Getting into CAD - How do I start?

Dev Zone Game Development
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Hello humans and other creatures!

My name is Ryder and I'm new around here, so hello to everyone! I've made an account here because I've browsed around the forum a bit and boy, you guys really know your stuff so I'm hoping maybe you guys can telepathically transmit all of your knowledge to me so that I can continue my agenda for taking over the world, or perhaps help me get started in CAD/Game Development/Modeling.

So here's the deal, I want to make a small and simple game. I want to model a house or a room, and I want the "character" or camera so be able to walk around the room and change the colors of certain items, turn on lights, music, and initiate animations. Some of you I know could do this in no time at all, but my experience is limited to basic Unreal Engine and Sketchup use. My time frame for this project is hopefully anywhere between a week and a year so if I have to read book after book, interrogate some of you geniuses, or possibly attempt to communicate with the extra terrestrials for information, I most certainly will.

Here are some of the things I know I will need to learn:

  • Modeling items such as furniture, rooms, and other equipment.

  • Importing items from CAD programs to Unreal and placing them in desired locations.

  • Animation and Unreal scripts.

I'm sure I've missed quite a few things but I'm determined to learn and accomplish. If anyone is willing to give me direct help, resources, video tutorials, or even basic tips and pointers, I'd be greatly appreciative and you'd be doing me such great service.

Thanks guys, I'll try to be on here often and if we manage to get anywhere, I'll be posting updates as they come.

Peace!

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I learned CAD from this:

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There are some great guides on the Unreal 4 youtube channel. Its been quite a while since I used it, but these were a fantastic intro. You can import models from sketchup into UE4, you may need to export them as a different file type, but it wasn't an involved process at all.

You could also use something like Blender (which is free) for making models/animations. There are some easy to follow guides for that below too.

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From the sounds of it, you want to make static objects for enviroments, and also a little dabble in animation.

For games generally, you're going to want to stay away from software with 'CAD' in their name, even though yes making things for games could come under the umbrella 'Computer Aided Design' however generally that software that's tagged with CAD normally isn't what you want.

Industry standard software for making assets though, of course there is Blender and I'm not dissming it's power, but from a pure industry standard software you'll want to take a look at the following:

Autodesk 3DSMAX - Very nice modeller, that's why it's great for games
Autodesk Maya - Very powerful Animation (it can do modelling, but it can be a little dicky)
Modo 10 - Very powerful modeller again, Modo also has an indie version on steam for deadly cheap.

Now, also for games when we're creating assets we need to have a 'high resolution source' for Tanget Space Normal Map baking, so to sum it up we have a lovely sculpted or high res modelled model, and we do something called 'baking.' It captures all that lovely information and put it into a texture what the engine can read to display more detail on a low poly model.

If you google Normal Map, and go to Polycount Wiki you'll find out a giggle ton of information on the subject. However! You'll want to look into sculpting on actual assets, and that again there is others but industary standard :

Pixologic Zbrush
Autodesk Mudbox

Best advice I can give you? Forget books. Get yourself a Digital Tutors sub, and learn one thing at a time, IE modelling, or animation. Follow their learning paths and they'll get you up to speed.
Even at my professional level, I still keep a Digital Tutors sub, and use it, they're very amazing to learn.

If you need any advice, please feel free to reply here or PM me if it's easier.

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www.onshape.com

Go play around with it

When asked about how you want it or what not I said solidworks because that is what I am familiar with

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I have no experience whatsoever in UE, but I do know something about CAD...

First of all, get rid of (s)ketchup

I´d add Autodesk Fusion 360 (free for less than 100k revenue and similar to solidworks), which is not meant to do this job, but is a very powerful and efficient modeling tool. (I´ve seen some game devs use it, because of the superior workflow)

The official youtube channel is full of great tutorials on every aspect of the program.

(NYC CNC also makes great tutorials from a machining standpoint)

I´d also suggest that you familiarize yourself with CAD first, before starting to model the parts used in the game.

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I've seen it used to make a few weapons, I've not tried it myself. But I agree you'll want to familiar yourself with general modelling before even trying to import something into a game, because there is a lot more to it, then just "I haz model now let's just import it all good and dandy"

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