Portfolio

DJK's Website

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"Serious Sahara"

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"West London"

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"Harvest & Trustee Bank"

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"Serious Sahara"

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"West London"

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"Harvest & Trustee Bank"

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"Work In Progress"

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"Work In Progress"

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The design process

I had originally began level design as a creative outlet to learn a new skill.

My original goal was to re-create a level from the popular video game "PAYDAY 2" a co-operate 4 player shooter. I had intimate knowledge of the game's level the "Harvest & Trustee" branch bank from many a session.

Eventually I decided to try my best to build the level's geometry by eye with the help of a screenshotted blueprint of the floor plan included from PAYDAY 2. This was created into a texture file and placed on the ground, then level geometry was built on top to get accurate scaling with the player character.

I had decided to model the interiors of builds not enterable in the original game to give the level my own touch allowing players a view of what could of been in the original game. This allowed me to put my own spin on the level and show demonstraight my creativity along side the recreation of an existing level.

Why recreate a level?

I have often recieved questions as to why I would go replicate a video game level instead of creating my own.

I felt that if I were to recreate the level, it would give me an end-goal of what I'd want my level to look like. It also helped to challenge me as I would be forced to build complicated geometric shapes.
This allowed me to properly replicate the look and feel of the original level.

West London was the second map I had created based off the Killing Floor game series, it was a more grungy apocalyptic style level compared to the comparitively clean streets of the bank. I found scaling the map without a blueprint to be easy after what I learned, I only had to resize the level only once to extend the overpass tunnels.

These two levels were the building blocks to hone my skills and create my entirely original level "Serious Sahara" which drew inspiration from the Serious Sam games rather than being a direct level replica.