Let's Build an Environment: Modular Assets

Hello again,

Today I'll be talking about taking the messy geometry I first made to layout the level, and refining that into something much more efficient and reminiscent of an old forgotten World War 2 gun battery. My goal main goal now, is to take this level and turn it into separate pieces so the level can be modular.

I first go over the level I have now, and I eliminate some unnecessary rooms and hallways. While I'm doing this, I'm also identifying what each room is used for, and what the story might be behind it as I go. I'm trying to find a good point in between practicality and the organic feeling you get from the original layout.

Rough parsed level layout with room identifications.

Once the excessive bits have been parsed down, I start to break down the area into smaller bits. I want to be as conservative as I can be in this step, but not break from my parsed down layout. I decide on a grid scale for the simpler assets to abide by first, in this case a 1x1 square on my grid would be 4x4 meters, and all hallways height's would be 3 meters. I then made the simple hallway objects from scratch, having them match the dimensions of the layout as closely as I could. From there I took each of the unique pieces and adjusted them so they could connect with the modular hallways.

First pass modular geometry.

As soon as the layout was complete I exported each object and created the bunker layout in Unity. For there I did a camera pass, which made the level navigate able by the player. With the level laid out I could now go in and model out the geometry of each piece without having to layout the level any further. Below are pictures of the final modeled pieces and the final level layout.

Second pass modular geometry.

Level layout with modular geometry.