This is the manual for Indigo for SketchUp - the Indigo exporter for SketchUp.
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Indigo Manual > Indigo for SketchUp > Installation
Installing SkIndigo from a RBZ file
The Indigo for SketchUp (SkIndigo) extension is available in the standard .rbz format for SketchUp extensions. These steps will describe how to install the extension.
The Plugins Menu
The Plugins Menu is the primary place to access SkIndigo functionality, open dialogues and start rendering.
Toolbar
After SkIndigo has been installed, a small toolbar is added to the SketchUp user interface for easy access to commonly used export functionality from the menu:
Right-Click Menu
SkIndigo adds some features to the context-sensitive right-click menu in SketchUp.
Indigo Manual > Indigo for SketchUp > Right-Click Menu
Instancing
Instancing is a feature which allows many instances (or copies) of a mesh to be represented in the scene, while only actually storing the mesh once (thereby saving a lot of memory compared to straight-forward duplication).
There are two ways this can be achieved in SkIndigo:
Indigo Manual > Indigo for SketchUp > Right-Click Menu
UV Mapping
UV mapping is the process of modifying the texture map to fit the model. SkIndigo supports 4 UV maps per mesh face, which means you can have a the texture map aligned one way, the bump a different way, and the clip map another way on every surface in your scene.
SketchUp has a basic UV positioning function that is used to manipulate the textures. It is also very important that the faces are facing the correct direction, if the UV mapping function is not listed in the Right-click SkIndigo menu, then try reversing the faces.
Material Editor
This is where you can add the unique Indigo material settings to your objects so they behave realistically. You can find it via: Plugins -> SkIndigo Material Editor. See Indigo Materials for full information.
To work with an Indigo material, simply open up the SkIndigo Material Editor and apply any SketchUp material to an object. The painted material will be selected in the SkIndigo Material Editor. There are other ways to select a material for the SkIndigo Material Editor:
Render Settings
The Render Settings Window configures the scene for export to Indigo.
Find it at Plugins > SkIndigo > Render Settings
Indigo Manual > Indigo for SketchUp > Render Settings
Clay Mode
If the SketchUp Face Style is set to Monochrome, SkIndigo will export the scene in Clay mode.
This is where all the materials are replaced with a grey diffuse material. This can be helpful for checking geometry and lighting without being distracted by materials.
To enable clay mode, Go to the View menu in SketchUp, then select Face Style > MonoChrome
Clay mode disabled Clay mode enabled SkIndigo Tutorial
This tutorial goes over generating a simple scene and lighting it a few different ways. The scene will be a typical German apartment with white walls, wood flooring and some furniture from Ikea. We won't be modelling the garage with an Audi, dog called Schatzi and traditional lederhosen.
This tutorial was done for SketchUp 2013 free version; your SketchUp may look slightly different, and basic familiarity with SketchUp (e.g. navigation and selection) is assumed.
Indigo Manual > Indigo for SketchUp > SkIndigo Tutorial
Step 1. Create the basic room
First up we will model the room. Start by drawing a rectangle on the ground and another rectangle just inside it. Your rectangle should be 12 metres by 12 metres, look at the dimensions box in the bottom right of your window to see the size as you drag the box out.
The ground plan of our room
Use the push/pull tool to make the walls 3.5 metres high. We won't put a roof on the box just yet so that we can see inside it. The next step is to put a big floor-to-ceiling window at the front of our box: use the rectangle tool to draw a rectangle on the front of the box, then use the push / pool tool to push the new rectangle inwards until the wall is paper thin.
Our room with a paper thin front wall.
Now click on the paper thin wall and delete it. Don't delete the line at the top of your room, we'll need that in a second. Now press Plugins → SkIndigo → Render Scene and you will get a render like this:
Derrick standing outside his new house, in free space.
Indigo Manual > Indigo for SketchUp > SkIndigo Tutorial
Step 2. Add window and roof
For the next step, we will add a roof and a window and set a wooden texture on the floor and a glass window. Start by using the rectangle tool to enclose the roof. Then draw a rectangle on the wall of the left hand side and use the push / pull tool to push the rectangle through to the inside. Delete the paper thin wall that is left and you should have a window hole like so:
Our box room with a window and a roof.
As a final step, use the Move tool to put Derrick somewhere side the house.
Indigo Manual > Indigo for SketchUp > SkIndigo Tutorial
Step 3. Paint a wood texture on the floor
Next, press the Paint Bucket tool and the SketchUp materials dialog will open. Select wood from the selection box:
Now choose wood_floor_light as a texture. Then click on the floor. Your floor will now be textured, however to get a more realistic appearance for a varnished floor, we need to change the material type to Phong.
To do this, we first open up the SkIndigo Material Editor from the SkIndigo toolbar:
With the material open in the SkIndigo Material Editor, change the material type to Phong:
Zoom in the camera a little and hit render – your house should look like this:
Derrick in his new house with a roof, window and a floor.
Now right click on the floor and select Texture → Position. Rotate the wood texture 90”. You can also scale the wood texture if you want.
Indigo Manual > Indigo for SketchUp > SkIndigo Tutorial
Step 4. Add some carpet
Carpet is a tricky thing to model because it has so many individual fibres. The best way of creating a carpet in SkIndigo is to use what is called a displacement map.
Start by drawing a rectangle on the floor and using push/pull to make it into a box of 3cm height. Then use the select tool Edit → Make Group.
When we add a displacement map, it will make our 'carpet box' very bumpy, which means the edges of the box won't line up. To prevent gaps appearing, right click on the carpet and select Soften / Smooth Edges, choose a value of 90 degrees between normals and press enter.
Our carpet box ready to texture map.
Next, using the paintbrush tool, select the Carpets and Textiles set and the Carpet_Plush_Charcoal texture. Apply it to the carpet box. Right click on the carpet box and choose SkIndigo → Edit [Carpet_Plush_Charcoal]. The SkIndigo Material Editor will open:
SketchUp material editor
Note that the Albedo channel (which means the color of the material) is already set to the SketchUp carpet texture.
Now, change the displacement map to 'SketchUp' which will tell SkIndigo to use the current SketchUp texture as the displacement map. Then change the value to 0.05 which will give a maximum displacement of 0.05 meters where the map pixel value is pure white. Be sure to enable displacement mapping by clicking on the checkbox.
Press Plugins → Skindigo → Render Scene, you may note that the carpet looks all triangulated and bumpy. You may need to increase the 'detail' of the carpet by adding more subdivisions. Right-click the group and, from the Edit Active Mesh dialog, increase Max Subdivisions to at least 9. Also, uncheck the box for 'View Dependent'. This setting will decrease the amount of subdivision for geometry that is farther away from the camera, but we'll leave this optimisation for now.
Render the scene again.
Derrick admires his nice grey carpet.
Indigo Manual > Indigo for SketchUp > SkIndigo Tutorial
Step 5. Add a chair and lamp
Use Windows → Components menu to show the components window. Search for Barcelona chair and insert one into the scene. Then search for Kare 5701 (a lamp) and insert it into the scene too.
Scene with a lamp and chair added.
In the Material Window click New Material to create a new material. Name this material 'Chrome' and apply it to all of the surfaces of the lamp (Use SkIndigo → Edit [Chrome]). Then, in the SkIndigo Material Editor, change the material type to Metals, and select the Chrome preset from the dropdown box.
If you now render the scene, it should look like this:
Lamp has a shiny material applied.
Indigo Manual > Indigo for SketchUp > SkIndigo Tutorial
Step 6. Adding nighttime lighting
Now we will try adding a lightbulb inside the lamp and taking a night scene. Start by turning off the sun by going to Plugins → SkIndigo → Render Settings, then Environment. Select SketchUp background color and make sure Black is selected like so:
Now we need to add a light inside the lamp. Double click the lamp to edit it, then look inside the lampshade and create or select the lighbulb inside it (your lamp may look slightly different, you may have to create the lightbulb yourself).
Create a new material called Lightbulb, then right click on the bulb SkIndigo → Edit [Lightbulb] material, then set the Albedo to be a constant black (since we don't want the lightbulb itself to reflect light), and set the Emission layer to 0 in the Emission section of the material editor.
Our house illuminated from a single 5000K emitter.
Indigo Manual > Indigo for SketchUp > SkIndigo Tutorial
Step 7. Finetuning
The trick to getting really realistic renders from SketchUp + Indigo is to spend time tweaking your materials until they look just right. In this example we used models from the Google Warehouse that are relatively low in polygon count, so don't look ultra realistic, but by carefully editing the materials used on the models you can make the scene look better and better.
One of the advantages of Indigo is that if you set a 100 Watt lightbulb in a lamp, you can see how the light will fall off around the room, useful for doing lighting analysis – will you need more light fittings in the corner of the room?
To increase the realism of this scene, you could:
As you can see there are many options that you can tweak to get the best possible results out of Indigo.
Creating ultra realistic scenes that look like something from the real world is usually achieved by recreating all of the models in the scene with accurate geometry, and then spending 30-40% of your time modifying materials in the scene to ensure that they are as realistic as you would like them to be.
We hope you have enjoyed this brief introduction to SkIndigo.
MaterialsTexture Scaling
Often you will need to change how rapidly a texture or material is repeated over a surface. This is referred to as texture scaling, or sometimes as UV-scaling.
Suppose you have a material where the texture is too 'stretched-out'.
We can fix this by changing the texture scaling.
In SketchUp, show the material dialog with Window -> Materials.
Select the material you wish to scale with the picker tool. In our case we will select the wood material on the ground object.
Click on the 'Edit' tab.
In the 'Texture' section, change the horizontal width to a smaller value, such as 0.3 m.
The texture should now repeat more rapidly over the surface, in SketchUp and in Indigo as well, when the scene is exported again.
Procedural Materials
The same technique can be used for procedural materials, which may not use a texture map. In this case, you can use a 'dummy' texture, by clicking 'Use texture image' in the Materials edit tab, and then selecting a dummy texture. The dummy texture will be displayed in the SketchUp viewport, but will not affect the Indigo render.
SkIndigo on Windows Tutorial
This tutorial will cover getting Indigo running with Google SketchUp on your computer running Microsoft Windows. We will use the SkIndigo exporter to export scenes from SketchUp to Indigo.
You can use either the free or the commercially licensed Indigo version to follow this tutorial; the free version will add a watermark to the final renders and limit the resolution to 0.7 megapixels.
Step 1: Install SketchUp
If you already have SketchUp installed, you can skip this step.
Download and install SketchUp from here: http://www.sketchup.com/intl/en/download/
Step 2: Download Indigo Renderer
The latest version of Indigo Renderer can be downloaded from this page: http://www.indigorenderer.com/download-indigo-renderer
If you have a 32-bit operating system, or you are not sure, download Indigo Renderer for Windows 32-bit.
If you have a 64-bit operating system, download Indigo Renderer for Windows 64-bit.
Step 3: Install Indigo Renderer
Once you have downloaded the Indigo installer program in Step 2, run the installer program.
If the installer asks you 'Do you want to allow the following program to make changes to this computer,' select 'Yes.' Please carefully read the licence agreement, then click 'I Agree.'
On the 'Choose Components' page, leave all components selected, and press 'Next >'
On the 'Choose Install Location' page, leave the Destination Folder as it is, and press 'Install.'
Press 'Finish'. Indigo will open after installation; close it for now, since we'll be using it via SkIndigo.
Step 4: Open Sketchup
You should now see the new SkIndigo tool bar:
Step 5: Enable extension in SketchUp 2016
In SketchUp 2016 you may need to enable the extension in the preferences.
Select Window > Preferences from the main menu.
Under Extensions, enable SkIndigo.
Step 6: Render with Indigo
Press the 'Render with Indigo' button in the SkIndigo tool bar:
If everything has been installed successfully, Indigo should launch, and start rendering the default scene immediately:
TutorialsModelling a pool in SketchUpIntroduction
In this tutorial I will show how to model a simple swimming pool in SketchUp and Indigo, with nice caustics at the bottom of the pool. This is what we will be making:
Model the pool ground and walls
Create a quad like so:
Create a rectangle in the middle of the quad:
Using the Push/Pull tool, push the middle down to create the pool recess:
Create the water volume
Create a cuboidal volume for the pool water. It needs to be somewhat larger than the pool recess along all axes.
Create the water material
Create a new SketchUp material called 'water' or similar.
Set the opacity to something around 50% to make sure the water material is transparent.
Apply the material to all faces of the water volume.
Move the water volume into place
Move the water volume into place with the move tool. The sides of the water volume should extend past the pool recess like so:
Finishing the water material
We need to set a couple of settings in the water material - some absorption to give the water a blue/green tint, and some displacement, to create the water ripples.
Open the SkIndigo material editor, and make sure the 'water' material is selected.
Change the material type to 'specular':
Change the Absorption type to 'none'.
Click the dotted button to the right of 'Absorption'.
Set the RGB absorption to R: 0.2, G: 0.12, B: 0.1:
Now we need to create the displacement shader.
Check the 'Displace' checkbox in the SkIndigo material editor,and set the type to 'Shader'. Now click on the dotted button to the right of 'Displace'. Paste the following shader code in to the shader editor:
def eval() real :
fbm(posOS() * 2.0, 2) * 0.02
Like so:
What this shader does is displace the water surface by up to 2 cm (0.02 m), based on some pseudo-random noise (fbm) based on the object-space position (posOS).
If you want to make the ripples higher, you an increase the 0.02 number. If you want to make the ripples more closely spaced, you can increase the 2.0 number. Setting subdivision on the water volume
We want to make sure that only the water volume mesh gets subdivided.
To do this, first make sure the entire water volume object is fully selected by triple-clicking on it:
Now right click on it, and choose 'Make Group'.
Now double-click on the group to select it. This should grey everything else out:
Now right click on the pool volume and choose 'Edit Active Mesh' from near the bottom of the menu. It should say something like 'Group#1 (6 faces)' at the top of the SkIndigo Mesh Settings dialog.
Set 'Max Subdivisions' to 8. This will turn each original quad face into 4^8 = 65536 subdivided faces.
Also un-check the 'View Dependent' checkbox, and set 'Curvature Threshold' to zero: Make the final render
First off, we have to change the render mode to Bidirectional with MLT:
This is very important as it's the most efficient mode for rendering these kind of caustics.
Position the camera above the pool, then press the 'Render in Indigo' button.
After a while, you should get an image like this:
You may have to be a little patient waiting for the render - even with bidirectional MLT, it can still take a while.
You can download the SketchUp scene (.skp) file here.
Setting up interior lights mixed with sun+sky lighting
We will start with a kitchen scene, downloaded from the SketchUp 3d Warehouse, with some walls added:
By default this will render in Indigo with Sun+sky illumination, resulting in a render like this:
We now want to set up the lights hanging above the bench so they emit enough light to be visible.
First off, we want to add a quad in each light fixture which will emit the light.
A single quad results in the most efficient rendering. The quad should not be too small (otherwise it will make specular reflections noisier). It is also important that the front side of the quad is pointing down - as in Indigo by default, light is emitted from the front side of a surface only.
The next step is to create a new SketchUp material. I have called mine 'light mat'. Since I have the SkIndigo material editor open (you can open the SkIndigo material editor from the SkIndigo toolbar) it shows and allows me to edit the 'light mat'. You will also want to assign the your new material to the new quads you have created.
The next step is to edit your new material so it emits light.
You can do this by expanding the Emitter Attributes section, then setting the Layer to something like 1, and setting the Emission Scale to something like 100000 lm. Note that the emission scale needs to be very high for the light to be easily visible in daylight.
And that's all there is to it!
Since we put the interior lights on light layer 1, we can use the light layer controls in Indigo to view the contribution of the interior lights separately from the sun+sky lighting (see the layer thumbnails on the right):
Using exit portals in SketchUpIntroduction
Exit portals (often abbreviated as EP) are a way for artists to assist the rendering engine in difficult lighting situations, by specifying a 'portal' through which light will travel. These are very useful for interior renders, where there is a relatively small opening letting in a lot of light (such as a window) that is not easily accessed - in such scenes, there is often a dramatic increase in convergence speed (since light-carrying paths are much more easily constructed).
In the example below both images rendered for 5 minutes, the only difference being the presence or absence of exit portals (click to enlarge):
Requirements and limitations
There are several requirements for exit portals to work effectively:
Finally, note that nothing gets rendered behind an exit portal: when a light ray strikes the portal it is assumed to immediately 'exit' or escape to the background / environment, without considering any other objects in the scene.
Modelling with exit portals
We now show how to convert a simply modelled room with an opening into a scene using exit portals in SketchUp. The scene below shows an interior space, illuminated only by two openings which allow sunlight in:
Next we create quads to cover the openings, corner to corner. There should be no gaps, and to really make sure this is the case it could be made slightly bigger than the opening and fitted inside to slightly intersect the surrounding geometry.
The next step is crucial to stop these quads being part of the surrounding geometry (and therefore sharing its material settings): select the quads to become exit portals, right click on them, and make them a group. You should see them marked as a blue group:
To turn them into exit portals, simply use the exit portal material type for the object.
With the exit portal created, we can now export to Indigo and enjoy the much faster convergence.
If Indigo reports an error such as 'Error: Scene parsing error: Model (UID 42) has a different number of materials than geometry material references', it means that the exit portal quad was merged with the surrounding objects. This won't work because we need only the quad to be flagged as an exit portal.
Make sure that the front face of your exit portal object is pointing inwards into the scene!
You may need to flip the group along an axis to achieve this.
Thanks to Filippo Scarso / Pibuz for the example scene and helpful suggestions.
Using orthographic cameras with SketchUpIntroduction
Orthographic cameras remove the perspective effects normally seen in a 3D rendered image. This is sometimes desirable for technical illustration or architectural visualisation purposes.
In this tutorial we'll cover the steps required to render with orthographic cameras in SketchUp, as well as cover some potential pitfalls with their use.
Switching from perspective to parallel projection
We start with the normal (perspective projection) camera, which will give the normal depth cues such as distant objects being smaller, in a simple scene with some boxes:
We now select the Parallel Projection option from the Camera menu, which will enable the orthographic camera mode:
With this applied, we can immediately see the viewport change to remove all perspective effects.
The zoom level may need adjusting to keep the same part of the scene in view; bear in mind that this is actually changing the camera's sensor size, so if you're rendering a building it will need a building-sized camera.
Pitfalls
Orthographic cameras require Indigo 3.4.4 or newer; earlier versions will report an error when attempting to render scenes which have a non-perspective camera defined.
The orthographic camera must be at least as large as the objects in view, since they are directly projected (parallel rays) without any perspective effects which might otherwise allow large objects in the distance to be viewed with a much smaller sensor.
One potential pitfall with large camera sensors is that they may intersect other scene geometry (e.g. go through walls), especially different media (e.g. go through glass or water), causing problems.
The former will result in open spaces between surfaces, which may or may not receive light, while the latter can be more problematic; Indigo currently (as of 3.4.8) assumes that the camera is in a single medium, which is usually a reasonable assumption, however with the large sensors sometimes used in orthographic rendering, this assumption is more likely to break down.
Using section planes in SketchUpIntroduction
Section planes allow you to create 'cut-away' renders of scenes without having to change the (potentially complex) underlying geometry, using oriented planes to slice away obstructing sections from view. This is related to cut-away diagrams classically used in technical illustration.
In this tutorial we'll cover using SketchUp's section planes with Indigo version 3.4 or newer.
Adding and enabling sections
The first thing we'll need to do is enable the Sections toolbar if it is not already enabled; this can be done via the 'View' menu, under 'Toolbars' -> 'Sections':
With these controls available, we can now add a section plane using the first tool on the toolbar (Section Plane):
Once the plane has been placed and oriented as desired, we must right-click on it and select 'Enable Section Plane' from the SkIndigo sub-menu:
If we now render the scene with Indigo, we see that the section to the front of the section plane is rendered, and the rest has been clipped away:
Multiple section planes can be used together in this manner, to cut away whichever parts of the scene are obstructing an important interior view. There is no performance penalty for using one or many section planes, as they are processed at load-time; however, if a section plane intersects a complex mesh, it may require a considerable amount of extra memory to process during loading.
Pitfalls
If the section plane intersects any media in the scene, there is a chance that the medium definition will become inconsistent.
For example, if a glass pane is sliced by a section plane such that one of the sides is removed, the geometry containing the medium will be open, which can cause rendering problems.
Using the material database in SketchUp
This tutorial will cover how to download and use materials from the online material database using the SkIndigo exporter for SketchUp.
The Indigo Material Database can be found at http://www.indigorenderer.com/materials/
There are two ways to use materials from the online database in SketchUp/SkIndigo: loading directly into SketchUp, and externally linking to downloaded materials. We'll cover both options in sequence, starting with the simpler direct import method.
Importing directly into SketchUp
Alternative method: Linked IGM
It is however possible, that the material cannot be represented properly within SketchUp, since it is not a physically-based renderer. In such situations, SketchUp will present a warning dialog suggesting it be used as a 'linked' material:
The SketchUp to Hammer export plugin allows you to create models in Google SketchUp and then export them to the .vmf format for use in Hammer, the world editor for the Source game engine. Hammer is used to create game levels for games such as Half Life 2, Portal, Counter-Strike, and Left 4 Dead.
How it works
First you create groups of 3D geometry in SketchUp. Each group is typically a simple 'solid' form such as a box or cylinder, or anything with a convex topology. The plugin translates each group/component into a Hammer 'brush'. If a component is named a certain way, it will export not as a brush, but rather as an 'entity' which can be a light or other prop. If you've named your materials with the game's naming convention, the specified game materials will be assigned to brush faces. The result is a .VMF file, which is a source (raw) file that can be opened directly in Hammer.
Once in Hammer, you can further edit and append game level, as well as compile or 'bake' your level into a .BSP file. BSP files can be loaded and played directly by Source engine games. You can build levels in either Hammer or Sketchup, or, most probably, you'll find it handy to go back and forth, making building blocks in SketchUp, importing the pieces into Hammer, and then using cut and paste to aggregate them bit by bit into a final map using Hammer.
SketchUp is useful for making quick mockups or complex brushes, but it doesn't support all of the game features. Hammer is a full-featured game level editor, and it's where you'll want to end up doing your later stage work. This is especially true if you plan on making high-quality, releasable game levels.
If you're new to editing game levels using Source, it's recommended that you visit the Level Design documentation pages. There you'll find the best source of information on how to setup and get started using Hammer.
Installation
See the main SketchUp Source Tools page for detailed installation instructions.
You may also need a previous version of SketchUp as the available plugins have not been updated for SketchUp 2016 and beyond.
Textures
Currently you are required to manually create materials in SketchUp based on the materials you want to use from the Source Engine.The only requirement is that the name of the material match the name of the .vmt file in hammer. Include the full path, i.e. 'concrete/concretewall01a'.
Exporting maps
Let's start by going through the entire map exporting process with a simple example map. You're probably itching to draw your own map right away, but it's recommended that you make sure you can export, import, compile, and run this test map first.
To Start, launch Sketchup and load the file 'myfirst_su_level.skp'. It is provided with the plugins and can be found in the
valve_library folder, typically found here:
First loading 'myfirst_su_level.skp'
1. The game map is a simple box volume with a few objects inside. The large, boxy objects are drawn so that they will export to hammer as 'brushes', or solid building blocks in the game. In order to make a game level that runs properly, the 'habitable' volume must be fully enclosed by brushes. In this example, the front box that fully encloses the habitable space has been hidden so that we can see inside. You can unhide it if you want: From the menu bar, go to the Edit menu and select Unhide > All. The volume inside is 'watertight', fully sealed from the outside space. Go ahead and click the tab at the top of the 3D window labeled 'Scene 2'
info_player_start Entity
2. The box with the green figure is a SketchUp object that has been named '
ENT_info_player_start '. When this file is exported as a .vmf and opened in Hammer, this object will become an entity called 'info_player_start ' and tell the game engine where to initially place your point of view. Go ahead and click the tab at the top of the 3D window labeled 'Scene 3'.
Light Entity
3. This is another object named '
ENT_LIGHT ' it will export to the game as, you guessed it, a light. You can edit the properties of this light later when you get it inside Hammer. Click the tab labeled 'Scene 4'.
Painted Surfaces
4. Some of the surfaces in the model have been painted with materials. Click on the Paint Bucket tool (icon) on the toolbar, and then click on the home icon of the window that pops up. This shows you materials that are being used in the scene. If you hover over the brick texture, you'll see that this material has been named '
dev/dev_brickwall012d '. This corresponds to a material that shipped with Left 4 Dead. When materials are given game pathnames like this, they will come into Hammer with those material assignments.
5. Let's make sure everything is set up properly. Go ahead and, from the menu bar, select Plugins > Export VMF... When prompted, use the default name '
myfirst_su_level.vmf ', and save the file somewhere convenient like your desktop.
Note:If you recieve a message about 'Unsupported Stuff', you may safely ignore it. The plugin doesn't know what to do with the text callouts in this tutorial. If you delete them, the message should go away.
6. Start Steam, go to the Tools tab, and launch 'Left 4 Dead Authoring Tools'. Click 'Hammer World Editor' from the list. When Hammer launches, open the .vmf file that you exported in the previous step. Your map should appear in wireframe.
7. From Hammer's View menu, select 3D Shaded Textured Polygons The 3D Camera View in the upper left hand corner should now appear solid. We'll dive into Hammer more a bit later.
8. In the Hammer window, select File > Run Map.... Leave the default options and click OK.
9. Hammer will process the map and calculate lighting. When it's done, it will launch Left 4 Dead and open the new map. Dismiss the 'Map is unplayable!' message. You should now be in game!
Note:The 'Map is unplayable!' message comes up because the game needs something called a navigation mesh for the AI-controlled characters. But we don't need one to walk around and view the level. You can learn how to make nav meshes later.
Next, let's add your own forms in SketchUp...
Creating your own brushes
1. Exit the game and go back to your SketchUp model. We're going to make some changes, so it's best to do a quick Save As... to a new file somewhere.
2. Click on the 'Scene 2' tab to position the camera next to a good drawing surface.
3. Activate the Rectangle Tool. You can activate it from either the toolbar or the Draw menu. Make a rectangle on the ground by clicking and dragging across the floor surface.
4. Activate the Push/Pull Tool. You can activate it from either the toolbar or the Tools menu. Click and drag the rectangle you created previously to extrude it into a box.
5. Let's get a different perspective of this brush in 3D. Click this icon to activate the Orbit Tool and press and drag your mouse across the 3D screen. This orbits your view. view. You can also hold down your middle mouse button to orbit while in other tool modes. You may also activate it through the main menubar with Camera > Orbit.
6. Use your mouse scroll wheel to zoom in and out. Alternatively, you can use the Zoom Tool icon or the Camera > Zoom menu item.
7. Next reactivate the Push/Pull Tool and press and drag the sides of the box. This allows you to adjust it's sides. Try not to make it too big; it should be a small object inside the overall box for now.
8. Activate the Select Tool and drag a rectangle around the box from left to right. This will select all of its faces and edges. Make sure that you've selected only the box, and not the 2D figure or anything else as well. If you select from right to left, it will select anything that intersects your box, and that may include geometry behind the box by mistake. Another handy way to select the whole box alone is to triple click one of its faces.
9. From the Edit menu, select Make Group. Your box should now be grouped and highlighted. Congratulations! You've made your first game building block! This box will now appear as solid to the player when imported into the game.
10. Activate the Move Tool and click on the box. It should follow your cursor until you your mouse button a second time. Now try the same action while holding down the CTRL key. Now you're making copies... Make as many copies as you like. It's OK if they overlap one another in volume.
11. Try clicking on the small red 'plus' signs that appear when you hover over the boxes with the move tool. This allows you to rotate each box along that side.You can use the Select Tool to deselect a box, or to select one or more boxes.
12. Try activating the Scale Tool from the Tools menu, and stretching the building blocks in different directions.
13. Let's go ahead and try exporting again. From the Plugins menu, select Export Hammer VMF... Again, you will be prompted for a file location. Notice that the default name of the .vmf is filled in using the name of your SketchUp file. Go ahead and save it. When you switch back to Hammer, you'll see the previous unchanged .VMF map. Go ahead and close it, then open the updated .VMF that you just saved. You should see your new changes, and if you run the map as before, you should see your changes in game.
You're now on your way to making awesome levels. There's a lot of stuff to learn when you're starting out making game content, but you can do it. If you run into stumbling blocks, remember to visit the Level Design documentation pages. Hammer tips
Like all Source Engine tools, Hammer has standard content folders. It's preferable that .vmf files be saved in the
sdk_contentmapsrc directory. The default location for mapsrc in Left 4 Dead is:
After you've opened the .VMF file you saved from SketchUp in Hammer, it's handy to have a look around.
1. You can navigate the 3D view in the upper right corner using the WASD keys, similar to how you walk in the game.
2. If you tap the Z key, the mouse will switch from a cursor to 'look around' mode. This mimics how you look around in game and is handy to use while pressing the WASD keys. Tap Z again to switch back to mouse cursor mode.
3. If your 3D view is in wireframe, you can, from the 'View' menu, select '3D Textured Shaded Polygons' You will notice that the plugin has created a green '
player_start ' location as well as light entities where their SketchUp components were placed.
4. Learn more about navigating in Hammer here.
Modeling tips
Exporting .VMF for other Source Engine games
Source Engine games released prior to Left 4 Dead use a separate SDK (Software Development Kit) which includes their own version of Hammer. You can use the SketchUp plugin that comes with the Left 4 Dead authoring Tools to export .VMFs for these games as well. To get the SDK:
Note:You can find a few game specific entities (components) in the valve_library folder. To create new entities, you need SketchUp Pro. The free version can only duplicate and rename already existing entities. (changes to any entity will effect all duplicates)
Known bugs
Comments and bugs
See also
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