Multiple Artists working on one level / project

Questions is about workflow/ best practices for more than one artist working on the same level.

Planning a small game where there will be one “open world” level. IE: Think something like 4 city blocks squared.

Is there an easy way to have say, 4 designers, each work on 1 square block each and then connect the projects, level parts, etc into one single for final game building.

The idea is to have 1 artist work on a part of the world for 2 weeks, rather than 1 artist trying to do the entire thing over 8 weeks.

In the past, I’ve only worked on 1 artist per level projects, so I’m not totally sure if this approach is workable. Or when using Unity3D we would have multiple artists create level part prefabs and then assemble them into the final levels by hand or with procedural code.

I know you can copy assets form one project to another. Is there a way to “copy” a level from one to another and then combine them?

You could do it like that:

Everybody creates exactly the same folder structure. Then everbody starts creating his level part. Now you can move the maps from all the projects into one + all assets (everything should be in the same folder as before -> that’s why everybody needs the same folder structure -> you could also create a folder for the 1st levelpart 2nd … but I think you guys are using the same assets, so it’s easier to keep everything in a folder structure) now just stream all the level parts together :slight_smile:

Here you can add a new level to your old one:

Hi Bshapiro,

I agree with on this one. You need to have a good structure to the work. Also, make sure that you create a design/art guidelines document that details scaling, texturing and some other requirements to make sure everyone is on the same page. I can tell you from personal experience working on my group final project that making sure everyone is on the same page with content creation.

Good luck to you and definitely post some pics of your project in the work in progress section if you’re up for it! I’m always interested in seeing what everyone is working on!

This is great! Thank you so much @!

Yes, thanks . I’m currently working out the workflow/conventions/Asset Structure guidelines.

Yes the plan is to use the same set of assets (meshes,textures, materials). This way each artist can work on different areas, but the art direction will all match. We will also be planning everything out on paper beforehand in team meetings so we can all collaborate.

The design idea, is that, if we were making this a few years ago, then each “level” piece would be it’s own contained part (Kind of like the tutorial levels from say, The Last of Us. Where you go through a small ally and then, the level ends and there is (hidden) loading happening.

Here, we are creating a single “open world” (small, primary target is mobile right now as a test) that the player will then have different quests that take them back to the same level area. However, each time, we plan to dynamically spawn slightly different enemies and some object (sort of how Diablo does levels - its always a forest or dungeon, but what shows up there can be random).

Will definitely post work in progress - Probably have something decent to show by end of June.

-Brett