My friend, thank you so much for posting this. I appreciate how you communicate different principles of Level Design, and put them into practice. So many videos explain tools and programs, but not as many about the nuts and bolts of LD. You've earned a subscriber, and I'm very much looking forward to any future content you put out.
Great design breakdown, thanks for this! I really like your use of simple geometry to convey organic things like trees and rock faces, it works really well!
Thank you for the super helpful video and the effort you put into explaining your level design choices. It's a pity you don't publish any new content any more.
Beside your level design process, which is wonderful, I am also interested in the technical side of this. Do you model everything in a third party program and place it in engine, model it completly in engine or is everything done in unreal? thanks :)
For this level I mainly used primitive shapes (cubes, spheres & cylinders) and some BSP brushes (mainly the temple). I created prefabs (blueprint actors) for things like pillars and merged meshes (like a cylinder+sphere = tree) . The trees and grass (cubes with stretched Z values) were made into "foliage" so I could quickly add or remove it whenever I wanted. For the Open World Blockout, I instead mainly used the new mesh Modeling Tools plugin (and prefabs) to create simple rocks, trees, planks, pillars, etc. I also used the landscape brushes (to create things like the mountains) and a cobbled road mesh to use for the spline road. Basically, my approach is to create a small number of meshes & materials that can communicate the look, feel & intent of the level while also being highly re-usable. For instance, most of the "rocks" you see in the Open World Blockout is just the same rock, just rotated and scaled differently. It is of course possible to use something like Blender to create simple blockout meshes when needed, but for these levels I chose to stick to working inside of UE4.
@@tychobolt5356 First of all thanks for your long reply message - really appreciated! Was just wondering about some unique assets you have placed in this level, like when you entered the sun temple for the first time and can see through the broken wall. Obviously this is modelled on one way or the other, but was just wondering about what you do use :D Apperantly, I want to focus more on level design now. I am more of an environment artist and I really like to create nice looking stuff, but often it's just a landscape without purpose. Yes, it tells a story in how it's build, but I want more. More meaning behind. So in the past, before I became an environment artist, I did my bachlor with a level design project (if you like, you can find it in my channel) and I really appreciated but lost track - now I want to go back to my roots. Also because I am more interessted in the more high level concept part, then just how "an old house has to look like", that is only a tiny part of the whole environment. That being said, I still have a technical question. I am planing to build up a level in a setting of irish cliffs (achill island is my main reference) - so when you say you do landscape stuff with the landscape tool, how would you accomplish this? My problem is, when I just block it with a big mesh, I lost the abillity to add fast finer detail (speaking of roughly 50x50m chunks) but when I only use the landscape tool, it's hard to get the right shape to achive the right feeling - but I gain more controll with brushes. Wish the landmass feature would also be capable to project meshes onto a landscape :D Thanks :)
@@aukehuys Holes in walls and such used BSP brushes ( docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/en-US/Basics/Actors/Brushes/ ). One shape is additive and another is subtractive (cuts out parts of additive ones). BSP is handly sometimes, but can quickly get expensive and clunky if used too much in the level imo. As for how I'd do the irish cliffs. Personally I'd use the Landscape until I got to where I wanted the cliffs. Then I'd do a very sharp drop-off and use one or more custom meshes (or BSP) to form the cliff edge and face (rough example imgur.com/a/wXwjsOE ) . I did cliffs like this in my Open World Blockout, for instance. There I also made a basic cliff mesh with the UE4 modeling tool.
Difficult to say since work was spread out and I also scripted logic and such. The level itself probably took about 5 full-time work days from concept to what you see here, including iterations. If you feel that's fast, don't let it bother you, since we all work differently.
I use the terrain/landscape system when I want more organic terrain. I then use meshes for things like cliffs and more specific shapes (terrain/landscape system doesn't result in for instance good cliffs and can make gauging what terrain is traversible or not harder). A better example of this can be seen in my other breakdown video here ruclips.net/video/O8-Cx6NPN-s/видео.html . Basically the terrain is the foundation and meshes are used at specific points. If the level is more urban/industrial/etc then primarily using more flat meshes for the ground would probably be better than using terrain as a foundation.
One thing I would keep in mind are players like me who enjoy exploring a level and going where I'm not suppose to be. It might not matter for the first level but having hard to reach areas could be rewarding for some players. 90% of the time places I get myself into have no rewards beyond a good view to show off that I made it.
@@tychobolt5356 Ah, thanks! I thought you had made the 2D map first and were using it as a form of concept art for designing the level. That's pretty great for presentation artwork though, very clear, clean, and easy to read.
My friend, thank you so much for posting this. I appreciate how you communicate different principles of Level Design, and put them into practice. So many videos explain tools and programs, but not as many about the nuts and bolts of LD. You've earned a subscriber, and I'm very much looking forward to any future content you put out.
I appreciate this. You have changed my entire perspective on level design.
this is super interesting! I don't like making FPS games (I'm more of making 2D platformers), but I found this super useful. Keep working hard!
Great design breakdown, thanks for this! I really like your use of simple geometry to convey organic things like trees and rock faces, it works really well!
Thank you for sharing this video. I'm looking forward to seeing the complete results 🙏🏿.
I would watch these all day. Really a great breakdown!
It is clear you put a lot of thought into this. Very cool to see.
This is a great 101 for game and level design. Awesome video and level!
Thanks a lot for sharing! explained a lot of ways to think about level design.
Awesome breakdown, felt like a GDC talk!
Thank you for the super helpful video and the effort you put into explaining your level design choices. It's a pity you don't publish any new content any more.
Great job my friend.
Would be amazing if you teach the basics of level design in Unreal Engine. How to make the terrain, how to blocking volumes, etc.
this is amazing ,
enjoyable content - thanks!
Thanks, this was super useful.
neat - thx for making this
Beside your level design process, which is wonderful, I am also interested in the technical side of this. Do you model everything in a third party program and place it in engine, model it completly in engine or is everything done in unreal?
thanks :)
For this level I mainly used primitive shapes (cubes, spheres & cylinders) and some BSP brushes (mainly the temple). I created prefabs (blueprint actors) for things like pillars and merged meshes (like a cylinder+sphere = tree) . The trees and grass (cubes with stretched Z values) were made into "foliage" so I could quickly add or remove it whenever I wanted.
For the Open World Blockout, I instead mainly used the new mesh Modeling Tools plugin (and prefabs) to create simple rocks, trees, planks, pillars, etc. I also used the landscape brushes (to create things like the mountains) and a cobbled road mesh to use for the spline road.
Basically, my approach is to create a small number of meshes & materials that can communicate the look, feel & intent of the level while also being highly re-usable. For instance, most of the "rocks" you see in the Open World Blockout is just the same rock, just rotated and scaled differently.
It is of course possible to use something like Blender to create simple blockout meshes when needed, but for these levels I chose to stick to working inside of UE4.
@@tychobolt5356 First of all thanks for your long reply message - really appreciated!
Was just wondering about some unique assets you have placed in this level, like when you entered the sun temple for the first time and can see through the broken wall.
Obviously this is modelled on one way or the other, but was just wondering about what you do use :D
Apperantly, I want to focus more on level design now. I am more of an environment artist and I really like to create nice looking stuff, but often it's just a landscape without purpose. Yes, it tells a story in how it's build, but I want more. More meaning behind. So in the past, before I became an environment artist, I did my bachlor with a level design project (if you like, you can find it in my channel) and I really appreciated but lost track - now I want to go back to my roots. Also because I am more interessted in the more high level concept part, then just how "an old house has to look like", that is only a tiny part of the whole environment.
That being said, I still have a technical question. I am planing to build up a level in a setting of irish cliffs (achill island is my main reference) - so when you say you do landscape stuff with the landscape tool, how would you accomplish this? My problem is, when I just block it with a big mesh, I lost the abillity to add fast finer detail (speaking of roughly 50x50m chunks) but when I only use the landscape tool, it's hard to get the right shape to achive the right feeling - but I gain more controll with brushes.
Wish the landmass feature would also be capable to project meshes onto a landscape :D
Thanks :)
@@aukehuys Holes in walls and such used BSP brushes ( docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/en-US/Basics/Actors/Brushes/ ). One shape is additive and another is subtractive (cuts out parts of additive ones). BSP is handly sometimes, but can quickly get expensive and clunky if used too much in the level imo.
As for how I'd do the irish cliffs. Personally I'd use the Landscape until I got to where I wanted the cliffs. Then I'd do a very sharp drop-off and use one or more custom meshes (or BSP) to form the cliff edge and face (rough example imgur.com/a/wXwjsOE ) .
I did cliffs like this in my Open World Blockout, for instance. There I also made a basic cliff mesh with the UE4 modeling tool.
This is very inspiring. How long it takes you to accomplish this?
Difficult to say since work was spread out and I also scripted logic and such. The level itself probably took about 5 full-time work days from concept to what you see here, including iterations. If you feel that's fast, don't let it bother you, since we all work differently.
Did you use terrain system as ground platform (green ground)? And put it above the grey box? Or there's another way??
I use the terrain/landscape system when I want more organic terrain. I then use meshes for things like cliffs and more specific shapes (terrain/landscape system doesn't result in for instance good cliffs and can make gauging what terrain is traversible or not harder). A better example of this can be seen in my other breakdown video here ruclips.net/video/O8-Cx6NPN-s/видео.html . Basically the terrain is the foundation and meshes are used at specific points.
If the level is more urban/industrial/etc then primarily using more flat meshes for the ground would probably be better than using terrain as a foundation.
finaly a good tutorial
One thing I would keep in mind are players like me who enjoy exploring a level and going where I'm not suppose to be.
It might not matter for the first level but having hard to reach areas could be rewarding for some players. 90% of the time places I get myself into have no rewards beyond a good view to show off that I made it.
I'm curious, how did you make that 2D map you had at the start?
More or less like this twitter.com/TychoBolt/status/1438167060429869056
@@tychobolt5356 Ah, thanks!
I thought you had made the 2D map first and were using it as a form of concept art for designing the level. That's pretty great for presentation artwork though, very clear, clean, and easy to read.
Nice vid bro