This is a level I have designed to be based in the game Rainbow Six Siege the map is based in a whiskey distillery in the Scottish highlands with a loch adjacent.
Project Objective
The purpose of this project was for me to get back into the flow of Level design as well as teach myself some of the new techniques that are available in UE5. So to do this I choose a game that I have put multiple hours in and have an idea already of how to make the mechanics. One of my favourite processes that I have learned in UE5 is packed blueprints it makes iterating on designs easy as you can take individual parts of the level into separate levels to edit them without fear of effecting the rest of the level. If I was to continue editing this level I would need to start adding the multiplayer aspects of the game and get a couple of people to test it with me. This would allow me to get a better impression on what areas currently feel imbalanced and need more work.
Software Used​
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Unreal Engine 5
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Photoshop
On my third iteration of the level I made some large changes to the designs of multiple of the rooms, getting rid of the corridors reducing the size of the level and the amount of large empty spaces. I also created a layout for the outside area of the level where the attackers would start, adding drone holes for the ability to navigate through the level as well implementing some blueprints of the basic functionality for cameras and drone spawning.
Areas need to improve:
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Main entrance to the building does not feel grand enough and does not draw the player to it
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Play around with orientation of the entrance ​
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move the parking lot out more and further to the left to open up the space in front of the entrance more
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Circular room still feels to cramped -
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need to readjust the locations of objects
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reducing the amount of large stairs
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add more height to the rooms
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Need more curves in the building to soften areas in particular on the room with the distillery
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Still need more cover in areas near start points
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Make it so more of the barrels on the outside can be climbed up on to get more height as currently can't use them but positioned in a way that makes people want to climb them
Areas that are good:
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Space is a much more appropriate size
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Rooms feel more exciting and less like corridors
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With simple meshes of objects in the rooms and a landscape you get an idea of a real space that you can imagine walking round in person
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The meshes also help to show how players can use the shapes for cover and has allowed for some interesting points to play around.
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The level has a lot more height variation
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Rooms all feel different there are no two rooms that feel the same and most do not feel just like a box
I further developed the level improving on some of the areas that needed work as well as further filling out some of the key models in the levels to be able to get a greater feel for how the level will play out.
Areas need to improve:
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In the first room the left hand side is too cramped there is to much going on that people would not head to it
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most of the rooms feel to open and there are not enough points for people to hide between and peak out of for cover
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Need to add more accurate meshes to a lot of the rooms to be able to get a better impression of them so closer to the barrel room
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In the docking bay room have it that only one door is accessible maybe add a truck that you can go inside and use as cover
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To many rooms feels to long reduce the amount, mostly get rid of third floor as does not add much
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second room in the cylinder section does not add much need to change up that area to be more interesting
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Many of the rooms feel like corridors with having straight line of sights to another door
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To many corridors that don't add much
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Still add more height variation in some of the rooms
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Change up door and wall locations in rooms with 2 floors so that they not in the same place as each other to make them feel like different rooms.
Areas that are good:
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Barrel and mashing room are in a good position only need to make a few small tweaks to them
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Really starting to get a strong impression of how some of the rooms will play
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Height variation is a lot better in this iteration
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Rooms have interesting shapes and can already see lines of sights that people can use
This was my first blockout of the level in UE5, I did a very quick layout of only the rooms and basic door and window locations giving me an idea of the size and spaces of the level. This blockout allowed me to see some of the major issues of the space and the flow of the level as well as what was working well.
Areas need to improve:
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Corridors too thin
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Stairs to short in the second room need to add flat bit in the middle to lengthen and split the levels up and make more interesting to play around
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Cylinder room feels too tight
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Many of the ceilings feel to low
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Couple of the later rooms feel to big and need to be reduced
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All the rooms are flat need more height variation in them
Areas that are good:
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A lot of the rooms have some interesting shapes
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Space feels good to walk around
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Can already get the impression of the level and setting
These are my initial paper plans as well as my final paper plan that I based my first blockout on. I created 6 designs taking some aspects that I enjoyed from each design and iterating on it to create new designs. The design I liked the most was design 4 so took this further for my final design. While making improvements to the design I looked at how easy it was to get to the different floors adding in more ways to get between them. I also looked at some of the room layouts and tried to give them more visual interest with the shapes of them so that they felt less blocky then in the original design