Sunlight Museum

2022

Map Overview

A First Person Shooter designed map built in Unreal Engine. A 3 lane design map, with the focus of the gameplay revolving around controlling the center building. Players also have the option to fight for Shield pick ups and ammo crates on the outside lanes. Well also having a underground cave path to use. Map has had good playtest with game modes like Conquest, CTF, King of the Hill and Search and Destroy

Walkthrough of Map

Map Timelapse

My Design Process

Part 1: Research and Inspiration

When starting my design process for my multiplayer maps I usually get inspired by something from real locations, concept art or a certain kind of map layout. In this case I found some concept art with this center bridge. And I thought back to one of my favorite Call of Duty maps: Raid from Black Ops 2. And I really like the idea of players fighting around a pit in the center of the map. And so I tried to replicate what I saw in the concept art and see if it would work well with out gameplay.

At the same time I didn’t just want to use the concept art for inspiration I also wanted to look at real world locations. A few things I liked from museums I saw would be the use of the natural sunlight. I liked the idea of being able to have natural sunlight light up the entirety of the interior of the museum. So that is something I kept in mind when designing as well

Lastly was how I wanted to design the areas around the center pit/area of the map. A lot of my favorite maps from games like Call of Duty, Halo, Titanfall 2 and other fast paced arcade shooters used the 3 lane layout. Which is how I decided I would approach this map design as well.

Part 2: Map Layout

Once I find inspiration for an idea and do my research I start to move on to designing the layout of the map. I first start off my just doing a simple 2D sketch on some paper. This is one area I am still trying to really improve at, I know I need to be more detailed in my 2D layouts. But my focus for this was to:

Decide how I want the lanes to flow around that center point.
I wanted to make sure there were 3 main lanes for the players to navigate towards well still allowing players the ability to have flank routes.
I also had to make sure the design fit the theme of a museum so I made sure to have a clear front entrance, clear hallways, and points of interest for call outs. Locations like: Waterfall, Garden, Patio, Cave, Pit.

Once I feel confident with my 2D layout I like to start blocking out the map in engine. This helps me a lot to see what the players perspective is. If I have to change the scale of things, add lines of cover, or remove certain paths. A few examples include:

Creating the flank route on the right side near the waterfall and make that an underground path.
I had to remove a second floor in the museum as it would have been to many angles looking down into the pit area.
I had to make the left side of map wider for the garden at first.
I added an area overlooking the patio that was originally a security overlook
I added the greenhouse area to give the map more room for spawns and flanks
These things have helped me in future FPS designs as I have to remember to leave more room for spawn points

Once I got the map to the initial gray box area. It was about time to begin playtesting. and the game mode we would use to test the map would be domination/conquest. Now there were still some gameplay features still not ready for the first playtest of Project Flutterbeam, for instance the influential spawn system and the weapon models. But we had a good enough base for the game to see if the map flowed good, check to see if there was any major problems and so on. The earliest playtest just consisted of testing line of sights and certain timings off of initial spawns.

Part 3: Playtesting and Problem 1

The playtesting was delayed as it took us time to get the multiplayer completely working and reliable to do so for the capstone project. While I was waiting for multiplayer was getting set up it allowed me to playtest the map by myself some more. Play against bots, to run around and see if I could find exploits in the map myself. This time allowed me to create a few different iterations of the map for playtesting. I did this because I wanted to see if some areas of the map (like the garden/patio) played better when redesigned differently.

The feedback we got back from the playtest was that players never had a reason to push through the garden area unless trying to get to the enemy spawn. When we moved the B flag to the garden area it did fix the issue for the most part but then the pit area was no longer the main area of battle during the game. When I asked play testers which area they liked fighting in the most they said they preferred the center of the museum. So this led my design of the map to condense down garden area and really just make it a patio section of the museum that really compliments the center of the map as seen in the final version on the right. We found that the final patio designed flowed better with the map. And it also made the SMG players very successful when flowing fast through patio area.

Part 4: Problem 2: Hallways

One of the early critiques I got of the map was about the flow of the hallway around the pit. I originally had 4 sets of staircases that led down to the bottom of the pit area. However 2 of the staircases would have created an issue with how players moved through the front hallway and the back hallway. Once I removed the those stairs it made the hallways flow better well also having the ability to add good cover for gunfights in the future

Part 5: Problem 3: Train Spawn

The original theme and idea behind the map was that it would be a museum of nature set up in the mountains. Although I thought that was a cool idea it created a practical problem where I had to figure out how people would get out there. So I came up with the idea of a train stop that would bring people to the museum. Although it made enough sense for the theme of the map. It then created a gameplay problem where players on the enemy team could create a spawn trap on the team spawning train.

To get rid of this problem I had to get rid of the grand staircase in front of the museum and brings the ground up. I also created better head glitches in the front spawn so if players did get trapped they could challenge enemies easier. It also made the map flow better in my opinion. Because when players came from patio or cave side there was really no reason for them to ever push toward train side. So this redesign of the front allowed for a better flowing map in my opinion and the play testers feedback. This also played a role in me eventually changing the theme of the map to this North African Mediterranean mood, which I feel like worked out pretty well in the final solution

Part 6: Problem 4: The Right Path

When it came to both the waterfall side of the map and the greenhouse spawn. They never really ran into a lot of issues. Players always liked how they were designed for the most part. The only critiques of these two areas of the map being:

That the underground cave path never really had an incentive to be used. Outside of using it for a flank, play testers felt it did the same thing as the top waterfall route. Which one solution I tried was to remove the top path completely but play testers did not like this.
And for the greenhouse spawn people just wanted 3 exits in the back area. So we created a side path connected to the small shed/storage building.

I did also play around with where I would put the capture point for the greenhouse spawn. And we decided to also add an ammo refill area in the underground cave path to incentive players to go there more often for ammo.

Part 7: Rifle on the map

When we were designing the AR for our game. We knew we wanted it to be more of a post up kind of rifle, We added a red dot sight to make sure players could be precise and accurate. If players want they can still run and gun with the rifle around the map. But they will run into problems if they one into a close quarters encounter with an SMG player or run across a long lane that the sniper is holding.

The AR works best on the map when players can post up well capturing a point, watching a crossing angle, challenging someone on a head glitch, and is the best option in those mid-long range gunfights. Its also a great option for players who fear they may need to get out of a spawn trap. The map allows the rifle to flourish in some areas but still doesn’t make it completely vulnerable in other areas. One example of this is around the center pit area of the map. Although the SMG flourishes the best in that area. The rifle can still compete in the hallways. Here are some of the many examples in these photos:

Part 8: Sniping

In some of the earlier iterations. When the map was a little larger. The sniper was definitely more effective in more areas of the map. But as the map became more condensed players that used the sniper really had to pick their moments when using it to get the most out of it.

The sniper is most effective watching the long lanes near both teams spawn points. Both of these areas are relatively open, they have cover but more open space for snipers to catch runners. Obviously the sniper is least effective in the closest ranges. But players still have trusty secondary pistol. Well also have reliable no scope or quick scoping with the sniper as well.

Part 9: Run and Gun SMG

I always imagined the SMG players being able to run around the center of the map when designing the map. I always like the idea of the SMG players to run and gun through this area. Fighting around the corners of the hallways, jumping up and down the pit area, moving fast through the patio area, and playing off angles. However the SMG players would still become more vulnerable on those outside lanes if they wanted to push out or get over eager. They would then struggle more to challenge rifle and sniper players holding those lanes.

But if they did want to push out of the mid map. They still had the option to take long routes to try and get behind rifle players on head glitches or snipers holding those long line of sights. The SMG players have to use the movement and parkour around outskirts of the map to really be effective in those areas since the SMG struggles at those long range and even sometime mid range gunfights.

Part 10: Conclusion

I worked on this map for roughly 4-5 months. From concepting to final solution. I was able to do up to 7 different play test sessions. Trying out different iterations of the map to see what works best. I was able to learn what questions to ask about my map that would allow me to improve my design process. I was able to take all the critiques I got and put them towards a map that I am proud of and that people enjoy playing.

I was also able to work alongside my environment artist to try and create the right mood and setting so that players would enjoy their time playing and looking at the map. I also was able to script an influential spawn system that allowed the gameplay to work better on the map overall.

There are still some things I can improve upon to be a better level designer. For instance:

My 2D layouts need to have more depth and be better drawn
I need to improve my initial scaling plans (already doing this in future projects)
I need to use more grid textures in my gray box stage to better identify things to help the environment artist and myself. This will help improve my visual language in the early stages of my process.
I need to make sure my designs for maps don’t create any useless places on the map. I feel like I managed that well with this map and there are definitely game modes that work better on this map then others but I want to make sure my designs in the future don’t have any wasted space.