Adding Assets to the Level

After numerous playtests, hundreds of feedback notes, and dozens of iterations, I got to set dress the level. Figures 1, 2 and 3 show varying distances to the map to illustrate how many individual assets were hand placed in this step.

Every section of the map had unique looks/assets which added to the difficulty of getting this level in memory. In single-player, each location would stream-in the necessary textures, however, they had to all be loaded simultaneously for multiplayer. Fig. 4 is an example of a unique set of assets in only one part of the map.

Both the texture artist and I would take turns vertex painting meshes to blend materials like pavement to grass and brick to plaster, (Figs. 5 & 6). A lot of the fun of set dressing was telling stories about the history of the environment, like placing bricks on the ground next to a building, indicating the direction they collapsed and a possible event that occurred to make them do so, (Fig. 7). It was also fun to demonstrate how plants grew in relationship to the human elements, (Fig. 8).