This is the first entry in the game development blog for creator wizard seth's video games. Here we have a temple environment. I have done alot of creating environments for video games in the past couple months. Most of my previous attempts ended up looking extremely disorganized and very incoherent. Learning to place things in a visually appealing way which is also very good for gameplay is a tough puzzle. The environments for this article are referencing a video game I am creating that can be found at www.creatorwizardseth.com or by searching through my profile for a download of the game.
And this concludes this viewing portion of your visual pleasures. Next, we will take a step back and appreciate some of the learning steps that were taken to develop this ability to create these environments.
Here is an earlier version where I attempted to utilize a landscape to make things more familiar and easier to build upon. However I realized that I was under pressure to finish the project and placing rocks and developing my ability to paint the texture onto a terrain in an appealing way was not as important as simply getting something out there that was playable.
An honorable mention of a previous attempt at creating a level. We can see some coherent structures and the structures fit the landscape very well. The structures are very open on the interiors and the arches connected to the roofs is somewhat appealing. There is a lack of detail density.
This staircase really sticks out to me. When I look at it something about it connected to the fence gives it a certain sense of mystery. It basically is asking the player to explore what is there. Of course, there is not really anything interesting.
I should add that at the point I had created this I was still thinking that I was going to be using Solid Colors for everything. This was still something I was unsure about but I had not settled on a map structure that I liked enough to settle into trying to work with bricks and tiles and other materials.
Here you may recognize this as a more undeveloped version of the map that is featured at the beginning of this post. We can see that the level of detail, the size of the features, the interconnection of the features is not as developed.
As your skills are developing sometimes you put down a few ideas and then you just get stuck and it's better to start something new and so here is an idea fragment of mine that never developed into anything.
An early attempt at structure. Things are organized but there is no verticality or interesting features. Too disorganized and the features melt together instead of stand apart from one another.
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An idea fragment based on simple geometry and floating highways.
Much of my earlier attempts at creating a 3D environment utilized the idea of using shapes in an abstract way instead of trying to form structures that seem like architecture. It was an interesting idea but it was very hard to make organized. It's very important to keep things easy to navigate in a computer game world because our senses are limited and people will easily become lost if things aren't laid out in a way that is easy to navigate.
Very abstract attempt here, however there is some structural elements and it does seem quite organized.
Here is an attempt at an open field and using some walls and platforms to create a strategical environment. The structures are way too simple and there is no verticality and so this example does not work.
An early attempt at trying to keep things as structured and architectural as possible. Things are coherent, however there is not enough options when moving around. Being able to have choices of where to go and how to get there is important and the flow of traffic in this environment is too linear.
An honorable mention. Focusing on keeping this curved and rounded. The main flaw in this environment is that it's too alien looking and impossible to navigate unless you spend a lot of time running around in it in circles to get acquainted with it.
This attempt is my first success creating something that looked like a large structure with interconnected parts. Up until now it was just abstract looking geometry that I was attempting to fit together like Legos unsuccessfully.
With this angle we can look inside the structure I have created. It is multi level and the two levels are connected via staircases. There is flow however the interior is way too cramped and it was my intention to leave things more open because I don't want my game to be a game where you are reacting to surprises but rather you can see your opponent coming and have time to think and react to what they're doing. Surprises are important, but I don't want the game to be about who is the bigger nerd and can move and click faster because they play video games all day and never go outside. I'm talking to you aimbot travis.
We can see here that I am trying to use archways as bridges to connect the structure to the landscape.
Just a fragment.
A fragment as simple floating beveled cubes. I did start out at the very beginning of my journey attempting to create whole environments with beveled cubes of varying colors.
This last example would be the attempt before I was able to successfully come to a close on a level I was comfortable with launching the game with. We can see a serious attempt at keeping things organized and spending time trying to fill the space with lots of detail. There is a sense of interconnected and a choice of paths. There is too much open space that is empty. The features are not very detailed or interesting.
Here we can see a very primitive structure still attempting to integrate abstract geometry shapes to fill empty space. Interesting effect, once I am more skilled I think I can utilize this better.
all o yalls have a good day nowtake care ya hear
