Trek To The Factory
Summary: A walk through the remains of a factory, centuries after the end of the world, This is my second foray into Maya whiteboxing and the first time working with a large 3D space.
Role: Level Designer
Project: Classwork
Team: Solo Dev
Development time: March 2022-April 2022
Made Using: Maya/Unity
This is my second foray into Maya whiteboxing and the first time working with a large 3D space.
Lesson Learned:
Maya to Unity pipeline: I got to understand how to get things from Maya to Unity as well as tricks and techniques that are good practice when working on this pipeline!
3D Level Design Techniques: By using a combination of established level design archetypes, Environmental storytelling, and Sightlines, I can make an engaging and entertaining level!
The First Third
I wanted the factory you reach at the end of the level to be a landmark of sorts. It would be a place that would be viewable to the player in all the major portions.
This is why I show them the factory at the very beginning to begin creating anticipation and intrigue in the player, making them want to explore the area.
This crater serves as the major story telling piece of what exactly happened in this area. This crater is seen at the beginning of the level and at the end ties the whole level together under one theme.
You get to see the crater and then as you travel you see the impact it has had on the local area. When you see it again at the end the crater is now recontextualized.
This is the first major area the player enters after the beginning which is meant to be a storage unit. This area is meant to be a showcase of sightlines and guidance in an interior space.
The area has many broken scaffoldings the player can navigate and walk around through, but they will never get lost as the scaffolding is always placed so that the player knows where to go by just looking at the way the scaffolding is pointing.
Once the player exits the warehouse, they see what is an underground transport tunnel that caved in. This part was meant to create a sense of scale of just how big the factory was.
The Second Third
The first image you see in this page was the prototype of the Parking Lot.
Here we see the Parking lot now scaled down and put in the rest of the environment. This was meant to be an example of guidance in outside areas. I used the various car pileups to guide the player on where to go.
One of the weaknesses this level has is the lack of color variation. It can be very difficult to navigate an area with a very limited color palette, this is why I tried to use widely contrasting colors to tell the player even in low light or low color areas on where to go.
In retrospect, I would’ve attempted to included multiple textures to distinguish the various segments of the parking lot.
What seems like a dead is just on the second floor of the parking lot.
When players first entered this area, I was worried they would be confused on where to go next, so I included the bright yellow parking block that signifies the player to turn around. It helped a lot in playtests!
This is one of the more complicated shots level design wise. As I’m pulling double duty with the parking blocks here.
Many are angled towards the door that is currently unseen from this angle allowing the player to infer there’s something of interest in that corner.
However, the yellow parking blocks are also trailing towards the broken segment which would’ve led to a collectible. In hindsight I could’ve used the blue cars to signify one path and the yellow parking blocks to signify the other.
This is one of the 3 snapshot areas of the game; this is meant to be a show-off point to show the scale of the forest in the game.
When designing the snapshot segments i wanted them to not only be great for showcasing where the player needed to go but also function as little “picnic points” where the player can simply enjoy watching the view seen from it.
This is the exit to the parking lot and into the next area.
I anticipated that most players would just throw themselves off the parking lot so intentionally put these cars in this formation and close to the projected landing zone so that they would be able to identify their next path.
Another cool hallway scene for players to chew on. This one is meant to give a sense of eeriness to the locale, much like how actual abandoned areas are.
This next section is another storage area that had its roof destroyed.
It functions as a light platforming challenge and provides some excitement as the player has top navigate the scaffolding to the next area. There was even meant to be another collectible here.
The Final Third
This is the factory. I wanted to sell its destruction by chewing out huge holes in it.
This not only helps with selling the destruction and decay of the area but also gives the player a preview of things to come.
The orange car is meant to signify to the player that they’re meant to go up the factory.
Once inside the factory I wanted to sell the age of the destruction by including a tree and grass.
This not only helps with the narrative building of the area, but it also functions as a point of interest right next to the intended path for the player.
Seen here is an additional platforming challenge that was intended to get to another collectible.
Adding extra floors to the factory helped make it seem much more populated.
I originally wanted to included further platforming but due to time constraints i was unable to.
Finally on the roof of the factory I left some small blue scaffolding to signify the final sightseeing spot in the level.
I use the same idea of the parking block to make sure the player knows that they should turn around.
The top of the factory is meant to reward the player for reaching the end by being able to show them the sea of trees they waded through and being able to see the other buildings.
Much like in actual hiking, its rewarding to see your progress visualized from a high spot.
The Background is meant to be mountainous to hide the skybox and on the other side as well as introduce greater scale of the location.