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Stealth Level
Deep in the mountains, you have to infiltrate a base, guarded by military personnel. Figure out what's really going on in the base, and rescue the prisoners - without being seen!
A Level Design Prototype
My Roles
Level Designer, Scripting
Tools
UE5, Photoshop
Year
2022
My first stealth game experience!
This was a Level built as a part of a Level Design assignment. The tasks were split between 3 students, myself included.
The assignment was primarily focused on the design of the level. Aesthetical qualities, as well as functional gameplay was not taken into account when we were graded. Thus, assets in the level are generally free from verious locations, used as placeholders, with minor modifications to better function as intended.
Despite this, the project implements some minor scripted functionalities, deemed vital for the level.
Insights
Lighting
To describe the role of light in the level, I decided to describe it as an entity of its own - light was to be viewed almost like an enemy. To this effect, artificial light was made much warmer, and a thin layer of fog was implemented to give the lights mass - almost as if they were actual characters in and of themselves.
Furthermore, the moonlight was tweaked to be much cooler than is realistic, helping to create a sense of a hostile and unwelcoming environment, but also further improved the contrast between safe natural moon light, and artifical light. While this was, as mentioned, less realistic, testing showed that players did not find it to be distracting or even unrealistic.
One of the functionalities that was implemented in the level was the ability to cut the power - thus turning off the lights. While a total blackout would’ve made some sense, I wanted to retain the ability to guide players using the lights. To this end, I chose to implement emergency lights, which would replace the normal ones, once the power was cut.
Scripting
The level used a stealth plugin, and a number of other scripted components, which I worked on and implemented. The first were spotlights, which would be set up to move in a specified manner. These were implemented in and around the base.
The second was a system of toggles, which was reused and implemented on lights and cars, allowing the player to toggle these elements as they pleased.
Lastly was a key / lock system, which was implemented to provide the player with access to exits, and the prison cells.
Landscape
I got to work with setting up the terrain, which involved setting up material libraries, working with virtual height meshes, and the landscape tools. Additionally it meant setting up the sky and moon blueprints, creating materials with dynamic resolutions, tiling, emissions etc.
Takeaways
Getting to delve back into working with blueprints has been a wonderful experience, and has encouraged me to want to explore it even more in my spare time. Furthermore, this has been my first experience working with virtual height meshes, and whilst the result is far from perfect it has been interesting to explore its functionalities and possibilities.
