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CG Master Academy

May 4th, 2019

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CG Master Academy Level Design in games is a 10 weeks online course with a lecture from a lead game designer from Naughty Dog Emilia Schatz with a deadline every Friday where you hand in Course work. In this course, it explores the theories of games, shapes composition, architecture, and player psychology.  The Levels prototypes that were created for this course was using the Unity engine and Maya.  

 

Here are some of the many concepts that were discussed in the course:

 

  • Quantifying and Qualifying what a level design actually is.

  • Defining what the role space has on an environment. 

    • Defining boundaries

    • Unilites/denial

    • Building context

  • Defining a language that helps define the space.

  • How to create a block out level.

  • Understanding shapes/mass

    • Negative vs Positive spaces

      • Push and pull

  • Composition

  • Occlusion.

  • Relations

    • Mass

    • Orientation

    • Grouping

  • Implied

  • Special Definitions

    • Clear Vs Ambiguous

 

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Final Week Assignment Scenario:

 

Assignment Prompt: Many years ago, the cowboy’s mother was a prospector, and struck it rich. Unfortunately, her partner betrayed her and stole all the gold for himself. The cowboy’s mom tracked him down, but he died before she could find out where he stowed all the gold. Recently, the cowboy happened upon some clues about the gold’s location. But his sworn enemy overheard his plans to find it and has gotten here first, with an army of desperados. They’ll use any means necessary to keep the cowboy from his treasure.

Deliverables:

 

In this final assignment, Emilia Schatz has created the following level beat that I followed to create a full level:    ​

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  • A Singular level

  • Following this Structure:

    • Explore​

    • Vale, then Small Combat

    • Explore

    • Vale, then Lage combat

    • Find the Treasure

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  • Use what was learned about speaking to the player with the voice of archetypes. Try to incorporate aspects of each. Begin with the Herald and Mentor. The Mentor should decrease over the course of the level as the Shadow increases.

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  • Upload a jpg image of your level along with your project file.

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  • Liberties: Free to use any means to create the geometry, including borrowing from previous levels created for this class.

 

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Mechanics

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In this project, it is a third-person shooter action-adventure game. where you play as a cowboy with the camera angle over the shoulder position. 

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Controls are as follows:

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  • Player can run (shift)

  • Jump (spacebar)

    • Vaulting over waist-high obstacles when pressing forward (W) and jump (spacebar)

  • Focus aim (right click hold)

  • Savepoints (as trigger volumes)

  • Three (3) weapons

    • Holster (1 key)

    • Pistol (2 key)

    • Machine Gun (3 key)

    • Grenade (g)

The project will be available to download after an updated.

CGMA Level Design for Games - Playthrough

Final assessment 
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