Hammer: Paper Edition

My Level Design 2 Final Concepting

Design a Level. That was the basic assignment, well there are some requirements, but I can realistically do what I want with this project. The only thing that I am confined to is that I have to use Half-Life 2 and Hammer. 

The Requirements

1. 5 to 7 minutes of polished game play that matches the LDD.
2. Maintain 30 FPS or better throughout the level.
3. Use of a skybox
4. At least one indoor and one outdoor area.
5. No development textures.

Areas of focus should be:

1. Bug free engaging game play.
2. Creating an appropriate mood with the use of lighting, sound, art and architecture.
3. Visually believable and interesting.

The assignment is divided into 3 parts, A Level Design Document, White-boxing, and The Final Version.

So I have to make an LDD that has the entire level mapped out and lists out everything. If you know me I am pretty far from being an artist and I struggle with immediately going into Adobe Illustrator and making something. I knew that I was going to have to do it in Illustrator to make it look clean and sharp but I needed a way to get there. Then I remembered our classrooms at Champlain have massive whiteboard walls! I love whiteboards and it was a great idea of a way to get a basic level done then transfer it over to digital for a cleaner look. 

I knew from the get go I wanted my level to be centered around one building that the player is able to explore and has multiple levels and different wings to explore. My solution to the outside area is simple, I have multiple rooftop fights and a "Yard" filled with zombies. So I took all of this and made a mock up on a whiteboard in our Game Lab.

After doing all of this on a whiteboard I then took it to Adobe Illustrator to make it look cleaner for the document. 
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All in all I liked how it turned out in the mock up of the level. Some of these changed for the actual whiteboxing stage and the document is a living document so it is still subject to change.