Game Design (from Scratch)

Remember James? He works with instructor Zack as part of Game-U’s New Jersey Accelerate program. To learn how custom 3D models work with Unity, the professional gaming engine, James modeled a castle scene and a character from scratch. See the progress he’s made since importing those models into Unity!

Once James and Zack finalized the castle in Maya, the modeling and animation software James used to create it, the guys imported the files into Unity as assets. Models like James’ rely on their geometry – edges, vertices, and faces – for their shape and appearance, but just like a physical object can look different depending on the lighting available, models can look different depending on the application environment. Since James tailored his geometry for the Arnold renderer, he discovered that the model needed some modification before it could look its best in Unity! He and Zack tweaked a few of his textures to fix the problem. Then they exported the model files back into Unity, where James continued to finalize the texturing.

Once James was satisfied with his castle and its accompanying meadow scene, he and Zack got to work on his character. To function as the player in James’ game, she needs to be able to respond to movement controls, so James and Zack gave her a “rig” – the digital equivalent of puppet strings – in order to attach animations. Once they got the character into Unity, they programmed her as the player, with the ability to navigate the scene and interact with its assets. While there’s still more tweaking to do, James’ game already looks amazing!

Awesome work here, James! It’s not easy building assets and games from scratch like you do. You’ve also come a long way in learning Unity! Zack’s proud of you, and so are we. Thanks for sharing your project with us. We’re excited to see what you do next!