Tips for Proper Level Design

Comparison

As I mentioned above, I’m a passionate gamer who is strongly interested to play all kind of games. When I’m playing a game, I try to understand the whole concept of its environment and the details. It’ll guide me to craft a level as professionally as possible.

The most significant trick in designing a level is the content comparison method. For example, I’m playing DOOM and then see a corridor in the game. I take a screenshot of the corridor, then compare it with many samples on the web or other games. This approach guides me to understand the variations in the game environment details such as lighting, shaders, textures, location of the assets, sounds, etc. So, there is a lot you can learn every time you play games.

Blockout

Another most important tip is blockout. It’s a substantial method in the design of environments and levels in UE4. In general, blockout is a procedure where you use a different kind of geometric shapes such as plane, cube, cylinders, etc. to build your game level at the early stages. To do so, first, you should have a good knowledge of the whole concept of your game design and then assemble a blockout level based on that concept. For instance, I know that my current project is a multiplayer FPS game so I have to build a blockout level based on its genre.

Scale

Video game worlds are almost always implemented as some sort of simulated physical space. The physical properties of this space determine a great deal of the gameplay. The dimension of a game is itself characterized by several properties such as spatial dimensionality, scale, and boundaries. Since I’ve studied civil engineering at university, I’ve learned that everything should be designed and built based on the actual dimensions, scale, proportion, and sizes. So, I always make the size of level assets such as pipes, doors, floors, walls, ceiling, etc. as standard as possible and then use them to craft the entire environment. Moreover, I use architectural and construction manuals for applying accurate real dimensions in the entire level. I also use “UE4 Mannequin” as a real human reference to scale architecture and proportion of the environment and assets. By using this tip, you can create a professional level in terms of dimensions.

The utilization of UE4 Mannequin as a reference scale guide in my level is displayed in the following screenshots: