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| Professional level design (by Phallosvogel) |
Phallosvogel wrote a very detailed tutorial to create to create well designed levels. It is good if you have experience with handling the editor and you want to design your levels better. Thanks Zelter for translating!
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| Leveldesigning (by psy) |
Here are some basic tips to get you started in level designing. My goal here is, that every starting designer would read this, and avoid the usual mistakes. I've made levels for quite some time so I know some things, made a lot of mistakes and learned. You don't have to take the same route.
The most important thing to do is playtesting. Play the level many times, see if you can do something better, then change it and play again and again, however, do not go too far with fine-tuning or the level will be too "polished" and there are no obstacles left to hoyl. I've made this mistake many times. Try to get a good balance; make it ergonomic and fun to play but still hard to drive perfectly.
Be original. Many levdesigners have their "trademark" styles and tricks, you can try to make your own too. However, re-inventing the wheel is pointless, that's why you should play as many levels as possible to get inspiration.
Detailed backgrounds give headache to some players (including myself), so if you definitely want to use such ugly thing as brick as your background, at least use mask so it won't move like backgrounds (and others can turn pictures off). But I really recommend using sky bg, cos the other choices in default lgr are just too confusing for serious hoyling. If you're using some other lgr, the basic idea is to get enough contrast between the back- and foregrounds. You must also choose a background where you can see your bike's wheels clearly.
Did you know that there are many players that hate gravity? If you really have to use gravity food, you should put an arrow polygon or something to show which gravity it'll switch on. Avoid messy places with many different gravity apples. A little use of gravity won't ruin a level, just keep it small enough and don't play around with it.
When adding new polygons, like uphills and so on, add them to the main polygon. If you don't, the wheels'll stuck or disturb playing in many other ways.
You might want people to find your levels tempting? In Elma, you can drive a few times to the top list. Some people feel like they just have to break them. In Across, you can add "Under xx sec"-text.
Don't block your vision with pictures. Using pictures right will make the level look very good without disturbing the play. Some ppl hide small polygons behind pictures to get the picture work like a polygon. Just remember to make the lines fat enough so ppl with low detail (no pictures) can see them too. In general the idea is good if you want to make some C64 Kickstart-like trial levs, though many players are just bored with a million 45 degree polygon levels...
Always name your level. "I made a best time in unnamed", not so nice, eh? Try to invent different level names. "Too Eazy" or anything that's related to the difficulty is pretty dull. "This is my first level" or "This level was made by psy" are also as good as "Unnamed". I'm sure you'll come up with something original. I like absurd titles but thats just my opinion.
In my opinion the suitable length for a hoylable level is 30-80 seconds. Shorter than 30 secs often get boring pretty fast and longer than 80 secs are a bit too much for a compo. If you prefer relaxing cruise levels, 2-3 mins is probably a good length. Longer than that are a pain really.
When you start playing, you might think that big downhills, big loops and speed is cool. Too bad that hardly no one thinks so after a few months of playing. So, you really should play the game for a few months first, then make the levels.
When you think you're out of ideas, stop the level there. Don't try to make it longer with slaloms or loops or whatever boring stuff.
Make interesting starts. Falling down for 10 secs isn't interesting, neither is plane ground. Put something there. When someone plays a levpack, they use aprox. 2 seconds per track. If there's nothing in the start, ESC, next...
Do not use invisible polygons as 'help' for big jumps etc. They always mess up the drive. People might try to make over with some spin, and the result is hitting their head in an invisible polygon. Without it they would've made it. They'll be frustrated enough to switch to the next level.
When publishing levels, make sure you've moved the start back to it's own place. This may sound stupid, but a lot of ppl are forgetting this sometimes.
Food object is meant to use in places you want the player to go, so he cant use a shortcut etc. Do not use them if you really don't have to. And place them in such places the player won't drive through them. Same goes for killers, you can block some passages if you want but dont overuse it.
Please spare us from your "cool" autolevs. It should be a game, not a movie.
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| Grass (by Lasall) |
The grass tool is one of the biggest problems in the editor because sometimes it does not work and errors are hidden.
So it looks first
And now we make a new polygon around the other polygon
Now you have to make a grass polygon out of the nomal polygon. Select the move Tool and click at a corner of the polygon and apply the grass polygon.
The part under the black soil indicates, how large the lawn becomes. It can be widened only up to a certain size. The part above does not mean anything at all. The sides grass polygon should be as diagonal as in the example (at the beginning \ and at the end/).
From a certain angle you can not make grass, e.g. at walls or covers. If you make it nevertheless, then the lawn is not indicated at all incorrectly.
If you want grass over several corners you have to make it in this way
The green strip shows, what one does not see otherwise: The corners must be always inclined, even if one goes over several floor parts.
If you have to several floor parts with grass, you should make that step by step. Only make straight piece, then continue to examine (save and Play or press P), and then the next and always so on.
If you make the grass not exactly, it could happen, that the grass is not any longer shown. Then you should go backwards, piece for piece, delete vertexes, until it is show again.
It is also possible to leave out a part
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