Archive: 12 posts

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As someone who is relatively new to level/track making in earnest, I thought it'd be really handy if a few of the people who have more experience and expertise could pass on any helpful advice or lessons they have learned when making their levels. I'm not talking about a step by step "how to" as such, but just helpful and handy hints, things to avoid doing etc. How do you make a level that people want to play? What are important things to include? Is it advisable to have a concrete theme or gimmick to build around, or rather focus on building a well-planned track that is fun to race on? I apologise if I have put this thread in the wrong area

2012-11-13 20:26:00 Author: Unknown User

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Use a consistent theme. Make sackboy have to move around in fun ways. Add shortcuts. Reward the player with point bubbles/prize bubbles. Geoshape as much of the environment as possible (if you're good at it; if not, learn how to geoshape well). Choose a fitting song. Oh, and make things move/rotate. It's even better if the player has to interact with them.

2012-11-14 00:15:00 Author: aar2697 Posts: 143

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Here's some notes on track banking I have from back in MNR, but the general theory should still apply to LBPK: Always manually adjust the banks on your corners, the default is almost always never quite right on tighter curves, and it's always too sudden. You want a long lead in/out on your banks and try to be fully banked before the corner starts turning. You need steeper banks depending on how tight the corner is. A broad sweeping curve can afford to have little bank, if any, while a super-tight hairpin might need a bank of about 30 degrees. Avoid over-banking like the plague. 30 degrees is probably the steepest you want to bank your corners without it being detrimental to kart speed. Also, one of the ways to keep your track feeling fast is to try an always bank your turns downwards. Take the following picture as an example of what I mean: http://i.imgur.com/0832D.png Green is your flat road going into the corner, blue is the road bank in the corner itself, and red is the flat road after the corner. With the bank set up like this, your racers never have to go uphill into a corner because of the bank and therefore lose as little speed as possible. To keep the track on the level, you'll probably want to put a very shallow hill before or after the corner.

2012-11-14 01:08:00 Author: Unknown User

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1) Build Terrain 2) Build track 3) Edit track 4) Decorate 5) Fine Tune 6) Test -Shadowriver

2012-11-14 05:30:00 Author: Nick930930 Posts: 878

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1) Build Terrain 2) Build track 3) Edit track 4) Decorate 5) Fine Tune 6) Test -Shadowriver Simple.......yet effective.....

2012-11-14 18:54:00 Author: ConanUltimate Posts: 104

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I'd say a simple piece of advice would be to make a level you would like to play in. I always see a ton of single player stuff and weird mini-games that show somebody's ability to make the tools do other things than race in some fashion, and I regularly leave the level and look for one I might like better. Not to say people don't enjoy playing them, but when I fire up some LBPK it's to race and battle, so those are the levels I'm sticking to building because I understand what's fun for me. The above tips are all great considerations too, especially about having it interactive and tailored to players.

2012-11-15 11:39:00 Author: Unknown User

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Put different types of twist , turns and bridges.

2012-11-15 20:42:00 Author: Sackie Posts: 55

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I think that there is no right or wrong way to approach a track, just like with art there are many different ways to creat your or whatever it may be! When I'm creating anything I have to get inspired by something whether be a song or something haha, I always do some sort of research before I create so I have a good understanding of the image that I am seeing in my head! With my first track I had to research egyptian architecture and all that good stuff so that I when I was creating the objects it would look believable to the players! There are also a lot of thing you do have to consider when you are creating a track you have to keep gameplay intact, make sure that things are going to work things like that! for me somethings just come together when I start building. I have a tendency to OVERTHINK! which is a huge problem. It will get to the point that I'm unable to create anything because I dont know where to start haha. "Work always as if you were a master, expect from yourself a masterpiece" Robert Henri, this how I think when I'am drawnig so I apply to this as well. I hoped this help I know I didnt offer much tips.

2012-11-16 02:27:00 Author: Unknown User

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I think there is nothing more valuable than planning out the track layout and important focal points of the track before you even enter the track editor. I have a full notebook of hand sketched track ideas for Modnation Racers and I always do the same thing in LBP. No blind corners!! You might know the track like the back of your hand but a racer will not. This means no corners that are visually obscure because of a hill before them. No corners that a hill will air you into (aka you always hit the wall because you are in the air when you should be on the ground making a corner). Change the track and terrain texture throughout the race to give each region a distinct feel (but still following a universal theme). Based on visual cues, a racer that has only raced your track once should be able to determine any location on the track within 2 seconds of being randomly warped there. Adjust the race speed to be appropriate for your track. Many racers find the default speed too slow, but cranking the speed to too fast can be disastrous. This takes lots and lots of testing in PLAY MODE because the drop in from the creation mode only uses default speed even if you tweaked it. As a general rule of thumb, you as the creator should be able to race your track without hitting walls every 2 out of 3 laps. Trust me, very few people will ever be as good as the you (the track creator). Use chevrons or arrows to direct the racer through complicated turning sections. If racers can't figure out where to go after one lap, you have a big problem. Think about weapon placement, too much too little? I prefer to design alternative routes opposed to shortcuts to keep gameplay balanced. If one route is slower than the rest, add a weaponator to that route only.

2012-11-16 15:41:00 Author: Manlius10A Posts: 88

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Okay, I did not know you can change the race speed. I'm not that far into the game, but this was my biggest complaint about the beta. Awesome!

2012-11-16 22:44:00 Author: comphermc Posts: 5338

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You can also change tweak the handling and drifting and drafting.

2012-11-16 23:07:00 Author: Unknown User

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Be sure to to balance the weapon probabilities for all carts 1st to 8th. You don't want 1st place getting the same weapons as 8th. Oh, and custom weapons add a nice touch to the design.

2012-11-18 07:28:00 Author: DarkDedede Posts: 672

Posts: 1077139    Threads: 69970    Members: 9661    Archive-Date: 2019-01-19

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