Making Blocks

Guide info#

Short: 6-8 minutes

• Summary

• • Blocks always start with a hitbox from the gameplay. You can leave the gameplay’s structures as they are, or you can remake them to suit your deco needs.

• • Once you’re done making structures, you can make a base, which is a simple version of your block with very few details inside.

• • When making details, it’s best if you place most of them at the edges & corners of your blocks. You can keep some on the inside, but they shouldn’t be a majority at all.

• • To speed up the creation process, I recommend you make a bunch of custom assets which you can reuse for your blocks.

1: Structuring Blocks

The first step of making any deco is laying down a basic structure or shape. With blocks, you need to remember that they have hitboxes. They play a part in gameplay, so the player will interact with them. Many times they’ll also have spikes or other hazards on them. This means you can’t just make any random shape for your blocks; they must have a clear platform that the player knows they can land on.

To make things easier, you can reuse the structures that already existed from the gameplay stage. However, you may also want to make your own custom structures. This will give you more freedom to do what you want, but you must remember to keep the gameplay readable.

Here’s how to restructure gameplay to make decorating easier:

1. Play the gameplay. Identify every platform and hazard that the player will touch, and mark them down. These must stay the same once you’re done structuring. 2. Make changes to the existing structures. You might change hazards from spikes to saws, for example. Just make sure you playtest and fix any skips or bugs that may arise. 3. Create any non-essential structures. These are ones that the player won’t touch during gameplay, but still fill up space. Once again, be sure to playtest before committing to anything.

Here’s an example of this process.

Once you’re perfectly fine with the structures, proceed to the next step.

2: Making a Base

A base is the simplest version of a block, with very few details and only a few colors at max. This is the “fill” stage of making a block, so if you’ve read that lesson you can simply follow those instructions to make a base. The base lays the foundation for what details go inside a block, so this is really where something like a “style” becomes clear.

Do note that while a base should be simple, it doesn’t need to be just a single flat color. You can have a few different colors inside the block, or use more 1st tab objects than just the basic squares. All you need to do is restrain yourself and don’t get too carried away before adding details.

Here’s an example of what you might have once you’re done making all the bases. You can see that I added a good amount of sections to each block, but there aren’t any smaller details that would make it too complex.

3: Making Details

Details are often where you’ll get stuck when making blocks. I won’t tell you what types of details to use or how to make them, since that’s what the Details lessons are for. Instead, I will talk about where you should place details and why.

Most of your details should be placed at the edges and corners of blocks. These are where their borders are, something you’ll need the player to know; after all, if you can’t tell where a structure is, you can’t play the gameplay properly. You can also place details at the edges of subdivisions, or where an object has parts it needs to function.

This doesn’t mean you should never have details inside a block. However, they shouldn’t be the majority by any long shot. Ideally, they should be simpler and stand out less. After all, when you see a shape you’re most interested in its edges, not the center.

This phenomenon is something you can notice in real life, not just in this game. Most details are concentrated around either the edges of an object, or around parts that they need to function. Look at something like a car or a fridge and you’ll notice that. In fact, here are some examples of this below.

Here, the main details are found on or around the cap of the bottle. There are also cut lines on the handle, which mark the borders of different shapes. Details like the company decal are near the edge of the bottle.

Note that the cameras are all positioned close to each other, and the buttons on either side of the phone are also grouped close together. The Apple logo in the center is an example of a detail inside an object, and as you can see, it’s simpler & stands out less than the cameras around it.

Here’s a more complex example from Hollow Knight. This one I won’t explain to you; instead, you should try to pick out a specific asset, like the bell, and look at where the details are placed. Get into the habit of analyzing blocks and other decoration as it’ll help you in the long run.

4: Custom Assets

As you can probably guess, making blocks is a very in-depth process. It’s typically where you’ll spend most of your time when building a level.

I won’t expect you to make every single block unique, since that’d take a lot of time which would barely be appreciated. In fact, I encourage you to reuse details and bases between blocks! One way to do this is by making custom assets for your blocks. This is the exact process Robtop uses to make his levels, and it is exponentially faster than making everything by hand.

When making assets, I like to make a few different types depending on how I’ll use them. If I’m working with a larger structure, I’ll make a few large assets for the structure bases; similarly, if I’m making a smaller structure I’ll make assets I can reuse for other small structures. The same process applies to making details, as you may expect.

Here are some assets from my Emerald Realm part . After making the assets, especially the rocks, most of my time just went into exploring ways to combine them in the structures so they could look unique without actually having to be super original. This helped me cut my creating time significantly.

One benefit of making custom assets is that you get a lot of freedom with your blocks, no matter what theme you’re working with. If you’re making glow designs, you can use them to the same degree that you would with custom art. Additionally, assets make it a lot easier to explore your ideas or make many versions of blocks, which’ll help you improve faster.

Do be aware that optimization becomes crucial with assets. If you make one that uses a lot of objects, you’ll have to replace every single one when optimizing it. You could try to optimize them before putting them into use, but that’d also take up more time. Feel free to experiment with which you prefer most.

Research and Examples

@koma5

Proofreading

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