Ultimate Game Design : Building game worlds

Building Game Worlds
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U L T I M A T E G A M E D E S I G N
� Description of the intended gameplay purpose (for example, fighting your
way up the hill to capture a strategic enemy stronghold)
Figure 2-5 shows a sample of the kind of topographic sketch you might start working
from. Keep in mind that these are only reference or starting points. We start at the
macro level and work our way down toward level specifics.
The more work that you do up front to assemble conceptual drawings and collect
quick reference material, the clearer the task of building environmental geometry becomes.
This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, but in the heat of developing
games on condensed schedules, it can easily fall by the wayside. Normally, there is
scant time to do a robust amount of preproduction. It happens in parallel with game
development. This is why it’s usually so important to be able to create quick and easily
evolved conceptual drawings to build from, and to plan to build in modularity
with asset use.
Step Two: Create Contour Lines
You might choose to scan into an image file the paper map you’ve created for use as a
template. Load the image into the 3ds max or Maya background image plane (a common
starting point for several types of modeling, including environmental and character
work). From there, you can trace the contour outlines of your image to create
spline paths or shape outlines of your level’s major features. Once you have the
contour lines, then adjust all of your elevation information by raising and lowering
the curves to end up with 3-D contour lines.
FIGURE 2-5
Land (Flat)
Buildings
Maze
Maze entrance
Topographic map example 1
NW plateau
SE Plateau
Maze
Battlestone’s prison
Oil pools