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Art'n'Leveldesign
by Benjamin Bauer
"an article describing my
opinion that art and emotions are
an important factor in leveldesign compared to common design"
When is the time to bring art in design ?
Creating emotions for the player
Introduction
First I have
to say that this article is based on my own experiences and opinions.
I simply want to define another way to see levels in general. Before I
wrote this article I talked with a lot of people - level designers and
artists who have never touched a computer mouse, like my last art teacher
in school. I was in a advanced art course in school and of course - like
every normal art student in school- I hated theory and history of art.
In the end I think it helped me to understand my own work at the computer
in another, better or more interesting way. Of course there are plenty
of intolerant people out there who would never like the thinking of some
designer geeks who percieve levels as art, but I don't care about it,
especially if I think back in history. Like you already noticed, I'm writing
this article in a very personal way simply because art and emotions are
in my opinion something very personal and I hope even more people think
about it in a similar way after reading this article.
Sorry for the article beeing a bit long, but I mean the subject matter
serious. But I always try to lighten the text with some humor, pictures,
small stories and examples.
"Small tale"
Before I really start, I have to tell you a small tale about my school time, where/why I really started to think about art and level design. Every student in a Bavarian/German secondary school has to do in his 13th year of school a major work on his own. I was able to choose between a project in math and one in arts, and you can bet that the decision was definitely an easy one. Of course I decided to do the work in art. I asked my teacher whether I could do something with the Q3A engine, but of course he had absolutely no clue about computers. After some long discussions and presentations we found something he would accept: "A virtual museum of the 20. century". He didn't accept my NS:CO maps because in his opinion I don't solve any kind of creative problems there and simple design is not suitable for this kind of work - no, the intolerant bastard wasn't able to understand anything. Then I spent more than 3 months working on the problem of how I can translate common 2D art in 3D rooms. Actually, the whole work was pretty boring and very dry, but while I was building the virtual museum levels - with all the knowlege about art theory in my head - I started to think about the possibility of influencing old school art in modern level design. The more I thought about it I was sure that it had already happened. At the end I got 12 out of 15 points on my work. I didn't get more because I had to add hallways to improve the performance, and my teacher simply said: "If you are not able to make a real museum, you did the wrong work or the technology is not ready for such an experiment!". Then he told me something about 'Render' or 'CAD' , but it looked like he had already forgotten that you should be able to walk through the museum in real time with a normal PC - no, I never liked my teacher.
(click on the picture to go the school project presentation)
What is Art/Design?
Now we have to clear "what is art?" in general. I just show you what I found in an internet dictionary (http://dict.tu-chemnitz.de/) :
art
n 1: the products of human creativity; works of art collectively;
"an art exhibition"; "a fine collection of art" [syn: {fine
art}]
2: the creation of beautiful or significant things; "a good
example of modern art": "I was never any good at art"
[syn: artistic creation, artistic production]
3: a superior skill that you can learn by study and practice
and observation; "the art of conversation"; "it's quite an
art" [syn: artistry, prowess]
4: photographs or other visual representations in a printed
publication; "the publisher was responsible for all the
artwork in the book" [syn: artwork, graphics, {nontextual
matter}]
If you read this you might think that making a map definitely matches this description, simply because it's creative or because it's beautiful. Believe me - this would be too simple, especially because it's called level design. Now on the other hand we have to take a look on the word "design" (http://dict.tu-chemnitz.de/) :
design
n 1: the act of working out the form of something (as by making a
sketch or outline or plan); "he contributed to the
design of a new instrument" [syn: designing]
2: an arrangement scheme; "the awkward design of the keyboard
made operation difficult"; "it was an excellent design for
living"; "a plan for seating guests" [syn: plan]
3: something intended as a guide for making something else; "a
blueprint for a house"; "a pattern for a skirt" [syn: blueprint,
pattern]
4: a decorative or artistic work; "the coach had a design on
the doors" [syn: pattern, figure]
5: an anticipated outcome that is intended or that guides your
planned actions; "his intent was to provide a new
translation"; "good intentions are not enough"; "it was
created with the conscious aim of answering immediate
needs"; "he made no secret of his designs" [syn: purpose,
intent, intention, aim]
6: a preliminary sketch indicating the plan for something; "the
design of a building"
7: the creation of something in the mind [syn: invention, innovation,
excogitation, conception]
v 1: make or work out a plan for; devise; "They contrived to
murder their boss"; "design a new sales strategy"; "plan
an attack" [syn: plan, project, contrive]
2: design something for a specific role or purpose or effect;
"This room is not designed for work"
3: create the design for; create or execute in an artistic or
highly skilled manner; "Chanel designed the famous suit"
4: make a design of; plan out in systematic, often graphic
form; "design a better mousetrap"; "plan the new wing of
the museum" [syn: plan]
5: create designs; "Dupont designs for the house of Chanel"
6: conceive or fashion in the mind; invent; "She designed a
good excuse for not attending classes that day"
7: intend or have as a purpose; "She designed to go far in the
world of business"
As you can see, it's not really easy to say "level design" is pure ART or pure DESIGN and that's definitely not the intention of this article! In my opinion something is only really creative - and then art, based on the above defnition - if it's based on emotions, if it creates emotions or is in a way more or less ingenious or original. It doesn't have to be political, force the viewer to think about something, be based on exceptionally great skills, etc. Sometimes when the artist wants to show the viewer an intention of his, he submerges it in the background, and this creates the feelings or emotions that he wants to project into the art product. On the other hand there is e.g. Dadaism: "a nihilistic art movement (especially in painting) that flourished in Europe early in the 20th century; based on irrationality and negation of the accepted laws of beauty" (http://dict.tu-chemnitz.de/). One artist just turned around a urinal, put it on a table and then it was real art for a few days. I don't excpect that anyone really understands this, but in some way it was freaky and ingenious - he was simply the first one.
(dadaism in my school project)
If we want to be serious, common level design is definitely more design than art, but in my following text I try to give you impressions and ideas on how to change this a little bit - otherwise it will become boring or cheap. As a level designer you should always have the wish that your work will become something more interesting, not just a bunch of bits where some kids play slaughterhouse.
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