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

Your first model in SketchUp


You've already installed SketchUp and I hope you're dying to get started with modeling. The texturing part took a while to explain, but now you know what you're doing with textures, you'll always be well prepared for modeling tasks. The approach to modeling in this book is to use photo or image textures as a base, rather than modeling first and texturing later. It is a much easier approach than the traditional one, and well-suited to SketchUp. When you begin creating more advanced models and textures in Chapter 7, Quick Standard Assets, and Chapter 9, The Main Building—Inside and Out, you will also learn how to adapt photo textures in GIMP using the original photos as a base. Of course, if you're an artistic soul you can go on from there and create textures from scratch, but I suggest you first need to know how to do it this way before you venture out into that new world.

Tip

SketchUp get-up-and-get-started guide

When you open SketchUp for the first time, you need...