casts. Also, feel free to use the comments to ask further questions about this tutorial or Unreal Engine 4 in general.
Picking up where we left off, let’s take a look at debugging, comparisons and casts.
 
Debugging
There were some issues with our door example in Part One, which I glossed over for the sake of simplicity. Now, however, our door should serve as a useful example of how to debug blueprints.
The problem was that our door didn’t really open properly, as seen in this image:
 
  Let’s figure out what’s wrong with some debugging.
There are many methods of debugging blueprints, of which Breakpoints are the most common. Setting a breakpoint stops execution of your game momentarily, allowing you to inspect the nodes of a blueprint graph. This is tremendously useful for squashing any troublesome bugs.
 
  Breakpoint debug steps:
Add a breakpoint. Play and execute the event (the game pauses and focuses on your breakpoint). Use the step button to go through the execution step by step. After a few steps in our door example, we see that both of our events are being triggered repeatedly. We can also hover over any variables and parameters to examine their specific values at the time of the break.
Another method of debugging is to split your screen (or simply use two monitors), separating the blueprint window from the game window. This helps track what’s going on in the graph as you walk through your door. This way, we can see the exact point the execution reaches while we play the game, although we aren’t provided with any additional information.
Notice that the drop down menu next to the play button in the blueprint graph window needs to be set to our specific door in order for it to display any information about the door.
 

 
Both of these debugging methods help us trace the root problem with our door example: events are registering repeatedly, causing the door to behave erratically. One guess as to why this may be occurring, is that some native player character components are interfering with the door blueprint by forcing it to register more than one actor.
 
Comparisons
How can we single out an object or actor to ensure that it’s the correct target of a sequence? How can we ensure that any given object or actor is actually the intended type, in order to avoid problematic misidentifications? These are questions which can be answered using comparisons.
Comparisons are, just as the name implies, a way for us to compare objects in order to determine whether or not they are alike. UE4 determines the result of this comparison with a boolean value – either the objects are the same (a boolean true value) or they are different (a boolean false value), and we can then use this boolean as an indication of what to do with our door. In UE4, conditions are done through the branch node.
The node used for comparisons is called “Equals”. Note that there are several versions of the “Equals” node, as it can be used for almost all possible variable types.
 
  Now that we have our Equals nodes, we want to make sure that they are configured correctly. Each event needs an equals node, taking the ‘other actor’ parameter and comparing it with the player controlled pawn – our First Person Character actor. While you can link the First Person Character actor through other ways, doing it this way ensures that even if we change the player actor to something else, the door condition will still hold true.
 

 
This solution wraps up nicely and leaves no room for error. But it is also somewhat limited: What if we also want to make potential enemies pass through the door?
 
Casts
Casting is a term originating from the computer science concept of polymorphism. In short, polymorphism is about class relationships, and how some classes may have a more generic version of themselves stored to use for implementing a variety of classes within the same skeleton. The generic class is called a superclass, whereas the class inheriting data from the superclass is called a subclass.
The classic example of this is that a Car subclass would have a more generic Vehicle superclass. In games, this idea is even more widespread: we could have a Weapon superclass able to shoot and reload, but what happens when the weapon shoots and reloads would be up to the subclass. An RPG subclass would naturally have a different implementation than a SMG subclass, although it would share attributes like ammo and functions such as shoot or reload. Subclasses still have their own independent functions alongside inherited functions.
 
  How is any of this relevant to Blueprint? In short, a subclass inherited from a superclass may be targeted through its superclass. If you cast to a Weapon superclass, then any of Weapon’s subclasses can pass through as well.
Let’s tie all of this together: using the superclass of First Person Character Character, we could ensure that all classes inheriting from Character are able to use a door as well – including our currently nonexistent enemy characters.
 
  There is a caveat: casts are performed during runtime. This means objects or actors which cast incorrectly could crash or otherwise break your game. For a more technical understanding of why casts should be used carefully, I recommend this article: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4167304/why-should-casting-be-avoided
So far, we have only briefly touched upon the concept of polymorphism, but it is one of the most important concepts within an object oriented programming paradigm such as Blueprint, and a great tool for creating system architecture (including system design).
There is no article for polymorphism in UE4, and I’m tempted to write a comprehensive guide. In the meantime, you could take a look at this short video explaining the concept more thoroughly:
Video no longer available on youtube
In the third and final article in this series, we’ll implement a grenade weapon (using some polymorphy) and a grenade throwing mechanic using Bezier curves.
See you then!

Your objective We'd like you to re-imagine a scene of your choosing from any of the Half-Life games. To be clear, we're not looking for remakes of scenes — we want you to completely reinterpret a scene, approaching it from a fresh perspective. You can, however, use assets from Black Mesa.
Here are some examples of ideas you could develop:
The Tram ride at the beginning of Half-Life. What if somebody else pushed the cart? Gordon was late, so they got somebody else and the resonance cascade happens when Gordon is still on the tram. It crashed to the ground but leads him to a previously unseen section of Black Mesa. Black Mesa. What if Half-Life's infamous research facility were hidden underneath a city or town rather than out in the desert? Surface Tension. This particular event occurs on the side of a Citadel. Yes, it doesn't fit the story, but that's not important. This is about high cliffs and long falls. Opposing Force. What if Black Mesa were devastated by this game's nuclear bomb quite early on during the story, leaving Adrian Shepherd to navigate a version of the research facility resembling a post-apocalyptic nightmare? Point Insertion. Instead of arriving at a city train station, Gordon finds himself in a deserted and derelict village station, perhaps near enough to Ravenholm, to feel the threat. Being seen by Civil Protection may be the least of his worries. City 17. What if the Combine had chosen the United States, France, or London to be their primary city? The only limitation is your imagination, which we want to see run wild — create the most wonderful interpretation of Half-Life's universe that you can conceive. Whether your project is big or small, you should strive to create something that will delight Half-Life fans.
How to share your progress Because this is a joint challenge, there are two places for this:

Where you may discuss the challenge and share progress of your work, which we hope that you will! RunThinkShootLive challenge article
Where you can do the same. Both will be compiled together for judging and articles after the challenge ends, so you don't need to post in both places (although it's not a problem if you do).
 

Prizes Prizes are being donated by both MapCore and RunThinkShootLive, in addition to your work being immortalised in our archives for others to enjoy.
For the winner
A lightly used hardback copy of Valve's rare Half-Life 2 development book, Raising the Bar, kindly donated by Don aka Unq. This book is a must-read for any fan of the game, and particularly those interested in its development process. In addition to being a collectable in its own right, this particular edition is signed by Valve staff, arranged by a friend of Phillip's who works there.
For the almost-winner
Don't feel bad, you nearly made it. Have a plush companion cube plus a MapCore mug or t-shirt, and know that we love you.
...and for everyone else
All entries, except the winner and almost-winner, will be entered into a random draw to win Sniper Elite 3.
Challenge dates Begins: Thursday, 19th March, 2015 at 11am GMT
Ends: Tuesday, 28th April, 2015 at 11am GMT
Rules You can't have a challenge without rules, right? Here are the requirements:
Maximum one map per mapper per entry. The map must have at least one enemy and one weapon; i.e. playable. The map must be original and not have been released publicly before. The map must run in a system with only Half-Life 2: Episode 2 installed By entering the competition you grant RunThinkShootLive.Com and MapCore.org the right to release the map as part of the RaiseTheBarVille Mod. Maps must not appear for download before the release and for one month after the release of the mod. No assets from retail games other than Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode 1 or Half-Life 2: Episode 2 are allowed. Other assets are allowed with written permission from their original authors, which must be included in the entry. The organizers' decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into about it. The map must have a proper name. The map must have a proper filename: MapName_rtbv.bsp Each entry should be accompanied by a correctly formatted (vtf) background and chapter image. The name is not important, as it will have to be changed. All entries must be sent to: runthinkshootlive@gmail.com no later than the deadline. Frequently Asked Questions There have been a few questions asked about this challenge, so hopefully this will help you. However, if your question is not here and you have doubts, please don’t hesitate to ask, no matter how small your query.
Can I use assets from Black Mesa Source?
Yes, by all means, but you must pack them into your BSP. Yes, we know that may mean redundancy, but the map MUST run in a system that ONLY has Episode Two installed. We don’t want to force players to download BM.
Can an entry be a joint entry?
Yes, but there I still only one prize. You’ll have to fight to the death to decide who gets it.
Which games can I re-imagine?
Half-Life, Opposing Force, Blue Shift, Half-Life 2, Lost Coast, Episode One, or Episode Two.
Can I use assets from Lost Coast?
Yes, pack them into your BSP.
What about recreating a scene that was say… cut from one of the main games? Technically a re-imagining of a re-imagining.
No, but you could use the cut area as inspiration for something that was released in one of the games. What we don’t want people to do is remake a cut section from a game.
Can simply change a location?
Well, yes, but again, there should be some element of “What if…?” in the map. Simply changing a town for a city is only part of what we are looking for. You map should really be the result f some change, however minor, in the story.
How do you define a scene?
In the context of this challenge a “Scene” is a part of the game that has some effect on the following game. So, changing one location for another is not really enough. What we are looking for is something that takes the game in a different direction.
Can we submit mini-mods instead of a map?
Sorry, no. Your entry must be a self contained map.
Can I submit something artsy?
Sure, but it must have at least one enemy, one weapon and a player spawn.
Can we decompile or remake specific locations from Valve maps?
We think it’s best if we disallow this. Mainly to avoid any potential problems. Please start your map from something new. However, we will allow a very small section if this is just used to “fit into the story”. For example, in Episode One, at the beginning when Alyx and Gordon are thrown into the Citadel. If you map started at the bottom but then things went very differnt from the game, that would be okay.
How should I start my map?
We suggest a little text at the beginning to set the scene. Something like…”What if Gordon were late and somebody else push the cart? Let’s find out“. It’s not compulsory but it might help.
What’s the limit of changes we can make?
Wow, that’s a tough question. Your changes MUST NOT affect maps that may be after yours in the final mod.
My question is not here, what should I do?
Ask in the RTSL post or MapCore thread. Somebody will respond quickly.
Closing words We really hope that you have fun with this. MapCore has a very long history of facilitating development of levels for Half-Life and its mods, in fact we were founded around that very concept. As such, we're hopeful that the community still has that passion for one of gaming's finest classics, and is keen to apply modern-day skills and technologies to bringing Half-Life's universe to life — because Valve sure isn't doing it any time soon!

Overview of 2014's articles We published a ton of high-quality, original content in 2014. Take a look — you might spot something you missed!
 

By KNJ
 
Interview with Mateusz 'seir' Piaskiewicz, Techland Senior Level Artist
4,100+ reads
Interview with Rosin 'kikette' Geoffrey, Arkane Studios Environment Artist
6,700+ reads
Deus Ex: Human Revolution scene interview with KNJ
6,800+ reads
Virtual Reality: The Final Platform
5,300+ reads
Interview with Francois 'Furyo' Roughol, BioShock Infinite Level Designer
6,200+ reads
Interview with Thibault 'dkm' Courbet, Wolfenstein: The New Order Level Designer
6,600+ reads
Interview with Lenz 'penE' Monath, Environment and Lighting/VFX Artist
3,900+ reads
Interview with Thiago 'Minos' Klafke, Blizzard Environment Artist
7,600+ reads
Interview with Paul 'PaulH' Haynes, Homefront: The Revolution Senior Level Designer
5,000+ reads
Korath: The Witcher Saga scene interview? with Krzysztof 'Tepcio' Teper
3,700+ reads
Level Design in The Last of Us: Part One, Part Two, Part Three
13,500+ reads (all parts)
  Contests and challenges Even better, MapCore continues to thrive as a close-knit community. We collaborated, playtested one another's work, and inspired eachother. Thanks to RZL for his great work organizing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive playtests. SpronyvanJohnson also did a great job organizing MapCore contests, where users pushed themselves to improve their skill set.
We had a fantastic contest and two thrilling challenges, all of which received unprecedented levels of support and engagement. You can relive the action here:
Quake 3 15th Anniversary Contest
CS:GO Sticks Mini Texturing Challenge
By Min0s
New logo and branding For the first time since the forums were established in 2003, 2014 saw the introduction of professional-grade branding, which was brought to life by our very own Arthur de Padua (AKA Thurnip), including a wonderful new logo! We also set up a small store for those wishing to spread the wonder of MapCore throughout the world, complete with Arthur's beautiful new designs, and we'll be updating the store with even more new products based on your feedback very soon!
 
New logo and branding by Thurnip
 
Babies! MapCore kids were also born in 2014! ...God help us all. A huge congratulations to Skjalg and SpronyvanJohnson for their ultimate creative projects: bringing new life into the world. If we missed anyone, let us know in the comments so we can add you!
 
By 2-D Chris
 
Employment As a community, MapCore has always been a mixture of veteran game developers, aspiring amateurs, and plain ol' gamers. One of the best parts about that mixture of experience-levels is when one of our members gets an awesome new job within the industry. In 2014, we got a LOT of great news on that front.
 
Martin "Sentura" Colith - Level Designer at IO Interactive (Copenhagen, Denmark)
Al "Intelect0" Anselmo - QA Tester at Top Free Games (Sao Paulo, Brazil)
Lenz "penE" Monath - Environment Artist at Yager (Berlin, Germany)
Oskmos - FX Artist at DICE (Stockholm, Sweden)
Morten "Mazy"Hedegren - Game Designer at Brain+ (Copenhagen, Denmark)
Skjalg "Skjalg" Sturlasson Maehre - Programmer at Megapop Games (Drammen, Norway)
mr.P - Senior World Designer at Avalanche Studios (NYC, NY, USA)
Pete_H - Game Designer at Gameloft (Barcelona, Spain)
Jobye-Kyle "deceiver" Karmaker - Level Artist at Ubisoft Toronto (Canada)
Alex "AlexM" McGilvray - Build/Tools Engineer at United Front Games (Vancouver, Canada)
Alexander "Taylor" Taylor - Game Designer at Space Ape (London, England)
Kacper "knj" Niepokólczycki - Environment Artist at CD Projekt Red (Krakow, Poland)
John "Ginger Lord" Crewe - Senior Technical Designer at Cloud Imperium Games (Manchester, England)
Paul "PaulH" Haynes - Senior Level Designer at Deep Silver Dambuster Studios (Nottingham, England)
Toni "SotaPoika" Seppänen - Junior Level designer at Next Games (Helsinki, Finland)
Austin "Setin" House - Designer at Escalation Studios (Dallas, Tx, USA)
Richard "KoKo5oVaR" Malinar - Environment Artist at Krysalide (Lyon, France)
Mateusz "seir" Piaskiewicz - Designer at Treyarch (Santa Monica, California, USA)
Jason "General Vivi" Mojica - Senior Level Designer at Overkill Software (Stockholm, Sweden)
Will "Vilham" Josephy - Senior Level Designer at Cloud Imperium Games/Foundry 42 (Manchester, England)
Chris "2d-chris" Kay - Senior Level Designer at Epic Games (Cary, NC, USA)
Liam "PogoP" Tart - Environment Artist at The Creative Assembly (Horsham, England)
Matthew "bawwwcas" Barcas - Level Designer at Pure F.P.S. (Los Angeles, California, USA)
Francois "Furyo" Roughol - Senior Mission Designer at Sucker Punch Productions (Bellevue, Wa, USA
Friedrich "FrieChamp" Bode - Level Designer at Goodgame Studios (Hamburg, Germany)
 
Our members' success rate at having their content (gun skins, maps) added into Counter-Strike: Global Offensive also continued to be astronomical.
 
By Furyo
 
Wrap-up At the end of the day though, MapCore has always been about one thing: sharing work in progress, receiving feedback, and learning from one another. In 2014, MapCore's WIP threads buzzed with life and activity, and our 2D and 3D forums were a goldmine of beautiful work, interesting ideas and fun experimentation.
Our community is working better than ever, and 2015 should mark even further progress in the growth of this awesome forum.
 
By Kikette
 
SpronyvanJohnson's map given feedback in the form of an overpaint by Seir
 
By penE

This is the first article in a three-part series. Part One / Part Two / Part Three
Intro Level 1st scene In typical movie fashion, the game starts with an exposition scene which establishes the bond between Joel and his daughter Sarah. Here the watch plays a type of backward MacGuffin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGuffin), which movie fans will be familiar with. A term made popular by Alfred Hitchcock, this initial narrative element will keep showing up in multiple scenes in the game to move the scenario forward and link back to the initial bond Joel had with his daughter. Many other items in this game, which we’ll see exposed in Sarah’s room play the same role. It’s important to note that this game doesn’t use forward MacGuffins, instead relying on the early experience players have with Joel in the intro levels to help them relate to Joel in the later parts of the game, when he faces adversity from the other main characters in the game. This type of catalyst is sometimes linked to gameplay in some games, but not here. For instance, in a quest, looking to get somewhere or obtain something but never managing to. In BioShock Infinite, Elizabeth keeps trying to go to Paris, but never quite goes there in the main game.
Gameplay Sarah goes to bed, only to be woken up by her Uncle Tommy’s phone call. The initial frame of Sarah getting up is a textbook example of player exposition. Using the mirror on the wall, Naughty Dog adds depth to the room, and presents Sarah as a playable character from both front and back. The color of the lamp shade also leaves nothing to chance. Using a warm color near her beloved items reinforces the comfort of her nest (bed) and contrasts heavily with the cold blue of the night in the mirror. These items on the wall, much like the watch earlier, play a narrative role in the rest of the game as tools to drive the scenario forward between Ellie and Joel.
Sound wise, Naughty Dog made a classic choice not to add any music and simply build tension with environment sounds in the background. It plays great and helps focus the attention on the initial reveals. In the room, the placement of the birthday card ties the opening scene with this scene the following morning and introduces the “triangle” button as the “hand interaction” one in the game (pick up item, open door, etc).
At this point in the game, the player still does not quite know what to do, despite having played for a few minutes already. This guidance is given very clearly in a single word, right outside Sarah’s bedroom, as she yells “Dad?”. Perfect example of narrative design coupled with level design, that tells the player his/her immediate goal, and invites him/her to check out every single door, increasing the chances for maximum exposition of every theme in this intro level.
With the goal now firmly established, the placement of the door straight ahead, too obvious, makes that room a natural space for continued exploration of the game’s themes, as opposed to a significant room. It comes as no surprise to find inside that room just one piece of content. The placement of the only light source in this room, obvious as it is, reminds us that lighting is one of the most straightforward tools to guide players.
Joel’s bedroom After leaving this bathroom, players are naturally directed towards Joel’s bedroom thanks to the window, extra light placed in front of it, and the barely open bedroom door. The sound of the TV is an ideal guidance tool, suggested instead of shown. This bedroom also offers the chance to see the gameplay loop closed for the first time. The Last of Us’ gameplay loop is always a variant on four themes: Exploration, Tension, Challenge, Reward, Return to Exploration. With the initial exploration started in Sarah’s room and the tension of having to find her dad, this room introduces the simplest of challenges – opening the door and following the gameplay instructions (L3) – which ends with an immediate reward of seeing the explosion in the distance. Finally, Sarah’s “Daaad?” closes the loop and makes players return to their exploration phase. Gameplay loops can express themselves over varying lengths. Second to second, minute to minute, hour to hour.
  Returning to the hallway, a few classic LD rules can be seen in the same frame. The placement of the door allows players to face the staircase in the right direction, and the placement of the lamp at the bottom automatically invites players to go down. Notice its actual placement. While most times placing a light source away from a player’s immediate field of view increases its attraction, this one is placed to the right in plain sight of the player.
Once at the bottom of the stairs, the window introduces a new narrative element, in the form of police cars. Notice that the cars are driving in the same direction as the player needs to move. This is yet another good tool to guide players subconsciously. If the lamp at the bottom of the stairs had been placed to the left, and away from the player, he/she would have likely turned the camera towards it and away from the windows, negating the introduction of the police cars. That’s why this light source was better left in the player’s field of view.
Players naturally progress and now face this door to the garden, this time with a light source hidden beyond the playable space which naturally increases the mystery and tension in the scene. Just like upstairs in Joel’s bedroom with the TV, the dog barking here increases tension and attracts players forward.
Once players reach the window, Naughty Dog doesn’t fall for the cliché of having an infected appear in the garden, and plays with players expectations instead interrupting the sequence with Joel’s phone. Doing so, “L3” is introduced again this time on the player’s critical path to make sure this mechanic is understood by all players.
The placement of the phone to the right of the door is also no accident. It makes players move further away and to the other side of the living room from the office, where players are now supposed to go. This forces players to go by the garden window a second time and the use of the phone has forced the player’s immediate attention of the window to be erased. This perfect set up was necessary to create an element of surprise for the second traversal of the living room.
Narrative scene and transition A sign of truly great narrative games is the justification of every single camera takeover by placing the played character in a situation that allows for a smooth transition. Here, that’s the only reason this half open door is placed here. Since it’s already half open, like Joel’s bedroom door, there is no “triangle” interaction required. The goal of this door is to justify the exact position of Sarah in her animated entrance into the room, therefore the position of the camera, to allow for a smooth take over for the rest of the cinematic and the entrance and reveal of Joel, the very first in the game.
While the entire scene could have played out inside Joel’s office, Naughty Dog chose to have Sarah and Joel leave the office half way through, so as to cut back the length of the walk to the exit door and outside to the car. This allowed them to shave off a few seconds of otherwise boring content and make the action denser. Uncle Tommy’s introduction is pretty hectic with the rapid movements and a lot of information handed to the player, so to reinforce his presentation, Naughty Dog chose to have him turn towards the player once inside the car.
The Last of Us, as many narrative games, presents choices to the player. They come in two types, active and inactive. Active choices are generally self-explanatory and are not even presented as such in games. For instance, play style (stealth or action) influences the outcome of fights, but they can also come in the form of a single button press, which usually destroys immersion in a world, and breaks the fourth wall. Inactive choices on the other hand play with morals and psychology between players and the characters they play. Here we see the first glimpse of the troublesome relationship to come between Joel and Ellie, in the eyes of her daughter Sarah who wishes that the car had stopped to help the stranded survivors. This makes players ask themselves where they would stand, and take sides with the future protagonists.
The accident serves here as a transition and justifies leaving the car behind. The timing of that sequence is probably not purely by chance. First Naughty Dog had illustrated all the themes they could from inside the car, and second the attention span of test players was probably waning beyond that point. Notice however the subtle and progressive introduction of infected in the world. The first one, inside Joel’s office comes in when they may yet be taken for humans, and as an element of a cinematic, it offers no challenge to the player. The second, in this car sequence, attacked other survivors and when posing an immediate threat to Sarah, was stopped by Tommy driving away. The third, much closer view comes in as a direct consequence of the car crash. These three progressive introductions of the game’s main antagonist are a textbook example of exposition that allows players to fully grasp the concept of the infected before having to deal with them. Many games fail to present enemies that way, instead relying on one-shot cinematics with poorly explained antics and backstory. The fact these enemies can’t talk and explain themselves pushed Naughty Dog to work them this way into the game, to great effect.
Combat Tutorial First introduction of the « Square » button for combat. As a rule, tutorials are better introduced when players attention span can be solely directed at the mechanic in question. Here, the tension resulting from the car accident and the sight of the infected nearby focuses the player’s attention on the tutorial for maximum effectiveness. Instead of breaking the immersion of the scene, this tutorial actually flows inside it, and players never question it. Naughty Dog’s choice for minimal UI invasion on the screen really pays off here.
Chase sequence Introducing Joel for the first time as a playable character (and the main protagonist) in the middle of a stressful situation could have been a risky proposal, which Naughty Dog managed to make work by taking away all combat (automatic death if caught by infected and gun given away to Tommy). Sarah, who would have trailed behind and become a center of attention for players is reunited with her dad after getting hurt in the accident. All of these moves act as perfect justification to have players only ever care about their own character. The only action required of the player is to dodge pedestrians, which is exactly the best activity to learn to control a brand new character. The use of a car that crashes into the gas station is a bit of a cliché by now, but remains a very strong justification for sending the player to the right, and have a couple invisible walls across the other streets. It remains better than a simple static object across the street and infinitely better than nothing at all.
The firemen truck across the street serves both as justification for the fire raging in the building next door, and as a way to direct the player to the car crash about to block the street off. This second instance however occurs much closer to the player, increasing tension further, and culminating with stopping in front of the theater beyond. This “three strikes” approach to game design is rampant through most games these days, and certainly The Last of Us, for instance during the combat tutorial (three square button presses to leave the car) and is a sort of golden number first generalized by Nintendo.
The use of audio after the third street blockage is mandatory given the exit is not readily apparent within a 45 degree field of view on either side of the theater. In third person games, presenting exits within this 90 degree angle is generally considered a safe choice to have players flow, on consoles at least where the FOV is usually limited more than on PC games. For instance, this was the rule we followed when designing Prince of Persia in 2008.
In the alley and through to the other side, great use if not subtle of lighting to direct players to the left, and first use of the yellow color on all directional and interactive hints, which we’ll see later in the first level. We’ll find the same use for the ambulance down below, which strong red lights contrast easily with the night, and even the wind indicating the sense of direction. The headlights serve as guidance too of course, much like the hurt survivor on the ground.
    This is the first article in a three-part series. Part One / Part Two / Part Three

The first map-pack for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) was launched by Valve in the Spring of 2013. It was called Operation: Payback, and consisted exclusively of community-created maps. I'm often asked about my experience as a map-maker whose work was featured in the promotion. And just recently the sequel to Operation: Payback was launched — Operation: Bravo.
What's the objective of these "Operations"? I would describe them as Valve’s way of supporting custom mappers. If you've ever purchased a map-pack DLC for games like Call of Duty, you sort of know the drill... but the crucial difference between a typical commercial DLC and what Valve is doing, is monetary proceeds from each Operation go to community members. And community members are making some serious coin: well over $180,000 dollars was raised throughout Operation: Payback’s five-month season. That's a HUGE reward for mappers, which is having a real impact on our lives. Any fan of gaming and game development done the right way should not miss their chance to support Operation: Bravo.
 

 
But what if you don’t play CS:GO?
First, I would suggest you give the game a shot, since that’s the only way you’ll get a chance to check out my newest maps, which (full disclosure!) were included in Bravo. CS:GO is typical Counter-Strike: it's really addicting... in a good way! Secondly, Operation: Bravo means more than just eight brand-new maps for people to play. Historically, Valve has always tried to provide a financial incentive for artists and designers to make custom content for their games (we saw this in Team Fortress 2 for instance, where some folks were taking home as much as $100,000 yearly just from making hats). At this point, it’s clear that you can earn money by making stuff for Valve titles. What might not be obvious is how bold Operation: Bravo actually is, even compared to what we've seen before.
Bravo is intimately connected to the case-drop system recently unveiled for CS:GO. What that means is that by buying a Bravo pass, you increase your likelihood of obtaining cases which can be opened to obtain rare items, or simply sold on the marketplace for a profit. At initial launch, Bravo cases were going for as much as thirty dollars. It sounds ridiculous, but it seems likely that for most players, Bravo will tend to pay for itself. Welcome to Steam-land!
 

 
Valve's unprecedented support for custom content is a big reason why I wanted to get heavily involved with mapping for the new Counter-Strike, even before I knew much about the game. I was confident that big things were on the way. But Valve — and the community — delivered beyond my expectations. So, why should you join thousands of others in supporting Operation: Bravo? I think there are three key reasons:
 
1) As graphics get exponentially better, custom content becomes that much more challenging to create. More knowledge, experience, and personal sacrifices are required of designers and artists.
 
2) In the past, innovators have created some of your favorite maps and games.
 
3) Valve is paying close attention. Send them the unambiguous signal that you will support their newest effort to reward content creators.
 
As for myself, I'm in law school. At my school, students should budget for a debt load in the area of $60,000. So far, thanks to Valve and the community’s generosity, I have received almost $18,000, putting a serious dent in my debt. By the end of this year, thanks to Bravo, that figure is likely to grow substantially...
From a designer's point of view, from the moment that my map was included in Operation: Payback back in April, it instantly attained a higher public profile than ever before and received more play than ever before (including substantial play from CS:GO's developers -- which is pretty special). It's difficult to describe the stress, fascination, and thrill you experience watching a crowd of gamers running around a level you created. Basically, it made me prouder than ever to do what I do.
I was also incredibly grateful that Operation: Payback enabled me to reward the artists (3Dnj and penE) that I had collaborated with. Because of the well-known Counter-Strike brand name, as well as the money I earned, I was also able to include my friends and family in my creative endeavors more than ever before. All the kindness shown by Valve, the community, and folks sending me Steam messages of congratulations and enthusiasm (and yes, questions about how much I earned) was both touching and invigorating. Now I'm dreaming about levels more than even I'm accustomed to.
 

 
So, that's my perspective... but keep in mind I'm just one of the people this promotion uplifted. I hope you agree that Operation: Bravo empowers the community and provides serious income (not to mention resume pedigree) for map-makers. In closing, please consider supporting Operation: Bravo!

Tell us a little about yourself. Where do you live, and what's your day job? Oh man. I unfortunately live in Rochester NY (no its not driving distance from NYC) and am currently unemployed. I graduated college with a degree in Photography and a minor in Philosophy in 2011 and worked for my step father's company until july of this last summer. So I currently spend all my time working on levels and photography, I honestly cannot complain right now.
 
When and why did you decide you wanted to bring worlds to life in 3D? When I was 14 I had a passion — playing games. I loved it, it sparked something inside me and I had no idea what it was, but I liked it. My personality can be pretty analytical at times so naturally I tried to figure out how to make them. I love architecture, buildings and 3D space, so I just went for it. I spent hours and hours in every level editor I could find and I, admittedly, stuck with hammer because it was the easiest to pick up, had the largest support and the biggest community. I've been with it since. That's what, 9 years? 9 years of blue screens and move_rope causing crashes straight to the desktop — it's a love–hate relationship.
 

 
How did you get involved with Black Mesa? This is funny considering the level of amateur crap I have made. I applied to Black Mesa back in 2004/2005 by sending a VMF to the founder of Black Mesa (Jon) of my recreation of the first Power Up level. It was a mess and ugly as sin. I had quite literally no idea what I was doing, but it was satisfying to create, so I kept with it. I clearly remember Jon's words: "It looks, eh, amateurish". So, I spent the next few weeks refining my work and I applied a few other times. I eventually got on the team and I started work from there. I remember a good friend of mine, Daniel Junek, was already on the team and when I loaded up the private developer forums and saw his orange map layout of the blast pit silo, immediately knew I was going to be on the team for a long ass time — I saw what COULD be Black Mesa and was instantly inspired.
Funny story: I always considered Daniel's work (he did Blast Pit) to be godlike, it was just incredible, I had never seen anything of such quality and ridiculous planning and care. I have this habit of comparing anything I do to the current best work in the world so I know how to improve myself and I considered Daniel's work to be the best in the world. So, naturally, I compared my work to Daniel's and for years it never even compared, but I was slowly getting there. So, a few months ago I, slightly buzzed, messaged Daniel on steam and came to realize he did the same thing with my work this entire time.
I joined the team and looked at what was available to work on and I, of course, had to pick Lambda Core. I had no idea what I was doing and some of the early parts of Lambda Core show that.
 

 
What was it like getting to reimagine the world that kicked off many MapCore members' interest in level design? Oh wow I never thought of it this way. Want to hear something hilarious? Before getting on the Black Mesa team I had never played Half-Life before aside from one or two killbox matches on a friends computer. 
But as for re-imagining a world that so many hold dear? Its a difficult process, at least for me. I wanted to strike people on an emotional level with my work, I wanted people to see certain things I made and say "Holy shit, this is amazing", and while I don't know if I have accomplished that or not, I do know that getting there was an intense process.
I remember loading up a Lambda Core map and thinking to myself, "What makes this interesting? What makes this bad? What makes this fun? What makes this area instantly recognizable? How do I create something in the present that completely awed those in the past? It was honestly tough in certain parts and I can remember re-doing sooooo many parts of the game because I personally thought it didn't hold up to any creative scrutiny.
 
Were you often tempted to take a whole new approach to parts of the game? How did you find the right balance of old and new? This is a good question and I bet some die hard Half-Life fans still think we screwed up parts of the game haha. For me it was mostly taking a look at the original and what it tried to accomplish and improving on that. Sometimes certain areas didn't even need improvement, it just needed refinement, an extra level of polish to really take home its intended goal. When there was a controversy over what should be done in the game, we would just look at the 'numbers'. Did a majority of Half-Life players like this certain area? If not just scrap it and try again but be sure to retain the original's emotional impact on the player.
 

 
Did it ever feel like Black Mesa might never make it? Was your motivation affected? More than you can ever imagine. We worked on it for about 9 years remember! Honestly? It probably felt like we weren't going to make a release more than we were going to make a release. There were periods of inactivity on our developer forums for months at a time. We all have personal lives to attend to and sometimes it would be a perfect storm of events where no one would work on anything for extended periods of time. Then, out of nowhere, something would happen and everyone would get sparked and jump right back in and get loads of work done for months. Rinse and repeat.
In the SUPER early stages of development there was a point where we didn't even have a coder for 2 years. You can only imagine how incentive was on the team at that point.
 
There's still a significant portion of Black Mesa yet to be completed. Will it be purely new material when the remainder is released, or are you revisiting and/or expanding existing material? I will answer with a simple work-in-progress screenshot of something I am working on and nothing else:
 

 
What do you think is a stand-out part of Black Mesa? I have actually never thought about this! But the FIRST thing that jumped into my head is when you first enter the turn-table room in Power Up. You witness an intense fight between a Gargantua and a few human grunts. It's incredible because of the collaborative effort that went into it without a single f**king hitch. It's like it was done by one person! Let me explain:
You enter a beautifully themed section of the facility created by Daniel Junek You witness well crafted animation by Nate of the Garg getting blasted by a human grunt and consequently falling into and breaking the concrete wall near him. The Garg was made by Chris The surrounding textures are made by Mark The dead human grunt bodies turning into scorched corpses, the flame effects, and the Garg behavior was done by Paul and Mark All the sound was done by Joel Look at that! It's the personal work and vision of a team of people all together forming a unified and impressive quality of interactive work. It wouldn't even be possible to create something that well done by one person.
Now you may say "Hey, thats how all games are made." But, its a little different when you are creating something of this size and scope and all you have to communicate with your co-workers is Skype and a forum. There were a lot of times when I would be making a gesture with my hand or something while trying to describe the way I want a prop or texture to look. That was frustrating.
 
You do a lot of multiplayer level design in addition to your single-player work. Which do you prefer? Single player is telling a story and using the environment to make playing the story fun and visually interesting while guiding the player through a struggle. If you can hold a player's attention and feed them the facts then you are good to go. Multiplayer is about cohesive design and fun welding itself into one entity and that can be difficult at times. Honestly I probably prefer the multiplayer work because of repetition. You know players will be running around your environments thousands of times which will eventually lead to an appreciation for the map on tiers usually only seen by the actual level designer. That is a double edge sword though.
 

 
Briefly, what's your general workflow for putting a level together? LAYOUT, LAYOUT, LAYOUT. I try to get simplistic layout for a map that is fun and cohesive before doing anything else. Why do you play a video game? Because it's fun, and as a level designer, that fun can be directly proportional to your quality of work. You are almost like a spokesperson of your entire team's work and I love it. I mean I could tell you about all my thought processes while I work but that isn't as fun. But, I usually tend to think of ideas in a 3D space, so I never really draw layouts, I usually just throw some brushes around to get my idea out of my head and see what can be made of it before I attempt any sort of real layout. A lot of my past ideas failed even before getting to the layout stage, so that is good (I think).
 
Which bit of the process is your favourite? That part in a map's life right as you know everything is fun and you get to unleash your thematic ideas you had been planning in your head while working on the gameplay and layout.
 

 
And your least favourite? Any sort of tedious mind numbing repetition is annoying. Or when you spend a long ass time solving a problem in your level only to have it come out like crap but its 5am and you have to go to sleep knowing what you just created is terrible. That's no fun for anyone.
 
What's the hardest problem you've encountered while mapping? Writers block can apply to anything really. There were times where I would just stare blankly at a map for hours not knowing what to do. Recently though? I cant stop with my ideas, it's great. I'm trying to ride that wave for a little.
Also, scrapping something you have put a massive amount of effort into can be disheartening but it has to happen sometimes. But what essentially is anything creative? It's the formation of an idea while hiding your influences. Sometimes these ideas need to go through an emotional struggle before work can continue.
 
Which piece of level design are you most proud of? To date, my Black Mesa magnum opus is most definitely the final Lambda Core teleporter and its prior lower reactors. Fun fact I thought some designers might appreciate: the entire Lambda Core reactor and teleporter actually lines up like an actual facility if you copy all the maps into one file and place them correctly.
More recently? It's my map cp_imbricatus for Team Fortress 2. I have a feeling that the map will fundamentally change the way a good three-control-point attack/defend map should play.
 

 
In addition to level design, you're an accomplished photographer. How did that begin? Accomplished? Oh you. Thanks, you.
Here is a story I have never really told anyone haha. I was an idiot in high school, I mean who wasn't? But when it came time to apply for colleges, I just straight up didn't make the cut. I applied to stupid high reach schools and nothing else, I think I even applied to the wrong program in a few schools. Needless to say, I didn't get in anywhere and I panicked. My mother had some connections at Rochester Institute of Technology and randomly one day called me while I was out and asked me a few questions:
She said, "I got you into RIT and their photo program doesnt require a portfolio, which would you like to do? Fine art, photojournalism, advertising or biomedical photography?" I got lucky and I knew it. I wound up graduating with a bachelors of fine art in advertising photography. Crazy.
 
A lot of your photos are taken in very challenging conditions, such as live music performances. What skills and equipment do you employ to get such great results? Simplicity is key. Both visually and philosophically.
You must look at every situation like you are the one viewing the content with no prior context as to what is going on. Do you want to portray a story? Do you want to create something purely for its visual content? What's your end goal? I could honestly talk about this for hours.
I currently only use a Canon 5D Mark 3 and the only lens you ever need — a prime 35mm f/1.4. A good photographer with a bad camera is going to make better pictures than a bad photographer with a good camera. I also adhere myself to a lot of personal restrictions (in level design as well). An example being I never crop any of my images, I always thought it was best to just leave it straight out of camera. I do Photoshop my images, but I don't crop them. (Note: if you are a client that hired me as a photographer, I will do anything you want to the images if you request it. These rules usually only apply to personal work.)
Keep an eye out on my Tumblr for some new photography coming up soon.
 

 
Do you find that your photography skills bleed into your level design? For example, when composing scenes? Absolutely! And it works both ways too, photography helps my level design and level design helps my photography. Lighting plays a more important role in both than most even think. I am just lucky to have experience in both.
I don't want to toot my own horn here but look at the lighting in some of the reactor areas in Lambda Core. It got to the point where I set 50% and 100% falloff distances with a hard cut-off for the yellow lights surrounding the central cylinder so the centre reactor would ominously glow yellow without casting any mood changing light onto the surrounding geometry. Does that level of detail pay off in the end? I don't know but I hope so.
 
What games would you say have inspired you the most? I have never thought about this before but here is a list of the first games I can think of to inspire me:
Ocarina of Time: Video game perfection. Majora's Mask: I cannot even put into words the impact this had on me Wind Waker: How do they even make this stuff? It's like they converted crack cocaine into playable form. Half-Life: Was I obligated to say this? This game changed what a first person shooter could be with its incredibly inventive layouts and story telling. Painkiller: The basic first person shooter mechanics perfected and in gory glory too. Incredible environment art to boot as well. Banjo-Tooie: Incredible game design, just incredible. Battlefield 2: The amount of serotonin released in my brain by playing this game should be illegal. Super Mario 64: An amazing sandbox game before that term ruined a lot of modern day games. Far Cry: It materialised my emotions while playing a game by me actually muttering the word 'wow' while playing in certain spots. There are loads more but these are just what I could think of off the top of my head.
 

 
If you could give a budding level designer a short piece of advice to help them succeed, what would it be? Your work is going to suck for a long time, get used to it. If someone is being a dick about your work, they probably have a good point. Listen to them without bias. This will push you beyond what you thought you were capable of. You made the level, no s**t its easy to understand by you — other people HAVE to play it before anything is considered good. Scale will make or break you. Do a lot of scaling tests in every game you want to develop for before attempting anything else.  
MapCore would like to thank Jean-Paul for his time, and wish him the best of luck with his future projects. You can enjoy more of his work by visiting his portfolio and Tumblr. He's also looking for people to help out with testing his latest Team Fortress 2 map; simply download 'cp_imbricatus', take a peek at the
and join in on the tf2maps.net server.