HABERDASHERS
Worked as a Level Designer on this Team-Based Project of 57 people
HaberDashers is a console-style arcade (kart) racer for the PC in which players control miniature humanoid inhabitants of an everyday home, racing past outsized household items and through rooms as they compete against human and AI opponents with both driving skills and item pick-ups.
Development Details
Team Name: Team 134 @SMU Guildhall
Team Size: 56
Role : Level Designer (Track)
Genre: Arcade Racing Game
Engine: Unreal Engine 4
Develop Time: 12 Weeks
Shipped Date: May 2020
ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Level design for all the tracks
Designing the level according to the lead designers design
Making paper maps and coming up with ideas for the leads
Set dressing for all the levels
Creating the Cinematic Flythrough sequence for the bathroom track
LD side performance handling
Tech support for general unreal relate issues
Fixing bugs as they arise
THINGS THAT I WORKED ON
THE FLYTHROUGH SEQUENCE
I made the intro flythrough sequence for the bathroom track. I used a camera rail and moved the camera along a spline. At certain intervals for visual appeal, I had to detach the camera from the rail and manually had to change the orientation and position of the camera and make it look seamless while doing that.
The sequencer curves that I keyframes and animated by hand
The Flythrough Camera Along a spline path
LEVEL STREAMS
Setup and maintained the streams, Also handled integration
We did not use level streams for loading parts of the levels but instead every stream was preloaded and we used them for organisation so that multiple designer, programmers and artists can work in the same level simultaneously when needed.
I set up the streams and had multiple versions of a stream eg: 'Stream A' and 'Stream B' setup so that two or more people can work on a level. I did this for all the levels in the game and I had to created 75 levels and maintain them.
I also h
BATHROOM TRACK LAYOUT AND DESIGN
I primarily worked a lot on the bathroom track. From paper maps to final track the level saw a lot of improvement and changes based on player feedback.
ADDITIONAL CONVEYANCE
Additional Conveyance elements were used at corners and at sightlines to make the player's driving experience smoother
SMOKE AND MIRRORS
As we went further into the project more and more problems stated to arise such gas japs in the modkit . I used various smoke and mirrors techniques in this cause using props to cover up the mistakes to hide those problems.
ADDITIONAL SET DRESSING AND LANDMARKS
I did a lot of set dressing in the later milestone of the project so fill the space and to make the world more believable i.e it was lived in. I also set up some landmarks along the critical path of the track
GALLERY
RETROSPECTIVE
Visually all the levels in the game look pretty good.
Added a tonne of detail and clutter to the Level to make the space move livelier.
Easy gameplay doesn’t require a lot of skill to complete the level
Implement a pretty decently cinematic sequences
Leard how to work virtually pretty quickly and was efficient at it.
What went well
Did not understand the value of a project pipeline pretty earn on and broke the pipeline to get a job done.
Perspective matters, other player felt a bit of motion sickness from the cinematic sequence that I set up and I had to change it a lot
Miscommunication in between cross departments made things had as we had to miss
Performance, We never considered any and all performance costs,optimisations and fixes from the LD stand point and Left it to the SD'd entirely which drastically tanked the games overall framerate.
What went wrong
"Trust in your teammates to get the job done"; The biggest mistake I made initially was it took me a while to completely understand each and every one of my teammate's skillset. And once I got to know that I could place my complete unwavering trust in them
"Being Virtual has its advantages and Disadvantages"; One of the by-products of the Covid-19 Pandemic is that I got the experience of a virtual development environment. It wasn't the same as being in person and had its advantages and disadvantages.