LEVEL DESIGN + ART

A sampling of hybrid design and art work

This section foregrounds a selection of older work because, as time went on and NWI grew, my direct involvement in both creating and implementing art decreased. However, In stepping back from direct production, I became a champion and liaison for the synergy between art and design production, ensuring its treatment as a bedrock development process . See my portfolio proper for a more comprehensive look at my general art and design skills.

Aside from building most of the modular architectural trim early in Sandstorm’s development and painting most of its graffiti later in the process, I wasn’t involved in the production of meshes or textures/materials for the game. On some maps I worked solely on block out. On others, architectural passes or design iteration. On the Sandstorm maps below, I did all of the design and most of the art implementation/architectural detailing.

FARMHOUSE Insurgency Sandstorm (Unreal Engine 4)

I did all design for this map and all of the large and modular mesh implementation.

OUTSKIRTS Insurgency Sandstorm (Unreal Engine 4)

This map arrived in Sandstorm’s first post-release update. I designed it and split the Env Art pass 70/30 with another Level Designer.

Sandstorm was originally slated to have a single player campaign. This is a concept/storyboard I did for the ambush of a convoy that was to take place on Farmhouse. Despite the cancelation of the single player story, many of the elements in this painting survive in the multiplayer-only map because they were envisioned from the outset as a combined solution for both a cinematic single player set piece and a measured multi player space

EMBASSY Insurgency 2014 (Source Engine)

I was the Artist and Designer on this heavily modified and extended version of one of the finalist maps in NWI’s community mapping competition. Much of the Level Design was altered to accommodate multiple game modes and greater player numbers , but the overall spirit of the original layout is intact. I also made all map- specific props for this, and much of the map-specific textures. In a bit of world building, this is the birth of some of the products that would reappear in Insurgency Sandstorm.

While most of the maps I’ve made have been multiplayer, they are always packed with some sort of narrative. This one drips heavy on diplomatic allusions, right down to the checkerboard tiled tables.

BRUT Counter-Strike 2 (Source 2 Engine)

FAVELA unnanounced project (Unreal Engine 5)

While this map hasn’t had an art pass, the art + design hybrid spirit is still extant in the way this extremely dense map provides carefully crafted cinematic vistas and wayfinding information simultaneously through Landmarks and terrain formation in each Area of Interest, as well the careful orchestration of where you see them, and the particular way they’re composed and framed within the landscape.
Each area of interest is defined by a landmark that can be seen from all over the map.

DROP DEAD GORGES Left 4 Dead 2 (Source Engine)

Tons of custom content on this three map campaign.

DROP DEAD GORGES Left 4 Dead 2 (Source Engine)

Tons of custom content on this three map campaign.

Art + Design Hybrid thinking. The grist mill/covered bridge scene below, which reveals itself as you emerge from one of gorges in the campaign is an imposing set piece, a pocket arena for versus (pvp) gameplay, and a piece of visual wayfinding. It presents a layered, but clear idea about gameplay, and tells you both where you need to go and where you will be going.

A game cabinet I modeled and have reskinned several times for several games over the years. For Drop Dead Gorges , it’s a Zombie Tapper game.

DDG Outro Sequence

Dyson's Bluff Lodge, Poincare National Forest

Zombie Literacy Drive. Attract Screen

A mix of art and promotional stuff I did for the campaign. This was just before the Steam Workshop, when it was typical to upload maps to several hosting sites and promote the work on community forums.

TELL Insurgency 2014 (Source Engine)

I was the only developer to touch the art and design on this map. Design-wise, it was the most popular map in the game, not just for the game mode around which it’s built, but for every game mode that was subsequently added to it.

Graffiti. One of the most impactful ways to world build with finite resources and a lean team. These have seen a little generalized use in subsequently released maps, but each of these were made with a specific Insurgency Sandstorm blank wall in mind.

exquisite paranoia

c. 2014. Rhyming with the Source Engine. This was an experiment in stream of consciousness level design (as much as that can be a thing) that started with making a cover of map 1 from Left 4 Dead’s No Mercy campaign and setting it to a cover of Led Zeppelin’s No Quarter [which means…no mercy], and then goes on to pick up other associations along the road and riff on them in different interconnected ways.

While I think I’ve done a decent job of presenting this as a complete thing, it was actually derailed in an early stage of its development by a crash that I could not solve. Probably an appropriate punishment for twisting Counter-Strike into knots.