Portfolio Gears of War 2, UnrealTournament 3 and DarkSector
Last part of the portfolio! More gears 2 info will be posted when released to the public.
Gears of War 2(2007-2008)
onsite work for Epic Games
So far I have been working on 'Gears of War 2' multiplayer maps since last November. I actually got to make a couple layouts, and re-did a couple layouts that were done already.
It has been a diverse mix of tasks so far. From doing layouts to clean up phases; meshing and working in kismet. I cannot say much more right now until more news is released. The one thing I can say though is that I am having a lot of fun working on this stuff and that the game is going to rock! :)
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Unreal Tournament 3 PC / PS3 /Xbox360 (2007)
onsite work for Epic Games
I got hired by Epic in May 2007. When I arrived I joined the UT3 team. They were quite far along already, the last maps were getting meshed. Epic works has set passes for each map: 1/ Create the shell; 2/ Mesh it; 3/ Polish pass (make it playable again); 4/Optimizations; 5/Ship pass (ready for ship); 6/ Bug fixing.
When I arrived I started with polish passes and moved from map to map that way. 4 days each. I got to do small gameplay tweaks along the way, like adding in the tank holograms in tank crossing. After that it was a lot of work to optimize the maps for framerate and memory. We did quite a bit of juggling in memory land, giving meshes light maps to free up non texture GPU memory, then stripping out textures to make sure the texture pool wasn't overflowing. etc etc.
In the final stages I was assigned a couple maps for final polish and bug fixing. DM-Heatray; DM-Deck; CTF-Coret; CTF-Hydrosis; WAR-ColdHarbor. I also did the layout of DM-KBarge(Xbox360)in october of 2007. KBarge started as a test map to teach myself more of Kismet. Matinee's, events, etc etc. It ended up being quite a bit of fun for a small DM map, and later got meshed and polished by Sidney Rauchberger and Jim Brown.
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DarkSector (2003-2007)
onsite work for Digital Extremes
In 2005 I worked on many different tasks for Dark Sector. From paper drawings and lots of written documentation, to working on the engine wiki and arranging scrums. We worked mostly in Lightwave to create our test maps. These ranged from shooting and moving tests, to different puzzle ideas and show rooms for various publicity or publisher deadlines.
Starting 2006 we switched from using lightwave as our editor to DE's own editor called Darkitect. Unfortunately it had to be designed from the ground up. While this was being done we worked mostly on paper for about half a year.
In this time I was asked to design two missions in the residential sector of the game (there was Harbor/City access/ Residential / Industrial and Military sectors). The total play time was 3 hours, divided in two Missions. The first was close to the start of the game, the second just after halfway.
I decided I wanted the player to return to at least some of the same areas which he visited earlier. I had a couple key points to work with as reference for the player. City access (big train station), the hospital and the church.
In the first mission you would come from city access, pass the hospital (removing its defenses against the infected enemies and yourself) and then visit the church. The second time you would come in from the side and start near the hospital, now overrun with infected enemies. This way the player sees the consequences of his own actions. You would enter it and do a mission there, to pull out and return to the church area and exit a different way from there.
This of course posed the problem of making one area work in two different fighting scenarios, block routes and open gates in the right spots to make this possible. I found this a thrilling puzzle to play around with. (See flow charts / city layout pictures).
Click to read Mission 06 design doc
Click to read Mission 08 design doc
When the editor was done in summer 2006 I worked on these missions from shell form into decorated form. When I left in spring 2007, most areas had an initial decorative pass / lighting in them, and worked with the AI / gameplay elements that were present.
Unfortunately most of the gameplay objects I had to work with either got changed or removed while I was there and after I had left. Therefore the end result in the game doesn't relate to my early concepts. These worked mostly with gas machines that blocked the way for infected characters (the player is also infected), but later we had to create the puzzles and gates using the elemental puzzles like fire and electricity.
============================================================
Gears of War 2(2007-2008)
onsite work for Epic Games
So far I have been working on 'Gears of War 2' multiplayer maps since last November. I actually got to make a couple layouts, and re-did a couple layouts that were done already.
It has been a diverse mix of tasks so far. From doing layouts to clean up phases; meshing and working in kismet. I cannot say much more right now until more news is released. The one thing I can say though is that I am having a lot of fun working on this stuff and that the game is going to rock! :)
============================================================
Unreal Tournament 3 PC / PS3 /Xbox360 (2007)
onsite work for Epic Games
I got hired by Epic in May 2007. When I arrived I joined the UT3 team. They were quite far along already, the last maps were getting meshed. Epic works has set passes for each map: 1/ Create the shell; 2/ Mesh it; 3/ Polish pass (make it playable again); 4/Optimizations; 5/Ship pass (ready for ship); 6/ Bug fixing.
When I arrived I started with polish passes and moved from map to map that way. 4 days each. I got to do small gameplay tweaks along the way, like adding in the tank holograms in tank crossing. After that it was a lot of work to optimize the maps for framerate and memory. We did quite a bit of juggling in memory land, giving meshes light maps to free up non texture GPU memory, then stripping out textures to make sure the texture pool wasn't overflowing. etc etc.
In the final stages I was assigned a couple maps for final polish and bug fixing. DM-Heatray; DM-Deck; CTF-Coret; CTF-Hydrosis; WAR-ColdHarbor. I also did the layout of DM-KBarge(Xbox360)in october of 2007. KBarge started as a test map to teach myself more of Kismet. Matinee's, events, etc etc. It ended up being quite a bit of fun for a small DM map, and later got meshed and polished by Sidney Rauchberger and Jim Brown.
============================================================
DarkSector (2003-2007)
onsite work for Digital Extremes
In 2005 I worked on many different tasks for Dark Sector. From paper drawings and lots of written documentation, to working on the engine wiki and arranging scrums. We worked mostly in Lightwave to create our test maps. These ranged from shooting and moving tests, to different puzzle ideas and show rooms for various publicity or publisher deadlines.
Starting 2006 we switched from using lightwave as our editor to DE's own editor called Darkitect. Unfortunately it had to be designed from the ground up. While this was being done we worked mostly on paper for about half a year.
In this time I was asked to design two missions in the residential sector of the game (there was Harbor/City access/ Residential / Industrial and Military sectors). The total play time was 3 hours, divided in two Missions. The first was close to the start of the game, the second just after halfway.
I decided I wanted the player to return to at least some of the same areas which he visited earlier. I had a couple key points to work with as reference for the player. City access (big train station), the hospital and the church.
In the first mission you would come from city access, pass the hospital (removing its defenses against the infected enemies and yourself) and then visit the church. The second time you would come in from the side and start near the hospital, now overrun with infected enemies. This way the player sees the consequences of his own actions. You would enter it and do a mission there, to pull out and return to the church area and exit a different way from there.
This of course posed the problem of making one area work in two different fighting scenarios, block routes and open gates in the right spots to make this possible. I found this a thrilling puzzle to play around with. (See flow charts / city layout pictures).
Click to read Mission 06 design doc
Click to read Mission 08 design doc
When the editor was done in summer 2006 I worked on these missions from shell form into decorated form. When I left in spring 2007, most areas had an initial decorative pass / lighting in them, and worked with the AI / gameplay elements that were present.
Unfortunately most of the gameplay objects I had to work with either got changed or removed while I was there and after I had left. Therefore the end result in the game doesn't relate to my early concepts. These worked mostly with gas machines that blocked the way for infected characters (the player is also infected), but later we had to create the puzzles and gates using the elemental puzzles like fire and electricity.
============================================================
Labels: leveldesign, portfolio
posted by Checker at
7:44 PM
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