Thread by @notimetoulose

Here's my method for scale, dimensions and metrics
1. Player scale is a convention.
By default the most comfortable height is 1.8m.

Since 0.2 m are irrelevant we can presume the player is in 2x1 bounding box.
we can aprox cover height to 1 m.
I like to use the following number for my grid:
- 0.25, 0.5, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32.
A 4x4 box for the 1x1 m cover where 1 box = 0.25

Normal wall heigh in a corridor may vary but the most comfortable number i found are:
- in FPS games 3 meters
- in TPS games 4-5 meters

4 meter walls work well for exterior
building facades that the player can't interact with.

4-5 meters:
- In TPS Games Cameras are attached to the bounding box of the player at around 1 meter above the player
- This helps to encrease field of view and also keep the character in view
- The Camera also has a bounding box of 1x1 meters

- An adition 1x1 meter in height is usually added for interior locations for the Art Team to place ceiling fixtures
- Since the camera is placed 1 meter above the player and the ceiling fixtures is 2 meters above this guarantees that
the two will not bump into each other.

This leads to keeping a consistent camera distance from the player at all times.
Almost.

Corridor width:
I like to use corridors that are 4 meters wide as a standard:
- This means that you could have 4 characters next to each other in the same corridor
- Since realistically you might only have 2-3 we can remove one from the and add an extra cover

This allows space for maneuvering when doing 1v1 encounters because the character have some movement space
in between the walls.
- You can make the corridor wider if you need to so however the perception of the corridor will change.

- If we keep a 4x4 corridor distance we can extrapolate a base floor pad that fits perfectly in the number ration described above:
0.25, 0.5, 1, 2, 4, 16, 32

- A good convention that I use is to always mentain 3 meters between cover distances. Again this is just what I am used to.
- This is easy to remember = 1 player + 2 AI or 3 players

This means we can now create a 4x4 meter floor plate that we can use to start prototyping our layout.
We know that a standard corridor is going to be a base 4x4 meters so we don't have to worry about they width

We know that a wall is either 4 or 5 meters in heigh
We know the character is 1,8 meters
We know a cover 1x1 meters in height and width.

Here's some real world application

After figuring out the basic metrics try to look at the game mechanics:
What can the player do?
- Can he Climb fences? How tall should a fence be?
- Can he slide trough hole? How tall should that hole be to allow him to pass in crouch mode?

But since it's not a matter of how big something should be, it's more about how big something already is just go
experiment inside a game and figure things out for your self.

Of course this method is just my method. There are others out there if you plan to correctly examine scale and dimensions in grayblock phase but this has worked for me so far... so.
#leveldesign