As discussed in the first presentation, as my research project will be focusing entirely on the design of a level (And not asset creation), I will be making use of existing game assets, giving full credit to the owners of said assets. The way I’ll be doing this is creating my levels as mods (Or, modifications) for Bethesda Softworks’ and Obsidian Entertainment’s Fallout: New Vegas.
By creating a mod, I won’t have to spend time setting up core mechanics or creating assets as I’ll be able to build off the existing game. The only drawback to this is that the mod(s) can not function as stand-alone builds, and must be run from within the game. Additionally, due to the nature of making a mod, some game functions may be hard-coded and I’ll have no control over them, however as I will be focusing solely on level design, the impact of that will be negligible.
With that said, the software I’ll be using is:
- Fallout: New Vegas, where my levels will be run from.
- The Garden of Eden Creation Kit, the content creation tools for Fallout: New Vegas, a free tool available to everyone that owns a copy of Fallout: New Vegas.
- Nvidia Shadowplay: Screencapture software to record footage of my level. As I won’t be able to submit a build (As that’d require the game too), I’ll have to record it.