Lemma Soft Forums

Not quite a while ago I received an email from uh... wait, I'll hide his/her identity for now. I decided to make this public to benefit all and everyone who are engaged in the activity of creating background images for use in Visual Novels... anyway here it is...



And so I saw his/her BG image (see below) White it was indeed a good start there are several glaring problems I can see that makes it somewhat look kinda odd for use on OELVN's (aka Visual Novels)



Now let's make a brutal detailed analysis on what "I" think is making this background look odd and identify the problems...

First and foremost is the placement of the camera is rather high as if the camera is mounted to a pole or a fence of some sort. Unless needed, the camera should always be placed at the typical eye level meaning the camera should be placed as if you are physically standing there and looking at the scene directly. The Horizon Vanishing Point should be dead center though this depends on your background setting.

The highlights in the glass should also be subjected to the effects of the shadow touching surfaces.

Some of the textures are small and repetitive tilling is very much visible clearly reminding people that this is 3D which is a big NO-NO for our purpose. While we cannot deny that we are using 3D to accomplish our intended goal, we must also try as much as possible to mimic 2D or at least give it some semblance to 2D using every available option under reasonable time (I mean, if you got all the time in the world then you might as well draw the BG manually)

So I requested for the model so I can better analyze what is going on and saw several more glaring problems...



First and foremost the model has too much unnecessary odd hidden geometry... meaning you got shapes and objects that are being calculated, taking up space and CPU resources despite not being visible. There is also a huge amount of "junk" geometry present in the model and in some places the problem is very much visible by having several polys for a simple rectangle.

CLICK ON INDIVIDUAL THUMBNAIL FOR LARGER VIEW

Second is the lack of necessary detail. While this is subject to further debate... please keep in mind that everyone has seen and knows what a typical stand alone house looks like and has subconciously imprinted deep inside their minds what is found in a typical house from just a glance without even making a detailed observation... one of the first thing that will most likely be noticed is the lack of a gutter lining the roof. Same goes with the door and other necessary minor details that makes a house "a house"

Third and probably the "MOST" important of all is that... the model is not optimized...

Let's go through that in detail...



Right now tossing the hidden geometry issue aside... the model is terribly complex in terms of polycount despite it's good yet simplistic looks. Then I noticed the amount of repetitive objects like the fence and the windows and it seems... each and every single one of them are modeled individually... he/she didn't use "component feature"... so you ask... what "is" a component feature?...









Here's how component works in Google Sketchup. Once an object is componetized it will be treated as a component instead of an individual object. When we multiplied the non-componetized plant Sketchup not only tracks every single poly present in the entire workspace but also their relation to each other component immediately present, the texture of each individual poly and so forth unlike a componetized object, Sketchup sees every individual copy of the componetized plant as a single object no matter how many you have present and only keeps track of the position and placement but using the data from the original object to keep track of the textures and poly thus reducing the space needed which translates to faster loading and easier to manage project and so forth...



Anyway... looking at the original model no hard feelings please don't get offended but it really is a mess as it is right now so I decided to reconstruct and duplicate the original hose from the ground up...


OK... so I kinda overdid it and ended up with uh... something else and despite being ridiculously detailed... it's still 3.63 MB (3,816,191 bytes) in file size made possible by componetizing repetitive parts like windows and fence... you can download this particular model here (see link below)
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=a067bb72bb6a2953f6102056e69e77b3





I also insist on putting emphasis on including as much detail as reasonable so you can use and reuse the same model to create several BG's saving you time and effort...





Meh... it's 2:10am here... gotta sleep now...

Note: In case you're reading this I already sent you an email regarding the "snow" part of the BG's you linked...

"POOF" (Zzzzzzz)

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