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Samuel Garber
Game Designer
Level Design and Building
Below is an example of my level and world design workflow and end product. In this project, I worked in Minecraft, as it gives the challenge of forcing me to create curves and non-cubic structures via largely square objects. There is also the added challenge of having little room for detail. Working in Minecraft and creating buildings of fairly realistic size necessitates a solid understanding of detail work. This project took a total of 30 hours to complete.
The build is of a human town inside of a mountain in the north of my world of Umbrus called Stonefort.
The project is intended to mimic the work one would do when constructing a location in an open-world game: provide an interesting place to explore or quest in. As well, the project highlights my organization in city planning, to enable players to easily figure out where something is.
I began with a paper prototype, to define my general building materials and topography. The purpose of differing construction materials is to differentiate between social classes. Generally speaking, the buildings with more stone used in their construction are of higher social standing or communal importance.
As you go deeper into the cavern, you begin to find the higher class buildings, as well as the marketplace sheltered in its own pocket. the design of this is twofold: for lore reasons, the people who would be wealthier would tend to be further into the cavern, to limit the amount of cold and wind they deal with, as well as provide an innate organization to the town so that it is easier to understand what is where for any who would be interested in exploring it or trying to find a specific building.
Afterwards, I built the mountain using the third party program Worldpainter. This program allowed me to create a custom map for the build and gave me the ability to create a more realistic mountain than what Minecraft naturally generates, giving me room to build the cave-town as well as create an impressive exterior.
Next, I began to dig into the mountain using the Minecraft Mod WorldEdit, which allows for mass-manipulation of the MInecraft world. After I dug the rough outline, I went in and added the height differences for the market area and the library area.
After this I then went into the cavern and added the curvature to the walls that would make them realistic, as well as the pillars to reinforce the ceiling as well as eliminate some of the negative space in the town. This was one of the most tedious parts of the project, as I did it almost entirely by hand. I used some WorldEdit for a bit more general line-making, but I had to clean up and curve those lines by myself.
Even though I had a floor plan with my paper prototype, I find that when I need to make custom buildings for a project that it is best to put a basic floor plan into the game world itself, for an easier time once it comes to placing the buildings proper.
I also took the time to use WorldEdit to scoop out parts of the wall where buildings would dig into them as well as level off the floors of buildings, so that I would save myself a bit of trouble when it came to creating the basic rooms.
This is the finished product. The buildings are constructed in a largely utilitarian style, fitting for denizens of the harsh north. Though some do have gothic embellishments, especially the buildings of those who have a lot of money. The Library is made of an entirely different material and style because of the backstory of this town.
Stonefort used to be a cavern housing a golem sanctuary. This sanctuary was abandoned when the majority of golems - sentient stone with humanoid form - were driven out of Dresdius, the continent where the story of Umbrus largely takes place, by the humans during the Second Era. The humans eventually found their sanctuary, built a town around it, and made the sanctuary into a library for their religion.
The fortress, inn, library, church, and town hall serve as centerpieces and landmarks for players, so they know where they are. The town itself is also designed in such a way that it is easier to leave. If the town was placed into an actual game, this would allow the player to explore it and do whatever it is they wished to do, and then leave relatively painlessly regardless of where they are.
If you want to explore the map, it is available for download below.
I recommend downloading and using the Dokucraft TSC High texture pack, as that was the texture pack used in this project. Instructions to play the map are in the readme file included in the archive.
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