Jay Kyburz
Bioshock
Building levels on Bioshock was a very collaborative process. One person might build the initial layout, another might decorate it or make changes for gameplay. Each level had effects, lighting and optimization passes, and quite often each would be made by a different person.
My time on Bioshock was spent working with the art team, blocking out spaces and decorating them. I didn't have an opportunity to script any of the gameplay or wrangle the AI's. Blow are screenshots of areas that I built and decorated.
Arcadia
Many of the spectacular rooms of Arcadia were already built when I started building levels on Bioshock. The Waterfall Grotto and the Tree Farm are almost exactly the same as when I first started working on it. I rearranged the structure of the level then built a central hallway connecting the various rooms. I then built the Tea Garden, Rolling Hills, and Langford's Research Labs.
Farmers Market
When I first built the the Farmers Market it was twice as big and a lot more open. When it game time to ship we were forced to close off many of the long views and add doors to keep the frame rate above 30fps on the 360. Many of Bioshock's maps were built before we knew how combat played out or had optimized the engine. We were forced to make a lot of guesses about how well a space would eventually perform.
The Apiary was added to the map very late in development. All I built was a tiny little room with a few of the box hives. Sometime after I left the project somebody added that colossal beehive on the celling making it one of the most memorable spaces in the game.
Point Prometheus
Point Prometheus was one of the last levels I worked on before moving off to lead the team on 2K Australia's next game. After doing the basic layout and structure it was handed over to Christian Martinez to polish up and make shippable.
Proving Grounds
Proving Grounds was perhaps the simplest of the levels I built for Bioshock, the mission called for a long linear sequence for the player to escort a little sister through. If you look at the mini-map you will see I built one half of the map then simply duplicated it and rotated it to make the second half of the map.
