Final Update

FINALLY COMPLETED!

I have colourised al the surfaces, re-arranged the furnishing in some places and made some final minor tweaks. I tink this is as best as it will be for now but will deffinately be worked on in the future.

I have provided some screenshots below to show how the finished artifact looks:

Above you can view screen shots from the front of the office, a raised 3/4 in to the front room and a raised 3/4 from the front room in to the middle room.

Above here you can view a 3/4 view from out back in to the office, a 3/4 in to the outside back area and also a birds eye view of the whole virtual office.

To make it possible to view the whole office from one point of view, I have applied an x0ray filter to the office so that you can see see through the walls right to the back. This way the walla are still partially visible and you are able to get a semi realistic view of how the whole virtual office looks with/without the walls.

I've also created a small video of how it may look to someone as they walked through the whole virtual office. The camera point has been raised in some places to give a better anggle of how things look. (This video requires you to have flash player installed before viewing.)

Conclusion

I am very happy that I was able to complete the office in time, maybe not in the photorealistic way that I intended to in the begining but it has been completed none the less. I would've liked to have attempted the real timem sound being streamed in to the virtual office but it is somethig that I am still experimenting in interating in to the Sketchup software.

I am 100% sure that this is somekhting that I will continue working on in the coming future, that means getting the textures to work seamlessly as well as the real time audio being streamed. I'm sure I'll need to buy some kinda third party software in order to enable the audio to be streamed but if it helps me to move forward then it is only a small price to pay.

I've learnt that I can apply and adjust the skills I already know (regarding other software) and have them applied to many other types of softwares in order to get similar or even some interesting effects. Google Sketchup is something that I can see myself using for many years to come before getting bored of it as it is something that I have enjoyed using over teh last few weeks. The watered down gui, tutorials and even teh quick responske from tyhe Google Sketchup help desk was a reasonable speed. I think my next step will also be to try an combine this software with some kind of traditonal art (e.g. painting) and see if it will be possible for two people to be painting of one surface at the same time - but from two different parts of the world. I think this will be a good challenge for me as I have bever attempted this before and will force me out of my comfort zone and divulge me in to something new and strange to my mind.

Update 6

Had some slight problems today, I tried to apply the photographs of all the textures I took from the office today but it just wasn't looking as seamless as I wanted it to be. The photo tetures would look shoppy and a little jarring.

So I tried to Photoshop a fewj of them and give it a go but then I met another problem. All the textures had a dark edge, this meantk that when the etxture was repeated on a plane you can easily tell where it was repeated because of the dark edge that seperated them. This didn't look very appealing and I was not ready to let the quality of my work drop because of the funny texture maps.

With no other option, I woas forced to subsiture these for simple colours. All I could do now was choose the closest colour to the original one in the photo and substitue it with that.

Here is an example of how this made it look:

The textures replaced by the basic colours version

Although I'm not very pleased with it, I think it still holds some clarity - even though the photo realism has been taken away.

I think my next update may be the final one where I complete the colouring of the model have the screenshots and videoclip ready .

I feel so bummed out right now :( .

Update 4

Finally the whole place has been modelled completely. The front, middle, back, toilets and even the out back area - the whole lot.

A 3/4 raised view of the office, completed literally 20mins ago!

At the moment the model is still in its grey form, so my next job is to apply the matching colours from the office to this model. I've not got much left now, I think a full days more work and I should be done.

Update 3

Small update here. The front room has been completed, middle room almost ready, all the furniture has been assembled and just need to be possitioned.

This also goes for the bathroom and toilets.

The middle room waiting for everything to beduplicated, grouped and then furnished throughout the room.

Should all be ready soon and waiting to be textured.

Update 2

Ok, I've been working day and night (and all day today) on this and have learnt how to create tables and chairs. After messing about with the basic forms of these objects I managed to take it a step further and apply the actual design to them which was actually a little more complex for me when I first started.

The more realistic looking office table than the first basic one I created

After this I moved on to using my basic chairs and added what looked like foam padding meshes to them in order to have them looking similar to the computer chairs that have wheels on. It was at this point that I noticed that all of the objects can be easily made to have round corners and by adding a few more shapes to a single mesh I can have it resemble whatever it is I was aiming for - even if it was vague it was a starting point for me none the less.

Following this line of thought I was able to create a monitor, mouse and keyboard set. From this point on I began duplicating the necessary obejects and placing them in their required locations, kind of sculpting out the main parts. Then I grouped all the similar objects that were in the same room. This will allow me to manipulate them all at the same tie if there was a need - rather than doing them each one by one.

My desk with a monitor, keyboard and mouse set

Next up I'll need to create a glass table and some basic chairs and the front of the office should be done. For the back (middle) room I'll need to be creating smaller tables and chairs with their own smaller computer desks.

That's all for now.