Asset Creation: Maya Scenography Modeling - Creating Games with Unity and Maya - page 17

remaining parts of the level, you can simply use the versions that are included
on the web site ( http://www.Creating3dGames.com ). However, if you're looking
to make sure your game modeling skills are tight, be sure to attempt the
challenges at the end of the chapter and complete the entire level by yourself.

Tutorial 2.1: Game Level Modeling:
The Entryway
The entry of the Balaklava facility is a great place to start. First, the parts that
make up the entry are largely rectilinear. Anything man-made and rectilinear
is easily created in 3D applications. Second, all these rectilinear forms are a
perfect trap for beginning modelers—a trap to create shapes that neither
produce the appropriate sense of age or dirt. Over the course of the tutorials,
we will look at taking a simple geometric space and making it look like it's
been around for a while ( Figure 2.6 ).

Warnings and Pitfalls
I know it's tempting to
skip this step since you're
anxious to get started.
Worse, I see lots of
students who don't quite
understand this step
and skip it because it
doesn't seem important.
But keeping track of
your assets is critical to
success in projects as
diverse as games. Create
and Set your project in
Maya. You must know
that your texture files
are in the sourceimages
folder, and that your
scene files are in your
scenes folder.

Step 1: Double-check you've got a project set up called “Incursion-Maya.”
If you don't, or don't know how, check out Appendix A.
Step 2: Choose File>Save Scene (Options).
Step 3: Check Incremental Save and click Save Scene.

Why?
Incremental Saves are insurance policies. What happens is that each
time a scene is saved, Maya makes a copy of the scene from the last time
it was saved and saves it to a folder called incrementalSaves. This does
mean that there are lots of copies of your file, but it makes sure that in
the catastrophic case of corrupted files you have a backup. Even if you
run out of Undo's, an incrementalSaves folder means you can go back
in time to what you wanted or needed. Every single semester I have
taught, incremental saves have saved at least one student's project.

Step 4: In File Name: enter EntryWay and click the Save button. Note that
if the project has been defined correctly, you are in the Incursion-Maya\
scenes folder.

Figure 2.6 Completed model at the
end of this tutorial.