Neo1471

Hints and Tips

Ok this is a list of hints and tips that are just generally useful to save time and effort when making items.
There in no order

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To make SketchUp look similar to how it will in the previewer click View, then Edge styles and un-tick everything in there. Then click Windows, Shadows, and tick the box at the bottom that says Use Sun for shading. Do not turn on shadows as they will not be seen in the previewer and finally click the zoom tool and then type 45 and press enter, this changes the screen viewing angle from 35 degree's to 45 which IMVU is set to.

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When using the push pull tool, after moving a surface once to move the next surface the same distance just double click on it.

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To make items a little smoother even in the client, select your mesh and right click it. Then click the soften smoothen tool and use it to make your mesh look smoother round the edges.

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When using any tool that creates curved edges, such as the arc tool or the circle tool make sure you lower the number of edges it uses. It may look grate with super smooth corners but the file size will suffer if its not lowered at least a little. to do this when you click such tools you will notice a number in the bottom right corner, the default for a circle is 24, that's too many for most things unless your making a planet in IMVU and after soften smoothen can be used to make things look more curved.

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In a room an omni light and a simple tweak of the ambient scene colour to darker makes scenes look that much better for such little effort.

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atmosphere is everything, so when making rooms always be sure to add fog even on indoor scene's

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Fastest way of placing lots of furniture nodes, place 1 and then using the move tool highlight that one, hold CTRL and then move it a given distance away, lets say 4' and then type x10, if this is to many try a smaller number if this isn't enough try x20 ect until  there's enough in the one direct and simply highlight all those nodes and copy in the other direction. Grouping all those nodes together and then spacing out the wall nodes and grouping those and finally doing the same with the ceiling nodes. Once this is all done ensure you use the MeshOut script to number all the nodes for you!

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Purging un used items is a good thing to do to make sure nothing unexpected exports (found under Window --> Model Info --> Statistics )

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Name textures Useful names that you will understand!

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Keep polygon counts low! Too high and you get a constant lag in client moving your screen around and people just stop buying from you for that reason.

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When leaving something derivable make sure there's no textures on there you don't want someone using as some people have no ethics.

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Anything hidden will not export

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Anything un textured will be see through

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Sometimes items appear inside out, this is because at some point you have mirrored that part of the mesh. Just explode it in SketchUp and re export.

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 - Useful Files by me

 Sky Dome               Texture Size     512x128
 Ball outer Textured   Texture Size     512x256
 Ball inner Textured    Texture Size     256x x 256

**To use the mesh's do not edit the textures in SketchUp, just replace them with your own images in create mode**

 **The textures in use with these are purely examples, after exporting place your own texture in the relevant place in the previewer**

 

-Happy to accept  gifts of what you made to NEO1471 if you found this helpful ^_^

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