A Few Noob Tips for Sketchup

I shared my Sketchup map last time, and I wanted to share what I learned while I built it and just after.

First, Sketchup is just as flawed as people warned me it would be. Its got a lot of "smart" logic built into it, which means it is constantly guessing exactly where you want the line or shape your drawing. This makes for a lot of grid-snapping, and if you're careful and methodical I imagine it would/could be an extremely smooth process to draw with.

I should point out right now, though, that easily creating original 3D structures in only a few minutes is a pretty exciting thing for me, so my experience with Sketchup has been really positive. Yeah, I had a lot of problems with perspective, and yeah, sometimes just controlling the camera can be a chore, but I'm pleased overall.

Anyway, here are a few tips for those coming behind me in GD24 and beyond, and maybe for those trying out Sketchup for themselves.

1. Choose a strong theme and settle on some USPs First - My theme (or story) in broad strokes was that Samus is investigating a space pirate excavation on a jungle planet. I also wanted a branching path right off the bat, and I wanted there to be very old-school Metroidy secrets built in to the map. By laying this out in less than ten minutes I was able to focus my design for the entirety of the project. It made the process uch easier.

2. Know Your Scope and Stay There - Limit your scope to the ~5 minute playtime the assignment calls for, and control that scope creep. I know some guys who are much more talented than me with software and art, and their maps didn't have the flair or detail that mine did. Having said that, there's were almost universally much cleaner than mine, but more on that in a minute.

3. Keep Your Extrusions Small - This will keep your level more manageable, and make it more obvious when Sketchup is sticking lines along an axis you can't see right now. It will also make any models you create (like my chozo and Samus) look decent even from different angles. Note that my extrusions were almost universally too big (deep), which makes some of those models looks a bit funny.

4. Check Youtube for videos about specific effects you want to recreate - There are some excellent tutorial videos out there. I found out how to make transparent textures in five minutes, rather than hunting around for the capability myself.

5. Do a "polish pass" on your map and eliminate any unnecessary lines, especially on transparent textures. If you look at my water, elevator, and the huge chunks that make up the outside of my map, you can see exactly what I'm talking about. With a bit more know-how and just a few more minutes I could have improved the looks of my map significantly.

Anyway, while I am expecting a few headaches and some swearing during my next go-around with Sketchup (I am tasked with creating a UT3 deathmatch map), I'm looking forward to learning a bit more about what Sketchup can do...

Maybe a map that has a tonne of transparent textures?...