Tips and Tricks For Better Level Setup in Unity

I had no idea what to call things you call ‘ornaments’ so had a google a while ago and came across the term ‘prop’ used for this. Makes sense. Awesome video, I’ve got the equivalent of your LevelHolder and Cameras but I definitely need to be more organised with the rest. Thanks

This video was so refreshing to watch. I have recently been struggleing to get a good flow on how I manage objects and triggers and your video really gave me some great ideas

this video should be carved in stone and put into the foundations of creating games in unity! Great thank you!

I like the puppet-show :D pow-pow!

Proposed project layout in this video:
# Scene setup

1. _Managers
1. _GM
2. _SoundManager
2. Player
3. LevelHolder
1. TerrainHolder
1. AboveGround
2. SecretPassageOverlays
3. Underground
2. OrnamentHolder
1. Plants
2. Clutter
3. Animals
3. ActionHolder
1. Doors
2. Climable
3. Enemies
4. Collectables
5. CratesAndBarrels
6. Interactive
7. Misc
8. NPC
4. FgHolder
5. WaterHolder
6. BackgroundElements
7. FX
4. TriggersAndGizmos
1. LevelExit
2. LevelCollider
3. SpawnPoints
4. CameraTriggers
5. MusicTriggers
6. Points
7. DialogueTriggers
8. LightsTriggers
9. Misc
5. Cameras
1. Main Camera
1. Orth
2. PerspFG
3. RadialTransitionCam
4. BackgroundLayers
6. Lights
1. BagroundAreaLight
2. ActionAreLight
3. TerrainLight
4. BackingWallsLight
5. LightingManager2D (maybe worth putting to 1. _Managers?)
6. Torches
7. Deprecate

Good video to learn from. Just starting out and these will be good habits to have. Thanks John?

Thank you for this video, and your project looks really good.

I would love to see a video on your process of blocking out and initial/brainstorming map stage of levels

You can move tilemaps now using the inbuilt unity tilemap editor. Just use the move option, and re-click the tilemap collider 2d to update the collider.

empty gameobjects are just not harmful and love nesting. cool!

One of my favourite videos of yours, just super practical tips.

I love how organized you have everything. I try to keep organized but things tend to get out of hand and my hierarchy gets messy. Definitely gives me a few ideas. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for the great advice / tips! I struggle a bit with level “design” — especially when it comes to when and where to introduce new enemies and essential mechanics.

I know that you're really proud of the foreground elements (you made a whole video about it!), and don't get me wrong, in certain areas they're really cool looking. But that one in the cave that is like a full screen height stalagmite that blocks visibly... as someone with a Visual Processing Disorder (part of Autism), that really bothers me. I really hope there will be an accessibility option in your game to tone down some of those visual elements, or maybe consider using a shader trick to make visual obstructions partially transparent when walking through them? (Btw, thank you for making this video; even though I use a completely different 3D workflow, it gave me some organizational ideas... I really like the idea of groups for deprecated game objects, or maybe placeholder ones that need to be replaced, or even like if I'm working my way through a scene, fixing some prefab that got disconnected, I could slowly move the fixed ones into a "fixed group", until that work is complete. That's really empowering. Thanks for sharing this.)

This video is very nice! Thank you to share your knowledge. I love to see stuffs from the unity editor because it's quite rare to see advanced examples. Your hierarchy is really efficient in my beginner point of view. I know this video is focused on your level 2 but i wonder if you use a DDOL scene (don't Destroy on load) or GameManager script to keep track on settings and player progress across the whole game.

I am just studying unity engine.. and I learned a lot from you!!

Greay videos! Very informative. Good tone, quality and content.

Do you have a link to Tiled? I can't find it.

Thank you.

Good job. It's great to notice that you use the Tiled editor to design the levels. I'm a big fan of Tiled. Maybe you could also make a video about how to use Tiled (mostly tips and ideas).

Very helpful insight, thanks! I use a similar structure to compare ideas in the same level. Awesome videos btw!

Thanks a lot for this awesome video. Your characters look really nice and seem to be high res. What are you using to make its animations?

I just want to say that this was bloody amazing. I've been wanting to see more in-depth videos like this that really showcase what a professional level setup looks like. Really cool that you were so transparent about this.

Game is looking amazing by the way

I think this is my 4th watch... Each time I learn more and get better.

I need to see if I can make a complete set of those 'folders' to simply appear... like a prefab of them I can use from any project.

Can you make global prefabs that aren't specific to a project? Jeez I have more questions than time...

Every experimented with a 2 1/2 D view? Making the tiles have some depth by converting them into 3D objects, extruding and adding a texture to the side. Its does not need to be complex 3D, just the flat sprites with top and siede surfaces.

There is some overhead to using a hierarchy for objects. Not much, but it can have an impact if done excessively with too much depth. Especially in the UI.

This game has come SO far!!

Hey man,nice job there,i wish you could make a video about your game's performance on Steam.

Isn’t the cost (performance wise) of using regular Tile Renderers is very high with so many tiles?

By now I've watched so many of your videos,
I feel too deeply invested in both Blood and Mead, I'll have to play it on release.
Additionally I'm itching to start my own game :D

Cheers mate
Best of luck with it.

even though I don't use Unity, (i use GM) this was still helpful for organizational purposes

Can you please make a video more specific on how you use tiled? It's really interesting your point of view on level edit based on tiles

Parallax effect looks really good here, subtle but still noticeable. Looking nice!

Thanks for the tips. I seriously didn't know about Tiled software before. 😇🙌🏻

I really like your game

Great video! Love the bit about how you do your terrain. Unrelated question: how do you go about designing levels with different player skill in mind? My personal skill level when playing games ranges from fair to potato. I worry that I might make my levels too easy because they’re hard for me but my skill level is not great so maybe they’re not that difficult. Ideally I’d like players to feel challenged but not frustrated.

Do you not rate the multiscene workflow for organising your game into layers or folders? You can even do easy cross-scene referencing of public variables with advanced multi-scene.

I can't wait for Blood and Mead!!! It looks better every time I see it!

I love your videos. They give insight into the more deeper challenges of game development after we leave the "rose-tainted glasses" phase behind us. These are the "nitty gritty" bits people do not talk about enough.

Spoiler Alert: Pre-release level 1 walkthrough detected :D Looks great!

Great video! Super insightful. Starting a 2D Gun/Runner game and this was super helpful im terms of layer organization. Please make more level design videos. 👍🏽 🎮

Love the idea of focusing on organization! It can get out of hand so quickly especially near the end. And it is near the end of development that this shines the most!!

share your camera trigger script! i made a simple one myself but your one is complex and more useful

How to organize a disorganized (me) :D I have actually always grouped everything together. but in the long run I've always made disasters hahahha! Thanks for the tips!

Looks amazing, can't wait to try it out. Thanks for the info on tiled.

For the algorithm~!

Very nice collection of Pro Tips for level building in Unity. I feel like the use of Tiles is especially salient. Like any kind of development, game dev seems to come with its organizational and work flow hazards. Thanks for helping us navigate the rocks.

my humble suggestion:
the animation is still a little like jagged / string man
i sincerely think nowadays 2D platformer standard would at least have a smooth fluid main char animation.
i think it needs a couple frame of showing the back of the char and some shape change in order to feel organic.

my reasoning
In 2D platformer game, when the movement/animation/action doesn't feel right, customer will return the game after fiddling it for a couple hours.