Portfolio
In Addition to the pictures below you can view my linkedin profile by clicking on the icon, Linkedin displays more information about my skill sets and experience.
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Level Designs
Creating detailed overviews of an environment helps yourself and others involved get a good grasp early on in development, these overviews are produced after discussions, research and sketches. They shows by means of a birds eye perspective important game play related information. It's particularly useful to create overviews in high resolutions such as 4000x4000 pixels so they can be printed out and stuck on walls for everyone to see!
Trenchtown is a level currently in development for an Unreal Engine 3 powered project that I'm working on, I decided on this format of overview as it suites traditional capture the flag mechanics. Priorities lie with a layout and where players will meet for a confrontation. Accessibility and landmarks are also important to help players navigate to their goals. All of these design priorities have been displayed in the overview which leads on to the next task of actually building and assessing the level in the game itself.
Anat Sanu is a fictional ancient continent, in this example the design looks at how zones will be constructed so that they form a large landmass, this could be considered "World" design often required for MMORPG's like World Of Warcraft. Important information such as settlements and major geographical locations are displayed. Further refinements to each of the five zones would be displayed in their individual documents.
In cases where more specific information is required like single player missions, I'll often use a different approach, the overall design structure will emphasize a step by step (in the eyes of the player) format, this keeps a potentially complicated document simple to digest.
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Tiling Textures
My tiling level textures are created using real life photo sources and various photoshop techniques, often in resolutions of 512x512 and 1024x1024 pixels. Below you can see a small selection of textures I have made for No More Room in Hell, with a few effects such as normal maps and specular the end results are pretty neat.
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3D Modeling
Over the last generation game technology has evolved to a point where basic primitive BSP world construction is nearing its demise. It still has life in certain cases, such as games like Team Fortress 2 but the general outlook has turned towards 3d applications like Maya, Lightwave and 3d Max.
Level designers require an ever more artistic vision on top of their design skills, as 3d worlds become more complex a good understanding of scene composition and performance is a vital aspect that can't be overlooked. Giving artists full creative control can produce fantastic visual results, but there is far more to a game than an interactive art showcase. The best results combine strict design with an artistic eye.
Below you can see three example scenes of differing detail, generally the work I do is low polygon but with enough detail for artists to take over and know where it's heading. The scene far right is an example of modular construction; the entire corridor is built from 6 pieces that tile seamlessly as often it's not viable to build completely unique environments.
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My Completed Levels
These levels can also be seen in the maps section of my website, however, it seemed fitting to add them here.
Exiles
The Environment seen here was created for the Sony PS3 on EPICS Unreal Engine 3, my work Included brainstorming, reference boards, grey box layout, AI navigation, gameplay scripting, cinematic sequeneces, collison construction and testing. This was the second environment built while in the pre-production phase of development and it came out rather well, the artists at CLIMAX did a fantastic job.
Citylife
Citylife puts gamers in the shoes of survivors during a zombie outbreak, this is a work in progress level for a fantastic HL2 Modification. Click on the download link for more information.
Haditha
The city of Haditha is an Official level for Insurgency a HL2 total conversion, with nearly 100% custom content Haditha was quite a serious undertaking, almost a years worth of beta testing proved exciting to get the gameplay and visuals just right. I'm particually happy with the way environment lighting turned out, as other level designers might know how fiddly it can be in Source engine.
Times Square & Subway
Creating a replica of Times Square was no easy task, we modified the scales of every building to work with the Nanosuit and the overall end results are stunning. Although Times Square was not a focus of mine towards the end of production I worked to create the geometry and structure that is featured in the game today.
Dark Heart
Dark Heart is towards the middle part of Crysis 2 It really sets the tone for the alien invasion, creepy atmospheric subway tunnels leading out to giant collapsed street sections. All followed by a nice refreshing 30 meter wave at the end.
Battery Park
The opening level of Crysis 2 takes place in Battery Park, Lower Manhattan. This whopper of a level really pushed the boundaries of console technology due to the vast amount of different themes inside a single mission but with the help of countless individuals we pulled it off. Keep an eye out for some fun eastereggs ;)
