3D Walk - please advise...(OT)

[Ros. Riha]

On a project of individual family houses we are asked to create 3D environment, allowing the potential buyer to walk around and inside the house similar way as 3D games such as Quake or Unreal work...so forth, we do not know how to achieve it...

If this (3D game-ish) solution proved to be too difficult, we can end up on at least some combination of renderings (something like google maps - street view)

Does any of you have an experience with such a task? Could you advise how to do it? What software to use etc.?

 

Any comments or recommendations are welcome.

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

If you want to use nXt, panorama tours are pretty easy to do and and can provide high quality interactivity.  Here's an example of some virtual tour software.  AutoCAD can output to .dwf and comes with a reader that's not too horrible to use (not as nice as a game.)  I've got a little OpenGL viewer that works on Rhino files-- it's pretty easy to learn.

 

 

[Ros. Riha]

the marvel would be to have a viewer enabling you to walk through .nXtImage model...

as for panoramas - would it be possible to have spherical projection in nXt as well? that would save the time needed to stitch images together

on the similar tune: human FOV is much bigger than the regular cameras provide - the best approximation seems to be a stitch of 3x2 field of renderings, slightly overlapping, taken by 35mm camera - would it be possible to create specific projection to achieve this?

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

There is a spherical projection in WalkAbout that allows you to render panoramas directly.  Here's an example of some done using the SketchUp product.

[Kevin Lockwood]

I've done some exhaustive research into exporting our autocad models into Hammer which produces the 3d environment for games like Halflife, Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress. These game engines are very realistic using hdri lighting and real physics. 

 

The process to get an Autocad file was so convoluted, we decided it was just better to build the model from scratch in hammer. The learning curve there was way more then I could muster at the time and I dropped interest.

 

We did have a programmer friend work for several months to take a Autocad DXF and convert it into polys that unreal tournament could understand, but there was a problem getting anything in that was not parallel to a x y or z plane. In his development time, the game makers changed their engine and most of his work went out the window and the project was dropped.

 

I understand that getting a model from sketchup is a bit easier using some third party software, but there's still lots cleanup afterward. Valve and Steam both recently "upgraded" there software to support the new physics and lighting models the new software uses and that really sent the map builders into a tizzy as almost all game maps had to be reworked in order to get them to run without crashing.

 

Search keywords like Valve, HL2, Autocad, Hammer. I believe that the valve website has a wiki help site that has some rough documentation on the conversion process. 

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

Rhino or Okino would probably work pretty well translating to other formats-- it's possible game engines like Hammer except other input.

[Kevin Lockwood]

I hear there is a new editor out there too. (game engine side). I'll check with one of my map building buddies to get the software name. Might be a good lead at least.

 

We were really looking forward to getting the models into HL2. It has really good lighting, and we could take shots at our model with a rpg :)

 

Actually, some of the game effects are really cool for this sort of walk through. Working doors, sound triggers (ie water fountains make sound and get louder the closer you get to them). Even their fog and smoke are pretty realistic.

 

Is it obvious I'm a gamer yet? :)

[Ros. Riha]

to take shot at my model is exactly what I am after... but as I would like to alow my clients to do the same, I seek for a solution, consisting of FREE engine and EASY way of importing data into it... so forth it seems we are leading nowhere:-)

[Ros. Riha]

I did learn the same: apart from reasons you mention, there are others: (1) game engines do not like floors one on the top of the other, (2) in the sake of "playability" all rooms are unnaturally bigger to prevent collisions with furniture etc., (3) to add "behavioral logic" (such as stairs mean you climb, you push the button to open the doors etc.) is complicated on imported models/polys

[Kevin Lockwood]

I don't see any issues with floors. I've seen multi level buildings within games. One was well over 20 stories. Pain in the neck to run up all those stairs, just to get shot and do it all again.