Zhi Yang
Level Design
«
Guiding Players Across a Large Environment Using Guiding Lines
and Lighting
Today, more and more games feature an the mastery of using guiding lines and
challenges in designing an open-world environment. With the research and the
open-world element. One of the primary
game is that players can get lost in the
open-world map without proper guidance.
However, guiding methods shouldn’t be
so over-reliant on the Heads-Up Display
(HUD) and User Interface (UI) that they
break immersion. Thus, subconsciously
navigating players in the open world is a
topic worth mastering.
Multiple guiding methods could help to
solve this problem, including affordance,
guiding lines, guiding lighting, movement,
artifact created, I learned how to set up
effective guiding lines and lighting in
an open world. I learned techniques to
steer a player’s viewpoint, which satisfies
gameplay and narrative at the same time. I
learned that clear arrangement of enemies
and supplies provides feedback to players
and helps them to better understand
navigation. Lastly, I learned how to study
a new engine and set up pipelines based
on the features of the game itself.
landmark, and composition. Among these The entire process of this thesis
lighting are the two most common types. development took 40 weeks across three
guiding principles, guiding lines and
The goal of this thesis was to create
an artifact based on the Dying Light
Developer Tool that would demonstrate
64
lighting to help the player traverse a large
LEVEL DESIGN
project including research and artifact
semesters.