I’ve decided to chart my progress as I dip back into level editing. To update my chops I’m rebooting a level I’m familiar with from Alien Breed 3D: Level 4 “The Courtyard“.

Alien Breed 3D was a pretty good attempt at a Doom-like game on the Amiga, especially considering it was targeted for the underpowered A1200 (14mHz 68020, crazy eh?) in 1995. It’s rather dated now, making it quite painful to play, but I’d had some good times in Deathmatch on this particular map. Kudos to the level designers at Team 17.

I enjoyed it enough to recreate the level in Quake and again in Quake II, almost exact in detail, although by today’s standards it’s not as eye-pleasing as it seemed then. Regardless of appearance, the map layout was incredibly replayable, especially with the Painkeep mod for Quake. I nicknamed my versions of the map as “Breedy“.

Technology has changed again and I’d say we’re on the third generation of FPS map editing:

• First it was mainly surface / wall editing for the Doom era (although technically BSP, generally you placed walls).
• Second was the full 3D BSP editing of the Quake era. The detail got finer as games came out, but the map system itself didn’t change much all the way up to Quake 3, Halo, etc.
• Now it’s possible to import 3D meshes directly from modeling software (3DStudio, Maya, Lightwave, etc.) and if I’m reading things correctly BSP editing is even discouraged (but still supported), at least for Unreal Tournament 3. I assume some occluding system is used to maintain framerate on large maps.

The level of detail, effects and surface manipulations has gotten insane. It’s not just creating the right flow in gameplay anymore, although I’d still say that’s the most important element. But if your level isn’t pretty and doesn’t have a coherent theme, it’s not likely to get played.

With that in mind, I’m cooking up a new theme for this reboot, so I guess you could call it a re-imagining of sorts. Taking the basic layout and giving it an entirely different look. A mix of the tried and true oldschool with (hopefully) some nice visuals.

It will probably take me awhile. I feel like a noob all over again.