Openings - Week 2

Note: Week 2 and onwards is going to be a lot lighter - for a lot of reasons, which will (hopefully) be explained later in on a different post. Sorry if I got your hopes up (or be glad if I made you worried) about the length of the previous week. Also, say hello to the overviews!

Overview:

1. Started work on the environment, in both concept and creation

Alright, week 2! This week, after exploring the camera and how I wanted to present the game, I moved onto the environment itself - at least, the beginnings of the environment. I started with a sketch, an idea that I wanted to follow along. At the time, I had the Legend of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild in mind. I think that was probably the biggest influence for the environment and world I made - this is pretty obvious in my initial sketch.

Initial Environment Concept.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath Of the Wild 'temple/dungeon' screenshot for comparison

You may have already noticed the Zelda influences! Specifically, the 'temple' design in this underground cave. The actual layout of the area itself isn't specifically inspired by something, but since I knew I was playing with 3D i wanted to have something big and distant. On the left, you can see a portal - this would be the starting point of the player. When creating this, I didn't actually have a set goal in mind - I just wanted a place for the player to start. In the middle, there's a bit of ruins blocking the player. This was intended to be the first obstacle, which would teach the player to jump. The latter rocks that the player would climb would show double jumping.

I tweaked around with this design a little, but I was relatively happy with the result. I had an idea of what I wanted to achieve. However, what I actually ended up with was quite different.

The opening of my level.

So, the design has quite a few differences, but also similarities! First, the colour scheme was something I was pretty adamant on. The dark, reddish brown on blue felt nice to me, so I was intent on using that as the basis for the environment (again, Zelda influences). I initially attempted to create the temple, but felt that it wasn't working out. It was difficult to scale and fit into the environment I had made, so I decided to simplify things and use a simple Crystal instead. All of these models were made from scratch in 3DS Max, with the Terrain tool in Unreal Engine helping fill in the gaps. The rock model used to create the floors, walls and ceilings that the player stands on are actually the same model, stretched and changed to appear different! Modularity is always nice, in my opinion.

You may also notice that the layout has slightly changed - the ruins in the middle are gone (as with all ruins in fact), and the layout is simplified. This came with multiple benefits - for starters, it was easier to create. Less assets, more time to focus on important things. Along with that, it also gave more space for the player to get used to the movement of the character - and how the game plays in general. The ledge at the right side is actually impossible to reach with a single jump, so the game forces you to learn double jumping to progress. This philosophy of teaching the player - doing so through the environment, not text, is most noticeable in the game Megaman X. Known for it's intuitive tutorial, it uses the environment and obstacles, as well as the players curiosity and a kind of 'trust' in the player, allows them to discover the mechanics of the game themselves. The first level is extremely useful in observing how to teach the player. I recommend checking it out!

The opening level for Megaman X.