Level Design Terminology
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Entities and Objects
Entity
Entities are anything in the game that can be interacted with some way, or things that are or can cause actions and events. They can also all be added to and used in flow graphs, making them fairly versatile objects. However, adding a lot of entities can slow down performance, so try not to fill your level up with them.
Examples: Triggers, Earthquakes, Destructible Objects, Lights...
Geometry Entity
Geometry Entities are objects that can have physics applied to them, although they only contain a few basic parameters for being physicalised and manipulated. However, they arent that costly performance wise, making them ideal for most objects in maps.
Examples: Crates, Furniture, Small Props...
Prefab
A Prefab is a group of brushes and/or entities. For example, you can place a hut and decorate it with props and place weapons inside and then make a prefab out of it. If this prefab is placed in several locations, throughout several levels even, and you choose to change something in the central prefab it will be reflected in all prefabs of this type. Like the Archetype entity, prefabs are good for consistency. For more information, see Creating and Using a Prefab.
Examples: Buildings, Water Towers, Rope Bridges...
Archetype Entity
An Archetype Entity is an class of entity that is constant throughout the entire Crysis game. If you change a property of an entity in the Archetype library it is reflected in all archetypes of that type that are placed in all levels. Archetpe Entities can also have special properties e.g. a pressurised oil barrel. These can be edited in the Database View and applied to the entities across the game.
Examples: AI Grunts, Weapons, Explosive Barrels...
Brush
Brushes are static objects that can only be manipulated in very basic ways (e.g. whether or not they cast shadows). However, some Brushes can be set up so that they stay in a fixed position but can break up, such as fences. Brushes cannot be added or used in flowgraphs, and are also cheap on performance. They use the same library as the GeomEntities, so models that you want to place in your map from the library can be placed in either way.
Examples: Walls, Sandbags, Buildings...
Materials
Material Editor
This is a database of all textures and shaders that are can be applied onto Entities and Objects. By default, it contains all of CryTek's materials for Crysis, which can be used as reference for creating your own. It is possible in the Material Editor to define maps such as Diffuse Maps Normal Maps, Specular Maps & also generating Shaders such as Parallax Occlusion Maps for the material.
Diffuse Maps
These provide colour to your material. It is the raw image which you see on Entities and Objects. They are often sourced from photographs.
Normal and Bump Maps
These provide texture, and allow a low polygon mesh to appear to have more geometrical than it really does, by providing light information to the surface of the mesh. Normal maps are a mixture of blue, green and red depending on the height of the surface that the light should react.
Specular Maps
These imitate the amount of reflection of light that should occur, as not many objects distribute reflected light evenly over their surface. They are black and white in colour, with white meaning the most light reflected.
Parallax Occlusion Maps
These are an enhancement of Normal and Bump maps, providing greater depth than before. It works by calculating your angle relative to the surface and combining that with a height map which is placed in the Alpha channel of the Normal Map.
Artificial Intelligence
Navigation
This is the automated movements by paths, of the AI. After the navigation has been generated successfully, the AI will automatically function with the basic behavior.
Waypoints
These are used in interiors, where the navigation is more complex and paths are set manually via nodes called Waypoints. They can signal various things, such as Entry/Exit points, and interior navigation.
Anchors
These are points that allow of specific, and unique behaviors, such as a point for the AI to hide, or a fence that the AI can vault over.
Shapes, Volumes and Areas
Forbidden Area
This area defines a space in which the AI cannot enter. It is useful to avoid unnecessary collisions into objects, or to force the AI down a certain area, rather than freely roaming.
VisArea
This is an area in which the space inside is totally occluded from the outside world. This includes light, rendering (ocean, terrain, the Sun etc). It is therefore useful for defining interiors, in which the VisArea will wrap itself between the walls of the interior.
Portals
Still with VisAreas in mind, Portals are a means of 'windows'. They can for example, connect 2 VisAreas together, so that they essentially appear as one to the player. They can be used to at the windows of a building so that light can bleed through. They are crucial to achieving effective VisArea's. Where there is a VisArea, there is always a Portal nearby.
Occluder Areas
While Occlusion areas are already in Brushes by default, you may wish to place your own. Occluder Areas will remove any object that is 100% behind the defined area from being rendered, thus improving the framerate.
Shape
This area has many uses, and is often linked with a Trigger in order to activate an action when an Entity has reached the Shape.
Flow Graph
Flow Graph
This is the user-friendly visual script system implemented into the CryEngine 2.0. It is used for creating aspects of the level such as Mission Logic, Triggers, activating scripted sequences & animations.
Nodes
These are functions that can derive from Entities within the map, or from a large list already within the Engine.
Examples: DepthOfField, AIShootAt, NanoSuitGet...
Links
These are how Nodes are connected together, in a visual based chain.
Ports
Links go to & from Ports, thus connecting Nodes.
