Tomb Raider 4 Level Editor

I could have kept all three of today’s posts in one but I want to organise things into their correct categories. 

I decided I wanted to do some more 3D level designing, but hadn’t really enjoyed working with Unreal Editor as much as I had hoped.  I think maybe because of its genre of pc shoot ‘em up which I have never been much of a fan of.  I enjoyed working with unrealEd in the way that it allowed me to explore and play around a 3D world which I had designed.  Maybe it was just my inexperience with the game, the editor and the genre in general which left me feeling less than excited about the whole thing. 

Anyway, yesterday I was thinking back to one of the first times I remember thinking how cool it would be to make games, and it was back probably ten years ago or so, maybe even more, when in PC Gamer or some other PC Games magazine there was an interview with someone who worked as a level designer for the Tomb Raider games.  I remember there was a screenshot of the level editor of some kind which showed part of an unfinished level and (as geeky as it sounds) found the idea of playing around with the levels of Tomb Raider a really fun idea.  

So I typed in Tomb Raider Level Editor, not really expecting there to be one, but was happily surprised when I found ‘Tomb Raider 4 Level Editor’ Yay :D

 

I have only had a quick look at it and followed a very basic tutorial which came along with it.  It looks very nice though and I will hopefully get round to creating a proper level with the feel of a real Tomb Raider game at some point, but I think I’ll need to sit down and spend more time and effort on it.  Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any concept within the editor of importing static meshes to place within the level so this is sort of limiting, but I still think it will be a good way of getting some level design experience, as well as creating and importing textures to use within the levels.

There is also some good stuff on level design in the PDF by Phillip Campbell, a level designer for the Tomb Raider series about the structure of levels as well as giving examples of things he has done in his own levels.

Some screenshots of the level editor and the game running the level (I know it's terribly textured but it still cool).