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http://picasaweb.google.com/pleochroic/WorksFinished
i did a lot to experiment with getting the filesize down, in the end mostly by optimizing the textures. could compress them more yet, but then it really won't look this good anymore. i know, i know, who cares about the landlord's well house in google earth; people go to look at "the world" in dubai, or spy on celebrity houses.
still... so the first order of business was to just model an empty shell, none of this "real walls" business. the roof is only a plane, painted different materials on either side. at first i didn't model the windows and doors at all because one can fake transparency with an alpha channel in the png image format. however, the png format is a lot larger than a compressed jpg. in the end it turned out that using transparency pngs is a good thing when one models the eiffel tower, but a bad thing when one just has a few windows in a normal house. using jpgs cut the size in half, while adding a few edges for windows didn't fatten the model much.
also, scenes. scenes take up a huge amount of space. i went from 3.4MB to 1.2MB after zapping the scenes (which i mostly use for animation in this case). after optimizing the textures, the model is now down to 270KB.
making the animation was extra fun because when i looked around for a 2D human component to insert in order to provide scale, i had an idea... *evil grin*.
i won't submit the model yet, because it's not visible on the current satellite view and i need to get the other buildings done first to point at them as a reference, or the google folks who check this stuff will reject it. but it's done, and i've learned a lot. i won't do a lot of models for google earth, i think, because they present the sort of challenge i am not particularly fond of -- massive constraints. and the models aren't really good for anything else. well, the model of our shack is the basis for a full model complete with furniture, but the shell itself? i don't see why anyone would want a google earth model; they're too simplified.
i did a lot to experiment with getting the filesize down, in the end mostly by optimizing the textures. could compress them more yet, but then it really won't look this good anymore. i know, i know, who cares about the landlord's well house in google earth; people go to look at "the world" in dubai, or spy on celebrity houses.
still... so the first order of business was to just model an empty shell, none of this "real walls" business. the roof is only a plane, painted different materials on either side. at first i didn't model the windows and doors at all because one can fake transparency with an alpha channel in the png image format. however, the png format is a lot larger than a compressed jpg. in the end it turned out that using transparency pngs is a good thing when one models the eiffel tower, but a bad thing when one just has a few windows in a normal house. using jpgs cut the size in half, while adding a few edges for windows didn't fatten the model much.
also, scenes. scenes take up a huge amount of space. i went from 3.4MB to 1.2MB after zapping the scenes (which i mostly use for animation in this case). after optimizing the textures, the model is now down to 270KB.
making the animation was extra fun because when i looked around for a 2D human component to insert in order to provide scale, i had an idea... *evil grin*.
i won't submit the model yet, because it's not visible on the current satellite view and i need to get the other buildings done first to point at them as a reference, or the google folks who check this stuff will reject it. but it's done, and i've learned a lot. i won't do a lot of models for google earth, i think, because they present the sort of challenge i am not particularly fond of -- massive constraints. and the models aren't really good for anything else. well, the model of our shack is the basis for a full model complete with furniture, but the shell itself? i don't see why anyone would want a google earth model; they're too simplified.
