Video Tutorial: How to make improved FF7 backgrounds in Sketchup

  • Thread starter Thread starter halkun
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After a playing around for a couple hours I'm under way, but it's 3.20 AM and I need sleep lol. Here's what Ive got just to start with

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Like I said this is the first time I've ever done anything like this so there's still a lot for me to learn. I had a quick look at the first couple of tutorials you mentioned Halkun, I'll go through them properly tomorrow or next week.

Also - sl, did you make your train scene in SketchUp?
 
That looks good for a first attempt to me djkoopa. I might have to try some of this myself on Sunday ^_^

I'm interested to know how these are going to be implemented in-game? Is the camera data going to be edited so that it follows Cloud?
 
No i manually aligned my scenes in maya and built the scene from scratch. And no the camera will still be fixed, these rebuilt 3d scenes are only so we can re-render to replace the originals.
 
Not bad!

Little things to help you out...

1) You need to move your origin to a more central spot so you can draw off the vertexes.
2) The far right wall has a line in it, if you erase that line and the whole wall disappears, that means the wall edges are not parallel with each other.
3) Something in general, when you do your initial alignment you are supped to run the red and green handles along the walls, It helps align, just make sure green and red are perpendicular.
 
Great start djkoopa! Keep in mind, the strength of sketchup is primitive shapes. Although you can model more elaborate things, those jobs are best left to full 3d suites. Make sure to encompass all the basic shapes (tubes, square/rectangular shapes) so that there is minimal work to be done afterwards when adding detailz. For those pipes, maya has some great tools for making the curve, so unless thers some magic in sketchup to bridge that, just do the straight portions, and stop them like you have, right before there is any curve.

Glad to see you starting up, and I look forward to your progress!
 
Another tip:
you can load more than one picture and calibrate your current 3d model to it. This means you can take all three pictures of the reactor inside and photomatch a few times to get the details missed by only one.
 
Been modeling with zbrush for a few weeks, which I guess I'll use for detailing, and I've been intending to help out when I can for a while now, but this post actually got me started using google sketchup. Not that I intend to seriously submit anything for some months, certainly not for the bombing mission project, but hopefully you guys won't be finished every inorganic field background by the time I feel halfway confident in my competence.

1 hour of tutorials + 1:30 or so of actual work =
practice%202.jpg

practice%202a.jpg


Yes, I know I created the wall offset from the bridge for some reason, and consequently it's out of perspective with the original background, as well as causing the pipes (and anything else I attempted to create protruding from it) to be mis-angled. And ignoring that, even just my bridge part isn't as good as djkoopa's, which is why I intend to practice for at least 3 months before I make a serious attempt at even a simplistic industrial background. I'm a bitterly slow learner at anything the least bit artistic, but also a perfectionist, a "never plateau" kind of guy, and a "work until 7 AM Friday night, only noticing that it isn't still 2 once the sun comes up" kind of guy, so I can make it work, I guess.
 
Not bad!

Little things to help you out...

1) You need to move your origin to a more central spot so you can draw off the vertexes.
2) The far right wall has a line in it, if you erase that line and the whole wall disappears, that means the wall edges are not parallel with each other.
3) Something in general, when you do your initial alignment you are supped to run the red and green handles along the walls, It helps align, just make sure green and red are perpendicular.
Click to expand...
1) moved the origin to the bridge/door now to make it more central (didn't realize it'd move my whole model haha never mind)

2) so thats what the problem was!! I've tried re-doing the lines but I cant get it to fill in the surface. Is there a way to make the line draw parallel?

3) when I did the alignment I ran the green lines along the bridge and the red lines across the back wall. Looked ok to me but as you're mentioning it I'm guessing I must have got it a bit off?


One more thing - how much detail do I need to go into here? Obviously more is better, but take the walkway side rails for example. I can cut the holes out so it looks more like a fence rather than a flat wall, but do i leave that flat or expand it to make it more of a box (like ScottMcTony has done)?

Thanks for the feedback guys
 
Nice stuff scottmctony, Glad to have you onboard. Firslty, If you'd rather spend some time learning your tools fine, but imo, the best way to learn is by getting right into a project you're enthusiastic about.

Another suggestion, don't work on a scene that someone else has started. If you're unsure, or can't be arsed to check through the forum, ask SL or myself.
 
Timu, is there any chance you can mark me down for nmkin_4 on the bombing mission page if ScottMcTony doesn't want to submit anything yet? Just to save anymore duplicates. After Halkuns feedback on ym stuff from last night I decided to start again and its going well so far

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Done, and done. I also marked you for nmkin_3, as its the same scene from another angle.

nmkin3.png


You should lign it up and use it as well.
 
Trying to add nmkin_3 but I'm having trouble lining it up what I've already got... not 100% sure how to go about it. Seems to be too small, as if its too far away or too low on the x-axis
 
Nice stuff scottmctony, Glad to have you onboard. Firslty, If you'd rather spend some time learning your tools fine, but imo, the best way to learn is by getting right into a project you're enthusiastic about.

Another suggestion, don't work on a scene that someone else has started. If you're unsure, or can't be arsed to check through the forum, ask SL or myself.
Click to expand...
Well, there's a reason the files were named practice1 and practice 2, mind.  If I come back in 3 months and nobody's claimed Shinra HQ I might try to do that (unless someone already has?). About learning by doing, I'm more worried about my zbrush skills. I'd show you some awful thing I've already done in that, but it is shameful and there are more than close friends here. If I were to try something usable now, there would be months of remodeling that before I was satisfied, and the only difference that would make would be how incredibly sick I'd be of a single field.
djkoopa, for your second day doing any kind of modeling, I am amazed.
 
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Thanks scottmctony, appreciate it. I said I'm a fast learner lol  ;)  Good luck with your practicing, looking forward to seeing more of your work soon!

I've got all the shapes down for nmkin_4 now, just the details to fill in and those pesky pipes!!

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wip%204b.jpg
 
Looking good! You are almost to the point where you need to switch to a full fledged 3d app
 
What would that involve sl? Takin this model and touching it up? I haven't even gone through the sketchup tutorials yet so im sure I could improve it in that still
 
It would be for adding smaller details, texturing it, doing the lighting etc then rendering it for use in game.
 
Ahh ok. Was kinda hopin someone with more experiance would be able to texture it for me but I spose I could have a crack at it!
 
I thought I posted this reply earlier o.O maybe not.

Anyway, This kind of 3D work is different to the kind of stuff created for realtime rendered 3D, such as the many battle models we've been making recently.
There are two big differences between the two kinds. Firstly, there's no real limit on poly count when you pre-render - as long as we can render these scenes once in a realistic time period, you can have as much detail in the models as you like.
Secondly, and most importantly, the battle system in FF7 doesn't use any lighting system whatsoever; it relies on vertex colours or textures to get shadows and highlights onto models, hence why texture artists like Millenia paint them on manually. Since that restriction doesn't reply to pre-rendered images, With enough detail in your models and some clever rendering techniques, you could get away with giving objects a completely flat colour for their diffuse map, and just use different lighting systems to get the correct lighting in there. In modelling scenes like this, you can also use techniques like tiling textures and bump maps to get a nice feel as well.

So, basically, texture work is a lot different when working with scenes than it is with battle character models. You have a lot more options, and as long as you can learn to use a 3D app well enough, you don't need to know a thing about texturing to be able to texture scenes.
 
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