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Category: Environment

Links dedicated to the design and creation of levels and environment artwork in games.

TableOfContents

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Level Design

• Level Design Help Files, a collection of help sites for level design themed files - from the MapCore forums
• Level Design: Concept, Theory, and Practice - by Rudolf Kremers
• Environment Artist: The Story Teller - by Adam "adamBrome" Bromell
• How To Develop A Map That Works - from The Valve Developer Community
• Map Planning - from the Unreal Wiki
• The Hows and Whys of Level Design - by Sjoerd "hourences" De Jong
• Ben's Small Bible of Realistic Multiplayer Level Design by Benjamin Bauer
• What Is Level Design? - by Sérgio Duarte
• The 400 Project - by Hal Barwood & Noah Falstein
• Design Techniques and Ideals from The Art of Computer Game Design - by Chris Crawford

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Level Design Blogs

• Life of a Design Monkey - a blog by Mark Davies, game designer at Ninja Theory
• Random Encounters in Imaginary Realms - a blog by Random Encounters, game designer
• Lost Garden - a blog by Danc, game designer
• CliffyB.com - a blog by Cliff Bleszinski, game designer at Epic Games
• Level Design - a blog by David Alexander Johnston, freelance game designer

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Environment Workflow

• Workflow techniques and modularity with Unreal game technology - by Epic Games
• Environment workflow @ EpicGames - by Kevin Johnstone
• Unreal Engine 3 tutorials, game industry articles, level design/art/technical tutorials - by Sjoerd "hourences" De Jong
• Environment workflow from an artist on Crysis - by Stefan Morrell
• Mod Facade Challenge - by Joe "EarthQuake" Wilson
• Explanation of an 'imperfection pass' (making things believable) - by Adam "adamBrome" Bromell
• Adam Bromell's sketchbook thread (work flow processes) - by Adam "adamBrome" Bromell
• Chris' sketchbook thread (work flow processes) - by Chris "cholden" Holden
• Visual Semiotics - from Wikipedia
• What is a visual metaphor? - from Answers.com
• Level Design Video Tutorials - from 3DBuzz
• Visually Appealing Building Guide - by Christopher Albeluhn (additional tutorials)

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Environment Modeling

• Gears2 Environment Art - by Kevin Johnstone
• UT3 & Gears Environment Art - by Kevin Johnstone
• [attachment:rorshach_scifi_supportbeam.pdf SciFi Support Beam PDF] - by Kevin Johnstone
• Environment tutorials - by Chris "cholden" Holden
• Environment modeling basics - from the Polycount boards
• Modeling Bathroom Tiles - by okkun
• Subdivision Surface Modeling section of the Polycount wiki has more modeling links.

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Environment Sculpting

• Sculpting for environment stuff - video tutorials - by Sascha Henrichs
  Sculpting a wooden plank, a sandstone rock, and a tiled cliff.
• 3dsmax Environment Modeling #1 Procedural Stone - by Sascha Henrichs
  Using 3ds max procedural modifiers and maps to sculpt a sandstone rock, and easily create multiple variations.
• Generic wall tutorial - by Bram "Peris" Eulaers
  Using 3ds Max and Mudbox to sculpt tilable modular sections for a stone wall.
• Optimisation workflow tutorial - by Bram "Peris" Eulaers
  Using Meshlab to optimize a Mudbox sculpt for import into 3ds Max.
• Rock modeling approaches - from the Polycount boards
  A variety of approaches for sculpting individual rocks and tilable cliffs.
• Stone Tutorial - by Pedro "bitmap" Amorim
  Sculpting a rock using Modo, ZBrush, Meshlab, and Photoshop.
• Creating Perfectly Tiling Meshes in Zbrush for use in Videogame Environments - by Owen "SHEPEIRO" Shepherd
  Using ZBrush's 2.5D canvas to tile stamped meshes, then using Maya to model tilable geometry.
• Creating Tiled Textures and Displacement in Mudbox 2009 - by Wayne Robson
  Painting in Mudbox on the middle of a 3x3 grid where each quad has the same overlapped UVs. (video is about halfway down the page)
• Tileable Stone in Mudbox - by Sascha Henrichs
  Sculpting in Mudbox, loading the displacement map in Photoshop for the offset filter, then fixing the seams with more sculpting in Mudbox.
• Tiling Rock Tutorial in Zbrush - by Stephen Jameson
  Sculpting in Zbrush, loading the normal map in Photoshop for the offset filter, then fixing the seams in Photoshop.

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Environment Skies

• Skymap workflow by divi for converting a sky panorama into a square texture, the way Epic does. [attachment:Skymap_workflow.pdf PDF here]
• How to: Convert a Skybox to a Skydome by Outpt for use in Unreal.
• Cube Map wiki section describes how to create and use cubemaps.

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Environment Texturing

• Texture Workflow videos - by Hiten "Mistry10" Mistry, from the Polycount thread Mistry's Texture Workflow w/Video
• Creating tiling textures in 3dsmax - by Chris "cholden" Holden
• Thirding - Utilizing your texture space for environment work - by Ben "poopinmymouth" Mathis
• Hard Surface Texture Painting - by Stefan Morrell
• Tutorial: Brick Arch (Baking Multiple Maps in 3dsmax) - by mikebart
• UDN UnrealEngine2 Vertex Blending Tutorial - by Epic Games
• Using vertex blending to grunge a level and add variety - by Mario "StrangeFate" Vazquez
• UE3 Terrain Tutorial - by Sjoerd "hourences" De Jong
• Lighting in game environments - by Sjoerd "hourences" De Jong
• Painting with Light - by the cinematographer John Alton.

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Industry Information

• Percentage of environment artists .vs. character artists at most studios - from the Polycount boards
• What's the difference between a level designer and environment artist? - from the Polycount boards
• Industry tips: How to not ask for money - by Christopher Natsuume, Creative Director of Boomzap Entertainment.

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Inspiration & Reference

• Flickr Image Search
• Google Image Search
• Yahoo Image Search
• BBC Motion Gallery - video reference
• Corbis Motion - video reference
• Getty Images Footage - video reference
• The Reference Thread - from the Polycount boards
• Environment Modeling FAQ & Resources - this page started from this thread on the Polycount boards

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