Arcane University: Level Design

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This is the main page of the Beyond Skyrim Arcane University Level Design tutorials. Below, important considerations of interior level design and exterior world design are being covered (General Workflow below).

For creating an entirely new heightmap for a new world, click on World Heightmap Creation.
For other topics, please add a new page.

1 Motivation to Level Design
2 General Considerations
3 Generalized Workflow of Level Design
- 3.1 Interior (dungeons) workflow
- 3.2 Exterior (world spaces) workflow
4 The Beyond Skyrim Arcane University Level Design Course
5 Basic Rules of Execution
6 Downloading and installing the Creation Kit
- 6.1 Blockout Tools and Illustrative Reference Tools
7 Speed Level Design as Reference

Motivation to Level Design

A Level Designer is a person who can create the physical shape of the lands and places where the stories imagined by Writing and Concept Art and team discussion take place. These creations must also be compatible with the Music Composition, they deserve their own Sound Effects and they must be compatible to the planned methods of Implementation for the quests and activities later on. There are a few basic questions when working on level design. By answering these appropriately, and having some practice, it is possible to create a beautiful dungeon or world space. This intermediate tutorial is written for people who have built their own first layouts and know the basics but want to achieve more, and it is supposed to point you towards advanced tutorials.

General Considerations

Level design is the stage between designing the world on paper and implementing the mechanics of it; it is the intermediate step of realizing your vision. As with all sections of development, the criteria of good and bad will be determined by how things as a whole come together and work out. And “works” means from testers/players perception, so it is always helpful to get quickly into the game tests and get third person opinions. The ties between especially the writing – level design – implementation chain are very strong. Bad writing annihilates every chance on good level design (if the level design follows the writing) and obviously the implementation afterward. Also, “bad” level design that does not fit the written story or the implementation makes a splendid player experience impossible. For that reason, good level design needs a basic understanding of the writing and implementation, and early testing by others. In general, the level designer should be in close communication with the responsible writer and implementer, or himself being the same person; and at least another equally (or more) experienced person should check the work and add feedback, suggestions, constructive criticism. This requires a respectful but honest and rational communication. On the process level, it also requires running through stages as a team, like brainstorming, filtering and taking decisions. On sub level, the level design itself also follows a chain of stages. This can be done by either a responsible group or a professional director or department lead who is aware of all details. The optimum would be, if all the department members checked it, everyone knows about the background, and all responsible persons; and after a detailed discussion, a decision can be achieved that convinces everyone and takes inspiration from all suggestions.

Generalized Workflow of Level Design

The level design workflow follows stages. These could vary from each person, but to give you a general idea, I took a preference:

Interior (dungeons) workflow

Layouting Phase (having a closed layout without holes and getting stuck)
Basic Cluttering Phase & basic light sources/lighting template raw (adding first objects to get a better impression of the design)
Test and basic implementation (if the functionality is not yet proven)
Detailed clutter (going into a certain direction of design after having enough input, repairs and reworks at this point might improve things)
Encounters, traps, activators (making the interior functional for the test, adding the interactive elements)
Navmesh, Lighting Template fine-tuning, Sound; load optimization, north-marker, World-Hook Up, Name of the cell, coc marker, Markers etc (adding the full game integration data)
Extended tests and polishes (expect this to take a lot of time until it feels right)

Exterior (world spaces) workflow

Height map
District layout
Regional layout
Basic clutter
Regional weathers, music
Interactive elements (as above)
Detailed clutter

The Beyond Skyrim Arcane University Level Design Course

The level design course will go through these general stages of level design in 3 courses for each interior and exterior creation.

Basic Rules of Execution

You will start with a layout based on your story and immersion factors. You should be familiar with it. Example: Bethesda basic tutorial on layouting & cluttering a dungeon, for beginners:

Beyond the obvious technical requirements to function as dungeon, there are some important aspects regarding logic and aesthetics of your level: The basic “unwritten rules” that you can follow if you want to avoid a bad impression:

Scaling of objects

Scaling objects under 0.5 will drop fps; scaling objects over 1.5 will look miserable in game. Especially objects using vanilla resolution textures will appear super low resolution and break the visual quality level, which should be held consistent during the game to address both optimisation and appeal.

Workarounds: Sometimes you have to use especially big meshes with low texture resolution to achieve a certain composition of space. There are a few ways how to work with them without making the low resolution too obvious:

If you can cover the low-resolution texture with other objects, so the low-resolution surface is noticeable.
If the surface is not seen close up, and you have some distance between the players closest possible position and the object, it is also less noticeable.
If you have a higher resolution texture than vanilla, the resolution will not be that low.

On the other hand, regions with a low object count might allow small meshes with higher resolution. Still, it is suggested to test the impacts on the engine and game stability, which you can easily do by checking fps when loading the area and running around there. This is just a general guideline, a checklist for you, if you aim for a high level, and depends on your case of application.

Avoid dead Space

Get a dynamic balance in the space; use all spaces, especially heights and ceilings. People who are new to level design often are impressed by the spacial freedom it offers. They create interiors with a big empty hall above the players head. This gives a quit nice impression of spacial dimension, but for a finished game/ mod it has a few downsides that speak against a generous ceiling structure and vast halls:

Often, it is unrealistic that people would build it that way (economically, statically, storywise).
It is unrealistic this would stay unharmed over the ages from decay (the aging process would destroy big structures quicker).
It reduces the tension of a narrow tomb etc (the first person impression will be very limited, certain feelings cannot be achieved anymore).
It might force you to clutter/redo areas that nobody will use in the game (you will have to cover all the area somehow to make it appear unique).
It might kill the visual aesthetics in general (it might feel completely out of place compared to the environment).

There are still good reasons for meaningful structures to be huge, but they need good reasons to keep a certain balance of sizes in the design consistent.

Avoid boring spaces

Very close to the above, for example, be careful not to create long hallways with flat, unspecified and generic ceilings.

Balance the density of Objects

Don’t use too few or too many objects; you need to find a balance of amount and density of object placement. The two extreme examples are “an empty floor” and “a full room”. Both would look awkward. At least, the amount of clutter should be balanced and distributed evenly across the area. Try to stay below the suggested object count (see that percentage value at top of render window in CK?) More objects also mean more havoc chaos (unless you add the disablehavokonload script (see next point), the checkbox does not always work) and more does not always mean better. On the other side, more objects allow more expression of layout and design and unique composition. It is a balance between detail and structure.

Use Havok properly

Havok is part of Skyrim, it can't be avoided, and players will interact with objects that have physics enabled. A common mistake of new level designers is to set "Don't Havok Settle" on all clutter. This setting does not stop the object from havok settling always, it stops it from havok settling initially. Setting "Don't Havok Settle" on every object to create a picturesque interior only means that upon any player interaction (which will happen) your level design will fall apart. If an object floats on havok settle, this is an asset issue, not a level design issue, and as such is not your responsibility to fix. That said, "Don't Havok Settle" is not always bad. Use your judgement to determine if something needs to not havok settle, but the answer is almost always no.

Fake Spaces, Choices, and Decay

Spark the player’s interest and imagination by a non-linear approach that implies that “this dungeon was actually bigger but this way is blocked” saving you object count and development time and also adding realism and non-linearity. Point out-blocked/hidden areas.

Tilesets don’t like kitbashing between each other

Do not try to mix two different types of ruins together. Your dungeon should either use one tileset, or a combination of a ruin and a cave.

Eternal Gravity and Out of Reach

Check that nothing is “falling under the ground”; (resetting in the center of the cell later on load!) Also check that nothing is outside of + / – 30.000 units in all x, y and z dimensions, as this can result in issues.

Navmesh test with Overlay

Keep at least always a walking corridor (test with navmesh). Find a good balance between the count of vertices and resolution of your navmesh map. Short reminder: This is how Bethesda explained Navmeshing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raM9TBZZyQY&list=PLD5AA9F15CAA68B07&index=6.

Light Sources

Lighting can make or break your level. In the majority of cases, lighting should be diagetic. Sconces, candles, chandeliers, skylights, and so on are generally your main light sources. Lights should be used to guide the player, and highlight important things of note. Play with light radius (this is done by scaling the light, and can be viewed by pressing L) and play with the intensity (this can be done by holding Alt + Ctrl + S, but don't go too crazy with it.)

A very important note: you cannot have too many lights in close proximity. This will cause the game to not know how to render all the lights hitting the nearby objects, so it will randomly ignore some lights, causing flickering. Only four light can hit the same object, an easy way to test this is to right click on the render window -> Render Window Properties -> Shaders -> # of lights. This will shade every object with a color indicating the number of lights hitting it. Green is low, purple is high, red means it's too much. Sometimes this setting shows things you don't expect. The reason for this is, on a technical level, 4 lights can only hit one TriShape in a nif, rather than the object. The bounds of what the engine considers a light hitting a TriShape is also larger than you expect, the light's radius doesn't have to physically hit a visible part of the mesh for it to count.

Make sure you use beams, spotlights, omni-emission light sources and shadow creating light sources as suggested in tutorials. Light might also guide the player through your cave, and can greatly influence the feeling, just like music does. Also, notice that there is an image space dropdown window in the cell view window. The right setting can go a long way in helping to define the proper mood for your interior.

Lighting Template

This is not the light sources and FX, but the cell's “background lighting”. Generally, you should use a lighting template appropriate for the tileset. If you're unsure you can always check vanilla settings. Reminder: This is how Bethesda explained lighting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fZoIpKcJ6I&list=PLD5AA9F15CAA68B07&index=10.

Loot lists and items

Consider if the standard containers with standard loot lists fit in or not. In some places, it might be more appropriate to choose different loot lists. For example, if a place is inhabited mostly by Thalmor, then it would not make sense to find regular bandit armor here.

Activators & Traps

Consider player-interactions like lighting a fireplace or climbing a rope/ladder, mushrooms etc. That needs the appropriate space. Reminder: This is how Bethesda explained to place traps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN5vCtlxvwk&list=PLD5AA9F15CAA68B07&index=8.

Build a Stage for your Encounters / Actors

Consider your dungeon as a stage for actors who you place later. That means, plan the encounters and patrols and ambushes (like traps and puzzles and collectibles) already at conception stage or layouting stage, to distribute them consistently and make the area/dungeon feel more “smooth and natural”. Avoid enemies facing your player on load, it not only costs fps, they can also get killed on loadscreen, a very demotivating experience and considered "a bug" for most players. Reminder: this is how Bethesda explained to place encounters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAih_jr233I&list=PLD5AA9F15CAA68B07&index=7.

Optimisation

Make sure to create roombounds or occlusion planes to optimize your interior. If you have a massive interior, split it into multiple cells. Vanilla dungeons are a good guide for how big you should let a cell get before splitting it off into another. Try to remove or replace small scaled objects (high texture density), FX effects where they aren’t needed and objects that are only 30% or less visible (because the rest is outside the surface). Reminder: This is how Bethesda explained optimization: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acfuZiQh83Y&list=PLD5AA9F15CAA68B07&index=9.

World consistency & hook-up

Your interior for obvious reasons should fit to the environment both in scale and in contents, the stone textures should fit to the exterior, and the size of rooms should fit a structure. You can go ahead and duplicate your interior completely with ctrl+c and paste with ctrl+v in exterior, overlaying the load door to check this out, and other things like water level or sky direction (if you add a sky directional marker to the interior). Reminder: this is the basic world hook-up of your interior into your exterior explained by Bethesda: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTSQaUx5eKY&list=PLD5AA9F15CAA68B07&index=11.

Cell Data: Accoustic Space, North Marker, coc-markers, naming conventions, music playlist, location and more

Use acoustic spaces for different acoustic impressions; Use a north marker to correctly orient the player's map; Use coc markerd or x-marker headings for teleports; Use consistent cell name and hooked up map markers; music playlist, trigger boxes and implementational preparations…

Stay open for inspiration, feedback, criticism

Even after the “duty job is finished”, check all available sources of content -> historical/archeological sources and all available sources of technique like the Creation Kit Wiki. Quality is made by finishing a dungeon, polishing it and going deeply into the thoughts behind it. you will find that, whilst the first stages you have a lot to lose, the last stages are those where you really gain something.So you should estimate to spent more time on the later stages, even though your “duty job” is already done; but at that level it becomes fun and you can actually become creative with tweaking the overall composition as a whole.

Downloading and installing the Creation Kit

Skyrim Legendary Edition: To download the Original Creation kit, you will need to download it through steam. To access it you will go to your library under home you will find a drop-down, change this to tools in this list you will find the Creation Kit. You will have to enanle multiple master loads, and an English game file might help against the missing strings error.
Skyrim Special Edition: To download the SE Creation you will need to download the Bethesda.net launcher. After you download the launcher if the CK is not an already visible download, go to all games and scroll down until you find it. Recommendations: Original Creation Kit: All under Skyrim editor.ini in your Skyrim Root Folder:
Under audio, change bEnableAudio to 0. Changing this makes the Creation Kit crash less.
Under archive, add this to SResourceArchieveList2:
```
,Dawnguard.bsa, Dragonborn.bsa, HearthFires.bsa
```
. Doing this allows the DLC archives to load in the background reducing missing models during dev.
Under messages, change bBlockMessageBoxes=0 to bBlockMessageBoxes=1. Doing this blocks all the errors that pop up when launching the CK. Note that your merging file admin might be unhappy about your esp adding a ton of dirty edits, so at least check these warnings before you hand in your file and try to fix as much as you can!
Special Edition Creation Kit: Download Creation Kit Fixes. Downloading this fixes the majority of issues with the Special Edition Creation Kit and includes some enhancements.

Blockout Tools and Illustrative Reference Tools

Speed Level Design as Reference

(Maverick: Frozen Wasteland) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx-Ow3-SipE