Level art follows a sequence for a reason: each stage locks something that later stages depend on.
The order
- Greybox. Layout, scale, movement, sightlines. Nothing else.
- Playtest and lock. The layout stops moving. This gate matters more than any other.
- Structural pass. Replace grey volumes with the modular kit — walls, floors, ceilings, architecture.
- Lighting pass. Rough lighting early. Environments read very differently lit, and a space that only works at full brightness is a space that does not work.
- Set dressing. Props, clutter, the things that make a space feel occupied.
- Detail pass. Decals, vertex paint, wear, the small-scale variation that removes the tiled look.
- Optimisation pass. LODs, occlusion, draw call reduction, texture memory.
- Polish. Particles, audio emitters, final lighting.
Why the lock gate matters
Everything after the structural pass is attached to the layout. Moving a wall after set dressing means moving everything on it, and every light that touched it. Teams that skip the lock spend the difference several times over.
Where generated assets slot in
Set dressing, overwhelmingly. It is the highest-volume, lowest-stakes stage — dozens of props that need to be plausible rather than exact — and it is the stage most likely to be cut for time. Generating the dressing pass is the clearest win available in level art.
Lighting is not a pass you defer
The most common environment mistake is treating lighting as polish. It determines what reads, where the eye goes, and whether the geometry beneath it was ever necessary. Rough it in early and refine; do not bolt it on last.