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.