Usefulness
of the Multibrush - Telling Stories with Architecture
This section came
about as a result of me grappling with two hard-to-combine aspects of
level editing: Overall planning versus construction of separate features.
The problem is, that I can't seem to shake the impression of some fascinating
architectural feature or other in favor of the overall planning required
to draw lines that are sufficiently broad for an entire level. It pains
me to see that most preliminary planning is quite separate from feature
construction. This may seem like a contradictory statement, but nonetheless,
I have found that level construction takes place on several levels that
each carry a seperate motivation and structuring principle. If one focuses
too much on a specific feature of a level, the proper perspective is lost,
and a cool little detail is all I'm going to get. The level will never
be made. If, on the other hand, I attempt to make the broad outlines of
a level, it ends up as so much 'dead space' devout of well-placed details
and attractive features. Details and features often seem to have been
added later, as a sort of afterthought to the ambience of a particular
place. Not as a specific detail that integrates the broader lines. This
separatedness, also noted in Gaylesaver's
construction guidelines, has stopped me dead in my tracks a good many
times, staring blankly at either 'dead' space' that I refuse to retrofit
for the sake of a half-assed believability factor, or a decontextualised
detail with no real grounding in the level as a whole.
Stepwise
Refinement Method From Detail to Place
Don't get me wrong.
I have found Gaylesaver's guide to be the most informative and useful
of its kind. I admire his balancing act between manageability and minimum-hassle
reversibility. Yet, my approach to designing levels differs in one important
way: I start with isolated features. The sight of a broken bridge in the
movie 'Dark City' for example, led me to flesh out a story, theme and
general mission type over the course of a single evening. So naturally,
the bridge was my first construct. It
has served as a focal point throughout the conceptual development of the
level, storywise as well as spatially. The broken bridge symbolizes very
well the main conflict of the story: Frustration with separation. By virtue
of the gameplay in Thief, the traditional meaning of 'burning bridges'
and leaving something behind, is not as prevalent as frustration, since
this is what I assume the player will feel when he cannot cross it. Spatially,
since a bridge presupposes something on it and something under it, this
allows two separate spaces, one for each of the opposing themes of the
conflict: Intimacy and distance.
The details and features
should not so much be an added in the name of believability, as it should
be the medium of theme and conflict whenever plausible. As a consequence,
I lend them much attention early on in the design process.This has led
me to a particular way of thinking about a level at different stages of
its conception.
What GayleSaver refers to as stage three of the design process is stage
one in the context of my method. Every feature, such as the broken bridge,
is then saved as a multibrush, and a note is made of the dimensions of
its bounding box, as well as how and where it connects with the surrounding
brushes. From there on, I follow GayleSaver's method, with the exception
that Stage one, creation of world space, can now be worked through with
an attention to how the features and details of the level will affect
the layout as a whole.
Post
Scriptum
Of course,
if I am to start building details, I'll need a construction site to play
around in. Here it is :-) :