Learning level Design in Unreal Tournament

Learning level design from the masters - Part II

More on brushwork
Apart from the usual walls, ramps and crates, a good mapper creates special looking decos, pillars, symbols in his map. This can a lend a unique look to his map. Looking at "The Essence" by RuineR, a small quake style map - the two pillars with their spire like finish, point into the sky making it look more real.

Movers
Movers in UT are a combination of brush, lights, sounds, and a little bit of tweaking with the timings. The lifts in DM-Closer by Alan 'Talisman' Willard are good examples to learn from on how to make good looking and sounding movers. Even the 'underbelly' of this mover looks good!

Skyboxes
Enough cannot be said about making a great skybox for your levels. The various options in UT in terms of lighting, and scaled textures can be used to create real looking outdoor scenes very easily. This is the picture of the 'skybox' in DM-Revenge, by Aaron 'Platinum' Ingersoll. Correct scaling of the mountain textures - not too far away, but not pixelated too. Differential lighting is used for different sides of the skybox but the effect is - one of a seamless horizon.

More Skyboxes!
DM-StrictlyDiesel by 'Willhaven' is not exactly one of my favorite maps. But the different skyboxes in the level are real beauties. One of them has a tower soaring into the sky - lends to atmosphere The slowly panning orange cloud textures are right there. The brushwork at the edge of the skybox is very important, I've come to learn.

Part I