Nearly finished version of the Tatooine village. I need to finish the wall, and It needs some small details scattered around, but good enough for now.

Now you all need to help me name it!

Steps for the curious

1. Created the terrain. See my earlier post for tutorials. To be honest, terrain creation is a lot of futzing until you figure out what works.

2. Set up the Isometric camera. I want my map to feel like Icewind Dale or the upcoming Project Eternity, so my camera is isometric. Helpful tutorial here on how to do this without scripting.

3. Buildings. See below for credits. You can get any of these for free online, but textures are another matter. The Tatooine buildings in particular didn’t import nicely with textures, so I had to download a separate texture pack on the same site and sort of rebuild the materials. Very doable, but mine don’t look anywhere near as good as the author originally intended.

4. Props. Also freely available. I had a general layout in mind, which really helps.

5. Lightmapping. Not sure how I stumbled onto this, but it has made a world of difference. Basically, this is pre-rendering the shadows. They turn out nicer and don’t take as much CPU power later when you’re displaying it to everyone. Helpful tutorial here and here . The difference between using them and not is pretty huge:

Credits:

Desert Fortress by Torsten Heldmann

Tatooine buildings (and moisture vaporator) by Willi Hames

Sandcrawler by Karl Stocker and Jason Tinsley

Market stalls by Baychaser

Tents by Unity Technology

And there's ways to make assets in Blender, 3D Studio Max, Maya, Lightwave, etc... and export them into Unity for use in the game engine.

I've got Lightwave and the LWCAD plugin that I like to use to make buildings. Would be perfect for this

Kallabecca, if you end up making any buildings, could you share the 3d models? I'd love to have a little larger stable of "Star Warsy" architecture to use!

Also, any takers on naming the Tatooine village above? Any thoughts on where it ought to go planet wise?

Um, how about Mos Tocath?

Located at:

38° 53' 53.3" north lat 77° 02' 09.9" west lon

And there's ways to make assets in Blender, 3D Studio Max, Maya, Lightwave, etc... and export them into Unity for use in the game engine.

I've got Lightwave and the LWCAD plugin that I like to use to make buildings. Would be perfect for this

Kallabecca, if you end up making any buildings, could you share the 3d models? I'd love to have a little larger stable of "Star Warsy" architecture to use!

Sure.

Was this easy to learn to use? I have no experience in 3d modelling or programming - can you make decent drag-and-drop maps or is this something you have to invest time into learning? All I want is something a little better than doodles on scrap paper, not anything worthy of an adventure packet (like yours - seriously, it looks friggin beautiful)

Holy crap! Those maps are AWESOME!

I can fap to this.

I can map to this.

Fixed it for you.

I really like these maps, as well. good work. x3

Was this easy to learn to use? I have no experience in 3d modelling or programming - can you make decent drag-and-drop maps or is this something you have to invest time into learning? All I want is something a little better than doodles on scrap paper, not anything worthy of an adventure packet (like yours - seriously, it looks friggin beautiful)

Thanks all! Honestly, If you have no experience with 3d graphics, I think the learning curve will be steep. As I mentioned, the models often do not come in "nicely". IE, the textures are broken and need to be re-applied or the scale is completely wrong or they don't have complicated things called "normals" that tell the software how to render it right.

All of those problems have solutions, but it takes a bit to find them.

I honestly think Disney, or FFG for that matter, could make a mint by releasing some digital assets for tabletop gamers. I'm imagining an app for both iOS and Windows that would allow you to buy "content packs" like Tatooine or Imperial Navy or even just "jungle". They could draw from existing games like KOTOR or The Force Unleashed to push out amazing pre-built maps or provide the assets for you to build your own. Dreaming, but I'd love to see it happen. Really, I think it's a no brainer for them. Re-use existing 3d assets you have lying around and take more of our money!

Next project - a certain ship... Cookie to whoever guesses it. This is only about half of the final.

I honestly think Disney, or FFG for that matter, could make a mint by releasing some digital assets for tabletop gamers. I'm imagining an app for both iOS and Windows that would allow you to buy "content packs" like Tatooine or Imperial Navy or even just "jungle". They could draw from existing games like KOTOR or The Force Unleashed to push out amazing pre-built maps or provide the assets for you to build your own. Dreaming, but I'd love to see it happen. Really, I think it's a no brainer for them. Re-use existing 3d assets you have lying around and take more of our money!

You mean, like Star Wars Scene Maker ( https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/star-wars-scene-maker/id853282805?mt=8 )?

You mean, like Star Wars Scene Maker ( https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/star-wars-scene-maker/id853282805?mt=8 )?

have you tried this, Brad?

Next project - a certain ship... Cookie to whoever guesses it. This is only about half of the final.

**** I wish i could manipulate Unity like you do!

Was this easy to learn to use? I have no experience in 3d modelling or programming - can you make decent drag-and-drop maps or is this something you have to invest time into learning? All I want is something a little better than doodles on scrap paper, not anything worthy of an adventure packet (like yours - seriously, it looks friggin beautiful)

Thanks all! Honestly, If you have no experience with 3d graphics, I think the learning curve will be steep. As I mentioned, the models often do not come in "nicely". IE, the textures are broken and need to be re-applied or the scale is completely wrong or they don't have complicated things called "normals" that tell the software how to render it right.

All of those problems have solutions, but it takes a bit to find them.

Sounds like an issue with the way the file was exported. If normals aren't present, then the file being opened probably was made from something like NURBS (think Zbrush sculpting), or had subdivisions of one type or another enabled and weren't frozen before being exported, or there are non-planar polygons present in the model. Otherwise the normal is just part of the polygon and is calculated from the points that make up the polygon.

What format are you importing from? Unity will take in FBX files from Lightwave or 3DS Max.

You mean, like Star Wars Scene Maker ( https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/star-wars-scene-maker/id853282805?mt=8 )?

have you tried this, Brad?