Dev Blog: Hedone Level Design

One of the things that makes Hedone different is the wide variety of levels to play in. John J. Lazar's top location scouts find cool settings for the contestants to fight over - from deserted shanty towns to oilrigs - and all of these are built by our team here at Acony.

The first step is what we call the level contract. This is a set of requirements for the levels that we'll be making - the length of time we can work on them for, the gameplay we want from them (such as supporting a particular game mode) and the budget we have to produce them with. Normally we are working on two levels at once so the contract will specify both.

Next, the Art and Level Design teams think up some cool ideas for levels and collect some reference pictures. They sit together in a vision meeting to go through all the suggestions until the best ideas have been agreed on. Because of our gameshow setting, we can be very flexible with the concepts for our levels, there's a lot of freedom to come up with original and interesting arenas to fight over.

Once we know what the theme for the levels will be, the Art department will produce what we call moodboards. These are big displays that are hung on the walls in our studio, full of reference pictures showing real-world versions of the kind of level we are going to build. The photos show all kinds of detail as well as some wider pictures to set the scene and give a better overview. These moodboards help our teams to design a level that looks and feels as realistic as possible.

Simultaneously, a level designer will sketch out a 2D map of the level. Here he will use not only his technical knowledge in design but also his experience as a dedicated FPS fan to try to balance the level by making sure that there are the right number of routes to different areas and that the level doesn’t have too many bottlenecks or areas that won’t be fun to fight in. He’ll have a good idea of what the important defensive areas are and how they will work, where the sniper spots are, where to break up lines of sight and so forth to make sure that the gameplay will be fun and challenging.

As soon as everyone is happy with the 2D version, the level designer will start making a rough 3D level using the Unreal 3 editor. This is a very basic layout using simple blocks to build a rough playable version. The level looks like it has been made from pink and yellow Lego at this point. We will start to playtest the level as soon possible so that we can see if there are any problems with the layout. All departments take part in daily playtests on the new maps to see how balanced they are and what problems need to be fixed before more work is done on them. These playtests carry on throughout the whole process and changes are constantly made based on feedback from our playtesters until everyone’s happy.

The next step is to create concept art for the level. We already have the mood board and the reference pictures that were used in the early stages and now we have a basic level to work with as well. A concept artist will use screenshots of the new level and paint over them with Photoshop to give a good idea of how the finished level will look from a player’s eye view. He’ll put in details that add atmosphere such as signs, post boxes and vehicles and also show how lighting will bring the level to life. All of these concepts will be put on a new set of moodboards so that everyone working on the level can use them as reference.

So, now we have a basic level to run around in and we have an idea of how the final product will look once all the art is in place. The next step is called ‘whiteboxing’ and it’s where all the temporary 3D objects will be created. We call it whiteboxing because the models that are created are plain, white colored models, used to block (box) out the level. These include everything from buildings, stairs and ramps down to the small objects that provide cover, obstacles or atmosphere. This is done using a variety of tools from the Unreal 3 Editor to 3D modelling programs such as 3dsMax and Maya. Meanwhile, our lighting artists will put in some basic lighting at this point too and some of the textures will be added so that we can see how things will look in the final level. Special features like moving objects such as doors that can be opened and closed or buttons that need to be pressed will also be put in at this time.

Just creating a good looking level isn’t enough of course, it’s important that the level performs well technically too. The Art and Level Design departments will go through the level and make sure that the performance is as high as possible. There’s a lot of technical work done here to ensure that the level will load quickly and not take up too much of your computer’s resources, even on lower spec machines.

Finally we are ready to actually start putting the finished level together, by adding details and all the nice graphics. The Art department will replace all the objects that were created in the whiteboxing stage with fully textured, high-poly versions. Textures are simply 2D pictures of the outside of a model as if it had been cut open and folded out flat like a cardboard model. They are stuck on over the model (which is called a 'mesh') just like wallpaper to make the object look realistic. These textures are based on the concept art and the mood boards from earlier.


Finally we have a Hedone arena and not just a bunch of featureless boxes stacked up.

Adding in all the textures is a challenging process as they not only have to look good, they also have to fit technical requirements for performance and gameplay. There will be a lot of changes made to them while our artists and engineers find the right balance. Our lighting artists will also get to work on the level to provide atmosphere and to emphasise strategic areas until the level has that true Hedone feel to it.

The level has been playtested over and over again since the rough version was produced and we don't stop yet. Now we’re at a stage where we’ll check out collision to make sure that players can’t get stuck on objects, test everything for bugs and provide feedback on the way the level works in the game.

Quite often the level designer and artists will have to add new obstacles or take some away based on the feedback. Our Tech department will also go over the level and make sure that it meets all of our performance requirements while the QA department will be running a battery of tests on the level to check that it meets the quality standards we’ve set for our game and to ensure that everything works the way it should.

At long last we have a level that’s ready for the toughest test of all – players! We’ll put the level into the next build and take the reports from Hedone fans to tweak it before the final release. From the first steps in coming up with the basic sketch to the finished level that you can play in-game, we’ll be constantly polishing and making adjustments based on the feedback from our team, our partners and, most importantly, from you the players. We'll spend about three months from the first meeting to a released level to create the arenas you run in today.

Mikhail Kadikov, one of our level designers, has put together two awesome 'making of' videos which show how the Oil Rig and Shanty maps evolved through the design process.

Hedone Making of – Oil Rig
OilRig_Level_Creation_Process 3.mov - YouTube
Hedone Making of - Shanty
YouTube - Broadcast Yourself

We hope you enjoyed this glimpse at the inner workings of the level design process, tune in later for more inside info on the making of Hedone!