Single Player Levels



Written by Tom "Magi" Smallwood



What's up with the lack of single player levels for JK/MOTS? That is the question I keep hearing. Usually, they are followed by somebody moaning about how they are just as easy to do as a MP level. Well, as the author for WarZone, Chapter 2, I can tell you up front that it is not easy to do, but if you think you have talent as a level editor for JK, single player levels are where to show it. They provide a much better canvas to show a designer's skill as a virtual architect and level designer than a multi-player level.

So, what's wrong with most of the single player levels that came out early for JK? How about no cut-scenes, no force powers, no goals, no/poor lighting, no secret areas, small levels, no story line and no weapon drawn at the start (I even listed them alphabetically for you :) Frankly, if you don't have at least 7 out of 8 of these things in your level, then don't waste my time (or yours). What? He only said I needed seven things? Well, there is a relief! Yea, yea, yea, I figured I'd be nice today and cut you a little slack. It won't happen again! This is not an excuse to cut corners. If you don't have one or two of these items, there better be a good reason for it. For example, force powers would not be very useful in a forest full of Ysalamiri, now would they? Maybe cut-scenes are a little difficult. But hey, I didn't say it would be easy.

First, I want to talk about each of these, then I will ramble on about some other thoughts I've got. Don't you just hate listing to the rambling of an old geezer?

//Ok Brian, I wrote an intro. Hope you're happy.



Cut-scenes

This is something that ties directly into a little thing called a story line. It is easy to make a level where you run around and shot everything until all the bad guys are dead. Just take a look at Quake. If this is the kind of level you are try to do, you can just skip this section completely. In fact, how about just skipping making a level while you are at it? It would definitely save time.

There are 2 articles on how to do cut-scenes that I have seen. One at Darkness Falls and the other at the Massassi Temple. I have long been a fan of the Star Wars Role Playing Game and they had an unusual concept for a RPG which included actual cut-scenes in the middle of an adventure. There was a little script for the game master to read that went something like this:

The scene changes to the bridge of the Death Star where Grand Moff Tarken and Darth Vader are standing. "The rebel base will be in range in 30 minutes" says an anonymous off screen voice. In his ominous voice, Vader says, "This will be a day long remembered. It has seen the end of Ben Kenobi and soon will see the end of the Rebellion". The camera fades to black.

Sure, it gives the players information that they would not normally have, but also gives the players the sense of an impending deadline or coming threat. Movies use these kind of cut-scenes all the time. Use them as models for your own.

Have fun with cut-scenes and be creative.



Force Powers

When it comes to Force Powers, you have two options. You can pre-assign force powers like a lot of levels do, or you start the level with a cut-scene, then let the player pick force powers. Both methods have advantages. If your level automatically assigns force powers, you will be able to specifically tailor your level towards this, making places that need the different skills. On the other hand, allowing the player to pick force powers makes the character more customizable which is always enjoyable (at least for me, and I really don't care if you enjoy it).

Unfortunately, there are some problems with using force powers. It is difficult to make it so that if you save your game, leave the Jedi Knight engine, then re-load the game to have the force powers remain. This is something I'm looking into and may have been fixed with MOTS. I plan on releasing a tutorial covering what I find out.



Goals:

Use goals to give a player direction in the level. They let the players know approximately how far through a level they are as well as telling them what they need to do next.

If you feel really special, you may also use hidden goals. Hidden goals are goals that don't appear at the beginning of the game, but rather will be added during play. An example of a hidden goal might be:

The player has been pulled into the landing bay by a tractor beam. The primary goals are to find the tractor beam control circuits, turn them off, then escape in the players ship. Part way through the level the player learns the princess is in a detention cell on the ship and they must rescue her.

Rescuing the princess would be a hidden goal.



Lighting

I can not say enough about lighting. Lighting can take a good level and make it great and a great level and make it fantastic. You can always improve your level by adding lighting. You can also ruin your level by adding lighting if done poorly. There are a lot of theories about lighting and different people like different amounts. In general, to much colored lighting is a bad thing, it is personal preference. I'm not going to tell you how much lighting to add to your level, but I will tell you how lighting works so you may take advantage of it.

First off, lighting in JK/MOTS is my biggest (ok, second biggest) dislike about the game. I have a lot of problems with the way LA implemented it, but there are ways a level designer can make the best of a bad thing (I wonder how much flame mail I'll get for saying that?). Lights in JK come from the vertexes (or corners) of a room. What this means is that if I have a long hallway (6 sides, eight vertexes) and I put a light in the middle of it, nothing will light up. Why? Because there are no vertexes near the light source. Lame! If Kyle walked down the hallway with his field light turned on. The beginning of the hallway would light up (because there are four vertexes there), but as Kyle moved down the hallway, it would get dark as he got away from the vertexes. When he starts getting near the other end of it, it will get brighter.

So, how do you fix that? Well, you could cleave your long hallway into two shorter ones. Then there would be vertexes in the middle of the hallway. This is a good way to fix it. The same principle works for cleaving a side or an edge to include vertexes. The main thing to remember when placing your lights is that the lighting will not come from your light source, it will come from the vertexes on the map. So when you set your radius and intensity for the light, factor in the distance to surrounding vertexes.



Secret Areas

Typically, the reward for finding all the secret areas on a level are extra force stars for the next level. What if you are only making one level? Why have secret areas? Because they are fun to find and people like them! Make sure secret areas have stuff in them worth finding.

Secret areas don't need to be big, although it is more interesting to add a little detail to them. You run into the trade-off of how much time do you want to spend to make a cool secret area when a lot of players will never see it. While occasionally, a little room here and there that is hard to find can be called a secret, try to have at least one secret of decent size on each level. The temple in WarZone may be a little excessive, but something like the first secret you come to in Jedi Knight is a good size.

Now, you probably want to know how to make an area secret. Well, if I told you, it wouldn't be much of a secret, would it? Well, I guess I gotta tell somebody, but you have to promise not to tell anyone else (unless of course, they promise not to tell anyone also). All you need to do is add the secret area cog. Also, in your end level script, make sure it rewards the person if they found all the secrets.



Small Levels

Need I say more? Ok, fine. The JK engine handles large levels very well. The limit for items in a level is 640. You will have problems if you place 450 items or more on your level, so don't do it. If this is one of your first levels, probably 400 sectors is a good number to shot for. It is an ok size and yet allows you to get the level complete without biting off more than you can chew. Most of the single player levels for JK ran somewhere between 400 and 900 sectors and between 250 and 350 items.

Another way to judge level size is to see how long it takes to complete it. If a player can complete the level in less than 5 minutes, it is to short. Make sure it takes you at least that long to complete it.



Plot-line

Always have a story. If you are doing 3 levels all linked to together, have a story, but on the other hand, if you are doing a single level, then you need a story. Always have a story. Integrate your goals into your story. Make your cut-scenes help tell the story. No excuses on this, as a story is probably the easiest thing to do in making a level.



Starting with a Weapon Drawn

Always make sure the player starts with a weapon drawn. This is easy these days with JED 5.1+.



Rambling

Ok, those were the basic problems with JK single player levels. If you can implement these, you too can start down the road to being a true Jedi Level editor! Woohoo, you have to be thrilled now. Especially since you know that I am now free to ramble about other things. Topic: How to make your single player level even better.

As an example, I'm going to talk about a small, barely known set of single player levels that you probably never heard of called MOTS (Mysteries of the Sith). What did it bring to the table? New force powers? Well, lets see. There are a bunch of new force powers available on the web. I wonder how hard it would be to incorporate some of those into your level. Just make sure you have the author's ok and give credit in the text file. Modified monsters and AI can also be nice touches, but harder to do. Have fun with some of the other patches including things like the flame thrower and the grappling hook. Don't be afraid to use tools that are already out there.

What about puzzles? Adding some cool puzzles to your level can make it more fun and last longer. How do you figure out how hard a puzzle is? Play test! I recently sat a friend down in front of my level and watched him try and complete each of the puzzles in WarZone without any comments from me. It was an enlightening experience. Puzzles will probably take some custom cog to get to work well. Hunt the key levels are not that exciting and not what I would call a true puzzle. Be creative.

I am almost done, but not without talking about a little architecture. DO NOT MAKE A BOXY LEVEL!!!! Dull, dull, dull! Played Doom, been there, done that, done with that. This is the 90's. Hello, McFly. Wake up. Creative architecture in JED takes a little practice, but it is worth doing. For great examples of architecture, go look at some of the Quake 2 add-on levels. They will blow you away.

A couple of rules about architecture. Always inset buttons. They just look nicer. Select the surface and extrude them .01 JKU's into the wall. Very basic, very easy, no excuses.

Door jambs, not just a good idea. A door jamb, for those of you who have been in virtual worlds so long you don't know what a real door looks like, is the area around the door. A door never reaches the ceiling of any room, just look around you. There is that space above the door. Try and implement something like that in your level. Always make a space for your door to open into. If you don't, your level will not look as good, especially on non-3D accelerated computers. To create a door jamb and space for the door, cleave the sector the door is in so that it is just big enough for the door. Then, select the side of the sector (or top/bottom) that you want the door to move into when it is open and extrude it. Then Merge the two sectors together and size the opening to where you want the door to go. The little things go along way.



I hope this helps you to make quality single player levels. I would like to see more of them. The author of the best single player level gets 4 brownie points, so good luck to all of you and may the force be with you, always.



Appendix A: Tutorials

Cut-Scenes: Massassi Temple Cut-scene tutorial, Darkness Falls cut-scene tutorial

Goals: Massassi Temple goals tutorial

Lighting: Massassi Temple Lighting techniques

Small levels: Detention Center FAQ Has a list of each JK level with the number of sectors, items and cogs.



Appendix B: Other good sources for editing information

The Code Alliance

Darkness Falls

Jedi Editing Academy

Massassi Temple

Tom "Magi" Smallwood dresses in a bunny suit for inspiration.

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