Architecture and aesthetics:

Aesthetics is an intimidating and vague field, but the possibilities are vast and it cannot be neglected in level design. Almost independently of aesthetics, game environments are structured specifically for certain rules, so exact reproductions of real locations are seldom desirable. Here we reach the difference between idea and form.

Any architectural period usually adheres to some formal rules, meaning that similar structures are used throughout a larger whole. These structures usually add up to an idiom. For example, Egyptian, Greek, Mayan, Norman, and Gothic architecture each have a particular idiom characterised by certain elements, yet extremely diverse buildings can be constructed within a single one of these idioms.

When the purpose of studying reference photographs is merely reproduction, work can become tedious and exacting. Nonetheless, studying reference photographs can equip you with the architectural and aesthetic elements of a particular idiom, enabling you to create architecturally convincing original structures with a recognisable style.

Imagination can combine old styles with new ideas, creating extremely rich syntheses. Once you get through the cultural aspects of architecture and down into ideas of shape, form, and perception, you can mine the depths of history and simultaneously open new prospects.

Within a game environment, certain parts of level structure may be cited as gameplay elements, such as sniping spots, hiding places, etc. These elements are specifically functional, and any of them can be constructed from any architectural idiom.

This is where we encounter the dichotomy of form and function. Ininitally, I would like to argue that form is one of several functions that anything fulfils. An object may have a specific function, and its contiguous form enables identification. When that form is also pleasing in some way, just for what it is, the object also takes on further subjective value that makes it more desirable in some way.

For instance, I have a plant in the room I'm typing this in. It takes in carbon-dioxide, and gives out oxygen. That's a very practical purpose for the plant, but it could be replaced by a home-made air-scrubber, which would have a noisy fan and probably look ugly. Even though the scrubber would do a more efficient job, I greatly prefer the plant because of its aesthetic value; its practical value is immaterial.

I make that decision relative to the environment I live in, but aesthetics in level design opens such possibilities wider. A real environment which many would find ugly still has an aesthetic character, and if used in a level such a setting can be perfectly acceptable, even pleasing, in that context.

What is regarded as ugliness in levels usually arises through several things, which mainly revolve around the destruction of immersion. One example is something that shows a limitation of the engine, such as a visual bug. Another would be something that appeared nonsensical or inconsistent in some way, again destroying immersion.

Another similar manifestation, not specifically labelled as "ugly", is low performance in terms of frames per second. Economy is important when considering aesthetic aspects of design; something that looks good is in fact no good at all if it causes a radical drop in performance. Aesthetic skill in level design is often about how well you can use poly and texture budgets.

Level structure requirements also impose certain limitations on aesthetics. A level for a multiplayer game is a structure that will be used repeatedly, so it must remain comprehensible and hence navigable. On the other hand, overly simplistic design can sometimes betray a lack of effort and understanding, and a map that is visually good while still simple exhibits simplistic and lazy conceptualisation rather than a simplistic idiom.

In relation to idioms, an important function of aesthetics in level design is that they can impart a sense of place, giving structural elements a whole, yet not homogenous, identity.

Level architecture includes all functional and aesthetic elements of structure. Aesthetics is an area of theory that remains very opaque to us at the present time. In much the same way that an architectural idiom conveys aesthetics but does not encompass all aesthetic possibilities, aesthetic experience usually exceeds any formal theoretical constraints that are laid upon it. Such formal rules can however be a useful entry point.

A popular (often expanded) formalistic and design based view of aesthetics relies upon four elements:

• Contrast
• Harmony
• Rhythm
• Pattern

All of these can be used in every phase of design, from geomery and texturing to lighting and sound. Contrast will pull your level away from homogeneity, but harmony will then retain a unified wholeness. Pattern and contrast can add complexity as well as unity.

Contrast is the most obvious of those elements, and is often the perceptual "entry point", so to speak. Alone though, it is simplistic and only engaging in the short term. Harmony and contrast must temper each other, otherwise whatever you create could become flat or dischordant.

Pattern and rhythm can be used to spice harmony and contrast. Pattern is mainly spatial, whereas rhythm tends to be temporal: A set of evenly distributed lights and pillars may create a pattern that the player sees, but the player will experience rhythm while moving past them. A sound itself may be rhythmic, and placement of sound sources can create patterns, rhythms, harmonies and contrasts.

These are some fairly simple aesthetic ideas, but when applied they can become quite complex and powerful. By way of example, here is the UT DM map Ride The Dragon, by Warren Marshall:

The textures are mainly grey and brown. Blue lighting harmonizes with the grey of the walls, and monotony is alleviated by a bit of contrasting red lighting outdoors, which complements the reddish brown soil texture.

The interior, while using the same textures, has subtle greeny-yellow lighting, so helping to increase the "placeness" of indoor and outdoor areas. The textures and lighting rely on combinations of lighter colours, and highlights are provided in quite luminous red and blue on the weapon pads, corona lights, and superhealth.

Physically, the walls are punctuated horizontally with regularly spaced, lighter textured geometry and windows, and vertically by staggered heights and corner pieces. The form of the archway is echoed by the platforms in the yard. A balance is also struck between open space and indoor confinement, and overall the entire map is very well composed.

Now look at what it would be if it were reduced almost entirely to its structural elements:

As I said though, such formal aesthetic principles are only a basic entry point. A certain amount of departure from rigid manifestations can give a more natural appearance to a map, but only where this would indeed seem appropriate. A formal garden would have precisely spaced trees, but in nature their envrionment and they way they grow only dictates proximity in vague terms, leading to harmonious spacing without uniform distances.

It seems that, while some of aesthetic experience can come from structures and boundaries that render something comprehensible, much of it can also emerge from the violation of those boundaries by chaos, such as surface patterns that are only vaguely comprehensible and describable in everyday terms. In most areas of application, aesthetics is essentially about nourishing the senses without overwhelming them; maybe even giving more sensory information than people can take in while leaving the way open for them to filter out extraneous material.

As stated already, aesthetics itself is an intimidating field, ripe with unanswered questions. As a final caveat, I must add that no reading on the subject can possibly equal experience.

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