How do you furnish your levels? Techniques? Philosophy?

[Dradz]

Sounds simple, but I just spent two hours placing props in a building in my level and feel there ought to be a quicker way.

I feel I am continually placing the same bed, dresser, night stand combo.

Then you have to worry about making it unique enough so the player can orient himself in the level.

Just duplicate real world scenes?

Do you guys use "zoo"'s to quickly pick out props? Have a bedroom suite, kitchen suite, den suite, etc. alredy set up off map to draw from?

All mapcorian feedback appreciated!

[-HP-]

What a nice thread! This was a major part of my job during C2 development.

I made a full blown workshop / presentation about this topic here at crytek, but it was for internal usage only and I'm not allowed to share the PPT, but check out these two, very good read:

Environment Storytelling; What happened here and Environmental Narrative

[Pericolos0]

to be quick, I try to group stuff as much as possible, so you don't end up spending lots of the same individual props all the time

[Karram]

":2a50h0v5]Environment Storytelling; What happened here and Environmental Narrative

I suggest that you buy the audio of both lectures HP mentioned from GDC vault. They are really informative lectures.

[Steppenwolf]

I place all available props (or at least the ones that i intend to use) next to the map. Then i copy paste stuff around. Usualy i do this step by step and layer by layer during the development in no hurry between doing other stuff. Only late in development when i do the art pass i go really in detail with it and focuss on it for a couple days.

One thing that prefer to do in general, not just prop placing is to finish the map from the outskirts to the center. That way it's easier to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

[Dradz]

Awesome, thanks, guys!

[luque]

Nice reads HP.

What I usually do is create somekind of image in my head by asking myself a few questions. What feeling should the room give? What does it have to communicate? What history does it have? Should there be anything in the room the player should notice? etc.

[Corwin]

What I do is have themes of objects ready for quick access, then everytime I want to populate an area, I can explore those libraries for stuff that'd fit in that area. But most importantly, I ask myself for every single object: "Why would this thing be here?" When you come up with those explanations, you usually also come up with what other objects/decals/etc. should be next to it to make sense.