Game Toolsets?

[Anonymous]

Hey guys,

I’m in the thinking process of designing a small but polished ‘level’ for a game but I’m unsure as to which toolset is the best to go with. I’ve been out of the loop with this stuff for quite a while, but I’m looking to get back into it, initially on a basic level.

Basically I’m looking to design perhaps a small dungeon scenario with a boss encounter or two, with some cutscenes and character interaction/storytelling mechanics.

The Dragon Age toolset seems to fit the bill but apparently doesn’t have much support, along with a steep learning curve.

Has anyone got any recommendations as to which toolset might be easy to get started with, that comes with a tonne of support/wiki info/tutorials?

I’m not looking to add my own art assets or anything, I’m quite happy to use the existing stuff. I have done hours worth of research but I figured it might be as beneficial to get some insight from anyone thats had experience with these first hand.

Any help would be appreciated! Thanks in advance.

Paul

[Anonymous]

Hi Paul,
it seems you came back at the right moment, there are plenty of toolsets at the moment that are gone free, so here are some suggestions:

– Cryengine 2 (available purchasing Crysis): imho is the best one for open environment and maybe one of the best graphically speaking; on the other hand documentation and support are not the best;

– Unreal Engine 3: recently they released the UDK for free. I haven’t used it so far, but I read that is great for closed environment and there a lot of tutorials and documentation for it (like 20hrs of video!);

– Unity 3D: they went free as well a while ago, and from what I’ve seen there are plenty of tools which it integrates with, really easy to use.

Hope this can help you!

Marco

[Anonymous]

Are you going for a level design position? Try and create at least some of your own assets, its the age of the multi-disciplinary after all :)

If you are looking to throw something together from mostly existing assets, I reccomend the UDK or Cryengine 3. Unity or the Blender Game Engine won’t help you much here…

[Anonymous]

What I’m actually going for is non-specific to level design, but more so towards the production side of things and while level design will factor heavily (amongst many other things), I guess my end goal is to see a project through from concept to completion. Having a full design document is part of the plan too.

I would also like to get it out there and played by whoever might play it, taking feedback, hopefully generating some hype, that kinda thing.

I was quite proficient with 3d Max, but fell out of the loop with it (did LUDO/CGHND in BCFE finishing in 05′) and have just recently discovered that I know what role I would eventually like to take in the industry.

So existing art assets for now, I’m thinking, however once I delve further into the actual design and concepts, I may be bold enough to look for an artist and perhaps a scripter to turn it into something a little bigger. I’m hopefully heading back to college in Sept 11′, which gives plenty of time to get this thing done!

Thanks for the input so far, plenty of places to look now!

[Anonymous]

It depends on what your most comfortable with I guess,
I personally do like the UDK engine, but to get that specific style it would require you to endeavor into the Modeling field as well as level design.

Best advice I can give you is to try a few of them, see which one gives you all that you need but you find most comfortable to use. Because, if you don’t use something that isn’t comfortable to you then it will definitely affect your final level design.

UDK, and Unity seem to be all the rage right now. But if you don’t particularly mind you could use the Source engine and use Source SDK to make your level designs. You’ve got a lot more freedom in level design by using brushes, (this is of course you have yet to learn modeling).

Hope this helps, and don’t forget to post Work in progress shots!

– Sythen.

[Anonymous]

I don’t think I could reccomend Source, unless you are intent on pulling your hair out :D

Sounds like you are going more for a games design role? I reccomend Unity in this case. Also, to make it as a game designer, you are going to have some really innovative concepts…so I wouldn’t worry about using premade assets or what the graphics look like; your ideas for a game should work even if its a really simply blocky character running around a blocky environment (which you should be able to protoype yourself). I reckon Unity is your best bet.

[Anonymous]

I don’t think I could reccomend Source, unless you are intent on pulling your hair out :D

Sounds like you are going more for a games design role? I reccomend Unity in this case. Also, to make it as a game designer, you are going to have some really innovative concepts…so I wouldn’t worry about using premade assets or what the graphics look like; your ideas for a game should work even if its a really simply blocky character running around a blocky environment (which you should be able to protoype yourself). I reckon Unity is your best bet.[/quote:d3397d2765]

On second thaught. Andreas is entirely correct lol!

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the feedback guys.
I’ll give Unity some attention over the next few days.

When I go ahead with this, I plan on posting updates through perhaps a blog/website. I do have some interesting ideas but whether or not I can realize them, considering the constraints I have, is another thing!

Cheers.

[Author]

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