Case Study: Turning Blockouts Into Final Environments

Alexa Kim, a Senior Game Designer at Respawn, tweeted a couple of awesome examples of how initial level blackouts are turned into game scenes by environment artists. The images show level bases of Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond and the final art done by the developers at Virtuos Games.

What you see on the left are the game's prototypes which are made to see how levels function and whether gameplay mechanics work inside them.

The artist worked "on the blockout, then put in gameplay, then made precise adjustments as needed." She had to design levels thinking about player movement vs AI movement, sightlines, cover, and other important elements.

Then, the art team turned these base prototypes into finished environments. The artist noted that "there was a continuous back and forth in the process to find a balance between form and function."

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