CHARMED!
UCF Capstone

Role: Creative Director/Design Lead

Team Size: 10

Duration: ~700 Hours over 9 months

Tools Used: UE4, Photoshop, Illustrator, Maya, Audition

Platform: PC

Overview

Charmed! is a fantastical 3rd person Beat Em’ Up game in which I was the Creative Director, Design Lead, and Lead Level Designer. Throughout the duration of development I attempted to compensate for our team size by working across all departments. While doing so I completed a multitude of tasks in the realms of level design, Gameplay programming, AI programming, tech design, UI/UX design, Cinematography, Audio Design, Combat Design, and Motion Capture Directing. As required by the class criteria the game is comprised of all original assets created by the team.

Level Streaming

I blocked out the city level in a tile by tile manner to allow for easy puzzle style assembly. This approach allowed for rapid iteration and playtesting of level layouts. Once the player achieves an angle that eliminates the view of a tile, that tile is unloaded in layers.

Whitebox Kit

I then constructed a whitebox kit comprised of measured BSP converted into static meshes that were given UV touch ups and actually used as the final building facades due to our team’s shortage of environmental artists.

Blockout

I blocked out 9 of the 13 tiles that make up Level 1. The city is modeled after the dense urban, brutalist, and slightly grimy nature of New York City. Therefore, the entirety of the level is very flat and linear, presenting a design challenge for achieving verticality in combat scenarios. I incorporated elevation change opportunities via trucks, awnings, tents, a parking garage, and ramps.

Set Dressing & Lighting

I then did all of the lighting and set dressing for the final iteration of level 1. This includes painting the litter into the city, setting up some litter as physics actors for added life, window lighting, atmosphere lighting, level blueprint events/effects, environmental SFX, Dialogue triggers, and all necessary volumes/post processes for experience refinement.