Microsoft is currently ahead in the battle to produce 3D city from models from the air see our post and movie on New York in Virtual Earth.
The current move is towards street level with Google’s Street View continuing its capture programme and new kid on the block EveryScape launching soon.
We now have ‘Earthmine‘ aiming to create a new kind of map:
It’ll be interesting to see some of its output…
While writing the second part of the tutorial on Oblivion a reader known as Uwe posted a comment with regards the a plugin for the free version of Google SketchUp which allows model export to the .stl format.
The main drawback of the free version is its inability to export models until now – if you install the LTS Plugin it suddenly frees up the ability to export models direct from SketchUp.
As such we thought we would give it a try importing a model from the Google 3D Warehouse into Oblivion, the movie below details the steps:
As you can see we are able to take geometry direct from the 3D Warehouse and import it into Oblivion via 3D Max and The Elder Scrolls Construction Set although at the moment the textures get lost along the way.
Our main tutorial will be online later tomorrow (all things going well) with an update on this new method as soon as a full export path is determined.
Thanks again to Uwe – as we run through the notes on the second tutorial for the write up tomorrow its interesting to note how this opens up a completely free path from various software packages to Oblivion.
While writing the second part of the tutorial on Oblivion a reader known as Uwe posted a comment with regards the a plugin for the free version of Google SketchUp which allows model export to the .stl format.
The main drawback of the free version is its inability to export models until now – if you install the LTS Plugin it suddenly frees up the ability to export models direct from SketchUp.
As such we thought we would give it a try importing a model from the Google 3D Warehouse into Oblivion, the movie below details the steps:
As you can see we are able to take geometry direct from the 3D Warehouse and import it into Oblivion via 3D Max and The Elder Scrolls Construction Set although at the moment the textures get lost along the way.
Our main tutorial will be online later tomorrow (all things going well) with an update on this new method as soon as a full export path is determined.
Thanks again to Uwe – as we run through the notes on the second tutorial for the write up tomorrow its interesting to note how this opens up a completely free path from various software packages to Oblivion.
The day we put aside for the Oblivion tutorial turns out to be our work Summer Away Day.
We are off Greenwich in London in the peak of the UK’s glorious summer of 14 degrees Centigrade, 52 Fahrenheit.
Still, a good time will be had by all, even if we will all be wrapped up in our jumpers.
Regular posts and and updates on the tutorial will return tomorrow…