Also, at 11:45, you should probably move that doorframe to be flush with the wall, that will help with the transition between the floor and wall textures.
Also, another point on scale. You have a lot of lockers, implying a LOT of workers, but a comparatively small amount of chairs/tables/counter/parking space in the cafe. The aesthetics of these areas lean more towards something consumer facing (Clean, nice signage, comfortably spaced parking, fancy-backed chairs). This is a good opportunity for world building. If this cafe was made for the executive class, it'd be more like a restaurant, with some displays/art, wooden furniture and an implied full kitchen in the back. If it was made for the working class, it'd be more like a cafeteria. Self serve counters and long, large metal tables, perhaps with benches. If we're going for something in the middle, I would recommend adding some booths, and probably reducing the number of lockers (could add some showers/benches, and save folks like me the trouble of opening Every. Single. Locker.) You have a lot of options here, but the current setup is sending mixed messages and the lack of implied space (see my point about fake doors and the like) leaves no room for speculation like "Theres more eateries/parking elsewhere".
Regardless of what you chose, adding a door in the back to simply imply the existence of a kitchen would probably be a good idea. Kitchens usually have special swinging doors with windows, but you can get away with reusing your current auto doors and locking them.
But also I do appreciate all of the specific tips for this level as well! The improvements you are suggesting never even crossed my mind, so they are definitely things I need to implement from that list if I decide to keep the core level as is and continue to build upon it! As long as I don’t find the need to start the level from scratch (major level layout changes) then I’ll definitely be adding in some of these design suggestions to this level specifically!
Well, if you're looking for feedback, I can provide. Been doing level design for over a decade in the source engine, so I've picked up a few tricks and tips that might help. Biggest issue I see with your level design (Minus the lack of lighting, which I presume you will do later, but if your basic layout is done you should get on that as shadows can be expensive, and lighting really helps set the tone of a level, is that these areas very much feel like a series of rooms seperated by basic hallways, as opposed to a real space. A good place to start addressing this would be by adding some fake doors or inaccessible rooms/passages. This gives the illusion of there being more to this facility as well as provides extra wall detail to help break up repetitive textures. Speaking of detail, adding trim is a great way to help transition from floors to walls, and between textures on the same plane. And it can be done using only material work, no need for extra geo. Since this is more industrial, consider drainage, ventilation and other utilities, which would likely not be hidden, would provide good ways to add more detail to your ceilings, walls and floors, and can often be done on the cheap with decals/overlays/your engine's equivalent, which are also good ways to add much needed grime and grit to your factory in general. If they are handling raw materials, everything after the locker room would be right groady. If your budget allows, you can get a lot of milage out of detailing your ceilings first. Ductwork, grates, drop tiles, panels, wires, structural reinforcements, light fixtures and the like can make a space feel more detailed without obstructing player or NPC movement. Even a sparse room can feel right with a busy ceiling, so at least ensure those textures have some complexity to them. Also, are you using your enemy models as a means to measure scale? If your workers are working with weird bodies, it's important that the places built by/for them feel like they were built by/for them. Lest you end up with oversized rooms housing undersized accoutraments, or vice versa. As you know, I already have my suspicions about those stairs.
Im replaying to all 3 of your comments in this one. But this is incredible feedback and exactly what I was hoping to gain from making this video. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day for this write up! Obviously I’m not a level designer by trade, so when it comes to gamedev it has been something new to me. So that being said, I never even thought of how ceiling details could be so effective. Same with the fake rooms and trim. I’m definitely going to keep this device in my mind as I build out my next level! I read a little bit of the level designer handbook (I forget the name of it) and it said the only way to get better at mapping, is to map! So I want to build out another level from scratch, and practice everything I know about level building, but try to develop new skills as well. My hope is my levels continue to improve in design and eventually I’ll need to remake level 1 because it no longer lives up to the standard! But again, idk what skills or tricks I need to learn to improve and build upon/develop my skill sets without comments like the one you just left me. So thank you again for the response and know that I’ll have these tips in mind as I continue building during these next few months!
@@developRHUNT No worries. Just looking to share some of what I wished people told me when I was learning level design. As long as ye keep posting logs, I am happy to keep lending advice. Best of luck!
Thanks again! Couldn’t appreciate it more! There will definitely be more logs - next one most likely 2-3 months from now. Going to take another deep dive!
@@developRHUNT No worries! I look forward to seeing your progress. One more idea, for the road. I noticed your enemy placements as they stand are pretty static (just standing around until they see a player). Now, I am sure you have a lot of plans for improving your AI, but having some of them patrol about on preset paths could add a lot of variety to this level right off the bat. Plus, you can have more dynamic combat encounters outside of "Player enters room, kills enemies, loots, repeat". Take the cafe for example: Right now, player enters the main room, blasts the baddies in there with fireballs, loots the room, then proceeds. But what if, while searching the counter area, they hear the sound of a spacecraft landing outside (Let's say one of the spaces outside was empty), which draws their attention over to the entrance, and clues them in that a shift change has arrived. Since this only happens when the player has already crossed the room (As checked by a trigger volume, or some equivalent), you can then hardspawn in a parked spacecraft and a few enemies without worrying about animations. Then the enemies patrol their way to the locker room, and whenever they encounter the player, a fight breaks out. This gives the player a lot more choices. They can run out to investigate the sound and fight them in the parking lot, plan an ambush in the cafe, or try and work their way deeper into the facility (which can also happen if they don't care about the noise, and can result in either a surprise fight later or no fight if they're fast enough.) This effectively let's you reuse these areas, but change the location of the player. This ensures that not every fight takes place with the player taking pot shots from the previously cleared room, tells the player that enemies can walk in on them, and helps to sell the illusion that this is a real, living place with real living creatures.
That’s an amazing idea. I definitely want to have that room reusability throughout the game because as a solo dev, I can only make so much and still deliver. That combat encounter idea is perfect for this setup. And yeah I haven’t really done anything technical about enemy placements or patrolling yet. Still on the todo list for sure! But this is great advice for that whenever I end up working on it!
No hate but the game just to me looks bad i know that its not finished yet but i saw that you said its coming out in march2023. Im not a game developer but i heard that it takes a long time to develop a game so im not sure if this is how the game is gonna look or no
hell naw. i wanted to do an early beta test in march but took the game in a different direction and like many games, it will be delayed. we can only wait and see what the final product looks like!
Also, at 11:45, you should probably move that doorframe to be flush with the wall, that will help with the transition between the floor and wall textures.
Also, another point on scale. You have a lot of lockers, implying a LOT of workers, but a comparatively small amount of chairs/tables/counter/parking space in the cafe. The aesthetics of these areas lean more towards something consumer facing (Clean, nice signage, comfortably spaced parking, fancy-backed chairs).
This is a good opportunity for world building.
If this cafe was made for the executive class, it'd be more like a restaurant, with some displays/art, wooden furniture and an implied full kitchen in the back.
If it was made for the working class, it'd be more like a cafeteria. Self serve counters and long, large metal tables, perhaps with benches.
If we're going for something in the middle, I would recommend adding some booths, and probably reducing the number of lockers (could add some showers/benches, and save folks like me the trouble of opening Every. Single. Locker.)
You have a lot of options here, but the current setup is sending mixed messages and the lack of implied space (see my point about fake doors and the like) leaves no room for speculation like "Theres more eateries/parking elsewhere".
Regardless of what you chose, adding a door in the back to simply imply the existence of a kitchen would probably be a good idea. Kitchens usually have special swinging doors with windows, but you can get away with reusing your current auto doors and locking them.
But also I do appreciate all of the specific tips for this level as well! The improvements you are suggesting never even crossed my mind, so they are definitely things I need to implement from that list if I decide to keep the core level as is and continue to build upon it!
As long as I don’t find the need to start the level from scratch (major level layout changes) then I’ll definitely be adding in some of these design suggestions to this level specifically!
Well, if you're looking for feedback, I can provide. Been doing level design for over a decade in the source engine, so I've picked up a few tricks and tips that might help.
Biggest issue I see with your level design (Minus the lack of lighting, which I presume you will do later, but if your basic layout is done you should get on that as shadows can be expensive, and lighting really helps set the tone of a level, is that these areas very much feel like a series of rooms seperated by basic hallways, as opposed to a real space. A good place to start addressing this would be by adding some fake doors or inaccessible rooms/passages. This gives the illusion of there being more to this facility as well as provides extra wall detail to help break up repetitive textures.
Speaking of detail, adding trim is a great way to help transition from floors to walls, and between textures on the same plane. And it can be done using only material work, no need for extra geo.
Since this is more industrial, consider drainage, ventilation and other utilities, which would likely not be hidden, would provide good ways to add more detail to your ceilings, walls and floors, and can often be done on the cheap with decals/overlays/your engine's equivalent, which are also good ways to add much needed grime and grit to your factory in general. If they are handling raw materials, everything after the locker room would be right groady.
If your budget allows, you can get a lot of milage out of detailing your ceilings first. Ductwork, grates, drop tiles, panels, wires, structural reinforcements, light fixtures and the like can make a space feel more detailed without obstructing player or NPC movement. Even a sparse room can feel right with a busy ceiling, so at least ensure those textures have some complexity to them.
Also, are you using your enemy models as a means to measure scale? If your workers are working with weird bodies, it's important that the places built by/for them feel like they were built by/for them. Lest you end up with oversized rooms housing undersized accoutraments, or vice versa. As you know, I already have my suspicions about those stairs.
Im replaying to all 3 of your comments in this one. But this is incredible feedback and exactly what I was hoping to gain from making this video. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day for this write up!
Obviously I’m not a level designer by trade, so when it comes to gamedev it has been something new to me. So that being said, I never even thought of how ceiling details could be so effective. Same with the fake rooms and trim. I’m definitely going to keep this device in my mind as I build out my next level!
I read a little bit of the level designer handbook (I forget the name of it) and it said the only way to get better at mapping, is to map! So I want to build out another level from scratch, and practice everything I know about level building, but try to develop new skills as well.
My hope is my levels continue to improve in design and eventually I’ll need to remake level 1 because it no longer lives up to the standard!
But again, idk what skills or tricks I need to learn to improve and build upon/develop my skill sets without comments like the one you just left me. So thank you again for the response and know that I’ll have these tips in mind as I continue building during these next few months!
@@developRHUNT No worries. Just looking to share some of what I wished people told me when I was learning level design.
As long as ye keep posting logs, I am happy to keep lending advice.
Best of luck!
Thanks again! Couldn’t appreciate it more! There will definitely be more logs - next one most likely 2-3 months from now. Going to take another deep dive!
@@developRHUNT No worries! I look forward to seeing your progress.
One more idea, for the road.
I noticed your enemy placements as they stand are pretty static (just standing around until they see a player). Now, I am sure you have a lot of plans for improving your AI, but having some of them patrol about on preset paths could add a lot of variety to this level right off the bat.
Plus, you can have more dynamic combat encounters outside of "Player enters room, kills enemies, loots, repeat".
Take the cafe for example:
Right now, player enters the main room, blasts the baddies in there with fireballs, loots the room, then proceeds.
But what if, while searching the counter area, they hear the sound of a spacecraft landing outside (Let's say one of the spaces outside was empty), which draws their attention over to the entrance, and clues them in that a shift change has arrived. Since this only happens when the player has already crossed the room (As checked by a trigger volume, or some equivalent), you can then hardspawn in a parked spacecraft and a few enemies without worrying about animations. Then the enemies patrol their way to the locker room, and whenever they encounter the player, a fight breaks out.
This gives the player a lot more choices. They can run out to investigate the sound and fight them in the parking lot, plan an ambush in the cafe, or try and work their way deeper into the facility (which can also happen if they don't care about the noise, and can result in either a surprise fight later or no fight if they're fast enough.)
This effectively let's you reuse these areas, but change the location of the player. This ensures that not every fight takes place with the player taking pot shots from the previously cleared room, tells the player that enemies can walk in on them, and helps to sell the illusion that this is a real, living place with real living creatures.
That’s an amazing idea. I definitely want to have that room reusability throughout the game because as a solo dev, I can only make so much and still deliver. That combat encounter idea is perfect for this setup.
And yeah I haven’t really done anything technical about enemy placements or patrolling yet. Still on the todo list for sure! But this is great advice for that whenever I end up working on it!
No hate but the game just to me looks bad i know that its not finished yet but i saw that you said its coming out in march2023. Im not a game developer but i heard that it takes a long time to develop a game so im not sure if this is how the game is gonna look or no
hell naw. i wanted to do an early beta test in march but took the game in a different direction and like many games, it will be delayed.
we can only wait and see what the final product looks like!