Starting with sketchup.. questions

beaudoin_n

Hi,

I had a great idea for an app today and thought it would be good to use sketchup since i need it to be semi-3D like.

So easy question first
Is there an esay way to save my result (lets' say a house) as images that can be used in gamesalad ?

I kind of want to animate the building at the same time the camera moves.. any ideas on that ?

Is there a way to make different parts of the sketchup to become different objects in GS.. kind of as layers ?

What would you recommend ?

Thanks

synthesis

Sketchup will export as a 2D or 3D image.
If you have other 3D software...you can export a 3ds file and setup animation sequence in the other software...
You can also export animation sequences to an avi file...which can then be imported into photoshop or flash as a series of still...which can then be modified within those software capabilities.
You can also export still frame 2D.

In any case...sketchup is a GREAT tool in your toolkit but works best when combined with other software.

The only limitation within sketchup animation is that you can only animate the camera...not the model.

There are several helpful tutorials on sketchup.com about animation and image exporting.

I haven't used sketchup yet with GS although I've used sketchup for about 5 years now for other things. I plan to use it with GS...just not for my current project.

synthesis

Also remember that GS is 2D based. You cannot have realtime 3D model integration like you can with other game engines (ie. Unity3D).

Sketchup is useful for creating sprite images (ie cars, spaceships, etc.) and then using the 2D "pictures" of the model as your sprite images (after photoshop processing).