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 – learning about 3D meshes in MeshLab


Let's have a walk around MeshLab and learn some things about how assets are made up along the way. This will also help you to understand SketchUp better.

  1. You don't have a SketchUp file to import yet, so go to the samples folder and open the duck_triangulate.dae file.

  2. Your screen should look like the following. You'll learn what the individual buttons do as you progress through the book, and we'll only cover the stuff you really need.

  3. Here's the quintessential rubber ducky. You'll notice he looks as if he has been chiselled out roughly from stone. SketchUp modelers panic when they see this because they think everything needs to be smooth. What you are in fact seeing is polygons, and they're a good thing.

  4. Press the Flat Lines view style button now.

  5. You'll notice there's a line pattern on the duck. He now looks even worse than before! This view looks a little like a SketchUp model with Hidden Geometry switched on. SketchUp modelers also panic...