Level Design

Karnage

L3: Member
Mar 19, 2010
114
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GDC 2010 Tutorial: Level Design In A Day
Here are some fantastic tips on level design on any platform. These detailed notes look at many different techniques utilized in many different games. Some of this may seem irrelevant to your TF2 map but I find it very interesting nonetheless! Some inspiring quotes:
"The role of a level designer is to create gameplay through environments and systems."

"The design process is iterative, changes are inevitable! Learn to love this and use it to your advantage. You NEED external critics to see the problems and become better."

"Every designer, even without Max or Maya knowledge, could quickly block in some volumes and get a playable demo literally in minutes! The idea is to build very basic shapes, put together whitebox of the level. It allows fast iterations: you can test the gameplay until it's fun."

"Ecology is item placement. Item placement must have a meaning (narrative justification for example) and reward player behaviour (exploration). A player should not be forced to grab all those pickups. Instead, he will generate himself the need for those items...this is where a level design is great."

"The Level Designer has a very special relationship with the player: he's kind of driving the coach where the player is seated during the game journey."

These notes are still being written and published as far as I know, part 1 starts here. Part 4 is probably most useful for you: Cover/Object Placement and Multiplayer Level Design Balance
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
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Mar 4, 2008
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One of my favourite level design quotes is by Phil Co.

"Level designers build worlds, and in order to build worlds we need to understand our own".

Which reminds me, there's someone here who really needs to read this and you can post it in his map development threads here: link and here: link.
 
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Mar 23, 2010
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Which reminds me, there's someone here who really needs to read this and you can post it in his map development threads here: link and here: link.
bad links?
 

Crash

func_nerd
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Mar 1, 2010
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Which reminds me, there's someone here who really needs to read this and you can post it in his map development threads here: link and here: link.

Man, you guys sure go out of your way to mess with that guy.
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
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Mar 4, 2008
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Who said anything about messing with him? He could seriously do with reading that article. Why is that such a negative thing to say?

What is it about some people and truth...
 

Azazoth!

L1: Registered
Feb 6, 2010
33
14
Ahh, the familiar smell of forum drama.

Back on topic: interesting articles! Nice to see how the pros do it.
 

Crash

func_nerd
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Mar 1, 2010
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Who said anything about messing with him? He could seriously do with reading that article. Why is that such a negative thing to say?

What is it about some people and truth...

Because you are going out of your way to mention someone that has nothing to do with the topic at hand? Fine if you believe he should read those, I'm not saying anything about the validity of that, but you are obviously trying to bring it up publicly in a passive aggressive way. If you are trying to talk to someone, PM them, but since you weren't and were just trying to stir up more crap with people and him, what's the point?

A lot of people obviously have a problem with the guy, so why can't people just either ignore him or stay out of his threads? Or even bring it up outside of certain threads.

It's not a matter of 'truth' at all, it's a matter of people needing to get over their little griefs with people and not drag it into other threads.
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
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Mar 4, 2008
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You're the one bringing the topic here Crash, why do you think i posted the links for Karnage and left the author nameless in this thread. "swaty" does not check the rest of the forums, or at least post to acknowledge posted items outside of his own map threads; if Karnage linked "swaty" the OP article he would probably get several thanks from the community for noticing the need and helping him. I didn't want to do it myself for fear of antagonising this very topic as i've already posted enough in those threads. I've tried posting in his thread with no response to these specific problems and hoped that if he read an outside article he would better understand it.

We've already established that members here aren't out to get him (previous bans have been OT and troll posters) and even comments in the chat are few and far between, TF2maps members have better things to talk about than someone who chooses to ignore them.

Your accusations are offensive, not to mention unwarranted as the admins have already set up severe ramifications (IE bans) for any "swaty antagonists". If the admins see a problem i will be banned, probably without additional general warnings. I'm not an idiot or 12 years old.
 
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Crash

func_nerd
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Mar 1, 2010
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Whether you like to admit it or not saying "oh hey, someone should post this in a certain someones thread, because they sure could learn from it." is being passive aggressive towards that person. Even if you yourself are not going in and posting it, you are asking someone else to, indirectly putting yourself in the middle of it, but keeping yourself out any of those ramifications you talked about.

I would like to know how I brought up the subject when you were the one linking to his pages and trying to incite someone else into posting something that you yourself feel would cause problems had you posted it.

I will drop the subject, as this is just derailing the thread. I just wanted to point out that you are in fact trying to start more crap with him (by dragging others into it), outside of his thread and completely out of no where.

And clearly my accusations are warranted if the mods have already had to step in and put down such drastic rules in place for such things.

I repeat, if someone isn't listening to you about something, and you clearly take issue with it, why are you continuing to try to help this person? There are plenty of new mappers who's logs go unnoticed while everyone throws everything they have at someone who, according to them, doesn't listen anyway.
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
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Mar 4, 2008
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Phil Co is a level designer who's worked on a couple projects for Valve, but more notably for Cyclone Studio's and Blizzard North among many others. He's released a couple books on level design too.

Oh, he's on this list too.

http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/people.html