Tuesday, January 17, 2012

New Book: SketchUp for Game Design

I’ve yet to meet a SketchUp modeler who doesn’t—at least just a little bit—want to work in the video game design industry. I get a stupid grin on my face when I think about how much fun it it would be to make battle tanks and exploding oil drums and secret doors for hidden basements full of zombies. In the gaming world, boring things like gravity and cost take a backseat to novelty and sheer coolness.

But how to turn your SketchUp habit (and job cranking out toilet stall details) into days full of armor design and wandering through bad neighborhoods looking for interesting photo-textures to shoot?


Google SketchUp for Game Design is Robin de Jongh’s newest book; he also wrote SketchUp 7.1 for Architectural Visualization. It presumes that you’re a SketchUp beginner, but then quickly gets on to the good stuff:

  • Finding good resources for photo-textures
  • Using Meshlab to convert your models in useable 3D game assets
  • Working with the Unity 3D game engine (which is widespread, free-or-low-cost middleware for designing game levels)
  • Creating high-quality textures for games
  • Adapting your models for use in video games
  • Authoring custom levels
  • Modeling low-poly game assets (including cars) and selling them online

Robin’s writing is accessible and easy to follow. He packs a lot of information into each page, but manages to keep the tone friendly and even funny at times. While the book’s in black and white, color versions of the images are available from the publisher’s website.

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist

8 comments:

  1. This is wonderful news! A big thank you Robin!

    ReplyDelete
  2. A lot of thanks for all your valuable effort on this web page. Michael loves carrying out research and it is obvious why. I learn all about the powerful mode you provide great information through this web site.

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  4. kind of off topic, but when clicking on the "read blog" link on the welcome page it takes me to internet explorer to open it. And I clearly use google chrome as my default. Just a little bug that should be fixed.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Love it! I've long dreamed of modding GTA with real life city buildings from my city. Getting closer!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I've reviewed the book on my blog. Beware that I'm looking at it from an architectural context...

    http://cad-3d.blogspot.com/2012/02/review-google-sketchup-for-game-design.html

    ReplyDelete
  7. I just found out that Packt Publishing are running a half price offer on the ebook, making it just $8 or £6!! Here's the link: http://www.packtpub.com/google-sketchup-offer

    Enjoy!

    ReplyDelete

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