My journey becoming a Unity game developer: Make a game look beautiful-Creating Ceilings pt.3

Objective: Add struts to beams placed across the ceiling to add variation to the Control Room’s ceiling.

Final results of the Control Room’s ceiling with strut columns included.

To add more variation to the main room ceiling, let’s use the columns to make an extension from it across the ceiling. Duplicate the Scifi Columns 02 object from the upper part of the column. Rotate it in a position with the painted end facing the column itself and the painted stripe in the middle facing downward towards the floor. Attach the painted end to the main column’s head where it will inside of it to make the stripes connected.

Duplicated a part of a column to be used as an extension to the main column across the ceiling.

Duplicate this column until it extends across the ceiling. With the 2 columns in the middle, attach each end with the painted sides using ‘V’ snapping. Rotate the last column to have the painted end facing towards the opposite side of the room wall. Leave space between the first and last columns with the middle attached column.

Extended the column across the ceiling with space between them.

We need to adjust the length of the extended columns to fit across the ceiling. Scale down the columns along the 3 axes until it fits from one end of the ceiling to the other.

Scaled down the columns to fit from one side of the ceiling to the other side.

We want to add more variety to the ceiling by adding struts to fill in the space between the columns. We’re going to download Scifi Walls 08–10 assets from Filebase by GameDevHQ.

Let’s use Scifi Walls Base 02 to serve as the struts for the ceiling’s columns. Drag it into the scene, rotate it to have the front of the Base 02 object facing downward towards the floor. Duplicate Scifi Walls Base 02, position the duplicate next to the original Base 02 object and rotate it to have the 2 painted stripes next to each other. Use ‘V’ snapping to attach the 2 Bases to each other which will make it one whole strut we will use.

Using two Scifi Walls Base 02 objects to create a strut.

Position the center of the strut to align in between the gap of the 2 columns. Scale down the strut to make it equally proportioned with the columns. Duplicate this strut and position it in the gap between the other 2 columns located at the other end of the ceiling.

Now we want to organize the assets making up this strut. Select one of the middle columns and create an Empty game object inside of it using right-click. Name this object Strut, then drag it out from its parent object to the end of the Ceilings list it’s inside of. Inside the Transform Rotation in the Inspector, change the values to zero as this will position the axes back to the correct position for the Strut object. Select all of the objects that make up this strut across the ceiling, and drag them into the Strut game object making this object the parent of these assets.

Organized all of the assets that made up the strut and placed them in the Strut game object.

Duplicate the Strut game object, and position the duplicate across the ceiling attaching it to the other Column along that side of the wall.

Duplicated the Strut and placed it with the other column along this wall.

Last, let’s take all of the game objects that make up the Control Room ceiling and organize them. Select the middle tile in the ceiling and place an Empty game object name Main Ceiling inside of it. Drag Main Ceiling object out of its parent to either the top or bottom of the Static list. Select all of the objects that make up the ceiling in the Control Room excluding the Strut and Ceiling 01 objects, and drag them into the Main Ceiling object.

Next, create another Empty game object name Ceilings. Select the Main Ceiling, Strut, and Ceiling 01 objects and drag them into the Ceilings object organizing the ceiling assets under Ceilings. One more thing, change the name of Ceiling 01 to Hallway Ceiling to represent the ceiling located in the hallway.