[WK 5-7] Blocking Out Rooms
In some of the podcasts / talks I listened to [reference video] with Sandy Peterson discussing and analysing his design choices he mentioned a few times that he always wanted the area the player started in to be clear of monsters with generally a doorway seperating. This makes sense because the player might its unfair to be placed in the centre of a hostile environment without preparation and it doesn't give the player a chance to brace themselves for the incoming combat encounter. Since the levels in Quake tend to follow on from eachother its even more important the player is given a chance to rest and recover health / ammunition to maintain a good flow of pacing. As a result I knew I wanted the starting area to be a square that opens into the level.
Due to the vertical nature of the level, I decided I wanted the entrance to open up to an elevator that would take the player down into the pits. At the beginning of Half-Life the player is taken on a train ride throughout the whole level, which is really effective at giving the player a full picture of the level creating a framework for the player's mental model of the map. At first I just made the elevator a straight tunnel however after getting used to the tools in Trenchbroom [reference] I started to play around with the geometry a bit more. As I played around I noticed these blocky scaffolding support like structures appearing. I decided these worked really well with Quakes strong square forms and began to look more like an elevator on some sort of man made constructed support. In, An Architectural Approach To Level Design, (Totten 2014), goes into the appearance of consistent forms in ancient Greek architecture, which created modular sections that communicated ideas visually. I believe creating lots of small modular scoffolding / support details as can be seen here would be integral to establishing a cohesive communication of the mine environment the player would be in. I also really liked the scaffolding structures because they created gaps that I could open into the caves from different sides so like in Half Life [Reference] the player gets to see the whole level before they enter it.
When I was blocking out Cave A I ran into an issue with the orientation of the space. I realised I wasn't going to be able to rotate either Cave A or the elevator because the brushes wouldn't line up with eachother correctly leaving gaps between the geometry. This means I'll have to rethink how the steal paths leading to Cave's B, C and D would work so for now I just left the start entrance as the main entrance joining straight into the cavern.
Exploration of Abandoned Mines in Redruth
The tops of the abandoned mines where generally square shaped with large cylindrical shapes attached to one corner, presumably for extraction / feeding air.
The walls contained lots of various alcoves in asymetric patterns most commonly with a cresent shape at the tops of them again presumably for extraction of resources or air. Many of the mines and features were very geometric with sharp lines. I particularly liked the look of the alcove to the left with its triangular roof and harsh lighting contrast it looks very ominous almost like something dangerous might be being contained within.
I also noticed broken up bricks littering the paths as can be seen on the right.
Alcoves and Features
After exploring the mines I decided that rather than making the perimeter walkway steel, man made and straight that I'd make it look more organic and dress the seam between the lava and wall a bit more. I found this to be really effective at visually communicating the mine environment. More organic forms in the physical geometry aren't really seen in the original Quake, probably in part because there's more to render. Whilst it's not true to the crude shapes seen in original Quake it does communicate the mine environment really well and helps to make my environment look more distinctive. It is however still very blocky, which harks back to the crude shapes of original Quake.
Issues:
Issue One: Building - I had an issue for quite awhile where I couldn't figure out how to build the level in order to playtest. However after reading through the Trenchbroom manual and some Quake modding forums I managed to figure it out. I had to first setup the compiler in engine in order to compile the map using a couple of compiling tools [link tools] and then use another software to run the build.
Issue Two: Texturing - For the longest time I couldn't figure out how to import texture files. I'd been following the tutorials as previously mentioned and looked in the Trenchbroom manual but couldn't understand what it ment. Eventually, when I was looking at the entities property panel I figured out the solution because there is a property named wad that you you can import from that is seperate from where you browse the wad files.
Scaffolding Motifs
Here you can see I start to add more detail by repeating the scaffolding motif across other supporting structures, again reinforcing the cave like environment
Three Stages of Cave A
Texturing The Start Area
Initially I used these marble textures in the starting roomm because I thought the brick look would fit the theme. I also thought that the cool grey and clean edges would contrast with the warm ruggedness of the rock in the mine. However I found that it just didn't fit the look very well and looked too futuristic so I changed it to the brick and metally textures you can see in the bottom pic.
Stairs or Platform?
I went back and forth on wether to use a platform or stairs a couple of times since initially the platform was a lot smaller and much more awkward for the player to stay on however I found the stairs weren't a feasable option either within the space of the level. I'd already made the space wider to accomodate the stairs so when I tried the platform again, it worked a lot better, however I now have an issue where the player is quite exposed to enemies and its a very short window the player has to get on the platform.