This level design project was a good learning experience and an exercise in patience and will power. I enjoyed the whole process but I think if I went back did it all over again I would do a few things differently.
I was very happy with the amount of Kismet and Matinee I learned, as well as figuring out UDK in general. The program was still relatively new to me so at first I was a little worried, but after doing a few tutorials and experimenting on my own I got the hang of it. Kismet has so many possibilities, and I would like to go back into my level at a later date and see what I can change in order to make the game more functional. During a survey I got the suggestion to make the doors close-able so that when the character leaves the room they set the trigger off a second time and the door closes.
The first thing I would change is the city itself. Many of the issues brought up during surveys was that it was a very basic level and all of the buildings looked the same. This is partly due to my inexperience with BSP objects, and partly because the city itself wasn’t very detailed in the description. I don’t know if there are any fully detailed cities in the book, but either way I think I will go back to my level when I get some spare time and give it some more life.
Second, I think I would have maybe gone for a different art style. I like the realism I added to this level because it suited the nature of the city, but I would like to go for a more stylized level later on to broaden my portfolio. Also, the style I tried to replicate for this level was a very complex, painterly one and though I was able to mimic what I was going after with Photoshop filters, it felt kind of cheap and it left me wishing I had more time to paint things by hand. Most of the people I surveyed liked the art style I had so far, however, so it was not a total loss.
One of the biggest issues that were pointed out to me was the alignment of my objects. Everything from BSP’s to decals to static meshes and interp. actors had some sort of alignment issue, and I think that took away from a lot of the final outcome. I’m not sure if it was the angle snap I had set up or the fact that I am still not entirely used to the viewports, but I would love to go back and make sure each piece is aligned properly.
Finally, the puzzle elements themselves need a lot of work. They are simple enough a child could figure it out, which is ok except the target audience is 17-27, and this was way too easy for them to figure out. I think some platforming elements or more complicated puzzles are in order, or at least a maze of some sort.
My favorite part of the project was the texturing itself, which I feel I did pretty well on and almost everyone I asked to test the game was impressed with it. It was a challenge switching from texturing in 3DS Max to making materials in UDK, but the end results are so much more rewarding and I now feel comfortable with the process. I plan on going back to the textures and playing around with all of the different modifiers I can plug into the materials themselves. I also got the opportunity to learn Crazy Bump, and I absolutely love it. It does tend to lag out once in a while but the it’s a fair trade since you can customize all of the settings in both normal maps and specular maps.
All together, I really enjoyed this project and plan to make it even better over the next month or two and test it again with some of the same people so that they can give me more feedback. I intend to make this a portfolio piece and I feel I am well on my way.
