Thread by @TalesOfFour

1/7 How I Make My Levels/Environment🧵✨

#indiedev #pixelart #gamedev #zeldalike

2/7 Overworld Map 🧵✨

I start with a simple map to design the overall flow of an area. I spend a lot of time in this stage thinking through little secrets, puzzles, and enemy placements.

Here's a small snapshot of a couple of zones (click for more if it crops weird)

#pixelart

3/7 Making Art! 🧵✨

Here's that same section, but with some polished art applied to it. The art is all done in 2D, in aseprite (with occasional 3d references done in blender) It's all done by hand without a grid or tilemap, but I do reuse some foliage.

4/7 Collisions 🧵✨

Collisions are done in 3D. I'm using #unrealengine with a fixed orthographic camera to create a game that looks 2D. I use the image of the background, apply it to a cube, use the knife tool to cut out different elevations and extrude them appropriately:

5/7 Objects 🧵✨

Objects are placed in engine, and are moved into pixel perfect position to match the underlying image.

Here's an example of that. The white cyclinder visible in one tree here is the actual collision for trees, but the sprites generally look like that.

6/7 Objects Continued 🧵✨

Some of the objects are more complicated, and they take some wizardry that's a bit too hard to explain in a twitter thread, like bridges and houses.

Left: How the sprite is cut
Right: How it looks with the correct camera setup.

7/7 Finished 🧵✨

Thanks! Feel free to ask questions or suggest better methods. :)

#indiedev #gamedev #pixelart #zeldalike #UnrealEngine