Insight: Joylon Myers, Video Game Designer

I recently read an article in The Independent newspaper that sparked my interest. the article was about a games designer called Joylon Myers who was one of the key programmers of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. in the article, he talked about the levels he worked on which included London and Paris and the kind of things they had to do in order to make a good level.
he first job that his team had to do was to choose the path of the journey which would dictate the gameplay, directing where detail would be needed and what would be seen from a distance. He then went on to talk about using mapping software to plot a path and using satellite imagery as a template for the scale.
"from this I would block out the buildings and roads in a very simple form. We'd use the basic building blocks to start adding movement and gameplayat that point and see if it working. when we were happy, I would add more detail."
Joylon Myers had previously worked on building paris on a grand scale in a game call The Sabateur and mentions that building paris on the scale that was needed for MW3 didn't seem as daunting as it would to someone else. Myers then goes on to say "It's the detail in surface textures, the layout of props and the lighting that takes a fair bit of time." Myers also says that every prop should have some kind of history and story as to why it is there and every surface needs to convey why it looks the way it does.
Myers then goes on to say:
"Exploring the worlds i've designed and tweaking them to make them even more interesting is a wonderful part of the job. It's even more amazing when you are building an area that you love, as you are constantly reliving memories from the past, both during and after its creation."
INTERVIEW BY DONALD MACINNES, THURSDAY 5 JANUARY 2012, THE INDEPENDENT