Level Design Blog 18

Blog 18: 3/12-3/25

Once my previous project was done, I had the time to go back to my first semester project: my Borderlands 3 level. There were a lot of issues with that level, many of them simply due to the fact that I didn't have much experience with Unreal or level design in general when I made it--but a lot of the problems with the level were also to do with the relatively small amount of research I did on Borderlands before starting the level.

Through Capstone and my last few level design projects, I've learned a lot that I wanted to bring back into that level and fix. There were several main problems that I identified with it: the level was too small, it wasn't built for multiple players, and, just like my last level, there wasn't much going on besides unlocking doors.

I started by importing several packs of low-poly rocks to speed up the process, since one of the pieces of criticism I got on the original level was about my use of the landscape tool to make paths. I used the rocks from the pack, along with the stairs and bridges I had created in Maya for the original level, to build out a path through the level, including several optional areas and a split in the path near the end. I tried to keep to the general flow of the original level plan, but I expanded several areas and made everything much larger.

Once I had the general layout of the level created, I began planning out interactions and encounters along the path of the level. I wanted to use Blueprints more to create more of the chaos that Borderlands is known for, so I scripted a few simple encounters, including enemies appearing via vehicle and out of doorways.

I also added more life to the world, with more distinct areas and a few surprises near the end of the route: an area where the player has to dodge explosions and a plaza where the fountain begins to overflow.

I built this level in the same Unreal project that I used for the initial level, so that I would have access to all of the Blueprints and assets I created for the original version. However, the asset pack that I used in the original level came with over 30,000 assets, many of which I purged so that I could push the project to Perforce more easily. I ran into some issues as I was working on this level with references to assets that had been removed months ago. However, it didn't seem like any of the issues were game-breaking, thankfully.

I worked on this level for only the first three days of spring break before leaving for GDC, so there are still a lot of issues that I need to go back and fix, especially with enemy spawning and loot drops. I also want to add a better checkpoint system, so that dying doesn't send the player all the way back to the beginning. However, both main paths are able to be completed, and I had a lot of fun coming back to this level with a fresh perspective. The in-progress video is here:

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