DEVELOPMENT BLOG
Hello, and welcome to the home of my portfolio and development blog. Here you will find various personal projects I am involved in, as well as my work as a Game Designer.
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Published Article - Gamasutra - Creating a narrative focused mission design document
The article was based on a personal project I did exploring the last of us Universe. Once I decided to share it I wanted to also make sure it was useful to the public so I broke down my process in more detail prior to the Overview document. I also shared my working files on my site in the design documentation section.
The link is here.
https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/MichaelHow/20190823/343703/Creating_a_Narrative_Focused_Mission_Design_Document__Last_of_Us_Example.php
The link is here.
https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/MichaelHow/20190823/343703/Creating_a_Narrative_Focused_Mission_Design_Document__Last_of_Us_Example.php
Unreal 4 Map - Planetary Base
No rest for the wicked. So this time around I am creating a Planetary base in Unreal 4. I started by gutting the FPS shooter game that is available to download free with unreal 4. It gives you a solid base to develop shooter mechanics and also retro fit an AI to a really tidy rig. The scene is also setup with a few gameplay ingredients like health and ammo, meaning you can breadcrumb the player paths. I've started to create a rudimentary AI; as the one that comes with the project is not suitable (Essentially Skirmish bots that mercilessly hunt you!)
Farcry 4 map
Back In Farcry4 Editor atm doing some exploration as my experience lay primarily with Farcry 3 editor. It's still a joy to use and the tools present no barrier to creating amazing gameplay. It's easy to effortlessly craft terrain and encounters. The drag and drop AI POI's are a wicked addition. They "just work".
I wanted to create a battle that was set high up in the mountains, almost at cloud level. I also wanted to explore doing a multipurpose environment to get bang for buck on content. The map has rotational symmetry so could be used for both MP and SP battles ( provided the rotational symmetry disguised it's MP balancing). I did some fairly crude distance checks in photoshop at the whitebox stage then started to layer in primary paths. It's the first time I have experimented with cliff laticing in FC4 which was interesting to see how they layered in. The new erosion tools give a fairly nice world machine style look without too much effort.
The map is designed to allow quick transport between the large towers and the other side of the map via zip line. The zip lines would be high risk but possibly high reward if you manage to flank an unsuspecting enemy. I encourage range combat with the negative space between each side and tried to limit the amount of buildings to camp in. Some high ground can be earned but you'll have to watch your size. Outside of MP I'll have waves coming in from the corner spawn roads and flooding into the map. Players will feel like there is nowhere to hide and ideally keep moving and keeping some range between them and the forces flooding in.
I wanted to create a battle that was set high up in the mountains, almost at cloud level. I also wanted to explore doing a multipurpose environment to get bang for buck on content. The map has rotational symmetry so could be used for both MP and SP battles ( provided the rotational symmetry disguised it's MP balancing). I did some fairly crude distance checks in photoshop at the whitebox stage then started to layer in primary paths. It's the first time I have experimented with cliff laticing in FC4 which was interesting to see how they layered in. The new erosion tools give a fairly nice world machine style look without too much effort.
The map is designed to allow quick transport between the large towers and the other side of the map via zip line. The zip lines would be high risk but possibly high reward if you manage to flank an unsuspecting enemy. I encourage range combat with the negative space between each side and tried to limit the amount of buildings to camp in. Some high ground can be earned but you'll have to watch your size. Outside of MP I'll have waves coming in from the corner spawn roads and flooding into the map. Players will feel like there is nowhere to hide and ideally keep moving and keeping some range between them and the forces flooding in.
Franco Game Jam
I recently had the pleasure of taking part in Franco Game Jam. The game jam raised a bunch of money for Team Verrico which support families who have lost loved ones to cancer https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/francojam CA also produced some incredible games! I had a 3 man team composed of 1 Scripter, 1 Concept artist, myself filling the role of Project lead and level design.
The game took shape quickly and was a blast to work on! We managed to get all our MVP's done. I've attached some images of the game and also the main production goals.
The game took shape quickly and was a blast to work on! We managed to get all our MVP's done. I've attached some images of the game and also the main production goals.
Desert Rats - Second Pass Blockout and Reference
This evening I jumped back into COH 2. I've been doing a few lates on Halowars 2 so it was good to jump back over to COH 2 and tinker on personal stuff to keep fresh. I decided on a coastal area around Tobruk for the map and tweaked the height map to a playable state. I also added second player spawns at both sides so it can accommodate 2vs2 Dom and DM. The editor doesn't have any support for terrain deformation or noise so I will need to investigate if i can take the height map out into another program for this. I will need to see how far I can take the terrain with textures and more subtle contours. Next up, give it a play with some mates next and see how it goes! I don't want to take it to far ahead before the basic block-out and territory footprint is proved out. I like how asymmetrical and natural the map feels yet based on the zoning - is perfectly balanced. The territory tools in World Builder are extremely slick and allow quality tracking of your territory.
Small World - Custom Faction
So this was originally meant to be a quick and dirty hack job but once I started I had to do it properly PS OCD. I dug up a template from https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/779995/templates and then basically chopped the rest of it all together. I am pretty happy with the look but still need to give it a play to see how it goes. The faction is agile and able to move into the board quite tactically. It is also able to expand to one other mountain easily. I had reservations about letting the player select which mountain they would apply the poison spread too and decided it was best to force it to the initial mountain they entered by so it was out of their hands. The chance of poison spreading is low but I wanted to ensure when it did - they had a chance hurt themselves to ensure they weren't OP and had a negative in addition to their mountain travel. I wont set this in stone and will probably change the faction after playing it. Late aside, I realised that I needed to specify the spiders couldn't enter the board via any mountain and must spread from the first one - like spiders :) I tried to make the faction abilities in tune with some of the spiders characteristics and I do love a good dice roll with the chance of self harm to spice things up! I think this comes from recently playing Dead of Winter. #smallworld #custom #faction
COH 2 - Late night Tinkering 2 - 17/07/2015
Further work on frozen graves and some tinkering with a new map -desert rats
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=508239335 - Steam Store Location
Develop Conference - Fast and Furious Chat
I was given the chance to do a chat at develop this year. There were a bunch of pre-set topics and speakers were given the chance to insert a word of choice over the top of a blank within a sentence. I chose "Not listening - The Secret to my success"
I've attached the talk here for those who may be interested.
I've attached the talk here for those who may be interested.
| develop_michael_how.pdf |
| develop_michael_how.ppt |
COH 2 Late Night Tinkering
15/07/2015 - It's been a while since I dropped by! I've been busy starting a new job and have been so focused on that I haven't taken much time to tinker. Tonight I got stuck into COH2 editor for a while to refresh as it had been ages. I am blocking out the beginning of a far eastern Russian map I called Hoth (working title) for now. All the zoning is fairly work in progress. I want to create a fairly dramatic conflict zone in the center and try to offset the feel of the symmetry with the surrounding sheer cliffs and verticality. The bases that start further from the center have a closer resource point/conflict zone in front of them.
I wanted to provide garrison options for smg's to setup and try to fortify the center. I haven't decided if i will make it shallow water or a mixture of both frozen water and snow to create some hot spots for tank drops/mining leading in. I definitely want to freeze it and test at some point. I still need to setup both garrison towns properly and do a lot of resource zoning and examination for balance. Both the main bases need far more occlusion and the paths out defined I'll probably try to force them low to merge with the bottom army then slam together centrally. The map plays top to bottom.
I wanted to provide garrison options for smg's to setup and try to fortify the center. I haven't decided if i will make it shallow water or a mixture of both frozen water and snow to create some hot spots for tank drops/mining leading in. I definitely want to freeze it and test at some point. I still need to setup both garrison towns properly and do a lot of resource zoning and examination for balance. Both the main bases need far more occlusion and the paths out defined I'll probably try to force them low to merge with the bottom army then slam together centrally. The map plays top to bottom.
Story Telling In level Design Challenge
| challenge.pdf |
24/11/14 - Recently I created a challenge for interested parties throughout the Sniper 3 team of any discipline. We had a good showing from all departments. I wanted the challenge focused around story telling in level design. I've offered a Steam game for the submission that truly delivers on an emotional response from the player by using collectibles and emotive level/environment design. Entrants could select what emotion they wished to evoke in players. I am using the opportunity to get stuck into Unreal 4.5 as most of my experience was with UDK. I started by migrating assets from the Landscape Mountains project to my own FPS project. I believe you need Unreal 4.5 for access to the landscape mountains project. Follow the guide below for migration. I'll be making my own heightmap and environment but grabbed most of the other assets in the project to pull from the thematic. There is an island of the coast of Iceland which is particularly interesting and I wanted to draw reference from this to feed back to my chosen emotion.
https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Content/Browser/UserGuide/Migrate/index.html
With my assets and project setup - I'll get some shut eye and come back to this once I have my project plan and ideas fully realised. At this point all I knew I wanted to use a forest/snow thematic.
With my assets and project setup - I'll get some shut eye and come back to this once I have my project plan and ideas fully realised. At this point all I knew I wanted to use a forest/snow thematic.
Lunch - 25/11/14 - Exploring the space and scale with a quick height map pass based on a 2d sketch and top down.
25/11/14 - Some exploration this evening into materials and height based texturing in Unreal 4. This was tested on the first pass height-map. I threw down some bsb brushes at the locations I want points of interest and looked to wrap up all the documentation. I grabbed some more reference of the island and fleshed out further in my mind the way's I wished to expose the player to the supporting narrative through collectibles and evoke the feeling of isolation.
26/11/14 - Experimenting with the instance population tools here. Signposting the main routes and flows whilst also ensuring from the start position and various points of interest and the core objective are clear with decent line of sight for players. I tested all the POI reveal points and whether I am naturally guided to the key locations based on what is visible and where my eye is being led. Still some iteration required to the tree lines and a visual language pass to guide my eye and hopefully the players right where I want them to go.
27/11/14 - So it was a fairly productive day today. I got together the documentation at work on break and explored the core goals and motivations of both the protagonist and antagonist. I worked out my collectible sets - where they will go and how many will be required. I aim to record these and write them, then distribute them into the world and setup the logic for collection and interaction. Sometimes whilst working on a document I flick over to Photoshop and work on a title page to help sell my document which can often lead to new ideas. It also helps draw towards the mood you are creating for your level at times. Finally I sourced assets and did another pass on the heightmap. I messed around more with the instance painting and blend layers in Unreal when I got home.
Personal Project - Uncharted 4 - Jungle Fortress
This is a map design I created for the Uncharted 4 universe exploring a mission where Sully is rescued from a jungle fortress in the Belize Jungle. - check the full document here.
Sketch-up Exploration
An interview with the lovely co-optimus guys at E3. They were super excited about sniper 3!
Some of the Sniper 3 Development Diaries are rolling out. It's been great to tell the fan base exactly what feedback we have been focusing on and more about the game.
A film I cut together of the completed "Shallow Stream" Sandbox single player environment.
Shallow StReam Singleplayer Mission
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Shallow Stream Domination Map
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23/08/2013 - Objectives
I've added core objective locations. As far back as the original paper design I had wanted to destroy a communication hub on this mountain. Since then, given the mission and environment has got a lot more detailed; I decided to bring the central hub on par and implement the objective location. There is no way to really setup an objective structure unfortunately in FC3 so for my money, I consider on death of the truck the completion condition for the players primary objective.
The island
21/08/2013
I revisited my old SP variant of Shallow stream this evening and added a small incursion down at the docs. The spawn point is effectively on the boat inbound to the island. It opens up the player choice completely as to how and where you decide to approach the island; it's entirely up to you. I added a layer of enemies and did some extensive play testing on the cover options and sandbox feel of the space.
Spawn Point view and the docks.
Nice and simple layout with ample cover and various weapons to pilfer and begin your incursion with. Guiding lines leading into the space and a landmark for reference and to draw you towards your primary obj.
Distant snipers in elevated locations give the player something to think about.
Cover Pass - I reworked both the cover and nav mesh to suit the new changes and did a basic pass on the rest of the island to ensure it was tidy with suitable routes for AI.
Sniper Focused Deathmatch - FC3 Editor -1/08/2013
Idea: To create an intense sniper focused death match in the Farcry 3 Editor. I wanted to challenge the deliverable times on polished content. I started the map at lunch time on the 1/08/2013 spending just under 1 hr on the top down map sketch. I will usually give these a Photoshop treatment for other departments but given this is a personal projected( I am the only one referencing the image), I cracked on using the top down sketch.
Sketch: 30min-1hr
Sketch: 30min-1hr
Goal: The goal of the map was to promote movement to focal sniper points within the map. I used a symmetrical layout for balance, incorporating thematic differences so the player would maintain their bearings.
Environment: Island based - Mining and Native building kits.
Story: I wanted to suggest that the island was once native and had been taken over for it's rich resources and plundered. There should be evidence of the previous civilization as well as the mining town that took over.
Thematic: I wanted a dry dirt map to help reduce the amount of foliage and create more open spaces between cover for sniping. Moving between locations should be a risk reward scenario - concise and clear locations to move between. I ended up going with a boat in one of the shallows for quick traversal between islands via skilled jumps.
Environment: Island based - Mining and Native building kits.
Story: I wanted to suggest that the island was once native and had been taken over for it's rich resources and plundered. There should be evidence of the previous civilization as well as the mining town that took over.
Thematic: I wanted a dry dirt map to help reduce the amount of foliage and create more open spaces between cover for sniping. Moving between locations should be a risk reward scenario - concise and clear locations to move between. I ended up going with a boat in one of the shallows for quick traversal between islands via skilled jumps.
Map work begins - 2/08/2013
4 hrs of core map work time allocated.
I allocated a fair portion of this time to testing distances and plonking some AI in on either side of the map to make sure that the sniper shots in the basic block out were achievable from both sides. Using all the sniper guns provided some challenging but make-able shots. Once the core gameplay space was 1st pass I moved on to blocking in the key buildings and sniper locations.
I allocated a fair portion of this time to testing distances and plonking some AI in on either side of the map to make sure that the sniper shots in the basic block out were achievable from both sides. Using all the sniper guns provided some challenging but make-able shots. Once the core gameplay space was 1st pass I moved on to blocking in the key buildings and sniper locations.
Roughly 5 hours of work have gone into it now. Quite happy with the basic first pass. Flows are working well. Visual language for the paths is starting to come together. Generally the height map is getting towards 1st pass complete across the whole map.
Hang Glider Test!
04/08/2013 - About 2 hours cleaning up the second island today and messing around with lighting, some general roads and path tweaking. I usually ensure that the guiding lines and paths are sufficient by driving them myself to iron out any sharp bends or extreme undulation.
More lighting tweaks - the storm looked fantastic but culled visibility too greatly for sniper play.
5/08/2013 - This evening I will do a final height map and terrain path. I've found the paths and roads on Farcry 3 editor are a bit janky. They do not curve easily and often you end up with stretched textures on any angled corners. The benifit to them is they override any foliage and rocks you may have painted down leaving the road clear.
That said, unless I am painting large straight roads down I usually use the texture painter and simply chose the texture I want for that path. The trick to keeping it free of any foliage or rocks is to paint down a place holder rock or foliage that you know you can delete later. I usually use Low Rocks as it LOD's the rocks out at distance and allows you to get a visual of what the map will be like without them. At this final stage I will usually delete Low Rocks from the collection system and paint on any other foliage I have been missing or wanting but hit the foliage slot limit. In this case I might get some nice underwater foliage down with the free slot once it's gone.
Additionally - turn on Nav mesh and Cover under AI so that you have a good idea of any navigation issues that may be present whilst also ensuring both sides of your map have a relatively even distribution of cover.
Your map is only as good as it's worst angle. I flew around and tidied up a few non playable edges to make them look more natural and part of the island as a whole.
That said, unless I am painting large straight roads down I usually use the texture painter and simply chose the texture I want for that path. The trick to keeping it free of any foliage or rocks is to paint down a place holder rock or foliage that you know you can delete later. I usually use Low Rocks as it LOD's the rocks out at distance and allows you to get a visual of what the map will be like without them. At this final stage I will usually delete Low Rocks from the collection system and paint on any other foliage I have been missing or wanting but hit the foliage slot limit. In this case I might get some nice underwater foliage down with the free slot once it's gone.
Additionally - turn on Nav mesh and Cover under AI so that you have a good idea of any navigation issues that may be present whilst also ensuring both sides of your map have a relatively even distribution of cover.
Your map is only as good as it's worst angle. I flew around and tidied up a few non playable edges to make them look more natural and part of the island as a whole.
The Beta of SniperDuel is now Available in FC3 Community.
| sniper_duel.fc3map |
Shallow_Stream is live in the FC3 map community and also available here for download!
In the process of doing some small tweaks and validating for submission. It is available for download as both a DM and Domination map. Both teams will have a fairly easy task getting the first domination point but the jewel will be capturing and holding the top facility domination point!
Single Player Stealth Variant
After some tweaking on the weekend I have expanded the viable routes into the main objective location. One of these routes takes you through an old war fort with abandoned tanks,artillery and bunkers. These provide good game play opportunities for the player and draw them towards alternative and fun routes into the base over a bridge.
The war fort has its own set of options for entering. Players can take a zodiac round the back or even travel along the shallow stream with a fishing trawler using the mounted gun to pick off enemy emplacements. Ive also sort to call out small trails and back routes on the way up the hill to bring a stronger feeling to the stealth.
The stream dividing the map is fraught with danger as it's home to a number of dangerous inhabitants. Abandoning your boat when it's on fire may prove to be a dangerous move as you are descended upon by sharks or crocodiles.
The war fort has its own set of options for entering. Players can take a zodiac round the back or even travel along the shallow stream with a fishing trawler using the mounted gun to pick off enemy emplacements. Ive also sort to call out small trails and back routes on the way up the hill to bring a stronger feeling to the stealth.
The stream dividing the map is fraught with danger as it's home to a number of dangerous inhabitants. Abandoning your boat when it's on fire may prove to be a dangerous move as you are descended upon by sharks or crocodiles.
It had been a while since I used Farcry 2 to create anything or crytek for that matter so I decided to brush up. This level was created based on a very brief encounter I concocted on a whim to get back into it. I used the farcry 3 editor in this case.
The player is on an island and has a very clear focal point for the mission. I wanted to champion the choices with which they might attack an elevated facility. There are zodiacs,jet ski's, shallow river beds,and generally secret entrances to take advantage of when infiltrating the location.
The player is on an island and has a very clear focal point for the mission. I wanted to champion the choices with which they might attack an elevated facility. There are zodiacs,jet ski's, shallow river beds,and generally secret entrances to take advantage of when infiltrating the location.
UDK Level
I set myself a tight deadline and looked to re-familiarize myself with udk by doing a short level and lighting project concentrating on creating a tight TDM space.
This is the first pass. I am to make a circular flow allowing routes around the outside of the map.
This is the first pass. I am to make a circular flow allowing routes around the outside of the map.
