Planning
What Went Right?
After obtaining the information for creating an adventure genre level, I was confused at first on where to begin the process whether is making the landscape, size, theme and lighting. What I did was request feedback from experienced individuals and was given the idea to create a mood board. Creating a mood board really helped because not only I have a visual aid on what my level design would look like but also what areas should I set my level
Level Scale was adjustable
The scale for my level at first seemed excessive because of the dead area as landscape being in the level only to cover up the void that we were told. Going through the first pass, I could see that I could trim the level down in size, cutting away the dead areas or trimming the fat on the level. After another pass and playthrough of my level I made sure that it was an adequate size for not only myself but for my team to lower GPU crashes.
Blockmesh started to come alive
At first when doing standard blocks, the level didn't really look like anything but later in the blockmesh, shaping lanterns, chairs and other furniture it started to make the level feel like there were even assets in there when there really wasn't. Also this made it easier to place assets into the level because I already knew where to place them and the size.
Reductions Improved Gameplay
When going through the first pass of the level, it was very boring because it was just running until you get to the last 2 minutes of the level where you have to climb to the hilltop and walk across 2 bridges so I asked what can I do to make it better and more interactive without making a whole other level. The answer was simple, by just removing block from the bridges and change the block out for the courtyard where you have to climb in instead of walking in.
Team Communication
While working on our levels in Portfolio 2, the team and myself would get together in our discord server and have a standup meeting talking about what everyone is working on and if there are any assets that others have found that can be used amongst the team, if not then its not an issue. Also in discord we really had the communication down to the letter because we created a system that if someone needed to check out the project itself, they would inform the server and explain why they are checking out the level. Once the personnel are done with the level, they would inform the server that the level is checked in and to make sure to get the latest file.
What Went Wrong?
Prioritizing
During the process for designing my level, there were many tasks that I needed to complete but I was running into the issue of trying to work on multiple tasks at the same time. For example, replacing blockmeshes with finished assets in the Cathedral while changing the design in the cave. After struggling for a while, I thought of the idea to type out everything that I did and what I need to do. Once Im satisfied with that task, I can cross it out and move onto the next task.
Outsourced Assets
When it came to the assets, it was very tough because we were not allowed to use megascans and the other assets in Unreal Engine were not 3D assets, many of them have back face culling so I would have to put walls back to back to prevent the back face culling. Also the rocks were a great idea for the mountains but for ledges for jumping I had to spend most of my time playing through the level, figuring out what areas of the rocks that a player can climb and walk on without any issues with collision.
File Crashes
When we were packaging our build for the level, we discovered that even though Unreal Engine said that the package build was successful, the execute file did not load the game. My team tried to to build themselves to see if it was just the computer but we came to a consensus that there was an error in the build. What we did to resolve this is troubleshoot to see if there was a sole reason for the error by looking at the history logs and debugging which we couldn't find the main issue so what we did was revert on the work and rebuild which worked.
Working on this project did have a good amount of issues when it came to the level especially when we were not allowed to utilize the landscape tool to create mountains, peaks, valleys and waterways. This would've made our time quicker and to work on other priorities like buildings, interior assets like furniture and possibly give us time to make our own 3D model assets and textures to give the same mood to the rest of the project.
Landscaping
GPU Crashes
A huge issue that not only myself but also my team has encountered many times are GPU crashes while doing asset replacements or adding textures. We are not sure what the sole reason for it was so I went onto forums for Unreal Engine to see if other people are having the same issues and there was. The issue apparently is Unreal Engine has issues with the NVIDIA 30 series graphics cards for laptops. So what the team and I had to do is save way more frequently and submit explaining the save and submissions.
Conclusion
Even though there were many headaches and stress while being on this journey, I will say that I am proud of my team and myself. They came together and worked on a common goal to make sure our level is playable and appealing to the audience. Were there ways to make our project better? Of course there is but with the time that we were allotted, we adapted and prioritized what we needed to get done.