Level Stories Introduction and Story 1:UMC Plant

It's been a long time since i've blogged on my own level site, so i decided to take some time and devote some insight into the level process that i followed in developing the maps I've made for Gore and Gore SE in 2002 and 2008 respectively. In these breif blogs, i will talk about the influences, ideas, events and pitfalls when working on each level. The all have their own unique story to tell and you may find some interesting facts about each one of them and how they came to be what they are. Perhaps the next time you run around these levels of mine, you will see them in an entirely different light.

UMC PLANT:
This is the level formerly known as Radium Impactor and was part of the original GoreTest. As anyone who has played this level knows, it has undergone some serious changes in its lifetime since GoreTest. However, anyone who can remember UMC Plant since its early days will recall, it has had more facelifts than Elizibeth Taylor. If fact, this level alone was rebuilt at least 5 times. Why is that? An engine that was not yet finished.

UMC Plant is the very first level that i worked on that actually made the final list of levels for retail Gore. It's also the only one i sat down and graphed on paper, though the end product varied greatly from it's original design...a wall here, a small room there, a teleporter here, etc. The original design had no teleporters, no jump pads and in reality, no concept of genre. If fact the original layout of the map only took a few days to build; however, the engine was starting to change and therefore, implementation of shaders, alphas, colored lighting, models and so forth commanded that the level be reworked over and over and over agian to keep up with how other levels were changing. This is really why this level doesn't really resemble anything much at all, it's a dark cold place with green ooze and a giant piston in one area. I do love and hate this map for what it is and once was. Graphically it is a cut below the rest of the levels, but the heart of the layout is still intact with just a couple portals and a secret area implemented. It retrospect, i'm glad that it did make the final cut, seeing how i probably threw away the 20+ levels that were made before it when starting with 4D Rulers in 1997. Looking back at the level now, it is very simplistic to what i've done today in terms of geometry...and to think i struggled so hard to acomplish it. This was also a challenge to our texture artist, Chris Holden, as well. Since UMC plant was without a solid genre, he had to come up with some lavish tech-based textures that had to seem like they were something plausable without being absoluely defined.


Music Influence: Music has always been an enormous factor for me when designing levels, and in a way, it's like the soundtrack to it. I certainly believe that what is listened to puts you in that creative mood or gets you into a frame of mind that reflects a lot in one's work. Since this level took so long to complete there are numerous musical influences on it, but primarily I listened to a ton of old Rush tunes. My influences for this level are:
YYZ: Moving Pictures/Rush
Cygnus X-1: A Farewell to Kings/Rush
Jacob's Ladder: Permanent Waves/Rush
Master of Puppets: Master of Puppets/Metallica
Orion: Master of Puppets/Metallica