Dishonored style level loading

Hey guys, i’ve been working on a little project if kine thats is coming along nicely, but i have never thought about how the player will transition from one level to another.

If you guys have ever played dishonored, you’ll know how it’s segmented into different “missions” which are theyre very own self contained open worlds, with different areas which can be accessed behind a loading screen. I know very little about level streaming, but from what i have seen, theyre used more like render portals in csgo (triggers which de-render areas that cant be seen by the player for better performance)

i’m not sure, but i think the levels in dishonored arent really…realistic from what i remember. Like when you enter a building behind a loading screen, it sometimes felt bigger on the inside than on the outside. So i dont think it’s set in a single “map” with level streaming derendering and rendering the enviroment behind a loading screen. So what is it doing exactly? Also i really need help understanding the difference between map and level. From what i understand map is a different segment in the game kind of like the dishonored missions are while levels are like the csgo example.
Any help on either questions are really appreciated, and thank you guys in advance.

I haven’t played dishonored.
Try going through this

and watching this


Each of the questions is really broad and encompasses multiple techniques.
Regarding the loading screen and how it relates to the inside being bigger than the outside, they may have put a bare minimum inside the level such as the structure of the interior, but with spawn points.Then as the level loads they would spawn objects at those specific spawn points.This is one way they may have done it, which would have made it even more complex.

The other would be to just design the level as it should be and stream it
Level Streaming in Unreal Engine | Unreal Engine 5.1 Documentation


It depends on how the interior is designed as you can have sublevels within the level
Managing Multiple Levels in Unreal Engine | Unreal Engine 5.1 Documentation

Ok so to clear things up, are the assets found in the maps folder of the starter content (thirdpersonexample map and advancedlighting map for example) considered levels? If they are, i’ve seen a training session on this topic Get a Load of This: How to make a Loading Screen | Live Training | Unreal Engine - YouTube where the rooms are independant levels…so have i been missing out on the fact that you can drag in levels inside other levels? Like drag in the thirdpersonexamplemap inside the advanced lighting map?

I can’t access my pc right now so i can’t test this so if you could enlighten me that would be appreciated.

Also not trying out dishonored is a cardinal sin that is punishable by death. You should really try it out. You can learn alot about balancing the maps in order to enable more creative ways of traversing and killing the targets using the tools at the player’s disposal. A really good game in general.

pretty much, otherwise having at least one persistent level wouldn’t be necessary…the map is just a container and doesn’t take up space, it’s the actual data in it that does

Ok so that clears stuff up quite a bit, thank you. Also i’ve been pondering on the subject and realized you don’t really need for the world to be realistic. For example the insideoif a building doesnt need to match the size of it’s outside if you’re gonna unload all the outside and load the inside behind a loading screen widget. The player won’t know any better. Thank you alot sir, you’ve helped me alot.