AMANDA MEGAN SWIGER
Level Designer
Personal Projects
Manhunt
Tools:
Maya
Unreal Engine 4
Asset Packs:
Third Person Shooter Kit
Flowers and Plants Nature Pack
Nature Package
Realistic Rocks Vol. 1
Stumps
Dark Forest
Pirates Island
Rusty Road Signs
River Shader
For this personal level, I had taken inspiration from Stephen King's The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. The player would find their way through a forest, avoiding dangerous animals and the hallucinations of the character's mind. Based on the pop-up book, I sketched out the level layout.
I began to do a whitebox for the level with proxy trees created in Maya before restarting to provide a more accurate depiction of a forest and to shrink down the level layout itself. Below are the very first incarnations of the level.
I re-evaluated my approach to the level, taking inspiration from Red Dead Redemption 2 and Far Cry: New Dawn, and started over from scratch. I cut off about 50% of the level for time constraints and shaped the level with rocks and cliffs instead. The more I worked on it, the less I felt that it would work as a horror level and more as a third-person shooter. As a result, the narrative began to change as well: instead of running from beasts, the player now had to fight their way back to their shelter past the campground and to the heart of the forest. I added a simple puzzle of shooting a rotting log to create a bridge for the player to cross.
I really liked how it was coming along, and with the new direction I took, it felt more cohesive. Once the set dressing was done to my liking, I focused on making the lighting show different areas in the level. Areas of combat were shaded while the fallen log puzzle was brighter. It created a dynamic that felt a little more on the stealth side, combined with over-turned tables that the enemy Wraiths set up to kill the player.
Finally, I wanted to really drive home the narrative. Still taking inspiration from other games, I tapped a little into the narrative of Final Fantasy VII and thought that the ending shouldn't just be an empty cave. What would be the reason you're going for that cave? You're fighting your way through this forest to this cave only to find that it's your home. Someone is waiting for you there.
I optimized the lighting and shaders as best as possible, though because this is a level with heavy foliage and trees, the shader complexity is not the best. Despite this, the level still runs smoothly at 60 FPS. I also did a collision pass on the tables and smaller object on the ground. The legs on the table cause the player to get stuck, so by cancelling the collision and making a simpler one, that bypasses a potentially bad play experience.
​I added ambiance music to bring the mood together. The tracks used are Suspenseful Tension Music from RealTunesStudio and Quiet Place from Jonny Easton. Below is a video of my play-through of the level. While I consider the project to be done, I do intend to go back at a later time and revise the lighting and music. Overall, I am proud of the work done in this level.