Mod Bots [WIP]
Roles
Level Designer
Enviornment Artist
Responsibilities
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Design and itterate on the Colosseum layout in Unreal using BSP geomatry
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Create custom level layouts for the rising hexagonal floor tiles the players would fight on
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Aid in enviornmental art by providing set pieces, textures, and SFX for the finished version of the game
Early Inspiration
Because I like to take inspiration from my likes and hobbies, I modeled the seating area of the Colosseum after the Corrida Colosseum from One Piece. I felt that its building style, including the large moat surrounding the fighers and high walls for audience seating, would feel great in a post-apocalyptic setting.
Additionally, I also took inspiration from underground fight rings such as The Bed of Styx from Yakuza 0 for their intence lighting and atmosphere.
Design Decisions
Early in the whiteboxing process, I found out that my first design of the Colosseum had the seating go back too far from the fight. This was after tersters said that the area seemed too large and didn't fit the theme the team was going for.
Because of this, I re-worked the entire layout of the Colosseum to create a more closed-in enviornment to make the audience feel closer to the player. This new design decision also made it so that lighting would have to be re-worked to account for the additional height of the Colosseum. Since there was less natural light hitting the arena, I made sure to include areas for spotlights that would increase both player and audience visibility.
Hex Tile Layouts
One of the major features of the environment is the Hex Tile Layout System, which uses Perlin Noise to map height detail onto an array of floor pieces. While this created some incredibly unique arenas, it still felt as though it was missing something, partly due to the fact that the tool couldn't do minute changes to tile placement well.
Because of this, I went in to create over 40 custom maps using a combination of noise generation and custom placement. Doing this gave the environment much more personality, fleshing out the world and making it more fun to fight in. This also gave me the opportunity to fix issues the noise generation caused, like dips in the arena the player couldn't escape from.
