Level Design Papermaps: Part 01 (What is a Papermap?)

miss Matthew Marco and in this particular video I'm going to teach you guys what is a paper map and what goes into it now in following videos I'll actually talk about how to create one but as I said before this particular video answers the question of what is a paper map and of course why is it important as a game designer now first things first the obvious definition of course of a paper map is that it is a visual blueprint right a map a floor plan or an elevation of a level design now over here I've got some examples of paper maps I'm gonna bounce around a bunch of images that I acquired over the Internet here and from past student work right but as we can see here right this is an example of a actual halo map and we can kind of see from a top-down or a bird's eye view of what the map looks like where the bases are where some obstacles are right where the water right the stream or the river that goes through the level things like that right and we're going to talk about all of this stuff but the first thing I kind of want to mention is the idea of a paper map and we hear the word of course we think of paper literal paper but I actually encourage you to always do your paper Maps digitally and we're gonna cover that in a moment now yes you can do it in actual paper here is an example of the shadow complex game that you can get actually through epic now but you can see this is kind of a side-scrolling Metroidvania type game and so they have their elevational view that's drawn as they make mistakes they erase them or whatever so sure you can do it like that right and of course here's your original Super Metroid map which I found on the internet which is really awesome to take a look at um but the reason why I think that instead of doing them on paper right or a graph paper or hexagonal paper or whatever you have is that digital once you learn to do it is actually way faster than it is to do a paper map actual out of paper now the other reason why I think you want to do it too is that it presents better right and as a designer trying to get a job especially or continuing to find jobs in the future your presentation of your work and how you show it is actually as important as the work itself and so a nice clean digital paper map right such as this or another halo2 map as we can see here and so on these kind of maps look really good presentation wise so we'll talk more about how to create those later but I want to first obviously talk about what it what a paper map looks like and what is included in it now I do also have an architecture background not just a game background but an architecture background and some of the stuff I learned of course first in architecture now there are different types of perspectives I'm gonna jump these images in a second here but I want to show in this version of 3d max that I have here of a box you can actually see the exact same box twice one in a perspective view and the other one in orthographic view now perspective view is what we see in real life right things closer or larger things farther away or smaller lines converge in the distance right we're opposed to orthographic there is no perspective right there is no convergence of the lines and objects that are close are the same size as far away thus it kind of looks a little odd now this is a 3d isometric orthographic view right as we can kind of see here but most most paper maps are done using orthographic but from a flat view so just a front view just a top view right if I was to hit t4 top here we can see right here that's the top of the object f4 front right or side view in this particular case right or I can do L for the front view we can see the small box you can see there's no perspective we don't see any of these sides of the Box the ends or anything just nice perfect view and that's kind of where we want to go and as you can see here and like you know an architectural rendering right this is an elevation or elevational view right as we can see over here our side view um this is an isometric right where there is no perspective this shows you how they use right your side views to create isometrics right the two different side views and the floor plans and so on but you kind of get the idea and of course here are your floor plans right just that top-down view or what they also call as bird's-eye view okay so those are the different types of perspectives that you can get when you are creating a paper map I also want to talk about topography real quickly and topography right if we're talking about normal architecture or a building sure you just have the building but when you want to show the landscape and everything around it right that's where we talk about topology now topology as we can kind of see in this image right here here's an example of just you know kind of based on the way it looks right this looks like a snow cap going down into a valley and you can kind of see this is a 3d view but here's the topo view where it kind of shows you right here right elevation this is 4000 feet and every one of these lines represents a hundred feet right and then every 500 feet they do a dark line again now it's not to say that you have to have topo maps or all maps need topo maps no but it does help you understand elevation and this is one of the easiest and best ways to show how elevation changes so if you're gonna build terrain you actually want particular mountains and valleys in certain places this how you this is how you draw it out you can see in this image also which is which is pretty good here it shows an example right of the the topo being right here's the Hills right and you can kind of see it this kind of lines down here's the top of that hill and so on so this is the side view and this is the top view using a topo map right and here's another great example of a topo map right as we can kind of see this is the 3d view to helps you kind understand what's going on right here in this 2d view all right so that's topography in general now another thing that paper maps do so we got out of perspectives now the next thing I want to talk about is kind of the idea of the multi-tier right how do you show going up and going down well obviously in architecture when they show different levels and I'll give you an example of a path student work here here's a paper map from a past student where he has the base level of a building here and the terrain around it now if you want to go up a level right you can kind of see right here he has another floor and then a top floor here with a hole in the roof so he kind of shows how the building's design he actually had it break it up into multiple images to show the different tiers so that's you know depending on how complex your levels are you might need multiple perspectives multiple views you have an example over here in my professional maps of somebody let me see if I can find that image or do I not I think I misplaced that image but I didn't have an example of both top and side views right within the same same image which is not clearly not in those um now I do want to show here in our paper maps here this particular one right here um an example of how you show kind of multiple tiers in some cases right here is stairs right you show usually arrows point going up when it comes to making maps so you see here this arrow it's pointing up going up the stairs that direction this here is clear rampe right they use colors right in shading to kind of insinuate that this is a ramp and so those are just some of the ways that you can show things like ramps or stairs or elevators now well this is just a tower in this particular paper map elevators actually are shown like this is a box with weather X going through it and so on right or teleporters that will raise you one level or whatever right but that's kind of the idea of the multi tier map right now I want to talk about what actually goes into paper maps though beyond just the perspective beyond the views you know how many different versions the paper map you need those are some of the common elements here so things like area types pathing and a placement of certain types of things so and then also objectives design notes and of course your legend and key which shows you what everything means now the first thing is your area types right if I go to this image right here back to this image right here it's clear where there's grass right there it's clear where there's kind of like dirt or sandy area right where the water is and so on and this is all based on kind of the color right of it and this is very helpful right as we take a look here things that are playable not playable obviously it's not playable out here right we can tell there's nothing out there so the way they designed it and the same thing with these walls it feels very obvious that these are the boundaries very hard like rock boundaries the player can't go through so that's kind of understanding the playable versus non playable area same thing here right this is grayed out the areas right we know we can just look at it and go yep here's where the player can go here's where they can't go and so on right now you also you can show things like kill zones or damage leaching areas things like lava you know if you have it stuff like that in there but you know these are just examples of course of what we can kind of see where we can play it not and then restricted traversal areas things like where only the player can walk or drive or swim or fly or so on and so forth you'll show that through some sort of visual means also the terrain types themselves right grass and road and ice and water can all be done in a lot of cases using kind of colors kind of imagery you can even show you back here I do have a picture of someone who actually did a physical paper map on a hex thing here we could see but they showed Traverse like different terrain right this terrain is forced right because we can kind of tell it's green it's like little kind of cloudy like lines this right here a swamp area this is kind of a universal sign for swamp or Marsh right here's your topo maps of some you know higher mountains and things like that and it's clearly on an island right based on the way it looks and the colors as we can see the water that kind of surrounds it in a little lake or pond in the middle right so this kind of gives you just an idea of some of that stuff and how you can show area types right within your paper map now another thing is known as pathing alright so passing things like critical paths alternate or side paths patrols right where enemies are moving in your stationary enemies things like camera line-of-sight stuff that you would see like a vision cone like you see in Deus Ex right or Metal Gear Solid right those vision cones in the radar those are kind of things you can stick in your paper map right and I'll give you some examples here if some past students have done some great jobs of that and this particular student shows a critical path through a Starcraft 2 map and this green line represents where the player has to go so a critical path is the basically the path of least resistance how do you get from a the beginning of the map to be to the end right quickest possible no side stuff no exploring nothing just get this stuff you got to and move on that's what is known as a critical path however the student also has these little dotted lines right here and you can see here enemy Patrol are these little dotted lines represent where the enemy's move so they're moving and rotating around this little kind of forest area over and over again there's multiple ways of doing it you don't have to do it like with a dotted line in fact one of the things I'd like to mention is that in a paper map design there is no one way to do everything right it's kind of up to you how you want to do it you just want to be able to convey a message so whatever makes the most sense is what you want to do now I have a couple of maps here I believe this one in particular that does show some enemy placement right in movement right so padding back and forth you can also see that in let's see I believe this map here all right so this particular paper map shows enemy movement right going in and out of this room here with the arrows right and then even the player's path where they're supposed to be going and so forth right so those are different ways of showing that kind of content within it and I even have students like and you know sometimes you have so much information on a paper map on another reason why you want to do digital right is an example like this this student had a lot of information I wants to show a nice clean map or everything yes but he has another version as we can see here with your critical and then even your secondary like your alternate paths right so where do you get some extra content and stuff like that so that's obviously as I said before another reason why you want to do digital because you turn on and off certain layers you know render out certain images and shows the content that you want okay so the next thing after pathing is the placement of all of this stuff so we've seen it already in multiple maps right you know I can I can load up actually I'm gonna load up here professional paper map one done for Halo two long time ago and there's just so much content I mean this is insane like this map is huge obviously it's something you wouldn't do unless you're in the industry cuz this the sheer scope of the map but this gives you an idea right you have all these little icons everywhere that represent things like these are clearly blockades right and here's enemies here's the weapons the enemies drop right here's like a drop ship right and the different waves that come out of the ship you can just tell this by looking at the image nobody told me this but you can look at it and just see the way the lines are number one and things like that and all of this stuff of course is detailed out down here with your legend or key right and so it shows like if you actually have a side profile view of a gun use it right put it in there because it makes the most sense nobody needs to go home what is that let me look at the key legend you know even better is just make it look exactly what it is what kind of enemy are these alright you can just see them you can see that picture and know exactly what it is so things that you place throughout the map of course are things like where is the player start or spawn points if it's a multiplayer map obviously you don't have a critical path in a multiplayer deathmatch level right but you also items and pickups where you can where can you get things health and things like that enemies allies NPCs as you can see right obviously in this map you know even in a racing game like Mario Kart here right it just shows you right the different terrain but where you can pick up the different blocks right the little mystery blocks that you can get your your weapons and gear from right and and so on and so forth so a lot of different here's actually a digital version of the shadow complex map where I showed you the paper paper version of it before paper paper map redundant but there it is right and then it kind of shows a little numbers where are certain locations right at things like that we come down here things like checkpoints or triggers or where there's cutscenes or scripted events you could put numbers in there and then put the content on the side you can even see that this great example right here of a map as they showed before this one because sometimes there's so much content that happens they can just say well this is what happens you arrive in this empty Hall the speakers turn on yadda yadda yadda right it just gives you an idea of what's supposed to happen in a particular area so there's no right or wrong way to do it different maps different games will have different content in them but as you can see there's lots of stuff that can go into it right you can show with the quests are where's those where are their locked doors and keys how do you open them right you know maybe you have a blue door and then there's a blue key so it's obvious that that's the key you use to open that door and things like that right or where does the level transition to a new point you know or a warp to somewhere else and so on and so forth right objectives design notes areas of interest right these are all things that you can add of course in your paper map so the last thing I want to talk about before I finish of course is legibility some of the stuff I kind of already mentioned before but obviously you want a high resolution map right you want something that you can zoom in and still see the detail okay and these are examples of that right that's part of legibility I'm able to read it be able to see you know in an understand write and read the text right we're not using fancy text we can read these this text easily alright so that's pretty obvious contrast right things that are light versus dark right in the light areas are probably the more playable areas where the darker areas over here or not you can see the same thing originally in this one right they have dark areas non-playable light areas playable so contrast helps with legibility smart use of color or as I said before when you have like you know blue that represents water and green that represents grass I mean it's pretty obvious we can see that stuff we can understand the helps of legibility also smart uses its shape all right a red plus could be a health a skull it could be an enemy like actual gun shape as a gun and then and then lastly I want to talk about as far as legibility goes is line weights right we can do that and we can see this example and I have these images here line weights right when you see thicker lines kind of helps things pop in this particular case you see like a floorplan with no line weights and this one with line weights that kind of helps the lines on the outside pop a little bit more to show that the hey these are solid walls these are windows because a little thinner these are dotted lines just kind of represent other things maybe beams and girders are going across and so on and so forth but this is really the idea so as I said before there's no one right way to do things right there's no obvious you know here's another example of the student who you know this one this one like I said it's a living document so he just kind of said hey I want you know this to be a scrolling level and I want fireflower you know fighting and stuff going on in this area and there's a vine that comes up here so he just kind of has it written down you know that kind of thing you can see a mix of kind of digital versus hand-drawn you know as long as it's legible that's that's great so you just do it any way you can that shows off what you want what you intend on doing so that everyone else can see that so people can gauge what they need to create and actually one last thing I even forgot to say too you know another great thing a paper map can do is help you know your artistry your programmers this particular one is for the artists right where it gives you a little and that's low res image but um you know obviously the master image would be larger we can kind of see right here where this is an image of showing hey this is what it looks like in this room and this is what it looks like in this room and over here and so on and so that an artist trying to build content for it will know this is the visuals it's the lighting this is you know objects that need to be in this scene so there's so many different reasons why a paper map can be built so many different layers of information right um but as I said before learn to create them digitally which is we're gonna show in the next few videos right and you'll be going places as far as creating your paper maps are concerned so hopefully you enjoyed this video you learned a bit and I'll see you the next one

Channel: Matthew Marquit

Views: 4,187

Keywords: papermap, paper map, level map, game design, level design, game development, videogame, video game, game map, videogame map

Id: fR7AfLt1vYk

Length: 17min 0sec (1020 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 30 2016