Disconnected Life

5 Great Unreal3 Level Design Tips

2008-04-01T09:21:00.001-07:00

I've been working on a new unreal3 level CTF-Faultline. Its a vertically oriented map that has a castle on a cliff chained to a part of the cliff that's floating away with the rest of the castle.

This was my first time using Unreal3 and I learned so much I almost wish I could start over and do some of these things right the first time!

So anyway, here is my list:

1. Sketch sketch sketch!
You won't realize it until you actually start modeling and putting things into your level that you didn't preplan enough. Everyone wants to get down and dirty and start making things but you have to plan! Not just one drawing or floor plan either Mr. Lazy. That means at least thumb nail views of the different points of interest in your level. What's that you say? You don't have anything that stands out? Then you have a problem my friend. For example, I did not draw up enough detailed drawings of my castle interior and that's why I started wondering why it looked so empty.

While a floor plan is essential, having actual drawings of how the level looks from different angles helps immensely.

2. Build it all FIRST.
This is a big area I lost a lot of time in. I learned I should have built up my whole level in 3ds max first. The whole thing. Instead I made props individually and thus a lot of it didn't fit properly. This also caused issues with scaling pieces as well.

On this note, build it all then break up the pieces into chunks that make sense to import. Think hard about occlusion. In my level the floating island had a lot of geometry. You don't see the whole thing though all the time. Only from some specific angles do you actually see it all. So I broke it up into quads and pieced it together in unreal again. This way if you only see quad1 from one angle it doesn't have to calculate for the rest of the island because it's a separate mesh.

3. Normal Map it
After looking into some materials made by the folks at Epic I noticed everything had normal maps. Everything. Its ok if you don't really know how to make them. There is an amazing program called CrazyBump that will do all the hard work for you, and it does it very well. Check it out and be amazed.

4. Use the Post Process Volume, but don't rely on it.
This volume will do wonders to tweak the look of your level. You can adjust saturation and color levels and distance blur among other things. If your level looks like crap without it, it probably will look like crap with a bow wrapped around it when you're done. This helps give your level that last oomph! to make it good. Its not a magic wand to fix bad static meshes or textures (but oh how I wish it did).

5. It takes time.
You may be thinking, "Well duh!" but seriously it takes a lot of time. If you are using all unreal assets then you have a lot less work in front of you. If, however, you are like me and made all your own meshes and textures then its going to be hell. Prepare to spend countless hours just trying to make your assets look good let alone worry about level design and flow, weapon placement, bot pathing, and lighting.

Have others test it too. Even if its only one other person a fresh perspective may surprise you with things you over looked.

I hope this has been informative in some way. I still have a very long way to go before I'm happy with what I'm out putting but I hope my mistakes will help you avoid some of your own.

Leaving the Nest: Goodbye iTunes

2008-03-24T08:49:00.001-07:00

I've long despised having to use itunes simply because I bought an ipod. This may seem contradictory but bare with me. I realize that in a way they go hand in hand. The actual itunes program isn't so bad. Its a bit of a memory hog and runs junk in the background, but many programs nowadays do(don't get me started on that). In any case, I deal with it. What really bothers me about what Apple has done here is they bundle software with it. I don't like quicktime. I use a quicktime alternative along with my media player classic and I'm very happy with it. It runs great, fast, small memory footprint, in my book an A+. However, each time itunes updates it forces quicktime down my throat again. I grit my teeth and accept it. Mainly I've been too lazy to find a new program.

This last update though put me over the edge. I get home and I see a download for itunes, I click it and to my horror it says, "now downloading safari". "Well eff that!" I exclaim out loud. I cancel it and promptly begin searching for a new program to manage my ipod that looks nice, runs smooth, and has the options I want. "If only there was an alternative to itunes like firefox is for internet explorer," I wonder.

Behold! Songbird. It is, in fact, by mozilla and looks kind of like an itunes clone. It has user made addons like firefox and will even import my old itunes library! Once again Mozilla has won my heart.

OpenDNS is my friend (and yours)

2007-09-04T14:53:00.000-07:00

After hearing about it from TWiT I decided to give openDNS a shot. I figured it'd be a lengthy process and was skeptical at first as to how helpful it would be. I couldn't have been more wrong on either account. OpenDNS not only sped up my internet web connection (not downloads or games of course though, just to clarify)but it also blocks phishing sites, adult sites (if you want it to) and also corrects spelling mistakes in addresses! What if you type craigslist.or instead of org? Normally you'd go no where. Not with this! It also redirects you from common phishing sites that use spelling mistakes to the real one. I love it. It takes about 2 minutes to setup, and you can do it for your pc or on your router for the whole network.

Destroying Buildings

2007-08-30T13:07:00.002-07:00

Classes started for me today. I packed them all on one day so I can work the rest of the week. One of my first projects was to make this building look destroyed for a matte background for a short movie clip we'll use. It should be a ton of fun. I destroyed mine pretty well and will have a helicopter fly by it. Here is the before and after:

Click them to see a better quality image to see the details.

Ok now for a bit of a breakdown. First of all I looked up pictures of smashed concrete and dirt. SXC.HU has a ton of great stock images that I usually go to first for my needs. Next you have to mask just the building so that's the only thing that gets effected. This saves time from having to mask every element and lets you be able to mask items separately. So how did I select the building? Pretty easy. CS3 has the new quick select tool. It borders on being precognitive in how well it seems to select the parts you want. Give it a try.

After the parts where all overlayed, using mostly the overlay or multiple layer type, I had to use the dodge & burn tool a lot. This helps pull those deep areas in more and pop the areas that are whole out more. Once I had the large dark spot on the top right I realized something was missing. I found some good steel beam images and put them in there, dirtied them up a bit and voila!

Two in a row! Habit? Probably not.

2007-08-17T10:51:00.000-07:00

As my internship draws to a close at milync I decided to update my portfolio webpage and post the link here before I make it go live. The galleries are still empty but at the moment I don't have all the art I am putting up since I am, after all, still at work. In any case a nice Photoshop actionscript will make me some thumbnails and it really won't take too long to do. Right now let me know what you think of the design, link at the bottom of the post.

Now to break down some elements of this page:

First off the background is tileable striped background. There is this awesome tool called Stripe Generator that does just that. Lots of customizable options it really is handy. I know the image to the left doesn't look like stripes but check out the site. It is. The subtlety couldn't be achieved without seeing how it'd look tiled on the stripe generator website. Kudos to them!

The other parts are fairly simple (in my mind).

The boxes are fluid, meaning they'll resize properly depending on your resolution. The top blue part is a tileable background as well. It's actually a very thin image, so that saves on load times.

The button was done in web 2.0 fashion. If you are digging this style then check out Photoshop Labs tutorial on these things.

Another great read on web 2.0 design styles is at Web Designs from Scratch. He hits a lot of very good points on composition, color, and even has lots of good and bad examples to give you a better clue what's going on.

So that's about it! Click below to see what this post has been about.

Portfolio: Now with more Calcium!*

*calcium not actually included

Fun Pictures

2007-08-16T12:00:00.001-07:00

I'll post some stuff on design work I am doing soon. In the mean time enjoy these, and click them for full view.

Why Bridges Fall

2007-08-13T12:03:00.000-07:00

You know what boils my balls? Fanatics. Specifically, religious fanatics. Whats worse are the ones who are also just seeking attention. Get a load of this and hope it doesn't rot your brain by reading it:

Because God hates Fags the bridge fell
I really hate these guys. If God was around why would he let himself be misrepresented this way?

Oh wait it gets better...

God wants you to fear him so he dropped a bridge on some people
This one is just another delusional christian.
A quote: Talitha said, “Maybe he let it fall because he wanted all the people of Minneapolis to fear him.” “Yes, Talitha,” I said, “I am sure that is one of the reasons God let the bridge fall.” --I'm sad children are being taught this.

And finally this guy is just stupid:

I realize the Lord has a calling, and He's preparing me to be obedient and ready, and to know it is 'time to roll'.
So this one here, he claims God spoke to him. Not a feeling of unease or premonition, no not even that magical. It was as if God leaned over from the passenger seat and said, "Maybe you don't wanna go on that bridge. No really don't do it." It's ridiculous that people eat this stuff up.

I heard about that last one from a co-worker at milync and had to work to keep my mouth shut on that one. They believe it. Hook. Line. Sinker.

Signed up for Blogger

2007-08-03T10:42:00.001-07:00

So I thought I'd give this a shot. I do write a lot and all my other stuff is tied into the Google Empire anyway, so why not? I plan to post my thoughts on web design, 3d modelling, etc. Also probably some stories on design problems I encounter daily and how I solve them.