Designing Uncharted 2 with Google Sketchup

Ben Apuna

I saw this posted on another forum, did a search and didn't find anything here so I figured I'd post it.

Here's a video about the use of Google Sketchup as a design tool on Uncharted 2.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mkPRmqUlFw[/ame]

A bit more about it here.

http://www.sketchupartists.org/spotlight/artists/robh-ruppel-google-sketchup-in-game-design/

haiddasalami

Woah...thought they would do their pre-viz in like maya or max. Definitely nice find.

vofff

totally agree with Robh Ruppel.

Bal

Nice video, now we know where the design for Drake comes from, he's the default google sketchup character! (Same hair, clothes etc, hah.)
Quite a few companies seem to use Sketchup nowadays, what was surprising here is that they really use it for pre-viz and not just level planning and such.

motives

Pretty cool. We're using it heavily on BF3 aswell.
Typically it goes something like:

2D sketches/design ideas + concepts
google sketch-up -> frostbite2
Gameplay testing + testing for art, lighting, surfaces etc.

Then we make some final decisions and eventually send it into maya.

Its a good process since we can get a mesh in the game fast that designers can work with and create gameplay knowing that it will resemble the final mesh from maya. Thus letting artists and designers work pretty much on the same area at the same time.

Very handy since maya isn't exactly ones favorite tool for speed-modelling

aajohnny

Maybe I should try google sketchup now lol

Habboi

Interesting...so should we be learning sketchup as part of our process now? I've never used it before but I've heard it's great for planning. Just how fast are we talking?

e-freak

seen some concept artists work with sketchup before - it's kinda nice to get instant 3D preview but from what i've seen it's a nightmare to clean up stuff to get proper models for inengine use out of it.

passerby

e-freak wrote: »

seen some concept artists work with sketchup before - it's kinda nice to get instant 3D preview but from what i've seen it's a nightmare to clean up stuff to get proper models for inengine use out of it.

i believe there were uisng it more like 3d concept art and am pretty sure they would just rebuild models for the game engine in max or maya

Autocon

passerby wrote: »

i believe there were uisng it more like 3d concept art and am pretty sure they would just rebuild models for the game engine in max or maya

that is correct, nothing from sketch up is ever used in game or even temped in. the concept artists are the only ones who use it.


was told that some studio tried to use it for actual geo and things didnt go to well for them

[HP]

Yep, some concept artists here at crytek also use SketchUp to aid them in their work. It's useful for all sorts of things, to get the basic shape of a vehicle or prop, to help with perspective lines, etc.

pior

@ 36sec. the guy working on the Cintiq has a squared, dark, on-screen display menu showing some options: Brush Size, Cycle Layers, Rotate Canvas,

That's the new Wacom menu associated with that new round button on the black 21ux. It's set by default to photoshop shortcuts, but it's kinda useless really.

e-freak

well obviously the sketchup models ain't in the final game but i've seen plenty of prototypes using the geometry from the concept artists. really wonder if it's worth learning it as a designer as most tools have brush/solid modelling anyway...

Snowfly

Sketchup's great but I haven't spent nearly enough time in it so scene management is a nightmare, and last I tried it there weren't any obvious ways to keep persistent camera angles. The simplicity might be a plus for some artists though, nice to see it put to good use on a top product.

Ark

Is Sketchup really that much faster than modeling simple meshes in max/maya whatever?

Justin Meisse

Sketchup has some neat tools to match up perspective in a photo and it lets you do some really quick and sloppy modeling.

PixelGoat

Autocon wrote: »

that is correct, nothing from sketch up is ever used in game or even temped in. the concept artists are the only ones who use it.


was told that some studio tried to use it for actual geo and things didnt go to well for them

We have used Sketchup to create the final ingame models for some projects here at Fatshark. They also did it at GRIN for Ghost Recon I believe.

Andreas

So meshes/environments can actually be exported from sketch-up into an engine, right? Because the use of the tool would be much higher if you could use it for more than a base layer in a concept drawing. Being able to test a level and how it plays earlier because of sketch-ups speed would be pretty sweet.

Justin Meisse

yes, you can export your meshes out, last time I messed with it OBJ exports were broken meshes with detached and flipped faces while 3DS exported fine.