Welcome to the third installment of our tutorial on creating fantasy pre-fab scenery using gameSpace. In the previous two sections we looked at the creation of a simple wall segment for our scenery set. This time we will look at some other scenery possibilities and see how a level built with our models might look!
 

In cooking shows the host always has about six separate batches going at once - first it's on the counter, then in a bowl, rising in the cupboard, baking in the oven, getting salivated over by some drunken French lady (you know we love you J.C.) It's an expedient way to show a lot of activity in a short bit of time and we've used it here as well.

Below you will see eight additions to our scenery collection in the gameSpace real-time display and with their texture and UV maps opened for editing. These were made using the same methods we used on our wall in the previous two tutorial sections. For the most part the geometry and UV layout is quite simple. The textures, too, are very similar, with some minor changes where appropriate - especially on the fancier column and the doorway.

You can see the objects below, along with their UV mappings - just click on any image for a larger version to see more detail!
 

As you can see we've used much the same styling on each piece. It's a little boring but, if you think about it, your levels should have areas that are internally consistent - in this case we've gone for a 'mausoleum' sort of look. For your own components you should think about building lots of style sets so that you can build varied levels.

For our set we have taken the basic wall design, sans niche, and expanded it into a corner piece and a dead-end hallway. We've also created an open hallway and a hallway with a door in the center - with a door object designed to fit the opening. There are also a couple of columns, designed to cover the gap that appears when two wall sections meet at an outside corner. One of these is styled like the wall itself and the other is more ornate.

We've also created one 'special' object - a slightly evil looking 'fountain' that could serve as the centerpiece of a room. Imagine it with a shower of sparks flowing from the top opening and with animated, glowing lava/water in the basin. Of course, special effects like these will have to be added in the game engine itself.
 

Finally, not pictured, we have also created a floor section (a simple square at ground level) and a roof section (the same as the floor, but placed to match the top of the walls). These are very simple objects, but you could certainly have many different textures for variation. For the floor object alternatives, with pits or other features, could be created.

There is certainly a lot more we could do! We could more components to our mausoleum set (how about a sarcophagus or wall niches with skeletons?), additional scenery sets, decorations like barrels and torches and banners, the list goes on. Let's stop here, though, and see how a level made with these components might look. Below we've created a little sample.

Here we've just created a new scene and loaded in each component in turn. Positioning is easy, because we've build them to fit nicely within a 10x10 unit square. Simply click on an object and go to the Object Info window to change its X any Y positions in multiples of 10. To change the way a wall faces just change its rotation in Z in increments of 90 (i.e. -180, -90, 0, 90, 180). Not too bad for a few hours work!

Getting all of this into a game depends an awful lot on the game engine you are using and what other tools you have at your disposal. In a 'game language' like DarkBASIC Pro or Blitz3D you can simply create a scene and camera and load in the components one by one (you'll have to save them to X format or another compatible format) and position them in the scene. You may or may not have to load and apply the textures separately - depending on the format you choose and the engine you are using.

Another option is to use a tool like gile[s], available from our partners The Game Creators, to assemble your level, perform special light processing, and save the whole thing out as a single X (or B3D or DBO) file. You can then load this into your game engine directly - with nice lighting effects built in.

For engines that are more picky about their scenery (mainly those that use some sort of BSP format) you may need to make sure that your pre-fabs conform to their requirements - especially those that don't allow concave surfaces, 'open models', or other 'degenerate geometry'.

Now it's up to you! Go build some scenery and load it up. Start simple and try more complex components as you gain confidence. Down the road we'll be following up this tutorial with a closer look at using pre-fabs in specific game creation tools, making some of those decorations we talked about, and more.