Blocking Out a Level Design
The first step in designing a workable level is in it’s original layout. In this case I will be blocking out a level directly in the unreal engine.
Photoshop
Get texture, stretch it to desired size and shape. Drag in texture. resize by holding ctrl and drag corners. When done select polygonnal lasso tool adn outline the space wanted to be filled with the texture. when doe select stamp tool. Hold alt over a section of the texture furthest away from the edge to fill. Move to the edge that needs filling , you will see a ghostly image of the texture snapshot you have just taken. When happy with the positioning paint a new texture in place, move to the end of that square and repeat. Any gaps can be filled by repeating the process via the appropriate coordinates, ie, if you have a gap at the bottom ctrl left click the image to fill from the corresponding place.
The beauty of this method is once you have one wall in place you can polygonal cut another wall and stamp the texture on to that from the other. Keeping the continuity of the textures size and perspective.
With some photoshop knowledge I made a start to the blockout using the stamp method.
Firstly I imported the picture I wanted to work upon.
This is the corridor piece of the level, leading into one of the puzzle or boss rooms. I found a suitable seamless texture of some sandstone blocks.
I dragged in the seamless texture and placed it’s corners onto the wall, by holding cntrl and click dragging the corners. I made sure the overall shape of the blocks was not too distorted, basically I had to keep the texture confined to it’s original shape so as not to distort it, a square.
The texture sample was in place and now I needed to use it as a reference to fill out the rest of the wall.
With the polygonal lasso tool I made an outline of the wall I wished to apply it do. This is done by successive clicks, with each one a straight line is drawn between the two points, until the whole object has been traced, leaving you with a dotted, flickering, line.
Now I could select the stamp tool. The process for this tool is to hold alt and click over a part of the original texture. This takes a snapshot of the start point of the stamp. Then you begin to paint the snapshot of the texture from the space next to the texture. This paints the same square tile that the texture contains, basically copying the picture from the original to a new place. The trick is to get all of your brick edges to run in the same direction from the same point they ended.
These are the results of the first wall.
I was happy with this. All of the lines ran in conjunction with the lines of the wall itself. With this success on my first try I decided to polygonal lasso tool two other walls that ran along the same axis.
The door wall looked fine but the bottom of the lift shaft wall ran out, the vanishing point perspective was proving to be a pain in photoshop. I asked a few people if there was a tool to help me distort this feature, the only one I was made aware of was the distort, under edit- transform. This did indeed manipulate the picture tile but was a crud tool, making it look more obvious, like a child had made the changes. This was not a reliable source of amendment.
With all of the amending required with this process it was not efficient for this project, or maybe it is, I do not have enough knowledge with photoshop to know. With this in mind, along with a ticking clock for completion, I decided to try another method. Namely the second video posted above, ‘ Apply wallpaper to walls in photoshop.
After completing the directions in the video I found that this was not the method for me.
The tiling scaled when applied to a smaller surface and when I tried it with blocks an adjoining wall had bricks a fraction the size of those on first wall.
This clearly is not my line of education at the moment. Maybe this knowledge will help on another project, just not this one.
With no other helpful videos available I had no choice, I had to go with the first option.
I set about constructing the walls and floor on the picture. Using the same method of resizing, re scaling, and clone stamping. After what seemed a lifetime of doing, re-doing, scaling, and stamping I finally had a suitable piece of work.
With the first room done I moved on to the next, the boss room.
Most of this would be same as before. I began by using the wallpaper method. Firstly I needed to find a suitable scale for my blocks. I played around by dragging the texture onto the scene. Selecting fill (edit-fill) and testing the last, re-sized (on texture select image- image size, change width/height setting to percent, then change the number in the corresponding box to desirable percentage ), tile by stretching it across the floor, until it filled it. Finally I found a suitable size. Taking my jpeg of the block section I dragged it onto the scene. Filling the floor. I then did the same for the two large walls at the back of the scene. Finally, with each layer of texture, I traced the visible areas with the polygonal lasso tool and added a layer mask (bottom of layer list). This subtracted any texturing outside of the lassoed area, leaving me with a clean floor and wall texture.
With all of the easier areas done it was time to move on to the more tricky pillars. I had been made aware of warping images ( edit-transform-warp). This should help with my construction. At first it was a bit awkward but I finally got a decent result. I again used the same block texture I had, so far, used in all of the texturing.
I warped on.
After doing a few more pillars I worked some sort of routine out.
Firstly I would drag in the texture and scale it, angling the overall texture to the central alignment, this would help with the perspective, using the point where the block most facing me would be the imaginary central point. I could then angle the texture toward the side of the pillar with more space, giving me the beginning of perspective.
Next I would begin warping the middle of the texture ( I just found that warp is on the right click in this mode) upwards and downwards (as in the pic below), this is done via the handy blue grab icons.
With that done, roughly, I drag the corner ones into position.
Leaving me with a roughly set texture.
I then access warp again, via edit – transform. This is the final tidy up. I feel this second warping allows me to control the image finer, I could be imagining it though as I did this the last few times.
Leaving me with a final textured image.
It could all be a bit tidier, maybe I will do this once I have finished my plethora of pillars.
Doing my last pillar I noticed that, when beginning to warp, if I placed the two central blue dots onto their final position, on the pillar, when I pulled the outer corners up the central ones were pretty much where they needed to be.
Here is the completed background texturing of the boss room, including a lava pit.
Now for the base texturing of the puzzle room.
This room is more complex and has more features, so much fiddlier, yay.
I began by laying the floor, again following the wallpaper tutorial method.
The floor sapce was the easy part, all I needed was to find a method to add the cuts to the other floor detailing.
After some trial and error I found that if I select all of the detail, right click, and select ‘layer via cut’ a new layer would be added.
With this cut out detail on it. It was just a simple step of merging the two layers together to get a final, cut out, texture.
I them set about texturing the pillars in the scene in the same manner as before. This time was much easier and as it went on my skill with the warp tool progressed. This was my last pillar.
Not perfect but a definite improvement on the earlier ones.
Here is a pic of the puzzle room blockout with most of the background done.
The larger areas of the image were filled by the wallpaper method ( texture image-fill-select predefined gradient of texture). These were dragged out and applied as a square. Filling the extra detail, like the entrance at the bottom of the map, by selecting it and a decent overlap with the polygonal lasso tool. Then stamping the detail closest to the effected area to fill in the final detail.
The edges of the platform were filled by selecting their faces via the polygonal lasso tool and filling with the block colour with the stamp.
With the backdrop done it is time to bring some finer details into the scene.
I began with the movable blocks at the front.
These were originally going to be primary colours, which would combine on the coloured floor tiles, to form secondary colours, thus unlocking a lock on the boss room door. I changed my mind, this was too obvious. Instead opting for a rank of uniformly coloured boxes, each with a small riddle, leading to the true colour of the box. These can then be combined to create the secondary colours needed.
After trying to import a cube and warp it into a desirable position and shape ( it looked like a shape that used to be a cube) I gave up and created one in the unreal engine, which I took a screenshot of and imported into photoshop. Leaving me with much less tidying up to do (with warp). The results were not great but in time I will be able to hone these skills, maybe there is a more efficient way that I need to discover.
With that done I found some pictures for the rest of the scenes furniture. A chest,
torch,
brazier,
and altar.
The final three pictures all needed to be isolated from their backgrounds. Most was done with the soft select tool, with some extra, erroneous, detail cut via the polyganal lasso tool. When isolated it was a simple step of copying (cntrl&c) and pasting (cntrl & V) onto a new layer. Which was then ready to drag onto the scene and manipulate at will. The reversed torch was done by copying the original, cropped, version to a new layer. Then, via image-image rotation-flip horizontal, the image was flipped around.
I also placed some colour on the floor pads. Segregating them with the polygonal lasso tool and filling with a colour.
The altar was again a pain. I could not find a suitable image online, for the rotation I required, so my warping skills were once again put to the test. I feel it looks okay, for a blockout, but I am yet to find if this opinion carries across to more knowledgeable minds. In any case I can still amend it at a later date if required.
In retrospect, I could have left the cubes from the default, chequered patterns, or even selected and coloured each face, overlaying it with a new colour, or shade, but this is an exercise in manipulating external pictures in photoshop for me so this would have been counter productive to the honing of my skills.
I then realised I had no threats in the scene. In the finished level I want to have a continuous re-spawning of enemies, to disrupt the puzzle solving. These re-spawns will be set between a random count but there will only ever be two at a time, except maybe for the last part of the puzzle, when three, or even two and a lieutenant will spawn, complacency creates panic.
I found a tutorial on a method on dodging and burning.
Via the adjustments tab,
selecting curves,
then clicking the small ‘hand’ icon (above the line of pipettes on the left.
Then select the lightest part of the picture, then click drag upwards. This lightens all of the shading in the picture and distorts the graph. When a suitable shading is found rename the layer dodge. Repeat the process for the burn, remembering to drag the hand downwards for darker shading.
The final part of the process is reverting the shades back to invisible (our normal scene colouring) by inverting them. Click on the shade, colour, box in one of the curve layers,
cntrl & I click it, this will hide the shading layer.
Now you can select either of the two, to lighten or darken the areas on the image to the predefined shades.
See how where the dodge and burn intersect a mid shade is formed.
I added two more, for extra gradients of shading.
There are no limits to the amount you need.
Rubble
For some extra life in the scene I decided to add some rubble in the catacomb scene. I could only find one suitable pile of rubble but it needed some work.
As you can see it is a modern pile of rubble. Not so convincing for an ancient Egyptian structure. I needed to change it.
I started by isolating the pile with the soft select tool, then placing the new pic on a new layer.
When done I simply copied and stamped some of the chosen faces into larger looking blocks. Filling the rest of the scene with the dusty texture.
With that done I found some piles of sand and isolated them to their own layers too.
This pile of sand was too accurate for the context of my scenes so far. To blend it in I repeated the copy and stamp method. To create a more blurred effect.
Lighting
Also once they are created you can manipulate the curve in the layers graph, giving you more control how light or dark you want the shade.
With my shades created for the scene I set about adding the lighting.
For this task I used a tablet and pen.
As this was my first use of them I decided to take it easy. I found the positioning of the pen awkward at first but soon adapted to it. Also the slickness of the pen on the pad proved troublesome. As the time went on this lessened, becoming more controllable. With some extra concentration to my penmanship.
I began by adding the brighter dodge to the central piece, behind the torch, radiating outwards with each, lighter, shade. The darkest burn filled in the rest of the scene, giving it a gloomy feel.
I repeated the process for the puzzle room.
Changing the robot guards, which I had found on the internet, for a model I had created previously. I imported it into the unreal engine, textured it, and took a screenshot, which I then imported into photoshop, isolated, and placed it into the scene.
The guardians in the level of the game are automated, only the boss is human. They are multi-functional, with four appendages attached to a rotating body. The whole robot is held in place by a magnetic field, fuelled by a central core.
In this room there will be a constant re spawn of these enemies on a timer. The timing will be decided upon testing ( by giving the player enough time to locate and move a single block into place. This tactic should allow the player to assemble the puzzle, whilst not allowing them to become complacent.
The final room was the boss room itself.
The central point of this room is the boss, Horus.
Horus because he was the god assigned to protect the Pharaoh. In this case the Pharoah is Horus, or wearing his visage anyway.
I found the pic online and isolated it, then placing it into the scene.
The power is generated from his suit, so this must be damaged first. Once you get past the shield.
When the shield is depleted the armour will be open to attack. Next the armour, this will have less life than the shield, before exposing the boss himself with his more reasonable health bar.
His staff will be the weapon he tries to stop you with while you do this.
I would like to implement a full repertoire of moves for him at this point but as my animation is under par at the moment a paragon characters blueprint could come in handy. One with a staff, where I can make some mid/ long range blasts in for variety.
The last logical piece of the puzzle for me is some light explaining on the pictures of the blockouts, in case someone else is asked to build it.
My Blueprint Factory 