I was given a week to complete the level outline, among other course work, and a week to complete the first version of the block mesh. It seemed challenging at first to create a whole block mesh level. However, I didn’t sit with the challenge long as I decided to just dig in and start somewhere. During the course of the week I learned how to quickly manipulate the meshes to get the look and feel of the level I desired. When creating the city buildings I thought I could just make the front of the building. I soon realized that this effects the players immersion, so I made the buildings a natural size. I was given a player scale tool to use as a guide when scaling things for my level. Which came in handy several times throughout the level, including creating the buildings mentioned above.

I was also challenged to create things to lead the player throughout the level. Which I did by using grids that have good contrast, as well as, using leading lines with various assets. At the end of my first version I knew my level could use some work but I was ready to do some testing first. I play tested my level several times myself and had to tweak some things. I then had others playtest it and provide me with constructive feedback. After all the feedback and playtesting I was ready for version 2.0.

I first started by adding a spotlight and a block meshed lamp that I could duplicate throughout the level. I put two up near the first ledge jump to indicate to the player where to go. I also added point lights to the fire on the gondola’s and in the alley that’s across the bridge from the golden path, to indicate danger to the player. I continued to modify the start of the level with various environmental pieces to lead the player to the first building they enter. During this process I learned more about lighting as I was receiving errors about rebuilding my lighting. After doing some research on the error message I started adjusting my lights and started building my lighting before testing the look of it. I found there was some collision going on with my lighting and then I did find out I needed to add a Light Mass Importance Volume. I added it to my project and continued to the cave portion of my block mesh, which is where I wanted to add my valve. I was required to add it before the focal point and I decided it would fit best in the cave environment. (You can see this valve demonstrated in the above gameplay video at 2:14) After completing that part of the project I decided to put the required gate before the hospital office, which is the main focal point. (The gate is demonstrated in the above gameplay video at 2:55) To create the gate, I made a child blueprint from a provided interactive blueprint. In the blueprint itself I did an override on the interact event and then made a call to the parent class. After that I added a boolen “IsOpen”, as I wanted the door to open and close after being unlocked. This led me to adding a branch in the blueprint, if IsOpen is true then the sequencer animation, I created, will play in reverse then set IsOpen to false. If IsOpen is not true then the sequencer animation will play normally and set IsOpen to true.

Continuing on with the project I then added a key to the level, which would need to be collected for the gate on the hospital office. The key blueprint was provided, as creating it wasn’t the focus of this class. I then added some lighting to the office and went through the process of building the lighting before testing it each time. Once that was complete I focused on extending the end of the level and adding more items to lead the player through the area. Overall this was a good learning experience, as I learned more about lighting, leading the player with the environment and to remember interior design techniques when creating my level to help the world artist during their future art pass.