- Croaton
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- Exalted Legendary Member
Posted by: Fraged
Posted by: Croaton
Interesting...I was just talking to Phil Co (Works at Valve Software creator of Half-Life) about level design. If you guys want I could post what he has to say on what would be a good focus in college and such.
That would be great.
Anyway I'm doing a powerpoint presentation in my elective.
I just sent someone a PM about it. Here is what I sent him:
Keep in mind that I live in Washington and these were my questions and might no help you people. This is what he had to say:
What would you say is a good college to go to (in the Seattle area) for someone who is trying get into the career of Level Design?
The only one I know of here that focuses on game development is Digipen. The group that is developing Portal here at Valve is from there. I think any college that has good programs in computer science, graphics/animation would probably be fine.
What would you suggest my area of focus should be on in college?
I would try to diversify between computer science and graphic design/art. The level design position has evolved over the years so that you need to use a bit of both.
Do you need drawing skills or is it something along the line of taking what the concept artists come up with and add onto it in the same style?
You don't need any drawing skills, but you do need to be able to express your ideas on paper (or a whiteboard) and convey them to other team members. Here at Valve, we consider the first whiteboard drawing for a level as the first prototype or template for that level. If we can't solve the issues in the drawing, we probably won't be able to solve it in the actual level.
Since I am going to be the BEST Level Designer that this world has ever seen, what school(s) has the best program for Level Designers?
This one's a bit tricky. Level designers at different companies do different things. Here at Valve, we do a lot of scripting for entities and just working together on each experience the player will have. This leads me to believe that the best school for a level designer at Valve would need access to developer tools such as Source and Hammer (or Unreal, etc.). It would organize the students as a project with programmers, artists, animators and designers and your team would start with simple goals that you could achieve on a weekly basis. Level designers at other companies (such as Blizzard) might emphasize being able to model in Maya or Max. The idea school would have art classes in modeling and texturing to give you a good sense of scale and how to craft the spaces the way you want them.
Would I need a degree in Digital Arts & Design or Game Development?
Definitely not, although a degree shows a couple of things - that you can finish something and that you're open to learning - but that doesn't mean you have to get a degree in Digital Arts or Game Development.
At the Community College level what kind of classes would help me prepare for a career in Level Design?
Diversify yourself - take fiction writing (you never know if you'll be asked to write dialogue), take a drama course (animators often record themselves doing all kinds of crazy actions so they can animate them later or you might even be involved in a voice recording session), take computer science courses, take modeling/texturing, take an architectural drawing course (for drafting out your ideas). The bottom line is that a lot of the best developers look for game developers, not level designers or artists or programmers specifically. Does that make sense?
What in your estimate is the entry level pay?
Good question. If you've seen Game Developer magazine, they have salary figures for all positions about once a year. It also depends on where the company is located. Starting in the San Francisco area might be $50K but that's kind of like $35K in Texas.
Outside of Washington, where are good companies located?
I was in the San Francisco area for about 10 years. There are some great companies there like Lucasarts, Nihilistic, Double Fine. Even EA isn't a bad place to get started. They might overwork you and lay you off after the project's done, but they tend to ship on time and you can use it a stepping stone. LA has Blizzard, of course, and a couple of other companies (Turtlerock) that are good.