Thomas Quick-Draw

Remember Thomas? He’s working with instructor Mike M. as part of Game-U’s Accelerate program. Virtual reality is Thomas’ latest project, and he’s building a VR shooter game using Unity and Blender.

Last lesson, Mike M. introduced Thomas to Blender, a modeling tool, so he could create props for his shooter game. Back in Probuilder, another modeling tool, Thomas used mirroring to quickly and accurately create a symmetrical prop. Mirroring comes in handy in Blender, too, so Mike M. had Thomas make a couple swords to practice the technique in the new tool. Think cutting paper snowflakes – by folding the paper in half and snipping triangles or other shapes at the crease, the cutouts can be reflected on both sides of the snowflake’s axis (the fold), making the snowflake both symmetrical and pretty – and not to mention saving a lot of time. Mirroring uses the same principle and produces similar results. The practice sword props have a central axis, so Thomas designed a half sword, mirrored it to create a reflected half, and joined the two halves together to make a complete sword for half the effort. Voilà! Thomas moved on from the practice exercise to create a model gun and bullet for his game. Once he finished the shapes, he set the props’ materials so that the gun has a hard, black composition, and the bullet is gold and shiny. Finally, he and Mike M. spent some time tweaking the size and positioning of the props. Check out the video!

Your shooter game is shaping up, Thomas. It’s amazing the difference a few props make! Keep us updated, and especially let us know when we can play any of your builds.