The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Dev Answers Plenty of Questions About Level Design

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Dev Answers Plenty of Questions Nearly Level Design

Afterwards years of wait, nosotros are under a couple of months away from witnessing the release of the final championship in the award-winning action role-playing video game series, and the gaming side of the internet is already flooded with tons of news about The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, lining all the hype nigh the upcoming game. Amid new news and media content on The Witcher 3: Wild Chase, CD Projekt RED recently published an interview with the game's level designer, revealing several new details virtually the level design of the game.

The Withcer 3: Wild Hunt Level Designer Reveals New Details About the Game in an Interview

In that location is so much nigh The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt on the media front end right now. Tons of screenshots and details about the game have emerged on the internet from dissimilar sources in past days, and CD Projekt RED is besides keeping the air warm by throwing crumbs towards the eager fans. Just recently, the developer published an interview with Miles Tost, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Level Designer, as part of new Community Programmer Spotlight features on the game's forums. In the interview, Miles answered tons of questions, mainly focusing on but not express to level blueprint. The interview is thousands of words itself, so without further ado, I will let yous dive right into information technology below.

What is your proper name? Where are you from?

My newest nickname is "Mr. Deutsch", I like to stick to my bodily proper noun – Miles Tost.
I'm from a tiny town in northern Germany.

How long have you been working for CDPR?
How did you discover out about CDPR and how did you start working for them?

I've been working here since January 2022. Found out about them by playing TW2 when it came out (friends recommended to me I should play information technology, picked information technology upwards on release) and I concluded upwardly actually liking the game. Eventually I defenseless upward on playing the commencement game, which was to my shame, just after I had started working hither. Since then I've as well come around to reading the books. I first met CDPR at Quo Vadis, a High german Developer Conference in Berlin and finally applied subsequently meeting some of the folks at the recruitment booth at Gamescom 2022.

How did you get into level pattern? Is CDPR the kickoff studio you worked for?

And then…large reveal hither: I like video games. A lot. One thing that has ever fascinated me how well designed levels are able to convey certain messages (how mechanics work, where you need to get, fifty-fifty unabridged sub-stories) without the employ of words. Information technology's quite psychological if you lot think well-nigh information technology and information technology makes creating a level most similar a puzzle to the designer itself. On the other hand I also played a lot of RTS, similar WarCraft 3, for which I ended up modding quite a bit (in some other games as well, but none actually every bit focused), exploring how, with just minimally altering the game mechanics, just applying greater changes or flatout creating new maps, I could enhance the experience. I would have LAN parties with my friends, playing diverse custom maps and seeing how differently they reacted to some of the things. Sometimes it went well…others, non so much.

Accept y'all ever wanted to work as a level designer? Was it always your dream job?

I didn't know I wanted to unless I really started working here. I knew that I loved world-building merely I also always loved the technical, psychological factor of creating worlds, the game design part. How do I make a thespian want to go this way, without non offering this other way? How can I brand him use this ability without flat out telling him to? I always idea the job was more to one extreme: you either create art or you create sketches / practice technical stuff like scripting all mean solar day. That's why Level Design was never really on my radar, since I wanted to do a niggling flake of both. Non a big coder/scripter myself (on it though!), nor did I desire to solely create art to implement according to how I am told to implement it. I know it'south like that in some other studios and so you lot tin't imagine how excited I was to figure out that I could do the best of both worlds at CDPR. That excitement is simply pinnacle by the excitement I felt when I really got here.

What does the role of a level designer imply? What exactly do yous practise?

I sort of come across myself as the bridge between the Environment Artists and Game Designers / Quest Designers. Where at CDPR Environment Artists brand things wait stunningly awesome and Game Designers create enticing mechanics, I try to brand the wedlock of form and part work. It'due south really quite varied, depending where in the projection development we are. At the starting time we used to create lots of maps of the subregions of the world, determining characteristics, basically planning and making sure the POIs of this world are consistent. Ane day I volition be creating and/or finalising locations in the engine, shaping mountains, forests, the stones effectually a campfire. The other mean solar day I'd be pondering near why the player can't observe that affair they're supposed to discover and on even other days I'll try to help NPCs not bump into objects past working on our Navmesh or going through all the doors in the globe and brand certain they're properly locked/unlocked. Lots of other things in between. I recall a time where I briefly became an interior designer.

How does a level designer interact with members of other teams in the studio?
Which squad works the closest with the level design squad?

It'southward hard to say, who Level Design works the closest with. Environment Artists are, similar the Level Designers, part of the Locations Squad, as in: we consider ourselves to be the in the same department. Equally Level Designers nosotros work closely with Gameplay and Quest Design. And here it really is varied – sometimes we create locations considering at that place's gameplay or a quest that needs one. Sometimes it's the other manner round where nosotros created a location that could really do with some additional gameplay or fifty-fifty a quest. For us it's important that both, quest and gameplay implement naturally with the location, supporting each other. No good to take a location that tells the opposite story of what happened in a quest or to have a combat space that is just too small and has tons of objects in the way where both Geralt and Monsters tin get blocked. It is when all of information technology comes together in a positive style, magic happens.

Could you briefly walk us through a typical day in the function as a level designer?

Uh, typical. Well – typical day present is very different than half a year or even a year ago. It really depends on what state of development we are in. And even and then, all sorts of things happen. But the other day I spent a couple of days helping out Lighting Novigrad City and some villages. Apparently we have this dynamic time of twenty-four hour period thing and people would like to see things at nighttime. Go figure. Nowadays it's a lot of bugfixing and even those are getting less and more than and more minor. Early on on at that place was a lot of making maps/sketches, preparing design documents for regions in our world. Then we went on and started implementing the first pass of POIs on the level. Then iterations follow. Playtests result in things working well / non so well. Changes need to exist made accordingly, you do multiple decoration passes on each location until eventually information technology reaches final quality. Standards evolve as you "unlock" more and more new awesome tech, amend looking assets get fabricated, so you tin cease up doing multiple final quality passes
Then at that place'south things like…maybe a location looks really practiced but doesn't play quite well for various reasons. Or it looks practiced merely could be more/less interactive, etc etc. All sorts of "passes" actually.

Tin you proper noun some of the tools y'all use daily as a level designer?

I utilize Photoshop pretty frequently. A notepad and a pen and of form – our very own Engine RedEngine3. Also, I use the coffee car multiple times a day. Spotify is also a big one. It's funny, when working on some locations, sure tracks would be playing on my playlist – and at present when I await at these locations, I hear the song(s). Interesting phenomenon equally you sort of associate moods, images, songs and fifty-fifty smells with places you made. Had a chat with Peter Gelencser (Senior Level Designer) virtually it, and apparently I'm not alone with this!

What are some of the tricks you use in guild to brand sure a player sees and appreciates a certain aspect of the game that you worked on, such as a indicate of interest?

Okay, I could get on and on almost this and how much this fascinates me. Peradventure the one that might exist surprising to people not familiar with game development is that, at least here at CDPR, we use a lot of traditional prototype limerick techniques, much like painters would use them. For example, you climb upwardly a slope, y'all are greeted with a nice view. The view would be carefully crafted for this one (sometimes multiple) perspectives. We'd play with shapes and limerick to help guide the eye of the player to objects/places we want the player to see and explore or likewise, try to hibernate sure things that manner. Light too plays a big role hither, every bit a bright spot in the distance can hands grab the players attention. It works quite subliminal and if you play your cards right, you lot guys feel like you all figured this super complex dungeon out on your own, when really… we had you lot by the strings all forth! That is… until you lot plough around 180° and walk the other way…or is it?

Can you lot tell u.s. near an specially funny bug y'all encountered while working on Witcher 3?

Hm, we actually take a folder on a shared network drive internally nosotros lovingly refer to equally "Screens of Celebrity". Going in in that location is basically like opening Pandora'due south Box. The amount of wickedness and hilarity in that folder is off the charts. Kinda makes me wish yous could meet information technology, at the same time I'm glad.
Once I had an object suddenly block the view on a dialogue cutscene. Information technology was moving, so it was even more confusing to me. It was but later on the cutscene I realised that it was literally one of our cats in the game that moved itself in forepart of the photographic camera. Took me a while of contemplation to figure out whether this was a bug or a feature. Realistic cat AI, anyone?

In the world of the Witcher, who would the level designers be? What mindset would they adopt?
Would they exist a merchant? Or maybe a wizard?

That is such a cool question and I can already hear my colleagues brand fun of me no matter what I volition answer here, haha.

Do you have any tips for someone that would want to go into level design? Bold they have zero experience and don't know where to starting time from.

Make something. Beginning of all yous should really try to effigy out if this is something for you lot. So go and make something. Endeavour to mod for some game y'all like. Mess effectually with the tools. Maybe y'all have some friends that you tin can create something with. Somewhen y'all'll desire to create more focused piece of work. Information technology's important to take stuff to show. People want to see how you lot think, how you work. Best fashion to do this is by taking a look at some work you've done. So whatever you focus on, be it some maps for a shooter or RTS or a dungeon for an RPG, make certain to think it through and virtually importantly: stop it. Information technology helps to document your work, for yourself merely also for others to understand what and why you lot've been doing certain things.
Starting time minor, don't leave with the goal of making a total conversion as your beginning projection.

You are well known for your amazing hairstyle. How practice you keep your pilus in such pristine condition?
Are Witcher secrets involved?

Yes, I just aard myself in the face each morning and put hairspray on whatsoever consequence I get. Learned early on that contact lenses should exist applied AFTER aarding, non earlier.

I have a tendency to notice in some games a use of forced perspective on nugget scales, like the topology of a mount for instance, to brand an asset seem huge from a altitude but takes well-nigh ii minutes to travel to and you find it'southward actually quite small and not that far away. I've too seen utilized a low focal length photographic camera to make LOD avails appear smaller and more distant.
What was the Witcher'due south philosophy regarding this?

Hm, good question! On i hand, you want your earth to be conceivable, information technology helps us, that our world is reaaally big. Not bragging here, simply it gives united states of america a lot of space to simulate a more believable distance. On the other paw sailing for xxx-40m in a straight line to attain 1 of the other Skellige Isles is non really a lot of fun. This actually was a thing at some betoken and when we realised this wasn't quite as cool, particularly since we're making a game about Geralt the Monster Hunter and not Geralt the Crewman, nosotros actually had to get out and move unabridged islands including content closer to each other (interesting topic right at that place btw). And so while you won't take bodily days to travel from one end of the earth to the other, some of your goals will all the same take you a reasonably lengthy amount of time to accomplish. Our philosophy here is that exploring the world, fifty-fifty just only roaming off-road, should exist fun and rewarding. Reaching a identify in the distance that takes y'all some fourth dimension and hassle to become to, just eventually you finally do and ideally you can look back and run across "Woa, I came all the way from downward at that place!". I'd argue that just that past itself can already make for quite a rewarding feel.

How are your editing tools ? Painful, Pleasurable, or Ponderous?

All of these. Order may vary depending on developer, time since final java and how much exposure to sunlight there's been in the final 24h.

Just how much level or area symmetry is in that location, if at all?
Dragon Historic period and other RPGs take environments that, if divided in ii equal halves down the heart, practically mirror each other. This seems kind of sloppy and bromidic. In those instances, every area (and sometimes every other area) appears to accept been generated past a script using same assets instead of existence crafted by hand, if you will.

Unless it is meticulously crafted (elven) compages, you won't detect that in our game. I mean, even so it will never be perfectly symmetrical, since people are non machines in the witcher universe. It'd exist simply unrealistic – if yous found something perfectly symmetrical in our game it probably would be the exception and it would take to make good sense why it'd exist similar that. Can't think of a location that would exist like that on the spot to be honest with you lot. We generally pride ourselves on spending extra time on creating and adding imperfections to every unmarried location, again, to go far more than conceivable.
Besides: no, nosotros don't accept magical "make level" buttons.

When designing dungeons did you go for a "horror"'vibe?
Many turns and corners, etc, with areas made for monsters to take advantage of and deadfall y'all.

With some we did, with some we didn't. Sometimes you want to go for more of a mystical vibe, for example. It helps that, much like in the previous games, dungeons and caves are very night unless you lot come prepared though. Luckily this time around, Geralt has a torch. Comes in handy should you not have your true cat potion or if yous have it, but already discover yourself at the edge of the toxicity threshold. You can even fight while wielding the torch in i hand, however, IIRC it renders Geralt unable to parry attacks.
Does look quite spectacular with the dynamic shadows, though.

How large is the biggest dungeon?

5 (Okay, seriously. it's half dozen.). There'southward some actually big dungeons. I guess some of them offering i+ game time, depending on how proficient you lot are with combat, how thoroughly you explore them (SECRETS!!!) and how well you cope with being in utter darkness for an extended period of fourth dimension.

Is there a level where all the fan questions go, and must escape from if they are always to be answered?

Yes, aforementioned place where we put all the ill graphix.

Are we going to see lots of the same stuff all over the world?
e.m. DA:I has the same dead trees/logs everywhere I go. Please tell me you guys are making the globe look and feel more real in every way.

Reusing assets is not untypical in game development, peculiarly in open world games where there are huge areas of state to comprehend. Nevertheless, with creative usage and combination with a variety of dissimilar assets, as well as a high variation of "basic" assets (last I checked nosotros had more than xv variations of chairs for case. CHAIRS.) you can mask the fact, that assets are reused. Sure, you might see one kind of crate reappear in multiple places in the world, but since we arrange all of them by hand, none will exist placed like the other, especially since usually there's all sorts of different ornament placed around. There might be something on top of the crate, some barrel next to it, etc. These things change and information technology helps making the earth feel more than live that way. Note that reusing assets, even though we try to minimise it every bit much as possible, is necessary for usa if we want to ever end this game. It volition not be jarring in the game, I promise.
Also…for my example information technology just had to be crates, right?

How many dungeons/caves are in the game and how do yous continue them different (design and structurewise) without making information technology (feel) copy & paste?

By non re-create and pasting them. We have some more or less modular asset sets, that "speed upward" the creation of a dungeon. Don't recall of these every bit finished rooms even so: information technology's more like small pieces of walls, curve in varying angles. Every cave/dungeon is congenital completely from scratch and busy individually.
This results in every single cavern having a unique layout.

Did you design areas with the enemies in mind?
Something like "alright I'll place some ponds hither for Water Hags, I'll make this hilltop a immigration so the Griffin tin nest here, oh and I musn't forget a clear sky so the Harpies' movements aren't restricted" etc. Or were you more focused on making sure the player had some sense of management/orientation and wouldn't get lost?

I don't retrieve those points are mutually sectional. Generally: yes, often, if we knew about a fight having a high chance of happening around a certain expanse, we would playtest information technology and make certain it plays out smoothly. Possibly add some destructible objects to make the fight wait more spectacular / requite the player the chance to use the environment to his advantage. If we knew what the creature was, like the Griffon you mention, we'd also try to reflect it living within the area and influencing the eco-system there. Trees around a griffon nest, way before you lot even get to the nest, might exist broken one-half manner and show marks of scratching. Apparently they use copse to build their nests and if you accept a close await at your surround, you tin see all these hints in the environments that not even Geralt notices.

What volition the Indicate of Interest density be like for the sailing?

Can't really answer this accurately, but wanted to clinch you guys that there's more to the open sea than the main islands of the Skellige Archipelago.

Is there a particular area or piece of level design that you are particularly proud of, and a big pace up from the previous game or other RPG's in this genre?

Allow's get back to this post release.

I come across lots of steep, rocky mountains. Are those basically no become zones, or are in that location passages that snake around mountains, or to the summit? Or perhaps tunnels going through?

Mix of all of these things. Some are inaccessible from one angle but might be traversable using a unlike path.

Are the about of the doors closed in Novigrad? Tin we access a lot of the buildings in the urban center?

Some doors are permanently closed, many others open up to you equally you make new friends in the city following different quests – many more are "generic" houses that add together some other layer of storytelling to the city. They don't really have whatsoever quests fastened to them, simply entering them offers an interesting view as to how the people in that very district of the urban center differ from others and how they alive their lives.
In the poor district for case you'll observe people making the most out of what trivial space they have, belongings on tight to every unmarried thing they own (most of which the people of rich district would consider junk). To come back to the accessibility of houses in Novigrad: I feel like you'd be surprised just how accessible the urban center is. MANY open buildings. Don't have an exact number, but it exceeds a hundred by far.

Novigrad is the almost impressive medieval city I've seen. How many of those buildings have actual interiors that we can enter?

More than than a tertiary of the houses, IIRC.

Are there in game some super long and complicated dungeons?

Yeah.

About the map borders: I'g wondering about all the area between the edge of where you tin go, and the farthest y'all tin can see, so if y'all can elaborate nearly that I'll be happy.
It'south said that if we run across something interesting, we can get at that place. Now if the border is an ocean or a steep mount that blocks the view of anything beyond information technology, in that location's no trouble, because at that place'south cypher to exist seen. However, and this is under the assumption that at least one map-edge will sprawl out in regular terrain, what did you exercise to brand information technology still believable merely non tease u.s.a. with cool things that we can't reach? Is there even such an area beyond the edge of "can run into, tin't become" that is designed with equally much care as the rest of the world?

Expert question. You lot're correct, that's exactly a balance we tried to maintain. Ultimately, we have to come up to terms with the fact that our game is just that: a game, and as such information technology has to terminate somewhere. As sorry as it might exist. Generally yous'll find that outside of the borders of our globe, there'due south zero of great interest placed. You might see some landmarks, like a afar lake or mountains, etc, only nothing that would be a genuine POI to the thespian. I gauge it is in the realm of "conceivable" enough and it's something that you can quickly go over simply past turning effectually and facing towards the playable expanse. I gauge you lot could say that we failed in our efforts of making this a neat game where exploration is fun IF you constantly want to leave our globe and ignore all the POIs we placed within the playable area. That'd hurt my feelings. :'(

Since this is an "multi-region open world environment" how does that effect the period control of the various points of interest? How does the open up world level design direct players towards the goal of a given quest and effort to prevent confusion and/or idling? Is it just quest markers? Are any of the levels y'all have designed time sensitive? Are there consequences to abandoning a quest mid-story?

Each of the regions that'd exist divided by a loading screen are planned and executed independently from each other, when it comes to POI placement. This ways that Novigrad / No Human's Country have been designed as if they were i entity (no loading screen in between) and Skellige was designed on it's own.

We take heard from several sources that the world can change based on choices the player character makes in the game.
Have yous developed any points of interest or levels where y'all accept to programme for multiple scenarios depending on prior choices the actor has made in the game? If yes, how does that bear upon your design and what is it like designing for these varying possibilities?

Yep, been in that location – done that. There's a special kind of pleasance quest designers derive from having you lot create a cute location, only to accept y'all destroy it and put it through all kinds of wicked misery right after. Sometimes it's even different kinds of misery, since locations have more than two different states. And then depending on your action, at that place's multiple ways this village gets messed with. Nosotros get back at them though, past topping their wickedness with a little of our own. "Did that corpse REALLY have to imply him dying THAT cruelly?" or "Okay, since we're all about exploration, nosotros need to make this bigger and I put optional stuffs all over the place, you at present just need to implement this puzzle I thought of."

Are you lot satisfied with the globe you have created? There's something you would change/improve at present that the contents are locked?

I actually dearest the fact that we managed to create a consistent world. I remember days of planning with Peter almost having POIs focused on enhancing the world's overall believability. Every village is at that place, because the people decided to settle at that place for a reason. They all have their sources of food (or used to *coughing* No Homo's Land *cough*), they accept "their" thing, like this hamlet might specialise in fishing, this 1 seems to build ALL the carts/waggons in the globe – oh there'southward people making coal, I wonder where they get the wood for that… would you believe information technology, there's a lumbermill closeby adjacent to the forest!
Yous get the drill. Nothing is placed merely for the sake of having it at that place. If we found ourselves wanting to make a hamlet at a hazardous place, or generally a hard to alive in area, we'd actively research and endeavour to implement how these people would've done it and how the environment would influence their lifestyle. So these guys live on the side of the mountain, they need to fortify their houses with boosted scaffolds. Why would they become through all the trouble of living at that place? Considering at that place is this super unique resource that they assemble and can make a living off. I recall in Skellige we had planned a farmstead to support the "believable infrastructure" affair, which we ultimately ended upwardly removing since the Story Team told us "Skelligers are not farmers. They pillage and take what they need." (We ended upwardly replacing the crop farms past cattle farms – Skelligers nevertheless need meat afterward all!)

I know information technology won't be much (if at all), but how big is the ecology destruction?

Reasonable. Nosotros had way also much at one signal resulting in all sorts of havoc (NPC pathing being messed up, PCs glowing carmine and melting) and it feeling less smoothen for the actor as well, with all the debris everywhere. So we toned it down a flake, but you can yet accept some fun wreaking devastation to all kinds of things using Aard or bombs.

One of my pet peeves in Skyrim was following a river upstream and finding that it just disappeared into a group of rocks into the side of the valley, and that would make me remember how implausible the topology in Skyrim actually was.
I was wondering how close attention yous guys paid to existent geomorphology when designing the world of the Witcher 3, and are there any specific locations in the real earth that you guys modeled your terrain off? Did Skellige for example borrow whatsoever features from specific Archipelagos in Norway?

Oh definitely. We use a lot of references when creating our environments. Not only photos and concept art, but sometimes even paintings. I've answered this indirectly in other questions. We intendance a lot most creating a consistent globe, just at the same fourth dimension our possibilities are not limitless. I'd dearest for every river to take a source that peradventure y'all tin can fifty-fifty explore and find something absurd in, etc, but I'm afraid and then we'd never release the game or would accept to sacrifice quality elsewhere.

How did yous make Novigrad'southward five districts experience dissimilar? Did yous modify up the architecture, the mode the buildings were placed maybe?

They are architecturally dissimilar in that you can notice the wealth of the people living in there simply past what material has been used to build the business firm and in what shape that material is. The poorer the district, the dirtier you will find information technology. People will be vastly unlike. No beggars sitting on the streets of the Rich Commune. You are more likely to be attacked at nighttime by a grouping of bandits when in the poorer districts equally well.

Interiors – Are TW3'southward interiors qualitively different from Tw2's? How so? What kind of environmental puzzles are there?

Tons and tons of more detail, even in the nearly unimportant interiors. We like to take our fourth dimension and make it then you tin can tell what kind of person lives in a place, simply by studying the interior of their house. Most obvious is whether he's rich or not, but then there's besides habits and characteristics yous can pick up on. I think creating the interior of a very poor guy, who (untypical for poor people in our globe) was hoarding a lot of books and had a dedicated reading corner, somewhat hidden away in his firm. He seems to exist smarter than the boilerplate peasant. Why is he trying to hide that fact? Nilfgaardian Spy or maybe just a scholar with a streak of bad luck? And with this you sort of end up shaping your own version of this guys story in your head and perhaps you might even observe more indication to support information technology.

How did you go about creating the level design for the Ciri missions?
Are the levels/areas vastly different to Geralts open world? How do they differ? And what challenges did you face and what did you enjoy about designing those levels?

Ciri'due south gameplay sections are a lot more than linear in their pattern in regards to the bodily locations. Withal, they are simply like that when you play as Ciri and some of them later can be freely explored by the player as Geralt. In terms of making this feel believable, it'due south helpful that Ciri never got the hang of weaving signs.

TW2 had dandy level design in my humble opinion. It was fun to explore, filled with detail, I never got frustratingly lost, and most importantly information technology felt like a real place.
Were you able to manage the same level of detail and "handcrafted experience" for TW3 despite the world being 35 times bigger? Did you accept to sacrifice or modify whatever of that?

Ha, as I respond this I realise how crazy it sounds – only yep. I firmly believe we did manage that and even brought it to a whole other level than W2.

What time of the twelvemonth is it in the Witcher 3?
I've always wondered that even though Skellige is farther south than most of the Northern Kingdoms, it still seems to be permanently covered in snow and frost whereas Novigrad and Temeria aren't. Is it mainly distance that determines this or is in that location some other kind of weather phenomena influencing that?

If you expect through erstwhile screenshots of Skellige and compare it to more recent ones yous will notice that we defrosted Skellige quite a bit. At that place'south multiple reason for this, including the altitude relative to the actual north in the witcher universe, merely I tin't really go into it at present without spoiling anything of the story. Stylistically for u.s. in the Locations Team though, its more interesting to create and look at semi-snowy environments rather than ones that are basically just white. Not to say that creating winter environments is impossible or that they are generally boring, merely rather that it is more difficult to brand them interesting and suspension the monotony. So we went with …both, actually.

It'south said in the books that many primary human being cities were built on elven ones, such as Novigrad. Did you keep this in mind when designing them? If so, what did you do to give that vague elven foundation? Or did you work under the concept that it's been such a long fourth dimension ago that there's barely whatever elven touch left?

Always something that I remembered from the books and I ever tried to bring up and pester people whenever in that location was a chance for information technology. Without going into farther detail, all I can say so far is:
Mission successful.

Ane thing I noticed during the newest gameplay video is the really credible pop-in of distant vegetation, buildings etc equally the game was switching between different LOD levels. Is there a way this will exist mitigated by the time the game releases?
Like for case, in Witcher two you guys used a dithering technique to make the transition between the LOD levels a lot less noticeable, but information technology seems this sort of method is completely missing in Witcher 3 and the LOD's just switch instantaneously. Was information technology a technical limitation/ performance issues that prevented you lot from using the same method as W2, considering W3 is a lot larger and needs to draw a lot more than objects, or was it simply not implemented in time for the press event?

Not my area of expertise, but I do know that code is working feverishly on something for this.

What did you do to make sure the underground levels are still varied, in size, blueprint and mood? Information technology seems to me you take much more limited tools when crafting these maps, and I promise they won't feel copy-pasty.

Paw-Crafting everything and beingness aware of possible repetition y'all constantly go and challenge yourself to create something new. Let'south take Elven Ruins every bit an example. We always try to call up what purpose these ruins might've served at some point and how we can translate this to the histrion without additional dialogue. Aboriginal Aqueduct or Necropolis maybe? How can nosotros take this function and make information technology understandable, elaborate on information technology? Maybe we tin can try and show the procedure of burial, the rituals, etc. Embalming Chambers, a grave that looks more important than others, etc. As with caves, there's a lot more room to play with, specially factoring in a degree of pause of disbelief and an allowance for grounded, yet a scrap more fantastical places. 1 motivator for united states was to have caves always feel worth exploring and one gene for this is definitely by having information technology await different in means that the player never knows what he will observe.

Can we climb every edifice in game?

Every bit long as Geralt can reach it, yous should.

About Skellige, volition it have any fairly large settlements or will all of them be small villages? Also likewise the main island will nosotros see settlements on the other smaller islands?
P.Due south. Can they fully and unequivocally ostend that oxenfurt will be in the game? (Aye i know that I've asked before and many have users have answered aye but i wont be happy until I hear it directly from the devs.

You win three 'Yeah'es.

Volition we get a densely packed forest?

Why only 1?

How do you lot decide that a dungeon/area/etc is good enough to be implemented into the final production?

Dungeons are not created in a separate place and then imported into the game. We build them correct into the level and make sure everything fits in proper. If, even after multiple playtests by many different people and after several iterations it doesn't feel "good enough", we cutting it. Sometimes ideas don't work out and just sound more awesome on paper than they really are. Sometimes events have information technology that one identify gets reused for something entirely else, something that fits this place improve than its original intention. Ultimately it boils down to playing the location in context and without context and feeling whether it is deemed adequate for the experience we're trying to create or not.

Miles Tost is the all-time person to inquire near Easter eggs… Tin can nosotros assume there will be more than famous dead bodies for united states of america to find?

I have information technology hither crossed off my to-do-list with a cheque mark: "More famous dead bodies."
Nosotros know yous guys like dead bodies of the famous kind.

How much do you believe a location can tell a story?
Blood, cleaved furniture, small details of daily life etcetera, adding particular without exposition or explanation. I'1000 thinking of the houses and their individuality in Flotsam.
Tin this interact with Geralt's senses?

I feel like I take at least hinted at this in other answers. Curt reply: Yes, locations can tell stories of their own and likewise assist telling the story of a quest. Some of these Geralt will be able to pick upwards and comment more on, some of these volition but represent themselves without further explanation and left to your imagination.

How did y'all determine how far apart to identify villages/towns?
Bated from how it would be like in real life, how did you balance that with role player needs?
This is especially true now that we've learnt weapon repair requires blacksmiths, and booze needs to be bought for potions.

Honestly, we winged it initially. And then you implement quests and encounters, communities and playtest as you become and ultimately end upward pissing anybody off when you ultimately have to move the village. Haha, I'g kidding – it didn't happen very ofttimes, but we did accept some instances where for diverse reasons nosotros had to move larger locations. Sometimes you lot have just the content moved, so 1 village that was less important might suddenly get promoted to a "main quest" village, considering it happens to exist in a more than convenient spot. As with the remainder of your question: lots of playtesting and iterating.

Are there areas that require certain mountaineering skills, to be taken at level-up, in order to attain?

Nosotros actually used to have something like this – using perks/potions to increment spring distance or increase the corporeality of time you lot tin spend underwater. Information technology was really tough to pattern locations with this in mind, without having players that went a different skill-path experience like they're left out. Also balancing it got to be a trouble, as increasing the jump altitude of players through skillpoints meant that the actor now could suddenly achieve an uncountable amount of new places, which they thespian shouldn't be able to achieve (locations that open through quest for case). Lastly, the blueprint didn't really fit with the schedule. Y'all either make a lot of these "special" places, only reachable with the perk, but then you take fifty-fifty more content the other players might experience left out from. Make less of the content and suddenly the perk doesn't feel worth investing in anymore. So instead, we counted our losses and we opted to just brand more content for everyone to enjoy.

Transition between outside and inside volition have no cutscenes, the same for sewers and dungeons?

Yes. I mean, sometimes you might enter a dungeon/sewer part on Cutscene, because you are being accompanied by someone. In general even so, in that location'south no loading screen between these spaces and you can transition freely in between them outside of quest. Interesting challenge past the way, fitting an entire sewer system underneath Novigrad. In games with loading screens between sewers and the rest of the city, y'all are free from size constraints, as these sewers can be created "in their own infinite". In Wild Chase however, we had situations where we had to modify the path of a sewer because we establish there was a basement from a business firm in the way or vice versa. Some houses couldn't have basements because the sewers were running correct underneath it. Other times nosotros'd brand utilize of these situations and permit the player to break into the sewers below through what looked similar a regular basement.

Since Geralt is now a lot more than nimble and can get to more than places than ever before, simply how big a role does verticality play in TW3 when it comes to level blueprint?

It's fairly important, since it allowed us to grow the world into a dissimilar dimension, if that makes sense. I mean, the game is by far no action platformer and Geralt is not Mario or Ezio for that matter. But it did enable us to brand some use of situations where we could offer a further branch with the player finding a secret passage through climbing / jumping.
Then … I don't know, you might have a quest where you a) get to talk your way into the fort b) fight your mode into the fort or c) maybe take a look around and find an alternate road inside. It's ordinarily of form not this clear cutting, only you get the basic idea.
The manner nosotros normally like to implement Geralt'southward newfound jumping ability is in an optional manner, where it's part of exploring the world and rewards some additional goodies for those brave enough to venture out. Height of my listen in that location'd be a identify of power only accessible past performing a series of jumps; y'all can consummate the game entirely without doing this though.

Kaer Morhen, what nosotros can exercise there?
Is it simply a prologue place or we can come back and explore -maybe a secret door, with secret book , with secret sword and secret story (at least as dlc)?

Fully explorable region. And no, I'm not just speaking of the castle.

I've played and so many games where the calibration feels off. Like a game tin feel likewise small and claustrophobic, like ME2, where it just feels like every planet hub is but a small area and even the dungeons feel small. Or the opposite, games like Kingdoms of Amalur, feel too big, similar oversized.
How do you focus the scale of a large, open up-earth game and so that it feels large, but even so advisable to calibration for a single-actor game?
I do think Skyrim did a keen task in giving players a large globe that felt very well scaled. What kind of thoughts or designs become into scale for TW3? Information technology is an aspect of games that I notice every bit I play them, merely not something I sympathise much virtually. Whatsoever thoughts yous'd be willing to share about this, I'd love to hear.

Hm, I actually had a hard time figuring out whether at that place'southward anything "special" we do, to … let's say "deceitfully" simulate the globe's scale. It really is but working with how objects relate in size to Geralt. If you're standing next to a tree, you get a pretty good idea how large that tree is. If you see the aforementioned tree in a altitude away from you, you will exist able to gauge how far it is away only by how large the tree appears to you – the smaller, the further. So far, simple enough. I retrieve the problem that many games might've found themselves in so far is, that because of the express amount of actual area they had, people needed to come up with tricks to make distances feel larger than they are. Resulting in crawly views and weirdly short trips to "that thing far abroad." For us, I experience like we didn't really have that trouble.
The sense of scale and distance evolved quite naturally, because if we wanted to put an object far abroad, we would put it far away. Now talking about individual objects, we similar to keep it close to realistic size but are not afraid to put gameplay in favor of realism if need exist. Interiors would be i instance here, which tend to be quite small. To improve gameplay here, we have a special interior camera that zooms in a bit closer to Geralt's shoulder. Helps with making these spaces play well but at the same time emphasizing how small some of these living spaces actually are.
Combat places in interiors had to be planned a bit more in depth and tested multiple times to make certain everything feels comfortable. It'due south of course also a production event with interiors, since larger buildings would need more than time and operation budget spend when decorating. So once again, multiple factors as e'er.

Is at that place whatsoever specific level or point of interest you have designed or helped design that you are especially proud of? What well-nigh that particular point of interest makes it stand up out to you lot?

Aye. Allow'southward chat nearly this afterward release. Although I did mention in one of the other questions that I'k really proud about the consistency of the world with the focus spent on creating a believable infrastructure. Nothing that many people will really notice I reckon. I believe in that location'south this situation where people will "feel" the world is seemingly more alive than in other games only can't actually betoken their finger on what "information technology" is that makes information technology so. It's the sum of all these seemingly unimportant/hard to notice details, that'd be the answer to that question!

Is h2o in No Mans Country implemented every bit a aeroplane throughout, resulting in a single water layer?
Is this why Geralt must climb a ledge to enter the Tree Hearts cave, or are you lot guys merely "ledge-happy"?

We do have "null level" water, but are able to decide whether this applies in underground locations or not. To be frank, with the Tree Heart Cave, we as well wanted to show off Geralt'southward newfound jumping and free-climbing abilities. The ledge you had to climb to enter the cavern is no result of whatsoever limitations of sort, but rather a design choice. Of grade, with dissimilar caves you'll take dissimilar ways of accessing them. Similar walking.

Interactivity – Can Geralt move objects effectually equally a tactic? What sort of destructible environments can we expect?
Are the muck, beehive and swamp gas examples the norm or the exception when information technology comes to taking advantage of the environs?

Yeah, they're adequately frequent. You can of class create your ain gas clouds to ignite with certain kinds of bombs. Some bombs will too attract monsters through odor, which tin be an asset to the player also. Lots of stuff you tin can movement effectually/destroy for the fun of it, non all of information technology is specially useful other than for the eye processed and empowerment it might give to the player.
Got to have a little fun every once in a while, right?

Nosotros know the world is quite big, so nearly of it must accept been just generated. How much of it actually does get the hand-crafted level design treatment?

Ah, we in the Locations Team are really proud of the fact that everything is manus-crafted, which is why you lot keep hearing us say information technology over and over. Your conclusion there makes my heart well-nigh hurt just a little bit. So for this reason, to exist a hundred percent sure, I called in what is now called the Surround Quango, consisting of me, Daniel Olejnik (Senior Environment Artist) and Marcin Michalski (besides a Senior Environment Creative person).
We discussed this and shed a couple of tears together. Plenty of it is hand-crafted for us to not feel like lying when we say that everything has been hand-crafted past us. Even when the team created the bones land shape information technology started out in zBrush, then got some erosion applied via software, and then iterated in-engine (sculpting the terrain without terrain castor tools). Terrain Textures are painted by hand, assets including foliage are placed by hand every bit well. Nosotros do have foliage generation for a basic foliage layer based off the type of terrain texture used (which once again is painted past hand). It volition apply a layer of grass. However, whatever farther vegetation, trees, bushes, flowers, etc, are all paw placed.
Recollect near Novigrad Metropolis: none of the houses accept been placed procedurally or by an algorithm, the city was carefully planned and crafted all the fashion from the rough districts to individual pathways in between (or through) houses. Besides I realise that the question might've been meant differently. In that regard: Terrain was shaped by manus, erosion furnishings are practical, at this betoken, in that location's virtually no spot of terrain in the world that hasn't been touched by a dev.
Yes, it is an insane corporeality of piece of work that we did take to cede our fair share of evenings for – just for us it's simply worth it and honestly, we firmly believe it makes for a meliorate game, because it makes the earth more than enjoyable.
If we wouldn't we would've not done it, right?