Making of CTF-LostTomb (UT4) with commentary

[2d-chris]

Sup guys, I've been working on a new level for an experimental game mode in the Unreal Tournament alpha, only this time I decided to record myself working on it, I've produced a commentary style video of it's development, every session was fully captured, so you can make fun of all my mistakes  It's sped up 5x, because in the end it was about 30 hours of work, I feel that speed works quite well so you can somewhat understand what is going on with the addition of commentary. So far I've added commentary for 5 parts, I'll crack on with the other parts very soon and link them in this post. 

I've only seen a few level designers doing something like this, @Castle produced some cool time-lapse style videos, I've seen plenty of artists producing similar videos, but rarely something focused on design, so this is a bit of new territory, at least for me. Hope this is useful for aspiring level designers out there!

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Any comments on the format, or questions I'll be more than happy to answer. Sharing is caring! 

-Chris

 

[FrieChamp]

Baller move right there, Chris! Great stuff!

[El_Exodus]

Just couldn't stop watching this earlier, although i have tons to do More!

Edit: One thing though: Turn the music volume down a bit in the next episodes. It's at times distracting from your voice.

Edited June 3, 2016 by El_Exodus

[2d-chris]

5 hours ago, El_Exodus said:

Just couldn't stop watching this earlier, although i have tons to do More!

Edit: One thing though: Turn the music volume down a bit in the next episodes. It's at times distracting from your voice.

Yep thanks, that's exactly what I need to know. 

[2d-chris]

42 minutes ago, ChA1NsAw said:

Very pleasing to watch and listen to. 

The deep voice lost tomb in the beginning was pretty cringe to me though.

lmao, why so serious? 

[2d-chris]

Part 2 is up 

 

[WD]

The map is looking amazing so far.

So the theme of this map will have the ut2004 Egypt Tech? Boy did I love that theme of whole of UT2004, I basically did anything but maps with that theme I just loved using the golds, blues and greens the textures and the light props & trims it offered. It seemed whatever you did with those just looked awesome. Can't wait to see what this turns out in the end.

[2d-chris]

1 hour ago, WD said:

The map is looking amazing so far.

So the theme of this map will have the ut2004 Egypt Tech? Boy did I love that theme of whole of UT2004, I basically did anything but maps with that theme I just loved using the golds, blues and greens the textures and the light props & trims it offered. It seemed whatever you did with those just looked awesome. Can't wait to see what this turns out in the end.

Hey, thanks! Possibly Egyptian, but perhaps Mayan or even a mixture of that kind of style, I too love the combination of old with new, Temple of Anubis in Overwatch was a big recent inspiration for this, it's certainly not the first to do the mixture of old and new, but it does do it really well. At the end of the day, the artists will have a big stamp on the final direction and theme, but I've learned that if it's built in a way that really excites people it might very well end up somewhere along the lines that I pictured in my mind. 

[2d-chris]

added part 3

 

[blackdog]

Thanks Chris for taking the time. Watched the first video and is very interesting to get your insight and not just the action.

I notice your UI of the editor is very crisp, is your monitor more than 1080p, or there's some setting to set in the configuration? Cos mine on a 1080p screen is less readable… dunno if it makes sense.

[tomm]

Loving these vids. I suppose you won't be covering the "Art" phase so I was curious how much work it is to replace all the brushwork with meshes, how many of the pieces do you roughly need, how do you decide what meshes you'll need etc. I guess a lot of it is just communication with an artist, but still I'd be happy for any tips.

[2d-chris]

5 hours ago, blackdog said:

Thanks Chris for taking the time. Watched the first video and is very interesting to get your insight and not just the action.

I notice your UI of the editor is very crisp, is your monitor more than 1080p, or there's some setting to set in the configuration? Cos mine on a 1080p screen is less readable… dunno if it makes sense.

pretty sure i added a little post sharpening in adobe premier ;P my monitors are 16:10 at 24" though, but that should make no difference 

4 hours ago, tomm said:

Loving these vids. I suppose you won't be covering the "Art" phase so I was curious how much work it is to replace all the brushwork with meshes, how many of the pieces do you roughly need, how do you decide what meshes you'll need etc. I guess a lot of it is just communication with an artist, but still I'd be happy for any tips.

we don't have an asset set that would match this environment yet, and a level this big, lets just say it would be hundreds of hours of work, certainly possible but would be insanely long, when we art this up I will consider something though. Part 6 will actually be a summery of all the changes I made after play testing and most importantly why we were trying them. 

[Czoolz]

Good stuff, thank you for sharing! 

[2d-chris]

Part 4 is ready, 

 

[Guest]

Thank you for this! I have been trying to build some stuff based on some of the more basic tutorials out there I gave up and went back to good ol' source engine. I think this is exactly what I needed to get back into learning the UE4 workflow. Love DM-Biotower btw, tons of hilarious moments on that map.