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MyMiniLife Item Creation Tutorial

This tutorial will cover the basics of using a 3D modeling program and a ray tracerplug-in to create items for MyMiniLife.

Required SoftwareI will go through the installation process of the following programs on a Windows-based platform. Mac OSX (10.4+) is also supported. All of this software is free touse.

1. Google SketchupDownload and install Google Sketchup fromhttp://www.google.com/sketchup/download/ . The free version is sufficient. Thiswill be a very standard installation.

2. POV-Ray

Download and install POV-Ray from http://www.povray.org/download/ . Pleasechoose the version for your operating system. For Windows, you will most likelyneed the 32-bit version. This will also be a very standard installation.

3. SU2POVDownload SU2POV fromhttp://www.crai.archi.fr/RubyLibraryDepot/Ruby/su2pov.html . You will most likelywant to click on the su2pov3 under PC Users SU2POV 3.2. Save the zip file inyour SketchupInstallPath\Plugins folder (ex: C:\Program Files\Google\GoogleSketchUp 6\Plugins). Now unzip the file here. Once you have unzipped thecontents, it will create a new subfolder under Plugins named su2pov . You willalso have a file called su3pov3.rb in the SketchupInstallPath\Plugins folder.

Finding a 3D model There are plenty of free Sketchup models available online, but here are someroyalty-free resources to get you started:

1. Google 3D Warehouse http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/2. Form Fonts 3D http://www.formfonts.com/ (pay service, but also has free

models)

Joel PoloneyMyMiniLife, Inc

8/28/2008

http://www.google.com/sketchup/download/http://www.povray.org/download/http://www.crai.archi.fr/RubyLibraryDepot/Ruby/su2pov.htmlhttp://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/http://www.formfonts.com/http://www.google.com/sketchup/download/http://www.google.com/sketchup/download/http://www.povray.org/download/http://www.povray.org/download/http://www.povray.org/download/http://www.crai.archi.fr/RubyLibraryDepot/Ruby/su2pov.htmlhttp://www.crai.archi.fr/RubyLibraryDepot/Ruby/su2pov.htmlhttp://www.crai.archi.fr/RubyLibraryDepot/Ruby/su2pov.htmlhttp://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/http://www.formfonts.com/http://www.formfonts.com/http://www.formfonts.com/http://www.google.com/sketchup/download/

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Opening our 3D model in SketchupNow that we have installed all of our software and found a 3D model to work with,its time to open it up in Sketchup to get started. If the file is already in a .skp(Sketchup) file format, you should be able to double-click on it and open it up inSketchup.

Lets take a look at the toolbar at the top and find some icons that may help us.

The icons highlighted in red will be of immediate use to us. They allow us to pan,drag, and zoom around the 3D model. Go ahead and play with the model a little bit.

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Modifying the CameraNow, we will want to change our camera into a non-perspective projection. You cando this by clicking on Camera at the top and then clicking on Parallel Projection .

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Exporting to and rendering in POV-RayNow that our object is in a parallel isometric projection, we are ready to render it.From the top, click on Plugins and Instant POV-RAY render [3.2] , and then onImage options . Please set your settings to the same as below.

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Now we are ready to export our first image! From the top, click on Plugins andInstant POV-RAY render [3.2] , and then on Go . This will open POV-Ray with atext document that should look similar to mine.

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Click the big button at the top that says Run . This will begin to render your objectas an image to use with the MyMiniLife Item Creator. The image will look somethingsimilar to this:

This image will be saved in a folder with the same name as the name of theSketchup file. For example, my Sketchup file is called chair016.skp. In the samedirectory, POV-Ray created a directory called chair016 that contains a few files, oneof which will be called chair016.png. You will need to rename this file so we dontover write it when we make the other 3 rotations of this chair. I renamed this imageto chair016-1.png.

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Rendering the other 3 viewsNow, go back into Sketchup and select the rotate tool from the top bar. Rotate thechair around so that it is facing another direction. To snap it into a perfect isometricangle, go back to Camera , click on Standard Views , and then on Iso . This will putthe chair in a new isometric angle.

You will not need to reset the Image options for POV-Ray. These options will be resetif you close Sketchup, so be aware that you will need to set them every time you

close and reopen Sketchup.

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Now, click on Plugins at the top, and Instant POV-RAY render [3.2] , and then onGo . This will export the new view to POV-Ray. If it asks you to reload the file, clickyes. Select Run again and the new angle will be created.

Now, all you need to do is repeat the same steps for the other 2 angles and you willhave 4 separate images ready for the Item Creator. In some cases, you may need toperform a Zealous Crop in GIMP to remove the whitespace around the object.

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8/28/2008

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Adding the item to MyMiniLifeNow we are ready to import these into the Item Creator and make our item! Here isa picture of it in my MiniHome!

and we are done! That is it for the tutorial! If you would like to learn some moreadvanced techniques in Sketchup, please read about using shadows on the nextpage.

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Advanced Technique ShadowsIf you would like to explore more features of Sketchup, one feature that would begood to use is the shadows feature. You can get to this by clicking on Window atthe top and then on Shadows .

This will open a dialog that looks like the following:

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Here we can see that we have a lot of options. We can turn shadows on and off andalter quite a few different properties about them. Go ahead and turn the shadows

on to see what the effect is on your item.

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As you can see it added a shadow on the ground as well. You can toggle this on andoff in the Shadow Settings dialog.

When you export your item to POV-Ray for rendering, it will keep these shadowsettings and render them out with the image. This will allow you to create a largevariety of realistic looking items to sell in MyMiniLife!

Joel PoloneyMyMiniLife, Inc

8/28/2008