Game: The Days After - Release: Soon
Role: Level Designer, Technical Artist/Prop Artist
With The Days After, I finally had the chance to get some experience working with VR. In helping to design this narrative driven survival horror experience I focused on making realistic, lived in, environments that adhered to the scale, readability, and functionality that VR requires, whilst also keeping classic level design principles, as well as the more stringent VR performance concerns in mind.
Initially my role on the project was helping to setup a new zombie character system allowing for more visual variety. This mainly entailed using new models and resources allowing for many more clothing options as well as dismemberment. In this process I had to learn new plugins (UMA For Unity), and tools (Blender). I'm always excited to learn new workflows and software since UI and UX are one of my many interests in this field. I also had a chance to do some rigging, and work with morphs/blendshapes, which was a welcome addition since it's probably the area of the 3d character pipeline I'm least knowledgeable in.
Designing levels for this project had a learning curve as well, it being my first experience with VR. I learned that keeping object and texture scales consistent across every area and level were paramount, requiring me to often enter the level in VR not just for play testing but simply checking the visual feel and if the bar of realism the game was going for was being met. My role throughout this project kind of filled a hybrid space between level designer, artist, and technical artist, which suited me, because as with my indie projects I enjoy wearing many hats and using a wide variety of workflows. Though feature/mechanic and level design are my favorite areas of game development.
​
Since this game has more of a linear, scripted, call of duty style gameplay, I started from a script or story beats on what the player was doing, where they were going, and then I blocked out areas, paths, and obstacles from there. Gradually refining the play space as it came together, trying to breath both realism and good tenants of level design like pacing and flow to create an awesome experience.
