Breaking down the Necromancer’s Enclave
The Layout:
So the layout for the necromancer’s enclave started somewhat straightforward. I took some inspiration from games like Skyrim and Dark Souls with how I wanted this dungeon to work. I wanted to mix styles of both natural and man made temples. The idea was that the hidden necromancy temple had begun to crumble and fall apart, and nature had once again begun to take his course. This allowed me to mix both natural and man-made elements.
The Inspiration:
During the process of setting up my layout, I also wanted to get inspiration for the visual look and mood of the Necromancer’s enclave. For the cave sections I really liked the look that Skyrim went for in their caves. I also wanted to make sure the temple parts had felt like they had been abandoned for quiet some time.
I used these images, and a handful more to inspire the look and style I wanted to emulate throughout my level, and try to get the same feeling from each of those pictures. I loved the use of god rays and lighting that these pictures were able to create.
Starting to White box:
I started whiteboxing to make sure the playspace seemed fun and interesting with minimal set dressing and artwork within it. I did place a few art assets down, as I was using asset packs and did not have a dedicated art team, so I wanted to make sure the art assets fit and looked nice within my level.
While doing some playthrough tests I ended moving the hill even more to the right, and lowering its height. I also added height to the big bosses platform, and ended up making the boss smaller overall.
Taking Shape:
As set dressing began, I tried to fill in the space with the dilapidated ruins and objects from the asset packs I used to see how they fit in the environment. I also made passes at the lighting in order to figure out how it would look fully set dressed. I made several more lighting and set dressing passes to get a fully art level.
Final Steps:
The final passes at set dressing and lighting helped me really capture the mood and feeling I was going for. Going through with multiple lighting passes helped push the different pockets of color in each environment, and allowed me to direct the players eye’s towards enemies or points of visual interest.
Optimization Pass:
The final step was optimization, as I wanted to make sure the level ran smoothly, and was not chugging along with frames. I made sure to adjust the lightmap density of all the objects that were getting taxing, as well as lowering the lighting complexity by going through and making sure any stationary lights were not overlapping in important places. I also streamlined any player collision, making sure that places the player would never reach or hit were not causing unnecessary collision calculations.
