Tutorial - Objects for BTB with Sketchup

[Biggles1212]

Hi I've completed a full tutorial that should be comprehensive enough for just about anyone to make objects in Sketchup and use them in BTB for their favorite sim.

I'd appreciate any good suggestions.

It took me a few hours to work all the snags out and there was a lot of great information already here at Race Department.

I've uploaded the tutorial here.

http://forum.racedepartment.com/downloads/btb-library/38/full-objects-sketchup-btb-1805/

If you have any questions post them here or PM me. I'll do my best but I'm no guru at this.

Do enjoy. Thanks

 

[sti228]

Hi. Can someone tell me how size works in SketchUp. For example: i have picture from real life and i want to know the hight of this object. I use type measure tool, but i get wrong size.

I want to know the object hight. How you people measurement objects from picture ?

 

[Kennett Ylitalo]

Using references found from the picture or just guessing. That is why in science (or shows like mythbusters etc) they have that checkers grid to show the dimensions and scale. Reference objects are such that you know what size they are but there seems to be none such objects in this image.

For that object, you can pretty much say that the rail has to be above average persons hip. You can also try to guess what dimension the square tube is (for ex is it 2 inches or 5cm, standard sizes) and use that as reference. There are also building codes, regulations of what height such a railing has to be, on some countries it is easy to find, on others totally impossible.

Personally, i use the human character and make a rough guess. I also have a tape measure at my work station and i use it a LOT. It's much easier to take it and just measure things in the air, use my self as reference or measure things that seems like same size. When the objects is more refined, you can adjust the railings later.

Just a tip, if you take pictures for modelling and you don't have a chance to take notes, use some object like a soda can, anything that you can find fast and place it in the scene.

 

[sti228]

Using references found from the picture or just guessing. That is why in science (or shows like mythbusters etc) they have that checkers grid to show the dimensions and scale. Reference objects are such that you know what size they are but there seems to be none such objects in this image.

I understand now. Very informative information about my question. Thank you for explain.

For that object, you can pretty much say that the rail has to be above average persons hip. You can also try to guess what dimension the square tube is (for ex is it 2 inches or 5cm, standard sizes) and use that as reference. There are also building codes, regulations of what height such a railing has to be, on some countries it is easy to find, on others totally impossible.

I think the same about person When i look at picture.

Personally, i use the human character and make a rough guess. I also have a tape measure at my work station and i use it a LOT. It's much easier to take it and just measure things in the air, use my self as reference or measure things that seems like same size. When the objects is more refined, you can adjust the railings later.

Good idea, next time i will take my tape measure on track. I'm working on this object and try all my best to improve it.

Just a tip, if you take pictures for modelling and you don't have a chance to take notes, use some object like a soda can, anything that you can find fast and place it in the scene.

Thanks for help, but i love making something from scratch. For me it's all about express myself and improve skills (time to time).

 

[sti228]

Hi. Someone try to use 3D plugin for SketchUp ? If i make grass or tree with this plugin. Will this works in rF ? Trees looking so good. I will try to do that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28V5vWEQfUc

 

[sti228]

Today i will try to make this Still testing and will write if it works good.

I did it, but actually FPS drops down.

 

[banger]

it really depends on how the plugin is using to draw the object.you try and cover the track with that plugin and fps will drop looking at the video i would suggest it using polygons to make the objected and increase ploygons with height/lenght.i try with the 3ds max trees(tutorial/polygons) and grass(hair plugin) and it was slow driving.

the best way is to make a four planes , 1 for each direction and applying the grass that way.or and X plane.

 

[Erwin Greven]

I have made a tutorial for the mas utility
http://www.hederahelix.nl/btb/20141101_MASUTILITY.zip

How to build an object, import it into xpacker and export it to rFactor (win7pro64)
http://www.hederahelix.nl/btb/20141101_Tutorial_Objects_to_rFactor.zip

 

[sti228]

I watch this video and shocked how good all the objects looks.

lemax create so good objects for his tracks. This tree looks very good. First i think that this is real 3D model but when i look it closer find out transparency images. Anyway i need to make one's experience with 3D tree.

 

[ebrich]

To get a decent image texture try this

http://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/masking-a-tree-guide.4526/

 

[banger]

also check your mipmaps , alot of xpacker's are still not change mipmaps levels. negative numbers are a must for objects. has they create a sharper textures. while postive numbers blur the textures

 

[andreator]

Hi, someone have a working link for sketchup 6? I don't know why but my versione didn't export to dae anymore

 

[Erwin Greven]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qdlvsuwvgioyws7/GoogleSketchUpEN60.zip?dl=0

 

[sti228]

Hi. I just don't understand what i do wrong in Adobe Photoshop... I want to make 16x16 image .bmp file format with transparency for SketchUp object. I try lot of way but none of them work for me. Someone can help ? I need full transparency.

 

[ebrich]

This works for me.
-http://www.softcity.com/article/creative/how-to-create-with-photoshop-a-bmp-file-with-transparency/zMTOwEzN
add the alpha channel to your Channel layers - make it visible - save as bmp 32 bit.

Also this piece of infomation -
http://www.codeguru.com/csharp/.net...a-Bitmap-to-Have-a-Transparent-Background.htm

 

[ebrich]

It worked from the above the first time but cannot get it to work again!

Get free Pixelformer software -- http://www.qualibyte.com/pixelformer/download.html

And use Export to BMP.

 

[sti228]

To be clear this is steps i do for transparency. I open Adobe Photoshop - File/New and choose 1024x1024 pixels. Background Contents: I choose - Transparent.

File created

I select full image for transparency and click on mask icon

File/Save as/.bmp

Save

And it's white in SketchUp

Spoiler

This object is example. I need transparency for camera glass.

maybe i need move this slider to 0 ? For make it work.

 

[ebrich]

In Google, for 6 people that said it could be done in Photoshop there where 6 who said it could not!! Not very helpful.

That's why I tried Pixelformer and with that it is a straight export to a transparent BMP. It Imports a psd file and will export to BMP. I tried every which way to get Photoshop to do it and it always ended with a white background.

If you want to try P S again, I read that in BMP Options it needs to be a RGB 32 bit. I don't think a greyscale will do it.

 

[sti228]

Hello. I'm back with low poly tire I'm working on it during 3 days. Hope you like it. Texture need some work and i'm going to test it in game.

 

[sti228]

I made my first tire wall Download link: Here

 

[Kennett Ylitalo]

Hello. I'm back with low poly tire I'm working on it during 3 days. Hope you like it. Texture need some work and i'm going to test it in game.

Is that 24 sections? That is not lo-poly as such anymore then, more like medium. For tirewalls etc. it is way too much, at least without LODing heavily.. We are looking at something like this in hi-poly car, LOD1, ie other players car 10m away is this vertex density. The screen area is what matter; how much screen area will this object take in game? If it's 100m away, it's 4-8 triangles or just a billboard or drawing turned off.. From say, 50m away, you get to double digits and only when you are 0.5m from the this, we should actually start to worry about it's details (and here we have to get level design in, how likely we are to get that close etc..)

One thing to remember is to add collision meshes separately: one shall NOT use 240 vertices in a collision mesh for this kind of an object. Even more if it is physics object, able to move.... Good guideline is that Unity, Source, Unreal, CryEng etc will not accept over 255 vertices on physic object convex collision meshes (and i think gMotor2 has similar restrictions or at least guidelines.). So this is good guideline for all physics object, no matter what game we are working on. Also that convex, it is quite important as it decreases our collision detection and resolve by 20 times at some cases (torus vs pyramid, square peg in a round hole). Even so that when it's repeating object, like in SObject, the absolute best is to make that separately, after level design has put it in the right place. SObjects are the worst for collisions so i haven't used them as collision objects in years.. I wrap them manually with the Wall tool and just click "render" = off from that wall and collision = on.

If it's high speed collision, thing get even more precise and strict, we need to have cerain vertex density due to our frame-by-frame physics engine and interpolation; we "slide" from frame but we only detect collision inside frames.. So we can go 300km/h, 120Hz physics engine, i think it is closer to 2m against stationary object, we can sink that much in before we have first "collision detected", try to resolve that paradox when you are over halfway inside wall, your front sticking out the other side So we increase vertex density a bit, say 2m panel size so that we have at least one edge on every sq m. Edge to edge is cheapest collision detection and easiest to resolve. Google GJK algrotirthm