Hi everyone, Emanuel here, Happy New Year!

Guess what? I haven’t made much progress with the level design during the holidays because I’ve been with my family in a different place where I didn’t bring my computer that has Unity installed. Before the Christmas Eve(24th), my dad told me this:

”You should take the time to recharge it, and I don’t mean your laptop, but your heart”

I felt that’s what I needed, an “everything is going to be alright” moment. But for now, I’m going to explain what I have been working on.

Plans and one major issue

We’ve decided that we will get back to work on the 8th of January while enjoying the holidays. Before I was heading home, I had plans to do some homework with the levels and I asked Rasmus for help of how to handle the Github repository we use to store the game project.

When I got back to my apartment I started to download a clone of the project on my computer and took the time to study level design while waiting. After 2 hours passed, I checked the computer if the download was complete and only 3 percent had been downloaded which was really frustrating.

After realizing my broadband was not fast enough to download huge files, I decided to create some prototype level design instead so that I’m prepared to fix any current issues with the levels when I come back to my usual workplace.

My work so far, during the Holidays

I mentioned in my previous blog that I was planning to replace all lights in the park level with an emissive material, but I then realized it would take too much time to make it look immersive.

Instead, I made a scene of multiple point lights divided into 2 groups and changed the render mode in one group to Important while leaving the other one on Auto. The group that was set on Important was working fine without any one turning off in the scene.

The first group of lights is set to Important(Good)

The second group of lights is set on Auto(Not good)

The next thing I did was making a forest region of mountains and landmarks to create a world map of the game. After having finished decorating the terrain, I started to create the sea with a blue 3D-cube with its position lowered to a sea level to make both the sea and the lakes from one single 3D object.

The world map of the game

After that, I placed multiple nametags in different locations as landmarks to make the level look more like a world map for the player. I was a little disappointed that I couldn’t find a way to decrease the sides of the terrain to have the same canvas as the mock-up image I created the world map from.

The mock-up image

Conclusion

I wasn’t exactly sure how to act as a level designer but I only hope that the work I have been doing is good enough. For now, I want to quickly finish the park level so that I can start making the next level, Luna’s hideout.

Thank you for reading this and stay tuned for more blogs.

/Emanuel Holm