## Page 1 FF-OI-07: “Manual Level Design” Rev01 Confidential Operation Instruction Feldfeste Operation Instruction FF-OI-07: “Manual Level Design” Document History Revision Content Editor Time 01 Initial Document Creation Hannes 15.06.2026 ## Page 2 FF-OI-07: “Manual Level Design” Rev01 Confidential Operation Instruction Contents FF-OI-07: “Manual Level Design” ................................ ................................ ....................... 1 Document History ................................ ................................ ................................ .............. 1 1. Overview and Purpose ................................ ................................ ................................ .. 2 2. Heightmap Creation ................................ ................................ ................................ ....... 6 3. Level Boundaries ................................ ................................ ................................ ..... 12 4. World Fog ................................ ................................ ................................ ................ 15 5. Apply Auto Material ................................ ................................ ................................ ..... 16 6. Place Trees ................................ ................................ ................................ ................. 16 7. Place Rock Boulders ................................ ................................ ................................ ... 17 8. Place Water Plane underneath Landscape ................................ ................................ .. 17 9. Create Navmesh................................ ................................ ................................ .......... 17 10. Tweak UltraDynamic Skies & Weather ................................ ................................ ...... 18 11. Placing Encounter Animals ................................ ................................ ........................ 18 12. Placing Player Start Camps ................................ ................................ ....................... 18 13. Placing NPC camps ................................ ................................ ................................ ... 18 14. Placing traveler spawners ................................ ................................ .......................... 18 15. Setting up Birds ................................ ................................ ................................ ......... 18 Set up Level Blueprint ................................ ................................ ................................ ..... 20 1. Overview and Purpose This guide is supposed to be a quick reference for any level designer in our team to build levels. Just follow the Scheme and you should be fine. As this is a work in progress, details will be updated and added. For any feedback and questions, please directly target our discord channel for level design questions! The Maps we create for Castle Age share the following characteristics: ## Page 3 FF-OI-07: “Manual Level Design” Rev01 Confidential Operation Instruction ● real-world reference (use geodata as a base) ● relatively small, just a few square kilometers ● mostly around historic areas of interest like castles or battle fields ● trying to emulate nature in the environment ● trying to re-create a “naturalistic” appearance ● using one of the specific biomes we plan: ○ north european grassland (flat, swampy) https://trello.com/c/jQYtemRc/482-northern-swamp-biome-weather-picked- custom-maps-flatlands ○ west-european atlantic coast (cliffs, beach, gras) https://trello.com/c/um914wFR/815-western-atlantic-coast-biome-weather- custom-maps-normandy ○ Middle-European mid-mountain forests https://trello.com/c/YsLZ77z9/480-middle-range-mountains-blackforest- thuringian-forest-bavarian-forest-erzgebirge-etc-weather-maps (blackforest, france, bohemian forest, bavarian forest, thuringian forest etc) ○ Alpine Biome https://trello.com/c/8NeOquUe/816-alpine-biome-weather-custom-maps ## Page 4 FF-OI-07: “Manual Level Design” Rev01 Confidential Operation Instruction ○ Western mediterranean: (Italy, Iberia) https://trello.com/c/lFZRKCkJ/481-mediterranian-biome-weather-maps ○ [DLC] mediterranean coast (cliffs, beach, subtropical) [greek isles] https://trello.com/c/99ySlJC1/504-east-mediterranian-biome-greek-isles- weather-maps-animals ○ [DLC] AnatoliaPersia https://trello.com/c/lOhRsjjU/487-oriental-biome-anatolia-persia-weather- maps-animals ## Page 5 FF-OI-07: “Manual Level Design” Rev01 Confidential Operation Instruction ○ [DLC] Mongol Steppe https://trello.com/c/iJqUcM1u/493-desert-and-steppe-biome-weather-maps- animals ○ [DLC] North Africa https://trello.com/c/C7a1y4Ji/498-north-african-biome-animals-maps-weather ○ [DLC] Middle East /Holy Land ● Each of these have their regional: ○ Weathers ○ Animal Encounters ○ Terrain Textures ○ Foliage (Bushes, Grass) ○ Trees ○ Rocks Overview of the Workflow • https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/en-US/BuildingWorlds/Landscape/Creation/ • Create Landscape • Apply Material • Check that layer info is correct • Landscape Edit Layers in Unreal Engine • https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/en- US/BuildingWorlds/Landscape/Editing/SculptMode/Blueprint/ • ( Voxel Plugin ) can do real-time editing of landscape (not required) (Brushes for siege impacts? Destroyable terrain?) ## Page 6 FF-OI-07: “Manual Level Design” Rev01 Confidential Operation Instruction 2. Heightmap Creation • Data Sources: • Extract 3d Data from Online Maps • Outside UE: • Polish and fit Map Data • Export in Texture Formate • Inside UE: • Import in Unreal Engine • Final Tweaks in Unreal Engine 1. get XYZ-file of the region 2. import to CloudCompare (freeware) 3. export mesh from cloudcompare 4. import mesh in 3dsMax 5. texture with gradient and render top view with 16bit 6. use generated height map in Unreal as landscape 1.1 Extract 3d Data from Online Maps 1. Sachsen (in the game the Saxon eastern marches, mostly Meißen, Zeitz, Lausitz etc.) https://www.geodaten.sachsen.de/downloadbereich-digitale-hoehenmodelle-4851.html 2. Bayern ( part of Herzogtum Bayern and Nordmark) https://geodaten.bayern.de/opengeodata/OpenDataDetail.html?pn=dgm1 ## Page 7 FF-OI-07: “Manual Level Design” Rev01 Confidential Operation Instruction 3. Thüringen (Thüringen) https://www.geoportal-th.de/de-de/Downloadbereiche/Download- Offene-Geodaten-Th%C3%BCringen/Download-H%C3%B6hendaten 4. Niedersachsen (in the game part of Herzogtum Sachsen) https://opengeodata.lgln.niedersachsen.de/#bdlm 5. Tyrol (part of Bavarian eastern marches, Austria) https://maps.civis.bz.it/#/?context=PROV-BZ-MONUMENT- ARCHAEOLOGY&lang=de&bbox=1275156.6904,5923073.1162,1275297.7807,5923216 .8152 6. Baden-Würtemberg (in the game part of Herzogtum Schwaben) https://www.geoportal- bw.de/#/(sidenav:menu) 7. Schweiz (part of Herzogtum Schwaben in the game) https://www.geo.admin.ch/de/geodatenmodelle 8. Netherlands (not sure) https://data.overheid.nl/datasets?facet_theme%5B0%5D=http%3A//standaarden.overhei d.nl/owms/terms/Natuur_en_milieu 9. Paris (not sure) https://opendata.paris.fr/pages/home/ 10. France (need to investigate further) https://opendata.paris.fr/pages/home/ 11. Italy (here Bologna example) https://www.dati.gov.it/view- dataset?groups=ambiente&organization=comune-di-bologna 12. Tuscany (Herzogtum Toskana in the game) https://www.regione.toscana.it/-/open- geodata 13. Flanders/Belgium https://www.geo.be/home?l=de 14. Spain https://datos.gob.es/en 15. Normandy (Herzogtum Normandie in the game) https://data.maptiler.com/downloads/europe/france/basse-normandie/ 16. maybe this tool can help with many places: https://data.maptiler.com/downloads/europe/ 1.2 Optional Polish outside the Editor • Gaea Problem of costs/ License • https://quadspinner.com/Download ## Page 8 FF-OI-07: “Manual Level Design” Rev01 Confidential Operation Instruction ● CloudCompare ● https://www.danielgm.net/cc/ ● https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEQ93GIEJY8 ## Page 9 FF-OI-07: “Manual Level Design” Rev01 Confidential Operation Instruction Setting up different layers for the same height map (i didnt get this to work yet) • Multilayer example from Zachary, a picture per layer. • I want only height info, layers are auto-created! 🡪 one layer is sufficient! ## Page 10 FF-OI-07: “Manual Level Design” Rev01 Confidential Operation Instruction BLENDER BAKE ## Page 11 FF-OI-07: “Manual Level Design” Rev01 Confidential Operation Instruction • https://devforum.roblox.com/t/using-blender-to-generate-properly-scaled-heightmaps- from-a-mesh/382209 • Imported mesh into blender 1. and there you can click on "BAKE" 2. but i got the error of "no active UV layer found in the object" using Geodata and displacement in Blender • HTTPS://Heightmap.Skydark.Pl/ • https://youtu.be/uHFSAnPgsEA?si=1MOg1Jw2wmqhWoMC • PNG download • Blender: • renderer Cycles, Auflösung runter • Create plane • Subdivide • Shading/ plane /neues material (hat displacement) strg+T • Ins colour rein /material einstellungen /displacement and bumb • Skalierung anpassen TerrainMagic • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HD2OIIUOmLA • 1.3 Import Heightmap Data into UNREAL https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/en-US/BuildingWorlds/Landscape/aq/ • https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/en-US/BuildingWorlds/Landscape/Custom/ „Landscape layers can be imported from external programs via implementation of the ILandscapeHeightmapFileFormat and ILandscapeWeightmapFileFormat interfaces. The editor's existing support for image-based importing has been converted to use this interface and is fully supported. Images for the built-in formats are still required to be ## Page 12 FF-OI-07: “Manual Level Design” Rev01 Confidential Operation Instruction grayscale, 8 bits per pixel, single channel files in either .PNG or .RAW format. If you are creating layers in Photoshop, use the following settings when creating a new document:“ • Heightmap Formats: When exporting heightmaps from external programs, only the following formats are usable inside UE4. 16-bit, grayscale PNG file 16-bit, grayscale RAW file in little-endian byte order 2. Polish Heightmap height edits: create reasonable planes, valleys and mountains auto material tweaks: make sure transition slopes between materials are good create a visual barrier if possible 3. Level Boundaries dont let the camera or units run out! Use a different perspective in viewport also helps. ## Page 13 FF-OI-07: “Manual Level Design” Rev01 Confidential Operation Instruction ## Page 14 FF-OI-07: “Manual Level Design” Rev01 Confidential Operation Instruction ## Page 15 FF-OI-07: “Manual Level Design” Rev01 Confidential Operation Instruction 4. World Fog additional visual barrier to the sides. gentle but effectful. ## Page 16 FF-OI-07: “Manual Level Design” Rev01 Confidential Operation Instruction 5. Apply Auto Material Now we can see how material transition slopes happen. Perhaps some manual painting for specific tactical placemennt or historical places is necessary. 6. Place Trees ## Page 17 FF-OI-07: “Manual Level Design” Rev01 Confidential Operation Instruction 7. Place Rock Boulders 8. Place Water Plane underneath Landscape 9. Create Navmesh Steps to Generate NavMesh 1. Add Volume: Go to the Place Actors panel (Window > Place Actors), search for "Nav Mesh Bounds Volume", and drag it into the level. 2. Scale Volume: Scale the volume to encompass all areas where AI should walk. 3. Visualize: Press the P key on your keyboard to toggle the green visualization of the NavMesh. 4. Automatic Build: Unreal automatically generates (bakes) the mesh within this volume immediately upon adding it. This video demonstrates how to add and scale a NavMesh Bounds Volume: ZenvaYouTube• 20.11.2022 Key Configuration Settings (Project Settings > Navigation Mesh) ● Agent Radius/Height: Defines the size of the AI characters. ● Agent Max Slope: Sets the maximum steepness the AI can walk. ● Max Step Height: Dictates the height of obstacles the AI can step over. ● Runtime Generation: Set to "Dynamic" to update the navmesh during gameplay, or "Static" for bake-only. You can watch this video to see how to configure the NavMesh settings: underscoreYouTube• 17.03.2022 Pro Tips ● Dynamic Navigation: For procedural levels, set Runtime Generation to "Dynamic" and use Navigation Invokers to generate mesh around players only. ● Modifiers: Use Nav Modifier Volumes to mark areas as dangerous or blocked. ● Auto Link Generation: In UE 5.5+, you can enable "generate nav links" in the Recast NavMesh settings to automatically create jumping/falling links for AI. ## Page 18 FF-OI-07: “Manual Level Design” Rev01 Confidential Operation Instruction ● This video explains how to create dynamic navmesh with navigation invokers: GamingDev2020YouTube• 04.09.2023 10. Tweak UltraDynamic Skies & Weather https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENMuqbNSLTs Ultra Dynamic Sky - Product Video + Quick Start (Newest UE5 Version) 11. Placing Encounter Animals ● place encounter units or spawners ● place walking nodes ● confirm that enemy tags and so on are correctly set up 12. Placing Player Start Camps ● place encounter units or spawners 13. Placing NPC camps ● place encounter units or spawners 14. Placing traveler spawners ● place encounter units or spawners 15. Setting up Birds ● place BP_CrowSpline in level ● place NS_SplineFlock in level ● move the Flock in object window under the spline ● adjust the settings for the Flock, adjust the spline points in the spline ## Page 19 FF-OI-07: “Manual Level Design” Rev01 Confidential Operation Instruction ## Page 20 FF-OI-07: “Manual Level Design” Rev01 Confidential Operation Instruction Set up Level Blueprint we will try to handle this somewhere else.