Enviroment Research

When it comes to level design, I've found that the way I like to work is too get a comprehensive understanding of the environment to help inform my designs. This will allow me to create and sculpt belivable environments that look functional and real. This will hopefully help to immerse the player in the playable universe.

The way I've approached this for my current project is by researching how land formations have been formed. An understanding of how the land is formed can greatly help to create belivable natural environments. When this is coulpled with an understanding of how you want the climate in your level works then you can build up very belivable lands capes and then populate them accordingly.

You can decifer what types of rock will be found in your environment, the tree & plant genus's and even the types of wildlife that will roam the enviroment. For my project which is set in a fully natural enviroment devoid of humans development this becomes very important. Despite my game being slightly fantasy based I still belive these fundamental constructs are important to good levels.

This research will hopefully make me avoid cluttering the enviroment with a mish mash of landmarks and scenery that doesn't really flow very well. Since the world will be "designed" rather than naturally formed some deviation from the constructs will obviously occur but this has to happen to create an interesting gameplay enviroment that meet the needs of my game.

I've found that studying topographic maps that show river flow has been a huge help in understanding landformations. This should help to create better, more realistic landscapes in my game.