Book Image

Google SketchUp for Game Design: Beginner's Guide

Book Image

Google SketchUp for Game Design: Beginner's Guide

Overview of this book

Creating video game environments similar to the best 3D games on the market is now within the capability of hobbyists for the first time, with the free availability of game development software such as Unity 3D, and the ease with which groups of enthusiasts can get together to pool their skills for a game project. The sheer number of these independent game projects springing up means there is a constant need for game art, the physical 3D environment and objects that inhabit these game worlds. Now thanks to Google there is an easy, fun way to create professional game art, levels and props.Google SketchUp is the natural choice for beginners to game design. This book provides you with the workflow to quickly build realistic 3D environments, levels, and props to fill your game world. In simple steps you will model terrain, buildings, vehicles, and much more.Google SketchUp is the ideal entry level modeling tool for game design, allowing you to take digital photographs and turn them into 3D objects for quick, fun, game creation. SketchUp for Game Design takes you through the modeling of a game level with SketchUp and Unity 3D, complete with all game art, textures and props. You will learn how to create cars, buildings, terrain, tools and standard level props such as barrels, fencing and wooden pallets. You will set up your game level in Unity 3D to create a fully functional first person walk-around level to email to your friends or future employers.When you have completed the projects in this book, you will be comfortable creating 3D worlds, whether for games, visualization, or films.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Google SketchUp for Game Design
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Chapter 2. Tools that Grow on Trees

Did you ever dream as a kid that you'd stumble across a house made entirely of sweets and cake? You ate some of the door as you walked in, broke off bits of the table to shove in your bulging pockets, then you woke up and your wicked step mom told you that places like that didn't exist.

She was wrong! They do exist, and they are a lot bigger and better than you ever dreamt of as a child. Where is it? Down the phone line from your computer. It's the Internet. Just like the wicked witch in the story of Hansel and Gretel, the software companies that populate the Internet feel that giving away things for free is the only way to get customers to drop by. This actually encourages their competitors do the same, and in time the giveaways become bigger and better. A good example is Google SketchUp. Google decided that in order to increase the number of people worldwide creating 3D building assets for Google Earth, it would release the best asset creation software...