Unreal Level Design Contest!

3DBuzz is hosting a level design contest until the 30th of June. The guidelines are somewhere along the lines of making your own level using only the Unreal Editor. I was up to the challenge and wanted to learn the editor more in depth anyway -- so I have been working hard getting a level together.

I first drew up a loose concept sketch for an idea that I came up with for a canyon/jungle with an communication and operations base. The setting would be outdoors and I didn't know exactly what Unreal 3 could handle -- but as I've found out it's a lot. Making an outdoor level is so much harder than an indoor one though -- in that framerate severely drops from everything being drawn on the screen at once. I had to find a middle ground that balanced performance and aesthetic.

I first roughed out the building, then the terrain, and then started adding assets and a couple of textures. I then went to work on the side areas and play tested any chance I could get. I then had to dig a tunnel out of the terrain and have it emerge through a tunnel (a hard task indeed). I added lighting once I had most of my textures picked out and then added scripting and movers. I am still in the process of finalizing the level in the next couple of days. For now, here are some screenshots of my progress.