The role of the level-designer

[FrieChamp]

Due to the steady increase of detail in levels, also the role of the level-designer is changing and handled differently in each company. The level-designers at Crytek for example focus on general game-design and the design of the missions, but are not involved in the creation of objects, textures etc. It's a cooperation between the design- and art department.

I know Valve did it this way during the development of Half-Life 2 as well, on the other hand Troika (concluding from what I have seen from Zaphod) let level-designers make their own content for the levels (the interesting aspect here is that both games use the same engine, but the development process is handled quite differently).

What about Gearbox, IO, Raven and other companies? What would aspiring level-designers here would like to do when they start to work in a professional company? Which way is the best?

[ShaDoW]

I think the best way in companies like this, is what the teams are most comfortable with.

I know this is a very simple answer, yet, that's my opinion on it.

[Skjalg]

Most of these solutions are probably the result of some long-stretched meetings between most of the staff, i think (hope:P). So i agree with Shadow

[Mazy]

At IO the leveldesigners do their own shitz too. At the moment im more of a background artist, but I do modelling and texturing myself as opposed to having somebody do the textures for me. Anyway, there are both pros and cons for having each way, but in general then having people doing everything themselves can sometimes provide a faster production time, where having people dedicated in one area can provide a more solid look to the game, even though it usually means that you need more people doing the same job

I wouldnt mind be restricted to designing and building levels only tho, but I dont really have anything against this either

[Minos]

The best way to start imo is like mazy did, as an environment/background artist. Sometime ago I was checking a dev's site and they were hiring level designers n evironment artists. The level designers were asked to plan and make just the basics, while the environment artist should make the textures, props and all details (including lighting). Dunno, but I'd rather work as an environment artist, seems a lot nicer than just planning levels all the day

[Pericolos0]

yeh enviroment artist would be my thing too. I love making textures and modelling too much

[kleinluka]

At Ubisoft the level designers are basically just that. Designers. They lay out the level and do the scripting and so on. For all the other stuff we have special artists:

Texture artists, environment-/level artists (who are basically responsible for the static meshes and other props) and lighting artists who handle the lighting. I'm guessing with the new engines on the horizon we will also see shader artists and what not, gee we might even have those already.

So yeah. We have lots of specialized people for each department.

[KungFuSquirrel]

Dunno, but I'd rather work as an environment artist, seems a lot nicer than just planning levels all the day

We get to do both We get a lot of trust put into us. We document our own levels from start to finish (coming up with most of the ideas ourselves, aside of basic plot points and specific scenes, and the construction of those is still entirely up to us). Using Radiant is another plus here - with patch meshes, we can also build most of what we want to build without touching Lightwave. We do model terrain manually, which I feel gives much stronger control than any heightmap terrain does, but it can be a little tedious at first.

We do use modeled props, most of which are concepted up, built, and textured in the art department. However, some of our designers also do their own textures and map objects - we can build a quick low or high poly model in LW, clean it up, and let the artists take over. Or we can build the normal maps for a texture, render it out, plop a grey swatch over it, and leave it to the artists to paint. Generally we just let them do the prop work, as they have it scheduled and we don't.

Scripters curently do all event scripting, though a couple designers can do some scripting as well. They're also doing stuff like monster, item, and trigger placement right now, too, as a time consideration (that's stuff they can easily do while we work on construction for another map). Eventually we'll have more of a hand in this and learn basic scripting all-around. They'll still be doing the really crazy scripted stuff, though, as most of us designers don't have much of a background in programming. I do hope to learn a lot about this and over time do more and more of my own scripting (but not enough they bump me out of design, heh), and I'd recommend you guys looking for jobs in the future dabble in scripting for unreal or doom3 or something.

We pass maps around a lot, too. Sometimes it's because the person who originally made it is busy with something else, sometimes it's just to get another set of hands on it. We also steal from each other all the time. Load up a map, take a section you like, adjust and re-texture, and poof! It's just another thing that helps efficiency as well as consistency within the game world.

[FrieChamp]

The "level"-designers here have lots of influence on the "game"-design, that's why there is no seperated game-design department which is a cool thing imo.

The designers layout the map and build it. This includes the terrain outdoors, the interiors, object placement, lighting, AI and general scripting. From what I heard of the other designers, the levels in FarCry often turned into collaborative projects at some point. For example an AI programmer adjusts the AI or helps with the script, a different designer polishes the indoor areas etc.

The designers only make temporary models and textures sometimes to test stuff. I think it would be nice to throw in self made objects in the levels at some point of time (and actually nobody prevents you from doing it) but considering the amount of work you already have with the maps in the current system I'm kinda glad how it is.

We do model terrain manually, which I feel gives much stronger control than any heightmap terrain does, but it can be a little tedious at first.

I think it really depends on the scale of the terrain. It probably works out for Doom3 and Quake4 but if you got huge terrain masses you would have to spend years making the terrain.

[KungFuSquirrel]

You'd be surprised how quick it is, even on larger meshes. The same stealing idea can still apply - taking pieces from multiple meshes and carefully combining them lets you churn out huge sections of terrain with shapes still impossible with a heightmap system and a silhouette that still doesn't match anything else in the game.

Even if it does take longer in some instances, I find the results much more satisfying than heightmap stuff and you don't get the horribleness of jamming models into the terrain to make more complex rock shapes, which just looks silly in most cases.

[Fullauto]

Just thought I'd say I really appreciate it when you get insights from people on the 'inside'

I'm suprised at the degree of autonomy KFS gets, it's a lot of responsibility on one person. How often do you have to show your progress to the head honchos?

[Taylor Swift]

cool to read this.

[zaphod]

Having a dedicated designer and a dedicated artist is going to yield the most solid and polished looking result, just look at HL2. This is provided that you have a solid plan for production and concept art and such. The way we did it on bloodlines (one person responsible for entire level) was neccesary becuase of our development structure, which was not as robust or streamlined as the process at Valve.

[Hourences]

I got bad experiences with splitting up level work too much. Some companies not only split it between gameplay and visuals but also let a seperate guy do lighting, another one texturing etc..

It really does not work well to my experience, for example when 1 persons lightings, 1 models and 1 textures everything, it gets a mess. You have 3 different techniques and methods, 3 different visions on a certain theme, environment and atmopshere, 3 different everything. If youre not careful itll end up in a giant mess with no unity or coherencity at all anymore. The solid feel could be gone..something which is very delicate

Now multiple artists is one thing, an artist vs a gameplay dude is another thing...

Countless times ive been trying to explain to this gameplay dude that you cant just do this or that. That you cant just have a giant open field, that you need large areas to place occluders in (often then followed by the question "what is an occluder") and that you cant just combine 20 different themes in 1 level. They think too much like "yeah cool now I want to have enemies attacking from above, hmm what type of thing could let them attack from above, oh I know, a 15 floor high apartment building!" then they come to me and they ask me if I can place a 15 floor high appartment building in the middle of a jungle...sorry not possible

They dont keep the artistic side in mind more than half the time. Same for the floorplans and general build up. A floorplan of a medieval town is something else than that of a futuristic military outpost. The floorplan itself already has to speak out the theme and form a base for the visuals. The way buildings are placed has to be correct, the correct compositions has to be formed, unity has to be formed, has to give lots of potential for visual stunning things to be added later on etc. And thats what those gameplay only people also dont keep in mind, so they just give you as an artist a type of floorplan thats really bad to work with and doesnt support visuals very well at all...

Oh and another thing, more than half the time they dont realise how big it is what they design and you get to make half the world in one level. I once got a design that we as artists downscaled to 900 percent at the end and we could still barely finish it...

In the end its really frustrating for both sides, in fact, for most games I really dont understand what the point is of having a few guys who only make level gameplay all day long...The best floorplans and levels I made I figured out in less than half an hour or an hour at maximum (SP included). And if you have good tools scripting the gameplay events also doesnt have to take more than a few days or a week at max...A level designer should be able to do all himself

It all eats time too, running between two departments all the time, trying to explain eachother things, writing things down, thats such an incredible waste of time for something so simple like "make an interesting event in this corridor"

Another thing is that when you need something changed, you need to get these 3 other people who are involved just to make your change. And they on their turn must redo their part, and re shedule it etc. Man thats such a waste of time and energy. Why cant one guy just do it..

I can understand if multiple artists make textures and meshes and all, and if some gameplay designers figure out the basic story and idea of whats going on in the map but everything else should be for the real level designer and no one else. Has to be finished by 1 person to ensure perfect harmony and balance

I really want to do everything myself

And I dont see why I shouldnt be able to do so, the overall balance in a level is way to delicate to be trown around between multiple people all the time

[KungFuSquirrel]

oof! Definitely a bad experience. I would say that splitting the work relies very heavily on a cohesive staff to pull it off. I very much trust the people doing the scripting right now to do things well, and we work very closely with each other to get the best results.

Man, 15 story apartment building... that's a good one.