Ultimate Game Design : Building game worlds

Building Game Worlds
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U L T I M A T E G A M E D E S I G N
FIGURE 2-3
Wireframe view
An important practical point needs to be made here. As previously stated, game
developers have many choices in software tools when it comes to building up world
geometry for their games. They can use commercial 3-D packages like Maya or 3ds
max along with the script systems built into these packages for customization. They
can use stand-alone level tools written specifically to generate assets compatible with
their own game engine. They often use both in several combinations.
Figure 2-4 shows a sample Maya scene constructed using some of the game developer
training materials available from Alias/Wavefront, the creators of Maya
(www.aliaswavefront.com).
Some developers choose to use Maya for art and level work, whereas others
choose to use 3ds max. There are some development studios that use a mixture of the
two packages. In the final analysis, you use whatever works best in delivering the results
you need (quickly). Maybe your programming team is more comfortable writing
tools based around MAXScript. In this case, your team might use 3ds max. These
days, both packages are extremely flexible, extensible, and powerful.