Derelict - Background and Design Process
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Anomaly Join Date: 2002-05-13 Member: 605Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester, Subnautica Developer, Pistachionauts, Future Perfect Developer
Anomaly Join Date: 2002-05-13 Member: 605Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester, Subnautica Developer, Pistachionauts, Future Perfect Developer
in Mapping
Following on from the news post, this post contains detailed background information on ns2_derelict, an unfinished but fully greyboxed map that we just released on Steam Workshop for modders & mappers to use.
Background
Derelict (or "Biodome #2" as it was originally called), had a relatively short life. Development began in March 2013 and came to a slow stop in May/June, at which point I moved on to working on Biodome and then Eclipse. As often happens in game development, I moved on to something else and so work on the level never restarted.
Layout
After Refinery, I wanted to make a level that was smaller and "safer", both in gameplay and development terms. I liked the idea of moving on to something that would get more attention in high-level competitive play. That meant starting with a more straightforward Summit-style layout, as seen below:
In the name of mixing things around a bit, the central area was changed to a double-node rather than a techpoint. This would have been a focus of much of the greybox-stage testing, to see how much our competitive map testing group liked it.
As you can see from the title the map was originally called "Forsaken", for reasons that will become clear in a moment. I renamed the level to "Derelict" after I rememberd there was already a mod with that name. Below the layout are my initial notes on the main areas for the level, outlining the setting and theme for each of them.
Setting
When planning levels that would potentially be released after Eclipse, one of the main goals we set was to make something that would let us re-use art, since making new environment artwork is one of the bigger drains on our budget. For a long time, we had planned to get more than one level out of the "Biodome" setting, so we decided to make another level within that setting. We still wanted it to be visually distinct, so we came up with the idea of setting this level in an older, abandoned biodome facility on the same planet. We could re-use a lot of art, and any new work would mostly involve making dirty or broken versions of existing assets.
In our setting the facility had been previously abandoned and the plants left to grow wild and over-run the facility, which would be beginning to fall apart and generally break down. To add variation and explain why the TSF would bother trying to save such a place, there would be areas showing signs of human reclamation: scaffolds, tools, cleaned-up sections and so on. Sites like abandoned geography were used a lot during the planning phase for inspiration!
Here's an unused concept piece by Igor Vitkovskiy from Fox3D, which was originally made for Biodome.
Biosphere by Igor Vitkovskiy
We felt this was too dark and menacing for Biodome, but we came back to it during planning for Derelict. We asked Igor to use this as a starting point to paint a new concept that included the overgrown, abandoned and broken-down ideas.
Abandoned Stairwell by Igor Vitkovskiy
If you take a look at the level file, you can see this is the first area to get any detail, as a way of getting a feel for how the existing assets might work for Derelict.
Usage
You are completely free to do whatever you want with this, although people looking for a playable greybox to to build on top of will get the most out of it. You could make the original Derelict design yourself, use the layout but change the setting, use it for a mod, or for reference, or anything else you can think of.
Please bear in mind that this is an early work-in-progress that has only gone through initial playtesting and is provided as-is. It is not guaranteed to play well, be bug free, or anything that you might expect from a finished level.
For those of you interested in doing something with the theme, or just in our process, I'll give a quick run-down of the ideas behind each of the areas in the level. This is also a nice excuse to post some more concept art!
Atmospheric Seeding
One of the concepts behind both Biodome and Derelict is that the facilities are experiments in a kind of passive terraforming using plant life. The Atmospheric Seeding techpoint is basically the housing for a giant ventilation system that pumps oxygen produced by the plants out onto the planet's surface. Over time this could be converted to add microbial or simple plant life to the mix and continue the process. I wasn't yet clear on the details for look and gameplay in this area, but it was partially built around the idea of being able to look out of those big picture windows.
Geothermal
As a continuation of the "passive" theme, this station would have been powered by geothermal energy. The room's centrepiece are the huge pipes for pumping water around the heating system. The room would have been mainly rocky with a glass ceiling. A lot of plant life would have made its way in, and this would probably be the only area where the plants were still all lush and healthy, thanks to the heat, light and moisture.
Transformer
This ties Atmospheric Seeding in with Geothermal, thematically. An RT area designed around being a power converter system turning the superheated steam into power to run the ventilation system.
Cracked Dome
The centrepiece of the level and double RT location, built around two huge dome rooms. Very overgrown, but both the plants and the structure are in bad shape, with cracks in the dome as the name suggests. The tall line-of-sight blocking walls in these areas were meant to be dense "vegetation walls" covered in leaves, grass and so on. This sketch by Cory shows the basic idea. Imagine the glass cracked open and the plants growing out.
Plant Wall Sketch by Cory Strader
Nursery
This area shows as "Maintenance" on the layout drawing, which I basically left there as short-hand for "trying to come up with a better area theme". This would have been similar to the Lab 1 area in Biodome, with plant carousels and tree tubes. Here's a painting of the area by Igor:
Nursery by Igor Vitkovskiy
A portion of this area was modelled after this sketch by Cory showing the carousels:
Plant Carousel Sketch by Cory Strader
Garage
What it says on the tin. An exit point for excursions on to the the planet surface. This painting by Igor is my favourite of the Derelict concept pieces, showing some fantastic mood and lighting:
Garage by Igor Vitkovskiy
The big all-terrain vehicle was there as both a set piece and provide cover. We had Igor do some more detailed studies of it:
Vehicle Concepts by Igor Vitkovskiy
Lookout
A break-room area with spectacular views of the desert. The Biodome buildings might even be visible from here.
Atrium
The main entrance to the building, styled after an office lobby. This area would show signs of human recovery, hence the scaffold mockups in the level.
Office
An administration/office/workstation area. The idea was to provide a bit of variation from the overgrown Biodome theme. This area would also have shown signs of recovery.
So this summary should hopefully give you enough information to get something useful out of the level file, or at least pique your interest. If you have any questions, please reply and I'll do my best to answer them!
Background
Derelict (or "Biodome #2" as it was originally called), had a relatively short life. Development began in March 2013 and came to a slow stop in May/June, at which point I moved on to working on Biodome and then Eclipse. As often happens in game development, I moved on to something else and so work on the level never restarted.
Layout
After Refinery, I wanted to make a level that was smaller and "safer", both in gameplay and development terms. I liked the idea of moving on to something that would get more attention in high-level competitive play. That meant starting with a more straightforward Summit-style layout, as seen below:
In the name of mixing things around a bit, the central area was changed to a double-node rather than a techpoint. This would have been a focus of much of the greybox-stage testing, to see how much our competitive map testing group liked it.
As you can see from the title the map was originally called "Forsaken", for reasons that will become clear in a moment. I renamed the level to "Derelict" after I rememberd there was already a mod with that name. Below the layout are my initial notes on the main areas for the level, outlining the setting and theme for each of them.
Setting
When planning levels that would potentially be released after Eclipse, one of the main goals we set was to make something that would let us re-use art, since making new environment artwork is one of the bigger drains on our budget. For a long time, we had planned to get more than one level out of the "Biodome" setting, so we decided to make another level within that setting. We still wanted it to be visually distinct, so we came up with the idea of setting this level in an older, abandoned biodome facility on the same planet. We could re-use a lot of art, and any new work would mostly involve making dirty or broken versions of existing assets.
In our setting the facility had been previously abandoned and the plants left to grow wild and over-run the facility, which would be beginning to fall apart and generally break down. To add variation and explain why the TSF would bother trying to save such a place, there would be areas showing signs of human reclamation: scaffolds, tools, cleaned-up sections and so on. Sites like abandoned geography were used a lot during the planning phase for inspiration!
Here's an unused concept piece by Igor Vitkovskiy from Fox3D, which was originally made for Biodome.
Biosphere by Igor Vitkovskiy
We felt this was too dark and menacing for Biodome, but we came back to it during planning for Derelict. We asked Igor to use this as a starting point to paint a new concept that included the overgrown, abandoned and broken-down ideas.
Abandoned Stairwell by Igor Vitkovskiy
If you take a look at the level file, you can see this is the first area to get any detail, as a way of getting a feel for how the existing assets might work for Derelict.
Usage
You are completely free to do whatever you want with this, although people looking for a playable greybox to to build on top of will get the most out of it. You could make the original Derelict design yourself, use the layout but change the setting, use it for a mod, or for reference, or anything else you can think of.
Please bear in mind that this is an early work-in-progress that has only gone through initial playtesting and is provided as-is. It is not guaranteed to play well, be bug free, or anything that you might expect from a finished level.
For those of you interested in doing something with the theme, or just in our process, I'll give a quick run-down of the ideas behind each of the areas in the level. This is also a nice excuse to post some more concept art!
Atmospheric Seeding
One of the concepts behind both Biodome and Derelict is that the facilities are experiments in a kind of passive terraforming using plant life. The Atmospheric Seeding techpoint is basically the housing for a giant ventilation system that pumps oxygen produced by the plants out onto the planet's surface. Over time this could be converted to add microbial or simple plant life to the mix and continue the process. I wasn't yet clear on the details for look and gameplay in this area, but it was partially built around the idea of being able to look out of those big picture windows.
Geothermal
As a continuation of the "passive" theme, this station would have been powered by geothermal energy. The room's centrepiece are the huge pipes for pumping water around the heating system. The room would have been mainly rocky with a glass ceiling. A lot of plant life would have made its way in, and this would probably be the only area where the plants were still all lush and healthy, thanks to the heat, light and moisture.
Transformer
This ties Atmospheric Seeding in with Geothermal, thematically. An RT area designed around being a power converter system turning the superheated steam into power to run the ventilation system.
Cracked Dome
The centrepiece of the level and double RT location, built around two huge dome rooms. Very overgrown, but both the plants and the structure are in bad shape, with cracks in the dome as the name suggests. The tall line-of-sight blocking walls in these areas were meant to be dense "vegetation walls" covered in leaves, grass and so on. This sketch by Cory shows the basic idea. Imagine the glass cracked open and the plants growing out.
Plant Wall Sketch by Cory Strader
Nursery
This area shows as "Maintenance" on the layout drawing, which I basically left there as short-hand for "trying to come up with a better area theme". This would have been similar to the Lab 1 area in Biodome, with plant carousels and tree tubes. Here's a painting of the area by Igor:
Nursery by Igor Vitkovskiy
A portion of this area was modelled after this sketch by Cory showing the carousels:
Plant Carousel Sketch by Cory Strader
Garage
What it says on the tin. An exit point for excursions on to the the planet surface. This painting by Igor is my favourite of the Derelict concept pieces, showing some fantastic mood and lighting:
Garage by Igor Vitkovskiy
The big all-terrain vehicle was there as both a set piece and provide cover. We had Igor do some more detailed studies of it:
Vehicle Concepts by Igor Vitkovskiy
Lookout
A break-room area with spectacular views of the desert. The Biodome buildings might even be visible from here.
Atrium
The main entrance to the building, styled after an office lobby. This area would show signs of human recovery, hence the scaffold mockups in the level.
Office
An administration/office/workstation area. The idea was to provide a bit of variation from the overgrown Biodome theme. This area would also have shown signs of recovery.
So this summary should hopefully give you enough information to get something useful out of the level file, or at least pique your interest. If you have any questions, please reply and I'll do my best to answer them!
Comments
One question though. Generally speaking, when designing the important rooms do you (the mapper) provide the basic grey-boxed area for artists to paint over or does the art come first and you try to balance the area within that design?
It's usually a combination. The stairwell and the nursery were preliminary works to determine tone and atmosphere, while the garage was a direct paint-over of a screenshot of the greybox. Had the project continued, we would probably have done similar greybox paintovers for all the techpoint areas.
Was just gonna say - you are the RIGHT kind of man for this job!
Crackeddome needs some nice alienfriendly vents and props for it to work i think.
We didn't reach the point of making any new art for the map, so it's just the concept art and the greybox.
This was more of a starting point. I wanted to start out with something I knew was feasible and then iterate on bringing in new layout ideas with the help of the map testing team. The advantage of keeping it in greybox during that kind of testing is there isn't a huge overhead in making those kinds of changes.
Care for a little cooperation? Got an idea where to take it further
FCK misspelled your name, sorry @Rudy.
I would also love to join this project, if possible.
Blessings,
Cody