Level Making For Days!
So even with the practice I did prior to green light, I knew going into this sprint that I still needed my ProBuilder skills to get better. On the plus side, it seems like the team is getting work done at an incredibly fast pace after getting feedback on the last sprint, and it's looking like we're either gonna stay at that pace, or go even faster.
For this week, I took some time to go back to the main area of the train station and do some editing to make it a bit cleaner, but the main task was putting together the side rooms. The first one I built was centered around an earlier idea that I had; a room where trains would be coming and going at different intervals, and the player would have to dodge them. The result of my labors turned into a room that has pretty basic geometry, but will get the job done.
Better Design Techniques
After I put this room together, it taught me a few things about what I can do to make my block-outs better. First of all, I started going back to using planes for the walls instead of cubes. The nice thing about planes is that you can see through the backs of them, which makes level building so much easier. I also remembered how to utilize more of ProBuilder's tools, such as merging objects and bridging faces. Using these points, I got to work on my second side room, and I think this one came out much better.
Shortly after I made this one, the designers and artists got together to work out the visual direction of the train station. The consensus was that each side room should have its own theme, and that this one would be a ventilation room with those pillars becoming spinning fans. Additionally, we want to use this room to teach the player about one of the new enemies; an artillery beetle that shoots at you from a distance.
Earlier today, I also built one more side room. The idea behind it was that there's a secret area that the player can access, and once they do, they can get a new weapon. I think it's probably the cleanest room that I've built, so I think my ProBuilder skills are getting to a good place.
Next Sprint
There's one thing about next sprint that I can almost guarantee; the level will finally get to go to QA. We've all been super excited about this level, and the fact that we can finally start testing it makes us super happy. Additionally, we'll probably also start to get some art in, as well as some enemy placement. I also wouldn't be surprised if I started moving towards framework for the anthill, but we'll have to wait and see on that.
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