Rick Lesley-Level Design/Combat Scripting

[RickLesley]

Here is a link to my portfolio: http://portfoliodericklesley.wordpress.com/

I am currently a MP level designer at Zombie Studios, working on Blacklight: Retribution and another title, which will be announced very soon. I will have three more maps up for BLR up on the next few months. The site itself isn't my favorite, but I have not felt compelled to redo the whole thing yet

Feel free to leave any feedback.

Thanks!

[Mclogenog]

It'd really help if people didn't need to dig for screenshots. Screenshots up front are essential. Goofy pictures are much lower priority

It would also be nice to have a little more information per level (inspiration, process, goals, whatever).

[RickLesley]

It'd really help if people didn't need to dig for screenshots. Screenshots up front are essential. Goofy pictures are much lower priority

It would also be nice to have a little more information per level (inspiration, process, goals, whatever).

Hahaha, yeah I agree. The initial homepage could be a lot more...impactful. I will try and come up with something that gives people a good look at my work, while still being simple and concise. As far as the level inspiration goes, I could totally do that. I didn't even think that it would be something that people would be interested in reading about, to be honest.

Thanks a lot for the feedback, I really appreciate it. I think improving my portfolio and streamlining things is something that I will start doing over time. Eventually I will probably get a better theme for the site. It is too narrow and is a pain the ass to display an image with the current width constraints. There is just a lot of wasted space that would help keep things down to about a page or two, max.

10/19 UPDATE: I am going to start fiddling with a new theme, probably this weekend. We have a rather large content patch on October 30th with at least one of my new maps in it. I need to find cleaner way to display my BLR work, since there are going to be at least four more maps added to the page.

Edited October 19, 2012 by RickLesley

[RickLesley]

Hey guys,

Sorry for the lack of activity. I redid the homepage so it was focused on the projects and not my stupid smirk. I've also added more work from Blacklight and Special Forces: Team X (which is up for pre-purchase and comes out on Steam in a few days http://store.steampo...com/app/217860/). I am not longer working at Zombie as a level designer, but I am at Turn 10 doing work that I cannot really talk about right now

I have added my most recent level, Decay, to the Blacklight page. I still have quite a bit more work to add, but it isn't all released yet...so SOON! I think I may break up the BLR page into separate posts for each level, with the newest post being an index of sorts. I will wait to do that until I have all of my content available for public eyes.

Edited February 2, 2013 by RickLesley

[RickLesley]

I just added another one of my final Blacklight: Retribution levels, Metro. I think this next patch, which is rather large, will probably include all of my final work on the game...but I could be wrong

I did the layout and a good amount of the deco for this map, since a lot of the artists were on other projects. The tunnels themselves were not done by me, but one of the artists.

[General Vivi]

While I think your screenshots are fine, what do the layouts look like, do you have topdowns for your maps? I don't mean like this either http://portfolioderi...1.jpg?w=1400&h= which is super noisy and I can't figure out what I'm looking at (can't you hide editor icons and non geometry related objects?). Maybe include a video of someone playing a few rounds of your map?

Your marvel section starts out by just listing a whole bunch of levels and things you scripted (you prob don't need to do this). I would try and get videos up to showcase your hard work and scripting that you accomplished for the boss fights.

Also for more portfolios to judge yours against, go here = http://level-design.org/?page_id=56

Some portfolios with Mp levels:

http://www.filip.coulianos.se/

http://www.minerality.fr/

http://www.aarongarcha.net/

[blackdog]

There are a lot of templates designed for showcase for WP, installing one will help you achieve what Generalvivi has described

[RickLesley]

Thanks for the responses you guys.

-Top-downs for Blacklight are coming, but not for a bit. I took screens of them before I left and they are being used to create clear maps. I will hopefully have access to them when they are done.

-The Marvel top-downs were meant to show the level logic, not the layout so much...but I guess I should make it a bit clearer.

-Videos were up yesterday, but broke when I updated it with Metro. I am planning on adding them back tonight. I will also get some videos of Super Hero Squad's bosses.

-I will take a look at other themes tonight to see if I can do away with some of the wasted negative space. I've been meaning to do that for some time.

Thoughts on having content for a project on one page or is more than one okay? Blacklight is one really long post that is just going to get longer...

Thanks for the help everyone!

[RickLesley]

Alright, so I changed the theme and I already like it a lot more. There is more room for images and videos, and less wasted space. Things added/changed:

1. Added gameplay for my Blacklight levels.
   
2. Added gameplay and descriptions about my missions for Marvel Super Hero Squad Online.
   
3. Added more info the my home page, including my role on each project.
   
4. Adde a page for Daylight, which Zombie just unveiled today at DICE.
   

Thoughts on the changes?

[RickLesley]

Hey guys,

One of the biggest, and last, things I worked on while at Zombie and on Blacklight was finally revealed today. It launches on the 27th.

I've added some screens, info on the mode and the reveal trailer to the Blacklight page.

http://portfoliodericklesley.wordpress.com/blacklight-retribution/

[Sjonsson]

Hey Rick!

The first thing I got to thinking about when I saw your website was that the menu on top looked a bit cluttered. A solution for this could be drop-down menus which you could sort into your skill categories; i.e Level Design, Combat Scripting and Photography.