Vehicles, Architecture, and Levels

**Chirp Chirp** · September 19th, 2009, 07:26 PM

Jalc: Thank you. Often I don't know what I am going to make and begin by playing with shapes until I see something. I like exploring in 3d and SketchUp makes it fun and simple.

Ximenes: You know I often find myself thinking something similar when I see other peoples work posted on CA. Thank you.

Tonic: Thanks. I had a lot of fun on that design test. Trying to make circuit board components anthropomorphic wasn't too hard and seemed natural with the theme. However it was especially challenging to complete everything in five days starting the day after I lost my job. No pressure!

I did pass the game design test and had a preliminary interview that was to be followed up with a full team interview but I accepted another position at Ubi Soft Singapore. I am still trying to process the full scope of what I've done but I am too busy packing and trying to get my wife, kids and dogs ready to go. I leave in 3 weeks! That said, for a bit I am not going to have time to play in SU or post. So this will be my last post for awhile.

Work in progress for the hands and arm bits I am making for the robot suit thing. The thumb is temporary, something I stole from another model. It just looked dumb without it. The little triangles are my rig handles for posing the joints. Hopefully I'll be able to get back on this in a few months.

**Tonic** · September 23rd, 2009, 09:43 PM

Are you going to use SketchyPhysics?

**Chirp Chirp** · March 25th, 2010, 12:49 PM

Tonic: at this point I just hope one day I get around to finishing it!

SU doodle I popped out tonight.

**Chirp Chirp** · April 10th, 2010, 09:48 PM

Whipped up something for the Industrial design of the week.

**rattus** · April 11th, 2010, 03:24 AM

really like the curving visor-design, looking good.

**Apotheases** · April 15th, 2010, 12:45 AM

very cool stuff! Its very inspirational! Thanks for leaving that tip over on my thread. All are welcomed!

**Visceral 619** · July 7th, 2010, 01:21 PM

you've got a great eye tech design, the level designs are also awesome.

**Chirp Chirp** · July 27th, 2010, 08:55 AM

rattus - thanks. I had planned a lot more stuff showing the interior and how people operate it but as usual life gets in the way.

Apotheases - thanks. Just keep at the modeling. It's neat that even in sketchup people have different styles. It will be interesting to see how yours evolves.

Visceral 619 - Cool glad you like my stuff. Almost everything I make starts off totally random. No idea what I am going to end up with.

**Chirp Chirp** · July 27th, 2010, 09:22 AM

Shots from a metrics test space for the game I am making. Spent a few hour here and there on the weekends building it out.

* First image is a prone sniper position from under some trucks.
* Next is looking back across the kill zone from another cover position.
* Last two are examples of cover using architectural elements instead of crates and barrels. (ok so there is 1 crate in there )

So far the play tests have been great. I just need to remember to take some in game shots.

**Chirp Chirp** · July 27th, 2010, 12:40 PM

Trying something a bit different. I doodle in a sketchbook everyday and decided to model one of the weird little sketches from a few months back. WIP

**rattus** · July 27th, 2010, 04:25 PM

good stuff Chirp.
i have a question, i love your level-design. I picked up RedFaction1 again and played it for the first time in years.
So much fun, people are still playing it and making maps. I dont think i can use SU with the RED-editor but i see you made some stuff for Crysis,
my pc cant run that.

so...do you know of any other fps-games who take SU-files?
Sketchup could be a brilliant tool making maps i think.
i guess i need the full version too? i mean for export to obj-files or whatever.
.skp cant be very useful i guess?

would be cool to make maps for DM and CTF battles.

**Chirp Chirp** · July 30th, 2010, 08:37 AM

rattus- Cool glad you like the levels.

but unfortunately there are no game engines that I know of that natively read .skp files even though its technically possible.

Can't say that I am familiar with Red Faction 1 tech or how they structure the levels for destruction. But every game engine has a custom geometry format and usually has either an import process that converts the more standard formats like collada or fbx. If they don't import the formats then they probably rely on a plugin to convert the geometry directly out of max/maya/xsi ...

I am sure it would be possible to get sketchup level geometry into Red Faction by going through their standard pipeline. Which means you would have to export from Sketchup to something like an obj,3ds,dae,fbx then import to the software and plugin combo they used for development. Most of the time its max. The free version of sketchup exports collada aka .dae. The pro version supports fbx, 3ds, obj, dxf and some others.

The levels I exported to Crysis used this process and I had to go through XSI. Overall it kind of sucked. It was less than ideal especially when i compared it to the direct pipeline I got in place for the last company I worked at. Sadly even at my current job we are using a custom engine and I have to go from sketchup to .3ds to max to game.

As far as other game engines go, if they support modding then there should be an existing pipeline you can leverage. Or.....

My wife has been working on a plugin for SketchUp called PlayUp that can be found here http://www.playuptools.com/ . It's totally free and currently support exporting models to the Halflife Source engine and Crysis Sandbox 2. It also fully supports exporting models and level files to Unity. The game engine of choice for my wife atm. From what i've seen on unity forums people seem to be using it to good effect.

But yes it's totally sweet to be able to have an idea for a level, sketch it out in a few hours, play it multi-player, take some notes, and then iterate. Sadly I've seen pipes where the process takes a week from first idea to first playtest. The trick to great level design is lots of iterations. Faster you can make something and test it the more iterations achieve in a given amount of time. Thus why I fell in love with SketchUp when I realize the potential for making better games.

Let me know how it goes. Would love to see some videos or screen shots of something you made in a game. Good luck.

**rattus** · August 1st, 2010, 08:35 AM

Chirp, thank you for taking the time to answer!
i need to play around in RED (red faction editor) and learn that prog.
I looked at the videos at playuptools... wow looks great.
i must check out Halflife Source engine and Crysis Sandbox 2. great work on the plugin!

for now i sketch the ideas out in sketchup and then have to rebuild them in RED,
it's going to take some time before i have something to show you=)

thanks so much again Chirp!

**rattus** · August 2nd, 2010, 06:05 PM

Originally Posted by Chirp Chirp

My wife has been working on a plugin for SketchUp called PlayUp that can be found here http://www.playuptools.com/ . It's totally free and currently support exporting models to the Halflife Source engine and Crysis Sandbox 2. It also fully supports exporting models and level files to Unity. The game engine of choice for my wife atm. From what i've seen on unity forums people seem to be using it to good effect.

i just had a chance checking out Unity, never heard of it before.
looking very impressive! Thanks again for the help and information!

**Chirp Chirp** · January 13th, 2011, 07:35 AM

Some renders from a level design I did over the weekend.

**rattus** · January 13th, 2011, 06:27 PM

cool, looks very inviting.
did you design this for a specific game?

**Chirp Chirp** · January 14th, 2011, 07:13 AM

Thanks. Yes I did but can't say what is it yet. In a few more months I'll be able to say more.

**Chirp Chirp** · April 21st, 2011, 12:03 PM

Digging around found some stuff I forgot about. Also a shot of another level design. Was working with some of the level designers on improving the massing and composition of the roof / construction space.