External tools for internal levels

Unity Engine
1

I’ve seen a couple of posts about this before, but I’ like some more details about how people are building levels.

Unity has great features for external areas and creating terrain, then placing buildings, objects, etc into the world, but isn’t suited for modeling a structure.

I’ve been playing with Blender, but trying to create internal areas feels like fighting the tools. The snapping system in blender seems weak, and its hard to build a structure without a good grid system.

So what works well for level building and can be easily imported into Unity? If there are good ways to do this in blender, I would love to know, or find out what tools are more suited.

In the past I’ve done simple maps with Constructive Solid Geometry modelers, but are there any that can be imported into Unity?

Thanks for the help!

2

As those geometry modelers export to FBX, or a format unity can understand, you shouldn’t have any problem :slight_smile:

3

The industry likes Max and Maya for a reason. :slight_smile:

If you’re looking for simple architecture you might try Sketchup. I’m not a huge fan but I see it being used more and more for whiteboxing and general architectural details.

4

Sketchup is probably the closest thing you’ll find to a CSG-style modeler. HOWEVER, you can only export in .FBX in the pro version($$$).

For my environment/interior stuff, I do the bulk of my modeling in Sketchup, then it goes into Max for detail work, tweaks(SU makes iffy geometry sometimes), texturing and lighting. Its snaps are great and I don’t think there’s anything else out there that can compete with it for speed.