“Game Ready” and “best working practice”
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What is the definition of “Game Ready” and what are its “best working practices”?
Premise:
If I spend time modelling correcty faced 1024x1024 textured and neatly componented streets pavements and houses for use through lets say through Revizto for instance and that doesn’t work for me for whatever reason and I want to export to LightUp, LumienRT or Unity, I don’t want all my previous modelling time and work to have been wasted.
So the real question is, are there different sketchup disciplines required to output models through different Rendering / Real Time 3d enviromental platforms?
Cheers
Nick
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The simplest answer is that you can use the same models for both, although that isn't necessarily optimal.
"Game Ready" basically just means optimised for a real-time engine (games or real time renderers) - the best practises for this (in short, since there are many different things) are
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Reasonably low poly - This doesn't mean that you need everything looking blocky and angular, but it does mean that you should be avoiding things like twelve-section arcs for miniscule details. Keep in mind that the actual count that matters is the triangle count - a polygon with 20 sides has about 4x as many triangles than a polygon with 4 sides.
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Normals facing outwards - Your front faces should be the visible ones. A lot of engines do not render reverse faces by default.
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As few unique textures as possible - This one isn't actually very viable in sketchup, due to it's lack of UV editing tools, but does speed up performance and should be kept in mind nonetheless.
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Game ready... quaded, and properly textured with LOD model versions in some games.
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Kristoff, I believe that quads are only really necessary for things that will undergo deformation - people and animals, for instance. Otherwise, the only reason you'd need them would be to make the models friendlier to anybody who edits them in a subdiv modeller like maya.
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3DMax is a game model leader, if not the game model leader. You'll hate yourself if you don't build quad ready or know how to convert your triangulated model to quads in Max and most things in today's game will be deforming. The safest way to model, to future proof your model is to start with the efficiency of quads.it will also make your texturing life easier.
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Oh of course, quads are incredibly important if you're modelling something that will be edited later in something like max, maya, blender, etc. as well as for deformation, but I got the impression that Braikenridge just wanted to go from sketchup directly into a real-time renderer, not build something to be passed around a game development studio.
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You're absolutely right... I don't really know where I got off the rails there. it's like I never even finished reading his post.
And you're correct that quads would not be needed for his purposes. In fact I would not even go so far as to call that truly "game ready". I guess we're just in between the two.
Most renderers have come past the back faces issues. The only thing I can suggest for them from your side is that you make efficient models. the number of polys you needs and not too many more. textures that are sufficient for use and distance. That should cover your bases.
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