New to level design - where to start Thread

Hey guys

I've been involved in the gaming industry for nearly a decade, and a gamer for twice that, but haven't tried my hand at the actual creation process. It's about time to change that!

After thinking about all of the different areas that interest me most, I've landed on level design. And as you'd expect, I've got a couple of questions before I start on my first map.

1.) I have zero experience as an artist. I'm not going to be able to draw beautiful depictions of my maps before I build them. Is this going to be a drawback if I do pursue a career as a level designer? I'm hoping that my extensive experience in the industry, which has allowed me to play far more games than the average joe, as well as my passion for games will counteract this, allowing me to develop levels that are extremely playable, as well as beautiful. I just won't have a pretty picture at the beginning of the process

2.) As a massive Battlefield fan, my dream job would be to design levels for DICE. So I thought I'd start learning how to use the BF2 level editing tool, along with Gmax for any statics. Is this an ok application to begin with, or should I learn the basics in something easier?

Hope you guys can help, and I'm sure this is going to be the first post of many!

1) Dont start making a map right away, plan your map idea and draw it out
2) Keep gameplay in mind, just because its pretty doesnt mean its fun to play
3) Know what the game engine can do
4) Get freinds or anyone to test to make sure it runs properly and has few bugs, ect

The best thing about the Battlefield 2 maps are the way they are balanced so well - since they have two competing teams, both ends of the map have to have equally balanced assets available to each team so that one team doesnt have an unfair advantage.
This is important to any DM / TDM / CTF type multiplayer game, so try to make sure both teams have equal chances - it doesnt mean that they have to have exactly the same number of vehicles etc - u cud say the tank is worth 3 buggies - so balance 1 tank for one team with 3 buggies for the other team, and if one team only starts with 1 base whilst the other has 2 - then maybe give the 1 team more tickets etc etc

I've had problems with Battle fields2 AI it is terrible then you have to Navmesh which requires 3ds MAX ($500-$1000 AU (300$ - $700 US)
I now map on crysis couldn't be easier. Crytek made everything to be simple and if you want to do stuff like cut scences thats simple too!

Crysis also has an inbuilt crysis object maker.

so get crysis and install Cryengine2 Its easy to use. just go on Crymod.com and view the offical tutiorials the look at the communtiy created one

Cheers!

Crysis isn't necessarily the way to go if you're looking for a job in the industry. While making a little map and doing a runthrough would be nice for your resume (who doesn't like stunning graphics?), realistically most of the industry is using editors like UE3, Hammer, etc.

Many companies modify versions of these editors to suit their needs. Sandbox 2 is very fun to play around in, but it requires a decent computer to run, therefore limiting its use (and users).

For a beginner, all editors are going to feel hard at first then gradually become easier to navigate. I suggest taking an editor that has a lot of community support so you can get answers to your questions (or view the billions of previous answers). I would suggest Unreal Editor 3 (the Unreal Tournament 3 package).

You also need to poke around in Maya or Max (or some other modeling/texturing tool). A mastery isn't required, but the more you know about modeling and texturing the more important you are to a team and the quicker you can get things done. Also, you would have a better understanding of the flow of the game and can converse with modelers much easier by simply understanding the process they go through to make something you request. You'll make the modeler happier and you'll be able to get more out of him.

My 2c.

If you want to learn bf2editor i recomend you starting off here:
Bfeditor.org
One thing to have in mind is that the bf2editor doesnt work very well on Vista.

For Battlefield maps terrain is very important, also the editor doesnt support random generation of heightmaps or "paint the whole map" function so the toughest parts will be to learn heightmaps and texturing. DICE painted their base heightmaps in photoshop and then run them trough World Machine, they used terragen/photoshop for base textures. Then they used the editor to finish the heightmap/textures and do the object placement. Skydomes they bought from Hyperfocal design which are actual photographs of real skies- you will not be able to create anything that resembles this in terragen/vue or other CGI program for this purpose. CGtextures has a collection of free hemispherical sky photography that will fit into bf2: Cgtextures.com

Becoming a GOOD level designer is a tough project but with the right motivation you will pull trough. Learning gmax is great but for me at least the level design part takes up all my time as mapper for Forgotten Hope 2 mod.

Start with smallest mapsize since they are faster to work with and learn the objectplacement, lightmapping, texturing. Look at the stock bf2 maps, extract them look at the textures. load them up just walk around look at the ground textures/heightmap/object placement. Then play them and think about why just this map is so fun/great looking to play compared to some other map.