Author Topic: Video Tutorial: How to make improved FF7 backgrounds in Sketchup  (Read 28388 times)

halkun

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OK, Here you guys go, I've done a set of high-res Sketchup tutorials on Youtube to teach how to re-make FF7's backgrounds using Photomatch
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Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

If you have any questions, let me know :)
« Last Edit: 2010-04-21 06:55:30 by halkun »

sl1982

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Good idea!

Hopefully this will get more people into the project. Me myself i manually align the camera in maya since i couldnt figure sketchup out.

Now do you need the pro version to export scenes?

halkun

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Now do you need the pro version to export scenes?

Not really, Sketchup exports to COLLADA (*.dae) which can be imported into Blender. From there you can export to whatever you want.

sl1982

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Excellent. Now for all you people using the excuse that you dont know how to do this type of thing, get workin!  :P

sl1982

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So what scene should i put you down for halkun?

halkun

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Sorry, I'll pass :P I'm already knee deep in projects.

sl1982

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Awww boo. If you are ever free look us up  ;D

Mendelevium

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Nice tutorials so far. Thanks halkun. It has explained alot about sketchup to me. ^.^. However, I think i will take a look at those tutorials you mentioned at the beginning of the video before i tackle any FF7 scenes... Thanks. :D.

halkun

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There, after 4 hours, they are all up!

Covarr

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part 4 still processing lol  :P

But seriously, this is awesome. I may have to start (attempting at) making backgrounds myself with this.

obesebear

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I just re-checked out your FF7 3D Test videos again.   How it moves from the train to the next scene is still amazing.  I really wish I had the time and resources to help with all of this

Prince Lex

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Those are fantastic. They make it look acheivable by anyone too.

djkoopa

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Hi guys, been following the forum for a long time and after being inspired by these tutorials (and the fact that I have a LOT of free time...) I really want to get involved and help as much as I can. I've got no experience with modelling, texturing or anything like that so I'm a complete noob but I'm a pretty fast learner and a bit of a perfectionist so don't expect too much but I might be able to help eventually!!

Thanks again for the tutorials!

Timu Sumisu

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Hi guys, been following the forum for a long time and after being inspired by these tutorials (and the fact that I have a LOT of free time...) I really want to get involved and help as much as I can. I've got no experience with modelling, texturing or anything like that so I'm a complete noob but I'm a pretty fast learner and a bit of a perfectionist so don't expect too much but I might be able to help eventually!!

Thanks again for the tutorials!

Great! well, study those tutorials, and start up a scene, we'll help you with criticism and suggestions as you go, and be sure to post progress!

djkoopa

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Will do! Any suggestions on a decent starting scene, maybe something not too complicated?

I've got a busy weekend so I'll probably get started next week. I only work a couple of hours a night so I've got plenty of time to practice. Looking forward to getting stuck in now!

sl1982

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Try anything you want really. Find a scene that inspires you and give it a shot. I knew nothing of modelling when i started a month or so ago.

djkoopa

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Quick question (sorry if I'm hi-jacking this thread but it may help others that want to start getting involved)

I've extracted the field files and opened one up in Palmer (nmkin_4) but when exporting it to a PNG it's split into 7 different files. Is there a way to export as a single merged file, or if not what's the best way to handle this? Sorry if its a silly question but I really am starting from scratch here lol


EDIT: while I'm at it can I claim that background for the bombing mission project?
« Last Edit: 2010-04-24 00:36:58 by djkoopa »

sl1982

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Not really. What i did was use photoshop to merge all the files together into one. One thing to not is that if the scene uses animations to not merge those into the image.

djkoopa

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Thanks. I'll post some WIP shots tomorrow so you can see if I'm on the right track!

halkun

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In my first video I show where you can get some youtube tutorials for Sketchup. It takes about two days to do them.

djkoopa

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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





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?


Prince Lex

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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?

sl1982

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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.

halkun

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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.

Timu Sumisu

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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!