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Category: Environment

Topics about 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
• 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
• 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
• Level Design: Concept, Theory, and Practice ($) - by Rudolf Kremers
• The Hows and Whys of Level Design ($) - by Sjoerd "hourences" De Jong
• Visual Semiotics - from Wikipedia
  Environments involve the player more if they have several layers of thinking behind their design.
• What is a visual metaphor? - from Answers.com

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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 Concepting

• Enviromentoring and Tutorials, Tips & Tricks - at ConceptArt.Org
• elements of perspective - by Bruce MacEvoy
• Whit Brachna Snowy Mountain timelapse video with voiceover - by Whit Brachna (more freebies from Massive Black)
• Coastline step by step image - by Jaime Jones (final)
• Fire Escape step by step image - by Daarken
• Concept Design Video Tutorials ($) - by Feng Zhu
• Introduction to Landscape Matte Painting ($) - by Dylan Cole

.http://boards.polycount.net/images/smilies/pcount/icons/icon_arrow.gif The [wiki:Self:2D_Tutorials 2D Tutorials] section has more tutorials and resources for concept painting.

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Environment Workflow & Modularity

• Workflow techniques and modularity with Unreal game technology - by Epic Games
  A guide to setting up your art-to-level-design pipeline and designing modularly.
• Environment workflow @ EpicGames - by Kevin Johnstone
  A summary of the modular workflow used at Epic on Unreal Tournament 3.
• Gears of War 2 modular modeling - by Kevin Johnstone
  Tips and screenshots of using the grid for modular work, as well as a ton of useful insight into the Environment worflow at Epic. A highly recommended read!
• Modular brick wall tiling - by Glynn Smith
  Tips and screenshots for sculpting modular brick walls.
• Generic wall tutorial - by Bram "Peris" Eulaers
  Using 3ds Max and Mudbox to sculpt tilable modular sections for a stone wall.
• Rock modeling approaches - a Polycount thread
  A variety of approaches for sculpting individual rocks and tilable cliffs.
• 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.
• Unreal Engine 3 tutorials, game industry articles, level design/art/technical tutorials - by Sjoerd "hourences" De Jong
  A ton of tutorials and articles about designing levels with the Unreal Technology.
• Environment workflow from an artist working on a Crysis mod - by Stefan Morrell
  A modular city building and its texture sheet.
• Mod Facade Challenge - by Joe "EarthQuake" Wilson
  Breaking up a building into modular pieces and designing the texture sheet.
• Maintaining the suspension of disbelief... Polycount thread
  Discussion about the importance of using imperfection to create believable worlds.
• Adam Bromell's sketchbook thread - by Adam "adamBrome" Bromell
  Breaking an environment down into modular pieces.
• Chris' sketchbook thread - by Chris "cholden" Holden
  Environment design & modular workflow.
• Level Design Video Tutorials - from 3DBuzz
  A ton of useful tutorials and design tips about creating levels.
• Visually Appealing Building Guide - by Christopher Albeluhn
  An excellent breakdown of how to create visual interest with game buildings. Additional tutorials here.

.http://boards.polycount.net/images/smilies/pcount/icons/icon_arrow.gif The [wiki:Self:Digital_Sculpting#TS Digital Sculpting] section has more tutorials about modular workflow.

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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

.http://boards.polycount.net/images/smilies/pcount/icons/icon_arrow.gif The wiki section has more modeling tutorials.

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Environment Foliage

• 3D TreesTutorials thread from the Polycount boards
  Multiple methods.
• Trees for Beginners in 3ds Max Tutorial - by "braveryd"
  Using the AEC Extended: Foliage tree generator in 3ds Max.
• Tree creation using particle generator - by Andy Zibits
  Using a particle system in 3ds Max.
• Sprite-Based Particle Trees - by Steven J. Tubbrit
  Using a particle system in Maya.
• Ultra-efficient tree texturing and modeling - by Andy Zibits
  Using Paint Effects in Maya to create the foliage texture and branches.
• Low-poly Tree Using Maya PaintFX - by Jeramy Cooke
  Using Paint Effects in Maya to create the foliage texture, then hand-modeling the tree.
• Bending the vertex normals for better shading - by Eric Chadwick
  Using the Normal Thief script in 3ds Max to bend the vertex normals of low-poly foliage planes.
• Vegetation Procedural Animation and Shading in Crysis - by Tiago Sousa
  A detailed overview of Crytek's process for vegetation shading.

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Foliage Modeling Tools

There are a lot of tools for modeling high-resolution plants, but few for modeling game-resolution models. Here are a few...

• ngPlant
• frecle tree[d]
• TreeMaker script for 3ds Max
• Branches script for 3ds Max
• SpeedTree in UDK ($)

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Environment Sculpting

.http://boards.polycount.net/images/smilies/pcount/icons/icon_arrow.gif See the Digital Sculpting section of the Polycount wiki.

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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.
• 360 HDR skies for sale? from the Polycount forums has a tutorial and links about photographing HDR skies.

.http://boards.polycount.net/images/smilies/pcount/icons/icon_arrow.gif The 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

.http://boards.polycount.net/images/smilies/pcount/icons/icon_arrow.gif The GameBusiness wiki section has links for threads and articles about how to get game jobs, how to negotiate your salary, how to manage your role, etc. 

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Inspiration & Reference

• Google Image Search
• Flickr Image Search
• Yahoo Image Search
• BBC Motion Gallery - video reference
• Corbis Motion - video reference
• Getty Images Footage - video reference
• Polycount Forums - Reference Thread
• Polycount Forums - Environment Modeling FAQ & Resources
• Game Artist Forums - Reference Thread

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