Hey guys,

Recently a good chunk of you have been toying with Sketch-up, converting popular WWG sets to that format. As many of you know, this provides an amazing design tool to preplan your builds.

I promised a few of you that we would look into ways of providing these packages to everyone on the site (as well as potentially offering incentives) but we've been too busy recently to make that happen. So what I would like you to do is send your related sketch-up files to Aubrey aleph13@worldworksgames.com with the subject line "Sketch-Up Files". Let us know who you are of course (Real name and forum name) and what set your Sketch-up is designed for.

We still don't have time right now to make a special area of the site for these, we need to work out any legalities and technical hurdles but we want to round up what is available out there anyway. When we can find a window to focus on this we will do everything we can to get an official Sketch-up/WWG program underway.

Thanks in advance!

Denny

I've been working a lot with the the sets in sketchup and I have several questions.

Are you looking for textured, or untextured sets? Both?
Is 72dpi still the desired texture resolution?

Should we be doing these actual size? Or in 5' scale? (Although there is a simple way to alter the scale accurately)

Do you want the elements made into components?

Is the layer individual elements are on important? I don't know if many people make use of layers. But they are a very useful way to organize really complicated SKU models.

Are you looking for SKU layouts? Or do you want a collection of pieces so to be used for making layouts?

For example: I have finished SKU models for all the village works elements, except the smallest props. And I have been put a lot of effort into making each piece into components to minimize layout file size. And to organize these component files into essentially a library by set and then category.

However when I began working on my SKU shellendrak layout I found out that a piece library cannot be done for any set that uses the footprint method. Every layout for such a set needs to be done from scratch in SKU. Because you must know at least what will be on the front and back of a given piece to make a useful component. The best that can be done for them is a library of 72 dpi textures to be imported. So for the footprint sets really only layouts can be sent.

Good move Denny.


My view to the whole "ripping textures from a SketchUp construct" is this: If they have the time, software, skill and most importantly the want to do it - then Let them - they will most likely will go and buy the set once they see that they could/can get a lot more out of a whole set. Also if someone is going to do this and actually use it to build cardstock then great! We have another into the fold.

I think there is way to much paranoid thinking with this. End of the day if you have the equipment, the skill, time and still want to rip-off textures they will anyways.


An idea have each textured surface watermarked with "WorldWorksGames.com" across it. Won't look pretty but it will add another level of advertising to anything that might get circulated wrongly.



Lord Abaddon of Wormwood

I thought the concern with 72 dpi textures wasn't that people would rip them to print. They'd be too poor quality to be worth that kind of effort and printing material.

I thought the concern was that people would rip them for digital content, like video games.

Watermarking might be good for both concerns, but not everyone doing SKU models has the know how or software to apply them.

How complete is complete?

Like for villageworks I've done everything except for the crates, standees, dungeon entrance columns, chimneys and the signs.

And if you're going to combine individual elements from multiple sources, a standard scale should be determined pretty soon.

Well as for geometry they only need Pepakura to unfold with score lines.

I think its a great idea. Half of a project is the planning and this would take care of 85% of that.

I don't know who is working on what but I could skin my Chunky Dungeons. Not sure how long it would take me or when I'd get to it.

What about 72dpi, black and white textures? I'm also a fan of both no texture and of a watermarked texture scheme. Bottom line is that we have to think of a way to do this without allowing our work to be usable in other digital content.

I've actually been trying to crop the textures for each face. Although this was an attempt to reduce file sizes, the improvement to geometry security is a bonus.

I regularly unfold my models in sketchup, its how I do all my kitbash geometry. I would bet its nowhere near as easy as the other programs, but it can be done.

Watermarking or black and white textures might indeed work, but either is going to require everyone retexture their models. Unless someone knows if sketchup has tools to do it. So that will cause some delays in submissions.

Alternatively perhaps the SKU models could simply be included with the pdf files. Purchasers already have access to the full resolution textures.

So we go in circles - pdf. files are not secure so what makes a SketchUp product pack any different. Its not shooting themselves in the foot but opening the door to a larger market.




BTW If I use my build -real life build in a series of web comics or something and make it fully know that the terrain bits and pieces are WWG is that ok? This is a to a web comic using Hirst Arts. I could see the same things happening with WWG and SketchUp. To me it would be shooting yourself (WWG collective) in the foot by not doing this.


*EDIT* My vote is to have the sets - main structures only not the props in full dpi and colour for the same price as the set. This could be used as a layout tool but not a freebie.

Lord Abaddon of Wormwood