How to Present Levels for Your Portfolio?

Hello my fellow level designers! I’m Amin and this is a brief write up about my tips and tricks for presenting a blockout level that you can put proudly in your portfolio. Most of it is based on my experience in the past three years and I'll keep this updated if I discover anything new.

• What’s this writing NOT about?

1. Please DO NOT expect it’s related to environment art or anything like that. It may be useful for artists or other peoples from different industries, but the primary audience is level designers who deal with greybox/blockouts.
2. It’s NOT about how to design levels too.

• Why would I write this?
  
  

I received a lot of comments from my LinkedIn contacts and Twitter followers about how they were impressed by my presentation and asked about my method every time I posted a new level. So I decided to end it up with this article. Besides, knowledge-sharing is the most beautiful culture in the world.

• Why should you care about the presentation?
  
  

You really don't have a choice if you are NOT a veteran or haven't completed any projects yet! We must FACE the truth. Those guys have their own connections and can close a deal with the flick of a finger or a phone call. They don't require a strong portfolio as we do, which is natural. The only solution we have is trying to make good levels, and most importantly, present them as kickass as we can, otherwise your name will remain at the bottom of the list.

In this article, I’ll get through of three views:

• Isometric
• Plan and Section
• Player Perspective

Don’t miss any detail if you want to reach the same shots.

Let’s get started!

Isometric View

Step Zero

This is probably the first view of your model, right? No worries. Let’s hide the wireframes to present our blockout better.

Step One

Inside Rhino, by selecting the “Arctic” mode, we have this result. Nice and clean view but still not suitable for presenting. Everything has the same value and is too white.

Step Two

The next step is to choose a color palette and assign it to the objects. The point is that we should choose wisely based on these three criteria:

1. It should be eye-catching (not boring)
2. Compatible with the theme of your level
3. Compatible with the functionality of your elements

I used this color palette from the colorhunt website:

Of course, I explored a lot of palettes with different RGB codes before deciding on that. Here's the GIF I created:

Yeah, this step took a serious amount of time from me, but it was well worth it. You can NOT achieve your “fantastic” result without putting time on that. This is a natural rule that cannot be denied.

Step Three

So… after testing and assigning colors to objects, by selecting the “Rendered” mode in Rhino this view would be our result. Much better, but still not good enough, in my opinion.

According to those 3 aspects I mentioned, this color palette is:

• Attractive at first sight.
• Not unusual for an industrial theme. If those three cylinders had been blue, it would have felt like a water tank or something.
• Explains the functionality of my main elements correctly. For example, what was your reaction if the ground was red?

Step Four

By adding “outline” to the edges, this view is our result. This is a huge improvement, isn’t it? But I’m not done yet!

In Rhino (Display option), these 2 options will give you that outline result:

Step Five

Here’s the final step. This process is done in Photoshop. I just added a “color lookup” and a text that I wrote “Isometric View” to it. That’s all. No complicated layers.

Here are the PS layers: (simple and easy)

That was all the 5 steps I used for reaching that amount of quality. Could be much better but that’s enough for us. I mean, as a level designer, they don’t expect us to bring an artist-like portfolio with stunning graphics. Nope!

Also, I made a GIF for the whole process:

It was all about isometric views (usable for perspective too). I did my best to clarify this as much as I could. (Please let me know if you have any questions in the comments section below.)

This blog will not end here. Two other important parts are still left.

Let’s jump in…

2D Plans and Section

This part is kinda tricky because as far as I know, not all 3D software supports it. Rhino has these 2D features because of its users. Industrial designers and architects are the most of their clients who commonly deal with this kind of stuff in their works. Companies will follow requirements in their road maps. As a result, don’t expect other tools that have other users (such as environment/prop/lighting artists) to have this 2D visualization. What does a lighting artist do with that?

This is the top-down view (with the previous setting I mentioned earlier. Nothing changed):

For emphasizing the main lines of the layout, I mixed that with a regular Pen view:

Here’s the first floor plan:

This is how section works in Rhino:

I just move that plane lower to pick this shot, the ground floor:

Nothing here is special or done with complex commands or other means. You’re looking at images that almost include my layout and software visualization. That’s all. Don’t let any fear enter your heart! Try to get inspired by these notes and create your own.

This problem has two solutions:

1. Modeling with more attention!
2. Use Photoshop to cover the areas which aren’t red

I personally use solution 2 for most of the cases. Don’t ever think those sections I made have no edit in PS!

The final GIF shows all 4 top-down images:

Is it cool? You can easily make your own 2D layouts like these.

Let’s go to the "2D section" part…

These are two vertical sections which I have showed the direction of them in the top corner:

You can skip this part if you don’t have any tool for it. The goal is to have better shots for your portfolio, not the perfect or ideal one. 

• Where did you learn this 2D stuff?

That was everything about the 2D plan and section. The following section is about player perspective in Unreal Engine. Let's get started...

Player Perspective

For level designers who want to test and walkthrough their blockouts, Unreal Engine is pure gold. There are lots of pre-made tools in there that prepare the scene just ready to test anything (both multiplayer and singleplayer). So this section explains how to present a player perspective view of your blockouts.
Look at these shots to talk about them later:

My older levels:

For making similar shots like these, you have to get these packages:

• Low Poly Shooter Pack (Free and Paid)
• Animation Starter Pack (Free)
• Advanced Cel Shader Lite (Free)
• Post Process Shader Pack (Free)
• Blocking Starter Pack (Paid)

Package No.1 – Low Poly Shooter Pack

Unreal has its own FPS template but don’t satisfied with it! With all due respect, It’s ugly, has only sci-fi theme, rough animations and… , that’s why I suggest Low poly pack. (Use its free version if you don’t wanna purchase the complete one). 

Package No.2 – Animation Starter Pack

For Putting player references with animation. I see a lot of LDs put T-pose references that make no sense at all! They are usable for walkthrough video too, because their animation gives more life to your levels.

Package No.3 – Advanced Cel Shader Lite

I use it just for its very cool water material that has wave motion too. (Maybe you can find something else interesting in it!)

Package No.4 – Post Process Shader Pack

It’s the main package that gives you a very interesting visual inside Unreal. Unfortunately, its page has been down on Epic Store! Didn’t find anywhere else. (Email me if you couldn’t find that anywhere else).

Package No.5 – Blocking Starter Pack

It has both cool grid materials and pre-made meshes for making blocking out very easier. (Use the SuperGrid Starter pack as a free alternative for it if you don’t wanna purchase that).

Setup Process

I’m not going to explain this part with details like previous parts, because make this blog too long, so I’ll make it as brief as I can:

1. Import all those five packages I mentioned;
2. Create a new level and Import your FBX into it;
3. Change the game mode override in world setting to “BP_LPSP_GM_LPSP”;
3.1 Choose your favorite weapon in default pawn class
4. Copy all this text and paste in your world outliner

It will make a clone of my magic lighting and post process settings at your level:

4.1 That custom PP is totally changeable and you can add or remove any effect on it. Just select that and go to this tab:

Here’s a GIF that shows applying every filter on the level, I skipped the lighting and sky setting process though:

Yes! As you see those post process shaders works inside UE5 too.

Just need some changes on lights and skybox. No more.

That was all about the «player perspective» views inside Unreal. I did my best to clarify this part as much as possible. If you have any suggestion, question or critiques on this, put it in the comment section down below.

I hope you guys find it useful in the end!

Feel free to contact me through any platform: Gmail, ArtStation, Twitter, or LinkedIn.

Amin Montazeri, Multiplayer Level Designer