AUTHOR - NEWS

New Tutorials + lots of other news
June 24 , 2009

 
General Update
It has been a long long time since my last update. I have been much too busy with my projects and real life. Much has happened, much more will happen. First of all I actually became a dad! My girlfriend and I had a son, March 3, 2009, and his name is Jarne. He is almost four months now and everything is going good. By the age of 1 he will have made his first level :)



New Tutorials - and tools!
To compensate for the long inactivity on this website I wrote two new tutorials. I have had these on my list for quite some time, and now finally found the time to actually write them. Both of them are pretty long and in-depth.

  • UIScenes: Creating a basic UIScene. Used to display text and images on the screen and anything else to do with the interface.
  • Cutscenes: A simple cutscene that makes use of two different cameras, triggers an event along the way, and fades in and out.

    Also on my list are a Dynamic Lighting, more Particle stuff, and practical Kismet Scripting. I have no idea when I will find the time for those though, could turn out to be next year.

    • Tool wise, I came across a few very interesting and pretty unknown tools and plugins lately.

  • Gile[s] - It is a free lightmap generator. It imports all major 3D formats, and automatically divides the scene over several lightmaps (much like UT3 does it), and then renders it, with GI. These lightmaps can then be ported over to almost any engine, including UE2 and UE3. I am personally using it to light scenes in Unity, a great low cost engine. The viewport is navigated with WASD + Mouse and the interface is Max alike, so easy to get into! I love it. They also have a free tree generator by the way.
  • New Max OBJ importer - Noticed how Max' default OBJ importer gives horrible results? A free new version is available on their website, and it works a million times better. The guy also made a few other cool things, such as an ivy generator, and a procedural terrain creation program. All free.

    • And as mentioned I also got into Unity. It can't be compared to Unreal of course, but for the 150 Euro or so that it costs to get a lifetime license it is a damn nice engine that is very artist orientated. It also allows you to export the game you make to your web browser so it can be played from within the browser, anywhere. I am working on small project with it, just for fun.



    The Ball
    As you may have seen, my project The Ball is still going very strong. Since my last news post here the project also won ModDB's Best Singleplay Mod of 2008 award, and in Phase 2 of MSU it won 3rd place Best Mod, and 1st place Best Use of Physics.



    Part 3, Teotl, has been released in May, and we are already hard at work on Hueca now, part 4. We will be releasing some screenshots of that in a few weeks. Progress is going well though, we have two new enemies, a vehicle, and a large open level that will be entirely different to the small indoor levels seen in the previous releases.

    Check out our website!



    Teaching and Contests

    Since my last update I also continued with teaching. I gave a month long introduction course in UE3 to the game design students at Future Games in central Stockholm, and I gave a three week long UE3/Multiplayer level design course at The Garden. I enjoyed the challenge a lot, and it was very fun to guide these students through the technology and the design process. It is definitely something I can see myself doing full time at some point.

    Contest wise, I have sponsored ModDB's MOTY 2008 contest with a number of copies of my two books.

    Furthermore I was also one of the jury members of the CGTalk/Game Artist.net Scene From A Movie competition, sponsored by Epic Games for one. The contest revolved around recreating an environment from a movie. I am personally very happy with how the final top 5 turned out, especially the winner.



    Photography

    You may have seen my photography somewhere on my portfolio site before, but I have been working on bumping up the attention for my photos a bit. I made a separate and simple Photo gallery website for it, and added a whole slew of new photos.



    I am rather uncertain about my photography though. Some experienced people seem to like them, but it is hard for me to judge my work and determine at what level I am standing.
    Most of my photography is macro photography. Taking pictures of small details. I focus mostly on color, shape, and composition. It is not so much about what is on the photo, more about how the shapes and colors flow around. I am using an old but fairly decent Canon Powershot with no special lenses or anything. It does has a screen that can be freely rotated though. That helps heaps with taking photos in the weirdest possible angles like I do.
     



    New Portfolio site + lots of other news
    November 28 , 2008

     
    New Portfolio site !
    I have created a brand new portfolio site, more in line with the design of this site. The previous portfolio site was about five years old and was seriously outdated. Besides lacking a whole lot of my work, it also didn't portray what I am doing today the day very well. The site was made at a time when I was only doing level design and became too restrictive over the years as my activities expanded. The old site only had one page reserved for level design for example, while I need four pages these days to show everything. Same goes for my books, textures, tutoring, and so on.

    Also I made the decision to take the entire "Skills" section out of my resume, and give it a separate and dedicated section on the site. I felt like my resume was becoming too long, and that because of my wide range of activities, I felt like a lot of things I can do and am doing are often overlooked. So I moved those into a dedicated category to help them stand out and make it more obvious what I actually do, which in turn should help me reposition myself (professionally) and get rid of the perception that I am just a level designer.

    I also cut down on the amount of text on the site, removing a lot of obsolete information, and I implemented a new image viewer.

    Furthermore I added a lot of new work. Since The Chronicles of Spellborn was released, I have finally been able to put the hundreds of screenshots of all the environments I did for TCOS online. Unfortunately they probably look a bit outdated by now, as the game has been in production for way too long. I have been responsible for a great number of the environments in the game, and I directed both the art as the tech approach for all the environments in the game. What I did exactly for this game you can read on my resume.



    Also, since Huxley went Open Beta in Korea, I can show some of the work I did for that game as well. I have worked on Huxley as a freelance level designer, and I created about six levels for the game. Unfortunately there is only one of those levels in my portfolio at the moment. I am personally very proud of my CTF level Junkcity but since it is not in the Open Beta (yet), I can't show it just yet.



    I now have two fully developed websites with a consistent design, over 90 pages of content, and 78 000 words!

    The site as it is is not entirely finished yet, but it is close. I will continue working on it in the next half a year. The website requires javascript by the way.



    Interviews
    I have recently been interviewed by both ModDB and ModCenter/PlanetUnreal. Mostly about my mod project The Ball, and also a bit about other things.

    Mod DB - Change the Game         Modcenter

    I am also sponsoring The Mod of the Year awards over at ModDB. There is one copy of The Hows and Whys of Level Design, and two copies of The Hows and Whys of the Games Industry to be won. More info later.



    Silo
    I have been looking into cheap alternatives to 3DSMax/Maya lately, and came across Silo. I have been using it for a month now, mainly modeling caves for The Ball Part 3 and I must say it is great program. It is insanely cheap compared to 3DSMax and Maya, 159 USD, yet offers a nearly as powerful set of modeling tools as the big guys and the program itself feels very professional and to the point. The program does only do modeling, so no animation or rendering, just modeling and that is a good thing really. It keeps it super focused and most environment artists do not need anything else anyhow.


    However, its not all sunshine. The program is quite focused on high poly organic modeling (characters), and much less on lower poly hard surface modeling. It is an awesome tool to make caves with for example, but for other things 3DSMax is still the better tool.

    The program is still under development, so new features and tools are still being added, and this is where you come in and why I am mentioning all of this: I think this is a great program, that can also greatly aid the Unreal mod community, but it is lacking a couple of fundamental tools, most namely ASE exporting. I have requested these, but it needs to be voted on by you!

    So please help me, and the community, and try to persuade them into adding these much needed features so this tool becomes useful for Unreal development and environment art!

  • Vertex Color Support (for caves and landscape modeling, and lightbaking)
  • Smoothing Group/Edge support (you can't unsmooth low poly models at all right now)
  • ASE Exporting!
  • UV Channels/Sets (you can't create lightmap coordinates without)
  • Texture Tiling in UV View

    • Voting does not require any registration.You can also have a look at all other requested features and see what else you think would be handy to have.



    Lectures
    I have began giving lectures to schools. I have recently given a lecture to the game development schools PlaygroundSquad and The Garden on UE3/Level design, and I enjoyed it a lot. It is great to be able to work with small groups of students who are all very interested in level design, and really helping them achieve their goals. I am definitively going to continue with this, and get more fluent in doing presentations for groups of people. There is a good deal of potential into this.

           

    I haven't done this before yet, but I am also interested in doing private tutoring, one to one. If anyone would be interested..



    The Ball and MSU
    The Ball Part 2 : Oztoc has been released some time ago. I will update The Ball pages on this website when I have time. I will certainly put some more love into that section of the site later.



    The results from MSU phase 1 were also announced some time ago. The Ball came out as the big winner winning both first prize Best Use of Physics, as first prize Best New Gametype. Furthermore DM Krodan received a honorable mention, and CTF Lopo was a finalist. The Ball Oztoc has been submitted to phase 2 and the whole team is anxiously awaiting the results.

    Also The Ball has been included on the DVD from PC Gamer UK, and shown on MTV Germany (around 2.30 or something). I am very interested in getting scanned pages of where ever else you would come across it!

    Work on part 3 has begun. More on that later.

     



    The Hows and Whys of Level Design SE - Released!
    September 9, 2008

     
    Level Design Survey Results!
    A month has passed, so the survey has ended, and the results are up.

    There were around a 1000 participants in this survey, of those, 58 percent were level designers or artists. The remaining 42 percent were gamers and developers involved in other aspects of development. Of the 58 percent, 27 percent were professional level designers (152 professionals).


    Survey Results
    (click the image for the results)


    I may be doing a follow up survey in a year or so, with some more in depth questions.

    Thanks to Kimberly Grefberg for editting the report (English) - www.inspiredquills.com


    Other News
    Production of The Ball Oztoc is going well. Our team expanded with several members, including Setheran (level designer), Tores, and Elusive (both character modelers).

    We released some new screenshots a while back - have a look at those in our forum.

    In Oztoc, the player will...

    # Meet the ruler and guardian of the temple (shown in the screenshots, by eLuSiVe with additional help from Manti). This monstrous king will observe the player as he progresses through the level and occasionally activate traps.
    # Enjoy improved ball behavior and a simple but efficient hud. Also fixed was the irritating "getting stuck inside the ball" bug.
    # Puzzle their way through a level that will be at least three times the size of the Pehua level, and twice the complexity.
    # Experience a whole number of new gameplay mechanics such as water, rains of arrows, big and very hot balls that don't like you very much, and more low gravity!
    # Meet a bunch of "friendly" but semi dead monkeys who inhabit the temple (shown in screenshots, by Tores)



    In other news I am also working a new portfolio website and I have created a CTF version of my level Krodan, which will be in the next CBP.

    More news in about three weeks!
     



    The Hows and Whys of Level Design SE - Released!
    September 9, 2008

     
    Level Design Survey Results!
    A month has passed, so the survey has ended, and the results are up.

    There were around a 1000 participants in this survey, of those, 58 percent were level designers or artists. The remaining 42 percent were gamers and developers involved in other aspects of development. Of the 58 percent, 27 percent were professional level designers (152 professionals).


    Survey Results
    (click the image for the results)


    I may be doing a follow up survey in a year or so, with some more in depth questions.

    Thanks to Kimberly Grefberg for editting the report (English) - www.inspiredquills.com


    Other News
    Production of The Ball Oztoc is going well. Our team expanded with several members, including Setheran (level designer), Tores, and Elusive (both character modelers).

    We released some new screenshots a while back - have a look at those in our forum.

    In Oztoc, the player will...

    # Meet the ruler and guardian of the temple (shown in the screenshots, by eLuSiVe with additional help from Manti). This monstrous king will observe the player as he progresses through the level and occasionally activate traps.
    # Enjoy improved ball behavior and a simple but efficient hud. Also fixed was the irritating "getting stuck inside the ball" bug.
    # Puzzle their way through a level that will be at least three times the size of the Pehua level, and twice the complexity.
    # Experience a whole number of new gameplay mechanics such as water, rains of arrows, big and very hot balls that don't like you very much, and more low gravity!
    # Meet a bunch of "friendly" but semi dead monkeys who inhabit the temple (shown in screenshots, by Tores)



    In other news I am also working a new portfolio website and I have created a CTF version of my level Krodan, which will be in the next CBP.

    More news in about three weeks!
     



    The Hows and Whys of Level Design SE - Released!
    August 1, 2008

     
    The Hows and Whys of Level Design - Second Edition - Released!
    The Hows and Whys of Level Design - Second Edition has been released.

           

    To those who are unfamiliar with my level design book, this is what it is about:

    Level design is one of the most important, influential, and complex aspects of video and computer games. It is a fairly new design form and is maturing rapidly. As the available hardware capabilities and associated technology continue to increase in complexity, level design will also become increasingly complex. This book will help both aspiring and veteran designers come to terms with future changes in level design. Rather than addressing the usual ‘how to make a room', or ‘how to place a light', this book tackles how to make that room look good. The book details why certain decisions are made in order to achieve the design goal, and how to plan the route to the goal: the hows and whys.
    The chapters within describe all aspects of level design; from the initial design phase, to gameplay for singleplayer and multiplayer levels, to visual aspects regarding lighting and architecture, and more. The overall purpose is to explain the theories behind level design. It covers why light color X or architectural feature Y would work better in situation Z rather than color A or architecture B. It describes why a level is fun and what the level design does to enhance it: the ‘do's and don'ts' of creating environments for games.



    ORDER
    Print 39.50€ - ~55$ - ~30£ | PDF 14€ - ~21.50$ - ~11£



    A big discount is available on the PDF for those who own the first edition! Contact me via email if you are interested in this and provide me some kind of proof that you really own the first edition (the confirmation email of Lulu/Ejunkie for example) and be sure to not purchase anything yet!


    Have a look at the FAQ, the two example extracts - Lighting and Gameplay - and the About and Content pages for more information.



    Level Design Survey!
    I have launched a brand new survey section, containing only one survey yet so far: Level Design.

  • For both gamers and level designers/artists, and for amateurs and professionals.
  • Please note that the term "level designer" is used broadly. "Level designer", in this survey, is defined as someone who designs and creates large parts of a virtual world. This can include the visuals or the gameplay, or both.
  • The results are for personal use only. This survey is a personal initiative.

    Survey Page


    The survey "expires" on September 10, after which the results will be released to everyone. If this one goes well I will likely add more game development related surveys in the future.

    •  



    The Hows and Whys of Level Design SE!
    July 23, 2008

     
    The Hows and Whys of Level Design - Second Edition !
    The Hows and Whys of Level Design - Second Edition is pretty much finished. Here are some photos of the very first copy of the book:

           

    This second edition features:

  • An all new introduction chapter covering the history and future of level design, and common problems in the profession of a level designer
  • New In-depth sections covering composition and floorplans.
  • A few dozen small additions on a wide range of subjects such as pacing in singleplayer gameplay, checkpoints, and so on.
  • Dozens of all new or updated example screenshots.
  • The level Krodan added as a third example level.
  • An all new layout and much improved visual style.
  • The book is now printed on A4 paper size.
  • All the text throughout the entire book was touched up and improved significantly, and certain parts were clarified.


    To those who are unfamiliar with my level design book, this is what it is about:

    Level design is one of the most important, influential, and complex aspects of video and computer games. It is a fairly new design form and is maturing rapidly. As the available hardware capabilities and associated technology continue to increase in complexity, level design will also become increasingly complex. This book will help both aspiring and veteran designers come to terms with future changes in level design. Rather than addressing the usual ‘how to make a room', or ‘how to place a light', this book tackles how to make that room look good. The book details why certain decisions are made in order to achieve the design goal, and how to plan the route to the goal: the hows and whys.
    The chapters within describe all aspects of level design; from the initial design phase, to gameplay for singleplayer and multiplayer levels, to visual aspects regarding lighting and architecture, and more. The overall purpose is to explain the theories behind level design. It covers why light color X or architectural feature Y would work better in situation Z rather than color A or architecture B. It describes why a level is fun and what the level design does to enhance it: the ‘do's and don'ts' of creating environments for games.


    A big discount will be available on the PDF for those who own the first edition.

    Also, the FAQ has been updated, as has the two example extracts Lighting and Gameplay.

    The book will go on sale within two weeks if all goes right!


    Other Upcoming Events
    • In order to continue expanding this website, I hope to hold a large scale survey about level design in the near future. What gamers like and dislike in levels, what professionals like and dislike, how a level designer looks at the modding community and the different editors/technologies, and so on.

    Also my team and I are still working very hard on my mod The Ball for UT3, and we expect to have some screenshot worthy content ready within a month so we can show it to everyone. The second level is definitely a step up from the first level. It feels bigger and more complex, and has some more inspiring areas, including a grand opening scene in a huge cavern.
    Also, two character artists joined the team. They are working on a monkey, a mummy, and a "king" character. The idea is to have a creature that acts like the G-Man in Half Life. It never attacks you (yet?), but watches you as you progress through the temple. The monkeys will live up the environment and atmosphere, but serve no other purpose.

    More news later!