Devlog 1: Rafael Vargas: Learning a new world

Learning a new world

Author: Rafael Vargas

Posted on 09/13/2024

During this week, I was tasked with creating the demo level for our weekly sprint.  I’ve done level design before in Unity and Blender, but this was my first time with Unreal.  I must admit it was a bit of a learning curve and I had to spend more time than anticipated researching simple things, like textures, let alone the entire landscaping feature.  Understandably, the expectation was to create a basic block out concept for the level, but my curiosity left me wanting more.  I wanted to create a large level, that allowed the player to explore, have locations they could admire, find collectibles, etc.  In order to accomplish this type of level, I needed to do more research on the Foliage feature, Modeling feature, Quixel Bridge and advanced texturing.

This is where I ran into my first issue of deciding just how large the level should be.  I started by placing a static character down to try to gauge a size of what felt acceptable.

Then I got to work on level 1, and with some trial and error and much needed research, I finally finished something I felt proud of.  The level allowed us to showcase our character, their magic abilities, enemies and basic platforming.  However, my vision might have been a little too large, and didn’t properly align with the team’s vision.

The team was envisioning something a little less vast in scale, and focused more down on the character, and the action at hand.  Something too large would pull away from the overall focus of the game and cause it to become something more of an action-adventure game that didn’t focus on the platforming elements as expected.

With the feedback, I used the landscaper to build some narrow roads ahead of the character, added some pitfalls and cubes for demonstration.  The feedback was good, and now my vision aligns with the rest of the team.  Instead of recreating the first level, I will be working on bringing the focus inward, and not outward, and really bring some of these platforming elements to life.  Below is a rough example of the design moving forward.