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

Time for action – using a high-resolution terrain texture in Unity


If you zoom right in to the terrain texture you'll notice it's not a very high resolution texture. It appears to have lost some detail. In fact, this is true also of the SketchUp version. Is this right? In the Project tab, click on the Map_Base ¦ Map_Master texture (or something like M_2048 if you used the naming scheme suggested in Chapter 3, Wooden Pallet: Texture Creation. In the Preview window at the bottom right-hand side, you will see the image that will look like the one following. Can you seehat's wrong now?

There in the bottom right-hand side is the image size, 1024! But we created a 2048x2048 image! What's happened? Actually, it's not as bad as you think, and can be easily corrected. Here's how:

  1. Select the arrow next to the Map_Base folder and select Map_Master.

  2. On the right-hand side, note that a Max Size import rule for 1024 pixels has been added. Change this now to 2048.

  3. Click on the little button shown in the top...