DM - Plus 'n' Minus

I must thank Epic Games and 3D Buzz for including such terrific and thorough UnrealED tutorial videos with the CE of UT3. With the companionship of these videos, I've finally dove into the world of level design. I have a pretty good process going right now. The videos are broken up into different sections, or lesson plans as I like to think of them, exploring the breadth of UnrealED. With each section, I follow along on my desktop with my laptop playing the video. Once I've completed a section, I re-watch the section again, only this time I write down notes as if the video was a Professor during a lecture class. I'm finding that this helps me absorb and understand the material much better, faster, and more complete this way. Finally, I take all that knowledge and tinker with UnrealED, putting what I've learned into practice.

Click below to download the map files.

From DM-PlusnMinus

For my first map, I wanted to create something manageable. As much as I wanted to go ahead and create a extravagant wide open 32+ CTF map, I held back my ambitions and created a very claustrophobic 1 on 1 deathmatch map. I personally missed the days of Dukematches when the battle was a much more personal experience between the players, creating rivalries and allies on a whim. So I hoped creating a small map would help bring back that personal level of deathmatch.

From DM-PlusnMinus

The design of the map is probably best described as a classic window. An addition symbol shaped main room with connecting hallways. As much as I am a fan of secret rooms and camping spots, I wanted the action to be constant and intense with no where to hide. The hallways are a step up from the main room which I decide to leave to make the map a bit more challenging as you have to plan your jump just right, or you'll end up with a back full of flaks. Depending on the frag limit, matches can end just as quickly as they started. The theme of an old abandoned industrial factory sort of just came into place as I was browsing through UnrealED's generic browser, searching through the packages. I believe I drove through a small town in Connecticut the day I started the map which features these great, sorrowful, beat-up, dreadful waterside factories and warehouses and that just seemed like something you'd find in UT3.

From Recently Updated

So I began to decorate the map with static meshes, doing my best to make the map believable and alive (or dead depending on how you look at it). Virtually all visible surfaces in a normal UT3 map are static meshes, and I tried to do the same with my map but I decided to keep to light due to the small area. Most static meshes offer collision detection and it would make navigating the map frustrating.

From Recently Updated

It was my first natural urge to include a rocket launcher, however given the close and tight proximity of the map I thought the surface damage would be too great and create disgruntle players. So I decided to include only the BioRifle and the Flak Cannon, two favorite weapons of mine and great for close proximity battles. I also threw in a Vest, Shielded Belt, and of course a U-Damage powerup. I didn't include any health as I always wanted the battles to be desperate and relentless, not letting the players rely on health to save them.

From Recently Updated

Lighting the map was a challenge. I decided to place the lights inside the static meshes, given the small scale of them. Once the lighting was built, I noticed many of the lights didn't appear to be projecting any light! I checked all the settings, falloff exponent, brightness, etc. I then realized I forgot to uncheck "Cast Shadows" for the static meshes. Once the lighting was properly rebuilt a few corners and areas were to dark, completely lost in darkness. I adjust the light radius on several of the lights, which helped in some cases but the center of the main room wasn't being illuminated well enough. While I didn't want the map to feature creepy shadows, it was too much. I then included an ambient light (something I should have done from the beginning) and it became a great fill light for the difficult to light areas, yet not over lighting the map.

The first play test was interesting. I've found that whoever got the upper hand during the opening of the match ended up dominating the rest of the match. This was due to the fact that the weapon spawn rates weren't instant, thus leaving the other player only with an Enforcer to fight against someone with a Flak Cannon, which is never a good idea especially with no where to run or hide. While I'm sure the more hardcore player would accept the challenge, I personally didn't enjoy it, and thus made all weapons instantly respawn which leveled the playing field.

From Recently Updated

I also discovered that I accidentally created a booby-trap. One of the static meshes, a large chain hook that hangs from the ceiling, directly above the Flak Cannon, offers collision detection. If a player aims his BioRifle just right, he can glob on a large mass of goo onto the chain hook, leaving the Flak Cannon unobtainable without death.

From DM-PlusnMinus

Overall, I must say my first map isn't a great success, but far from a failure as well. I learned a great deal about the basics of level design, not only how to use UnrealED, but how to create an enjoyable experience in-game and how every little decision of the level designer greatly impacts the overall gameplay. Once I become more comfortable with UnrealED to the point where I feel I can take advantage of all that it's capable of, I'm going to pick up some level designing books which teach more of the gameplay aspects of level design and what makes a level successful. I think game and level design is a much more suitable career path for me, being a highly creative and technical field. I have no doubts I'll keep at it and become more proficient with it as each day passes.