Game Map Construction with Hammer World Editor and Google SketchUp 7

by Allison Janssen
Computer Science
Faculty advisor: Jason Shepherd

The goal of this project was to combine digital artifacts generated from two different programs to create an interactive 3-D game map for use with Valve Corporation's Left 4 Dead 2.  The first program, Hammer World Editor, is a proprietary program distributed through Valve Corporation that helps in the construction of game maps. The second program, Google SketchUp 7, is a three-dimensional modeling program used to construct objects and buildings beyond what can be created in Hammer.  Additional "light-source" code programmed by the researcher was used to communicate with the game's artificial intelligence, yielding a new map that is fully compatible with the game.