For a section of the course, the theme was centered around the Wild West. I wanted to create a sense of scale, beauty, and risk within each of my levels. I tried to focus my reference search on shapes and spaces that could communicate this to the player. Inspiration was found in the remarkable art by William Henry Holmes, the thoughtful cinematography of Roger Deakins, the detailed environments in the Desperados series, the splendor of Westworld, and childhood memories of Back to the Future 3. One exciting discovery was remembering the photos I had taken on a summer trip to Zion National Park. These became great references for the shapes and aesthetic of the blockouts. Carrying around a camera or camera phone is a perfect way to easily build a personal reference library that you never know when will come in handy. It also serves in sharpening one’s eye for composition and framing!

Scale

For me, the scale is an important foundational pillar when starting any project or design. I’ve personally found becoming viscerally familiar with a project’s scale to be very important before moving too far into the process. As Jesse Schell says in The Art of Game Design, it is not important that 3D spaces have realistic 2D blueprints. All that matters is how space feels when the player is in it. With this course, being my first exploration into a third-person level design, I found myself constantly asking Emilia questions about proportions and scale.