GDC 2001: Current Architecture and Potential Approaches to Level Design

Level design today is often charged with simulating real world locales. Whether it is nuclear research labs or terrorist held embassies game spaces typically support a narrative. The narrative or story has the player moving through recognizable environments to reinforce the suspension of belief. Everyday building elements are used as parts of gameplay and are incorporated into puzzles. Being able to create something at once familiar and identifiable is very important.

This presentation will take a slightly different strategy, and using some examples from recent American architecture look at the unfamiliar, and indeed what many people may even consider alien. This has a two-fold purpose. Firstly to give some background to a direction that architecture is headed in terms of forms and computer applications - what is the cutting edge of architecture today? And, secondly, if you had to design alternative or even thematically linked environments, what sort of techniques could guide you in doing that.

Architecture has had a strong CAD background for over the last decade, but it is only in the last couple of years that people have begun to use it as part of the design process. Computers and digital technology are not used simply as production tools, but play an integral role in the development of these new buildings.

When I say part of the design process, I mean the particular set of rules that were established to generate the spaces. When you create a level now, it is a matter of assembly, putting brushes together piece by piece. These buildings were not quite created at the push of a button, but that is the general trend - after establishing some initial parameters, let the software do the work.

This cutting-edge architecture uses non-uniform curves and surfaces in its construction, and while we could not have considered it a few years ago, the next generation of game consoles supports the ability for higher polygon counts. These architects have a strong theoretical imperative in adopting this complex geometry to counter the cultural associations of traditional architecture.

The three buildings that will be presented are all in America and have been completed in the last ten years. Each of the architects has a slightly different approach, and I want to consider how they might be applicable for level design. To conclude, for the purposes of discussion, examples will be given of how these ideas might be applied to level design and particular game types.