Interview Tom Hanrahan

Tom Hanrahan is currently a Level Designer at Monolith Productions. Before working at Monolith, he worked at Timegate Studios on the games F.E.A.R Extraction Point, Perseus Mandate, and Files. This guy has been designing levels since he was 14 years old since he had a lot of free time (even though he was getting a C in his geometry class). When you start designing and making levels, you first have to start in doing stuff for fun and making all types of things when you have free time.

            He basically starts by designing small test rooms or areas in order to get ideas started. It basically helps him design an architectural and lighting theme for the level. Once he has his theme done, he will come up with a layout for the entire level.

            If the them is already in place and the concept artist has already dictated what he should be designing, then he usually start by drawing a complete layout for the level and then make sure that what he creates matches the scale and style of the concept.

            There is also the fact of finding inspiration and all types of references everywhere for architecture. The best thing to do as a level designer is to go to places and travel according to him. It is necessary to visit certain places to get a good sense of how you want your levels to shine and what type of aura will be good for the game play.

            The most common mistake he finds in a level design is the lack of detail. He knows that getting the main shape of the level is important, but playing in a level with no interesting qualities or little qualities is bad for a player’s experience. Even if a section of a level won’t take long for a player to explore and pass through because the part of the game is fast play, a player will capture the undetailed parts of the rooms and will hence see the game experience as intense as it should be.

            Something to always keep in mind is how you always have to make sure the level you are creating is made for fun game play. That being said, he believes that architecture has two main roles within a game level which is creating a sense of place, mood, and purpose. Then you will have to facilitate the sense of a purpose and what the player needs to do in the level interaction. Consistent architecture will unify the entire level with ease and will make the level shine much more than having a bunch of different mixed styles in the architecture.

GreyBOX Design Mock Up #2

                         For this homework assignment we were given the task to complete the gray box mock up and the import that again in UDK. I worked on lighting a little bit but mostly just re-aligned my environment in order to look like a whole so I can be able to rebuild the scene in UDK. It was a straight forward assignment and have much more to do in order to finish the level design.

Military Base UDK

             For this homework assignment we were given the task to go ahead and create a game room for the models we prepared last time. It was a difficult job to set up for someone who is inexperienced in UDK. It was pretty straight forward importing the fbx files though. The one thing that really annoyed me was creating geometry in UDK, but I only think the reason for that is the weird key selections for their tools and the shortcuts are pretty weird as well.

Rough Box Layout

The way this game will be created will be similar to a batman/metal gear sort of game play with a lot more futuristic twist in it. It will have a retro type of art work that will be similar the animation Ghost in a Shell and have other characteristics that will make the ambience seem old and futuristic at the same time. The way the team will correspond will be work that will be shown in the bullet points and will be done according to that order in the requirements section. It will only take 4 weeks for the team of 16 to finish the game, so there will be a lot of times where we would have to push work through in order to meet our deadline.

1.      Time: The design team would have about 4 weeks to work on this assignment since it is one level.

2.      Tech: The game engine will most likely be used. MAYA and PHOTOSHOP will be used in order to create the models for the game. The Unreal engine will be one of the fundamental tools used for the game production as well. Logic will be used for the audio of the game as well as many other programs including Midi files. It will be important to add a good programmer for writing scripts and it will be more efficient if it is going take one person to do the job.

3.      Limitations: We would have to contribute 12 new assets for the level in order to make the work flow much better and less confusion on the art style and how it is going to be launched. There would have to be crunch time for those assets, which will be held 2 days to complete 3 different ones. The main character and environment layout will have to be completed first in order to get a good visual on the level. Then the enemy models will have to be finished in the end as well. Audio will have to be made as well during the programming of the game in the last week. There will be 16 people working on this project.

4.      Requirements: The main character is an important asset to the game so that is always a must have. There also need to be a good environmental layout in order to get all of the assets placed well (shouldn’t take that long to make).  There has to be props and buildings for this environment, including 5 different enemies for the player to counteract with. The game has to be programed in the Unreal Engine and the game play has to be spot on with the description as well.

5.      Purpose: The level will be a single player story mode level that will be consisting of a retired vet (35 yr old) trying to rescue a hostage that can lead her to a Mob Boss from the city who seems to be connected with a weird drug that can let a person experience time in a slower pace.  It will be placed in a suburban city slum with a rainy type of weather. The main character will have tights on with spy gear and assassination gear as well. The level will be about half way in game time so it will be a challenging level to play through and the main character will need to find an enemy to get info from the level (hints).

6.      GamePlay: The game play will have to start with the character on a rooftop of a cheesecake factory patrolling the area. She will glance at the other factory that seems closed down and she will find guards taking the hostage inside (scene will have a lot of lights flashing with circular spots). The main character is able to change weaponry with the directional buttons and move with an analog (including moving the camera with another analog). She will be able to sneak attack with a range of different weapons. Hand to hand combat will be one of her specialty and will be used a lot during gameplay, as well as shooting fights. The game will have a lot of secret passageways for the character to infiltrate the place in different places (making gameplay unique once in a while) and will be able to do certain take downs with different styles in undetected. Once inside the building, she will head towards a door that is electronically locked and with a key as well. The electronic lock is located to the left of the building in the basement, guarded by one guard. As soon as the guard is killed or knocked out, a guard 3 times the size will start fighting the main character. The key will be located in the opposite of the building in the cellar. It will be booby-trapped and will have alarm triggers that will end the level in failure. If 3 guards sound a call in a wooky takie it will end the level in failure as well. As soon as the main character opens the main door, she will be encountered with the hostage and a Mob Leader she’s been tracking down as well. You will be placed in a situation that will have to base your instincts to the test. The player will have 2 different choices, either shoots the leader including the hostage, or scare off the leader with an electric current destroying the lights in the building created by you right hand’s glove. If the player chooses the first one, he/she will find it more lengthy and difficult to find the Mob Boss. The second choice will let you find more detail from the hostage from their central point of operations and an idea for their plan for the city, but the Mob Leader you let escape will confront you again, with more tricks up in his sleeve that the player will find more challenging than the last confrontation.

7.      Theme: It will be a cheesecake factory located in Tokyo Japan. It will be futuristic, but it will still have that lingering past in the slums since people are still poor and can’t really afford the luxury of modern technology. There will be many different tall buildings in the back ground with a lot of color lights coloring the main ground the player will be located in.

 

I strongly believe that the design team will be able to finish the project in time. It will be a simple task to get it all done in 4 weeks since we will have about 16 people working on the project and they will be evenly distributed when it comes to skill in what they can and should do. The only issue I came across is the tech that they are going to use and if they are able to make it in time. There seems to be a lot of crunch time when it comes to assets and how they will make them will be a concern. The only thing that I believe will be fine is the quality of the work. Since it doesn’t have to be modern type of work (high definition work form modern counsels), the art shouldn’t be that much of a hassle.

4 Room Lighting

This game will be having a mid-evil sort of style that focused the fictional myth of witches. It will basically consist of a hunter that was trained from a very young age in the art of hunting witches. He lost his entire family to these witches, and during the game you will be finding out the way they control the whole estate and how everything is being manipulated by them. This will be the last level were you will have to free other hunters from a certain doom to help you defeated these witches.

1.      Time: The design team would have about 6 weeks to work on this assignment since it is one level. The level will have clichés in order to convey ideas more clearly to the gamers with a positive feed back.

2.      Tech: The game engine will most likely be used. MAYA and PHOTOSHOP will be used in order to create the models for the game. The Unreal engine will be one of the fundamental tools used for the game production as well. Logic will be used for the audio of the game as well as many other programs including Midi files.

3.      Limitations: We would have to contribute 12 new assets for the level in order to make the work flow much better and less confusion on the art style and how it is going to be launched. There would have to be crunch time for those assets, which will be held 2 days to complete 3 different ones. The main character and environment layout will have to be completed first in order to get a good visual on the level. Then the enemy models will have to be finished in the end as well. Audio will have to be made as well during the programming of the game in the last week. There will be 12 people working on this project.

4.      Requirements: The main character is an important asset to the game so that is always a must have. There also need to be a good environmental layout in order to get all of the assets placed well (shouldn’t take that long to make).  There has to be props and buildings for this environment, including 5 different enemies for the player to counteract with. The game has to be programed in the Unreal Engine and the game play has to be spot on with the description as well.

5.      Purpose: In this level you will have to free hunters in order to fight the 3 witches and kill them once and for all. You will have to fight through other types of enemies along the way.

6.      GamePlay: It will be a RPG type of game that will have a lot of types of weapons and attacks for your character in order to fight the enemies.

7.      Theme: Mid-evil.

 

4 Room Gray Box

 

                For this assignment, we had to create a dungeon that has 4 rooms in order to be playable and visually interesting to a player. Since it is a rough version, it mainly has to get the main view to it in order for me to get the main overall shape of the level. The hardest thing to do for me is the amount of space I had to decide on making this level. Since there is going to be enemies all over the level, the player will need enough space in order to fight through it. It will be important to get the character/enemy sizes to conclude the size of the whole level, but since I don’t have that information I can just change the sizes eventually.

2 Gray Box Design

The way this game will be created will be similar to a batman/metal gear sort of game play with a lot more futuristic twist in it. It will have a mid evil/western sort of style in it when it comes to character design, weapons and some buildings. The rest of the style will be modern through out the entire game play. It will enforces a main character that happens to be a Native trying to protect his home land and the ones who live in it from having and ancient curse destroying them all.

1.      Time: The design team would have about 6 weeks to work on this assignment since it is one level.

2.      Tech: The game engine will most likely be used. MAYA and PHOTOSHOP will be used in order to create the models for the game. The Unreal engine will be one of the fundamental tools used for the game production as well. Logic will be used for the audio of the game as well as many other programs including Midi files.

3.      Limitations: We would have to contribute 12 new assets for the level in order to make the work flow much better and less confusion on the art style and how it is going to be launched. There would have to be crunch time for those assets, which will be held 2 days to complete 3 different ones. The main character and environment layout will have to be completed first in order to get a good visual on the level. Then the enemy models will have to be finished in the end as well. Audio will have to be made as well during the programming of the game in the last week. There will be 12 people working on this project.

4.      Requirements: The main character is an important asset to the game so that is always a must have. There also need to be a good environmental layout in order to get all of the assets placed well (shouldn’t take that long to make).  There has to be props and buildings for this environment, including 5 different enemies for the player to counteract with. The game has to be programed in the Unreal Engine and the game play has to be spot on with the description as well.

5.      Purpose: The level will be a single player story mode level that will be consisting of a native from south America trying to stop coal miners from exposing horrible truths of the past (turning them into plain diggers of a site) and uncovering the curse that will doom people living in that land. The main character will have to find a way down the hill undetected or in any way possible and find a way to blow up the whole place. Good way to do it is to use the tnt that they have scattered about.

6.      GamePlay: The game play will have to start with the character on the top of the hill, where he/she will get there by using a tractor. It will be loud so if you get close, the enemy will spot you. You can either choose to do this mission in secret or follow up with force and gun fights.  There will be enemies all over the level and it will have certain assets that the player can use, like wild animal calls to help the player, bombs (both with players equipment and area items), techniques (for sneaking, demolition, gun fighting, etc), and fighting combos. One way to blow up the mine will be using the boat that is used by the enemy, drive it inside the mine, and blow it up by igniting the boat filled with TNT. At the end of the level, you will have to run away from the explosion and make sure you leave none alive to expose the horrible truth that was hidden there.

7.      Theme: It will be located in a south American forest and it will have many different assets in the level. The level will be partly medieval/western when it comes to vehicles, weapons, characters, and some buildings. The rest will be mixed with modern and Aztec.

 

I strongly believe that the design team will be able to finish the project in time. It will be a simple task to get it all done in 6 weeks since we will have about 12 people working on the project and they will be evenly distributed when it comes to skill in what they can and should do. The only issue I came across is the tech that they are going to use and if they are able to make it in time. There seems to be a lot of crunch time when it comes to assets and how they will make them will be a concern. The only thing that I believe will be fine is the quality of the work. Since it doesn’t have to be modern type of work (high definition work form modern counsels), the art shouldn’t be that much of a hassle.