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 – sitting on the hood


The hood doesn't look right, does it? Let's fix that now. This is the complicated bit, because cars are complicated. Car bodies are not defined by the simple intersection of three forms that we've carried out just now. Cars want to be curvy! Curves are our enemy in SketchUp. Don't forget that SketchUp was initially designed for architects, and the nearest an architect ever gets to modeling curves is when they enter the annual RIBA fashion show for charity.

There used to be an advertisement going around where a guy made himself a VW Beetle lookalike from his old beat-up car, by getting an elephant to sit on the hood. Turns out this method is actually quite successful. I've chosen to show you how, in here. Remember, the model now represents the biggest dimension the car could get to, because you made it by tracing the very outside of the three car views. The real-life curved geometry of the car must sit somewhere within this outer box you've created. And...