Graphics Using CAD software to produce models for a 3D game

[Lumenflower]

I've been using CAD software (Namely SolidWorks, though others are available and presumably work similarly) for a while now and have always wondered whether it's a viable tool for game model development. My background is in the CAD side of things, rather than in game development and computer science, so I wouldn't know the first thing about how to import a SolidWorks part into Game Maker, but I imagine it will involve the use of some sort of converter to turn the part into a GM-recognised file type.

For those not familiar with SolidWorks, it is a brand of CAD (computer-aided design) software used for producing engineering parts and drawings. Primarily, parts are constructed from geometrical sketches rather than polygons and are therefore infinitely scalable.

I appreciate that in many contexts, such as producing complex organic shapes, another tool would be better suited to the task. However, SolidWorks would be well-suited for producing - say - a robot model, where all the geometry is mathematical, so there are few complex curves.
I can see an issue being that SolidWorks is designed to produce models which are as realistic as possible; the preference is that they include greater detail, at the expense of rendering speed. SolidWorks does have some method of producing a polygon-based model for display purposes - you can see the polygons when you zoom in close on a curved surface - but I don't know if there's any way to access this. Would the best approach be to load the SolidWorks model into another editor and reduce the number of polygons until it ran fast enough to be useful for a game? Would this actually be any more simple than designing the model in the other editor to begin with?

If there are any of you with a deep understanding of both CAD and game design then hopefully you'll beable to answer these questions!

~Druid TC

 

[Shawn Shipton]

I do not know all the ins and outs of Solidworks but one of my tasks is an Admin for the engineers that use it and have worked with the software and know it's concepts.
However, I am more familiar with Blender and have a 3d printer that the engineers like to use to make prototypes; they export their drawings in obj format that I import into Blender to clean up then export again to obj to use in a obj to gcode converter to get the 3d prints done, I think you could do the same, minus the gcode and printing portion, with Blender; if you can use Solidworks you can definitely figure out Blender.