Do you snap it?

Do you guys love racing games?? I hope you do, because we're currently developing another one and this one is going to be special! I'm in the middle of designing and creating some of the tracks. In one these tracks the player will enter a big parking garage, drive a few stores up and jump down on the street below. Building a low poly parking garage like this can be a daunting task....unless you create it with modules or building blocks. Most parking garage floors look similar, which makes it perfect modular modelling.

Before modeling first determine which building blocks are needed. An entrance, exit, straight parts, corners, a part which goes a level up/down etc. Now start modeling the building block, keep in mind that all blocks need to snap to each other perfectly so try to work on a grid.

The image below shows all the final building blocks I need for my level. Each block has a high poly version, low poly version and a collision object (displayed in red) which fits perfectly on the other models. In this case the low poly versions aren't used for your typical "Level Of Detail", but are used to complete the garage parts where the player can't drive. The low poly versions are copies of the high poly models, but with all detail like lamps, doors, fire hoses etc removed.

The image below shows all versions of a corner block.

With all building blocks finished it's easy to create a parking garage. A big advantage of building blocks is that it's very easy to adjust the size of (in this case) the garage. Want a few stores extra? Just snap it on!

Cheers,
Matt