FIEA Level Design FPS Level (April 2023)
This is a FPS level that I have been working on and will possibly posting another update in the near future. I created a simple whitebox then went through the prosses of set dressing and lighting. I started of by making a physical concept sketch the give me a sense of the bounds of the level (A photo of this sketch will be added but it has most likely been lost through time).
After this I went around looking around for inspiration and I settles on Halo 2 and Halo 3 ODST and focusing on the Old Mobassa Environment. At first I wanted to have the level take place during the daytime but changed it to nighttime to help make the lighting be more vibrant and moody.
I also wanted to have cool colors be the primary light source and have warm color lighting for details and gameplay elements. Some areas I had to make use of kitbashing as certain things that I wanted to be in the level wasn't available in the asset pack that I was using, a lot of cutting and remeshing. For my post mortem I will say that I had to learn that if something is too complex to be added or inaccessible and wont match the quality of the level, just cut it out of the level as it will most likely benefit from it and help improve game flow, not to mention your sanity.
For this area I didn't want the player have multiple pathways at the start but give them more options later on and then come back to being linear at the end.
The idea I had for this part of the level was to make it look like a more recreational area. The story concept is that is this somewhere on another planet that was recently colonized so everything has to be all tightly packed, nearby and have large walls.
For this area it is meant to be more of a shopping/ entertainment area that has a mechanic shop at the ends where you will have to go through in order to progress further into the level.
With the asset packs I had at hand I started thinking of ideas of what each block that represents something should be, if its in the scene, it needs a reason to be there. so I made some living quarters, a food stand, and kitbashed a dance club.
For this area I wanted it to more of business area and have the back of it be a storage/ tight apartment complex. this is also where the player can choose to go between the business building and have more cover or go the other way and have less cover.
A lot of stuff had to be cut and moved around here. I really waned to make a stature that was of "the founder" but with the scale of the area and the asset pack I had to cut it entirely but i made up for it by adding in the same amount of cover.