BIONICLE - Masks of Power: 3D Level Design Process
(Private page)
BIONICLE: Masks of Power is a large-scale, open-world action-RPG fangame based on the BIONICLE franchise owned by LEGO. I am currently contributing to it as a Level Designer.
This game is being created and released for free following rules and guidelines set by the LEGO Group, and neither Team Kanohi nor any of its members claim ownership over any elements of the original BIONICLE property. BMOP is purely a passion project by fans.
Everything on this page shows a work in progress.
This page is the private version of my BMOP page for showing aspects of the game that can't publicly be displayed yet.
Demo Area - Meandering Heights
First Moments
Gameplay video of Heights intro.
The team's current focus is creating a demo for the game that will act as a vertical slice, giving players a taste of the exploratory and action-heavy gameplay loop, immersive world, and narrative of Masks of Power. Shown here is an overview of my contributions to the Level Design process of the Demo up to the point it is at so far.
I have been the main designer responsible for the planning, layout, and sculpting/blockout for the Meandering Heights, a sub-level area in the Demo. The Meandering Heights is a high-elevation, dense jungle teeming with life and wandering paths, and it serves as the intro area for the Demo.
My goal in designing the Heights was to create an environment that immersed the player in the world of the game while naturally teaching them its most essential skills and mechanics. I believe strongly in naturally integrating tutorials into the game world and flow, and achieving this was one of my biggest priorities.
Documentation & Layouts Stage
For each large area, the Level Design team creates an Area Overview Document that includes visuals and descriptive guides to the design and structure of an area in the game. This is some of the documentation I wrote for one of my sublevels, the Meandering Heights. It's a living document that I come back to and edit as changes are made to the sublevel. Some parts have been omitted to prevent spoilers ahead of release.
Some of the documentation I wrote describing the flow of the very beginning of the demo and Meandering Heights. My goal for these first moments of the game was to make players feel immersed in the game world while learning the most basic mechanics of the game and how they could use them to traverse and interact with this world.
An early top-down layout I drew out in Photoshop while planning the level layout of the Heights. The design has since gone through significant changes, but this acted as a solid starting point that I built off of.
For each large area, the Level Design team creates an Area Overview Document that includes visuals and descriptive guides to the design and structure of an area in the game. This is some of the documentation I wrote for one of my sublevels, the Meandering Heights. It's a living document that I come back to and edit as changes are made to the sublevel. Some parts have been omitted to prevent spoilers ahead of release.
(Click through with side arrows)
My first step in designing any area is writing out any ideas for mechanics and uses of them for obstacles and challenges, in tandem with themes and tones I might want to explore. After this I'll begin to organize them into a formal design document for the area. Our team as a whole uses this general process and works collaboratively on our Level Design documents.
The Demo Overview document that the Level Design team has been using was first created and formatted by me, and all of the documentation on the Meandering Heights specifically was written by me as well.
Blockout Stage
Starting Clearing This is one of the first iterations on the starting clearing, the very beginning of the Demo and where the player is first introduced to the world. Earlier on, the trees and foliage weren't nearly thick enough to sell the nestled-away feeling it was intended to have, so much more was added as time went on.
Starting Clearing This is one of the first iterations on the starting clearing, the very beginning of the Demo and where the player is first introduced to the world. Earlier on, the trees and foliage weren't nearly thick enough to sell the nestled-away feeling it was intended to have, so much more was added as time went on. Shown here is the final state of the Starting Area blockout.
Since some environmental assets were already ready for implementation, such as the Central Outpost seen in this image, I included them in the blockout for efficiency. However, any other structures that weren't modeled yet I made basic blockouts for using the in-engine tools we had available.
Starting Clearing This is one of the first iterations on the starting clearing, the very beginning of the Demo and where the player is first introduced to the world. Earlier on, the trees and foliage weren't nearly thick enough to sell the nestled-away feeling it was intended to have, so much more was added as time went on.
Low-poly foliage by:
Rad-coders
(Click through with side arrows)
After writing out the structure and flow I had in mind for the Meandering Heights, I began creating the blockout for it in Unreal Engine. I used a combination of built-in engine features, free assets from the internet, and plugins like Voxel and Blockout Tools, to create the blockout.
I used the Voxel plugin to sculpt the landscape of the Heights and paint it with basic colors to indicate information such as the locations of paths, rocky cliffs, and other information.
I also acquired a low-poly foliage asset pack in order to indicate the locations of bushes, ferns, and other smaller plants, seeing as the thickness of the foliage in various parts of the map would be important. This foliage was placed using Unreal's built-in foliage system. I took care to implement proper culling for this foliage, as even though it was low-poly, I thought it important to make sure performance was smooth enough even at this stage for the most effective testing.
The blockout went through lots of iteration based on feedback after testing before I and the rest of the team thought it was ready to be passed on to setdressing.
I assembled trees using modular components created by team member Boxturret.
Pass to Setdressing
(Work in Progress)
(Click through with side arrows)
After an area has been tested and iterated upon in blockout, it is passed on to Setdressing, which replaces the blockout with final assets while following the blockout.
Shown here is the before and after of blockout to setdressing. The setdressing here is a work in progress, meaning some foliage and other environmental objects' final assets haven't been implemented yet, but the main elements of it can be seen.
This setdressing work is being done by our team member Mosby and is included here to show how my blockout work leads into the rest of the building of the level in the team's pipeline.
Game Trailer
The game's Environmental Teaser trailer. This had no involvement from me and all credit goes to the other members of Team Kanohi.