Existing Level Recreation - Ash Lake from Dark Souls 1 (work-in-progress)
For this assignment, I was tasked to create a blockmesh of an existing game level. I chose Ash Lake from Dark Souls 1, which I consider to be my favorite level from any game (at least aesthetically). Here are some images of the level including a top down map from an online guide.
While there are not many rooms or complex structures in this level, my work so far has been a little challenging. This mainly came from creating the ash dunes. The height of the ash dunes vary greatly at different parts of the level, and estimating how high certain parts were was difficult. As for the first couple of weeks, my main point of reference came from walking around the level in-game. Another reason the ash dunes were difficult is because of how organic there shapes are. Many game levels are flat with some ladders or stairs to change elevation. However the the bulk of Ash Lake's intractable areas are organic dunes with gradual elevation changes. I had a ton of trouble figuring out how to even start creating this floor. I started by overlaying the map of the level into Unreal Engine and lifting the ground slightly with the landscape tool in the shape of the map. However I quickly realized that the height of the terrain varies vastly and much of it is very tall relative to sea level, so lifting up the ground only slightly did not help me that much. What I ended up doing instead was lifting up the area a lot and then sculpting down to get the lower-level areas to an accurate height, which was significantly easier.
I also had difficulty creating the entrances into the smaller tree that's located in the middle of the level. For hours, I was trying to make it work with additive and subtractive brushes, but I was having a ton of issues getting the subtractive brushes to subtract properly. I eventually gave up on that method after almost getting everything to work, as I knew it could not get it exactly how I wanted. I then did some research and I discovered the boolean tool. After messing around with it for a few minutes I attempted to recreate the tunnels in the tree with that tool and I ended up finishing it in a matter of minutes (compared to the brushes which took me hours to not even finish it).
Recently, I found a website that has a database of levels from old video games that lets you fly around to see every inch of the level (https://noclip.website/). This tool has helped a great deal as it made it very easy to see if the scale of everything in my level is correct and to see where every object/asset goes.
Part of this assignment is to create an alteration to the level after finishing the blockout. I currently have two ideas for the alteration. One is to create an underground cave leading from the small log at the beginning, and the other idea is to create a staircase made out of mushrooms that lead an upper level in the tree in the middle of the level.
The only things left to do are add more detail to the inside of the tree at the end, create the alteration to the level, and to finish my map of the level.
Work-in-progress images:
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