Randomly Generated Maps

While I was messing around in photoshop, experiementing with different looks and designs I stumble across a very quick and realistic way to get quick aerial maps. While, for most people won’t find this useful for any practical use, I hope that someone can gain from this technique or at least be inspired in level design.

To start:

• Open up a new blank document and select the gradient tool.
• Click once on the gradient colors and I used Maroon -> Yellow -> Maroon gradient, because it was my school colors, but I’m sure there are many ways to do this.
• Paint a gradient on the first layer

Next Layer:
• Add a new layer.
• Goto Filter -> Render -> Clouds
• Set Blend Mode to Hard Mix

Now, I usually get 3 distinct colors for this outcome. In this example, yellow=water, red=land, and black=mountains=lakes=cities=be creative *Note: depending on how pure your colors are, you may get black and white splashes in your outcome.

How to get interesting results:
• If you like the general shape of the land mass but want to change around the shore lines just re-render the clouds layer and it’ll change things up a bit. Examples 4, 5 and 6 use the same gradient but different cloud renders.
• To get different types of land masses try using the different gradient modes. Making large Radial(Ex.1, 4-6) gradients makes very nice looking islands. Angle gradient (Ex. 3) makes a large land mass with a large water mass (almost continental looking). Then with the diamond gradient, you can get all land with the center focus being a lake with islands. I used the paint brush on the diamond gradient afterwards to get a more natural look.

Constructing Unique Living Space

I often wonder where inspiration and creativity come from especially while creating new levels. Currently I'm working on my Battle of the Bodies Mod inside a temple where people worship 4 elements. One of the best ways I fill out the levels of a place where people are living is to think it out logically: make a place for the worshipers to sleep, make a place where supplies are stored like food, make perhaps an area where trash is dumped because taking it all the way through the dungeon would take a long time, where would the boss stay, what sort of things would the boss need on a day to day basis (some robes, a night stand, a personal chest, a bed, maybe a divider between his personal stuff and the rest of the NPCs). Of course, there are no bathrooms in the world of Oblivion but maybe place a chamber pot somewhere. I would think that maybe there's a prep room before entering naturally dangerous areas that the worshipers need.

Defining the scope of a project

When I first started learning and practicing game level design I sampled a few different editors to see what they were like and which one I wanted to use first. I tried Valve's Hammer editor, the new Starcraft 2 Galaxy editor and I tried Bethesda's TES: Construction Set for Oblivion.

I chose to use the Construction Set (CS) first because it was a very comfortable editor and it would be fun to create a quest and multiple dungeons in an Oblivion mod. Each editor has its differences and similarities that make it stand out from the other ones. For instance, in the CS they have a very easy way to place objects in the world; the fall function drops the object straight down until it makes a collision and you are also able to activate the Havoc Engine to "handle" the objects like you can in the game. The CS was cool because it was like playing with Legos to interior rooms and dungeons. The developers created kits of different dungeon styles with basic "building blocks" that fit together to make an infinite amount of designs.

After I finished several tutorials for making Oblivion mods, I started to work on something of my own. It was a game concept I had came up with a year or two ago that I converted into a quest in Oblivion. The problem I've been dealing with lately is that I didn't adjust the scope of the quest for someone at my level. (Actually, its almost a lead in for a whole guild of quests or quest line) It has been difficult to maintain my focus in getting this mod into the testing stages. When working alone, I think the scope should be kept to a minimum and then adjusted later if time permits.

-Bob

A new beginning!

I'm going to start using a blog for 3 functions: first being a portal to my resume, second being a showcase for my portfolio pieces and third being a place where I can write about my progress in level design for games.