I don't know – and I don't care – I just needed an intro.
It started with this illustration for my diary ...
Since it was just an illustration, I removed one of the outer walls of the ground floor, the one facing the park, just to establish that the garage
was furnished and operational.
But the garage was not a priority.
The first floor was where I wanted to start, and I wanted it to look old and used, especially the floor.
I wanted the floor to look as if there had been big printing machines in the room, and that workers had trodden on it with dirty boots – and I wanted it
to look like someone had unsuccessfully tried sanding the floor to get rid of the stains, but had used the sander the wrong way – leaving marks across the
grain for the whole width of the floor.
But how could I do that? There had to be a simpler way to do that than to paint the entire texture... and what if I needed to change the texture later?
The solution was of course obviously simple: Just make a 3D model of the floor, with all the planks separated - one by one, like in real life.
Then changing floor-textures could be done in a jiffy.
The floor was easy to make. It ended up weighing 270Kb, which was not so bad, considering that I have earlier constructed bottles that were 6Mb ( or more).
Using the floor as a template, it was done in minutes to create a couple of tiled floors with different sized tiles – one for the entrance and one for the
storage room.
I imagined it was early morning – seven o'clock on a bright summers day, with the sun just creeping up over the horizon.
I added two chairs, a table and some flowers, so I had a nice place to sit while contemplating my next move.
It was then I got the idea that maybe I should make a stone wall in 3D, to replace the textured stone wall behind the fireplace with something more realistic.
For me, one of the problems with textures is that they are 2D and flat – but the worst problem is that they already have predefined shadows for any
unevenness that was protruding from the original surface when the photograph was taken.
It breaks the illusion when I see shadows pointing the wrong way.
Constructing a 3D stone wall was a bit more complicated than I had suspected, but as you can see: The wall is there – on both sides of the fireplace.
My 3D model of a stone wall ended up being 12.46Mb textured. I could live with that.
I'm still proud of that wall!
So... the big room, with a new stone wall. This was going to be the living room, the dining room and the kitchen.
I thought I would keep the walls and the floor – but not the ceiling. It was too ugly, even for me.
The ceiling would would have to go.
The old entrance – with the toilets.
The toilets would have to go.
The storage. Some old barrels with God-knows-what inside. Highly flammable... not good!
This room could be a toilet, in fact it could be a bathroom, with a shower – after a good cleaning.
The former owners office.
A desk and a single rubber plant – a plant most likely in need of water.
I liked it. This could be my future working desk... but I really had to change the view.
The surrounding view.
The next step was placing the building in an urban environment.
I already had the perfect place – a fake city that I had made a few months earlier.
Too bad there's no way to merge projects is SH3D – or even to copy/paste levels between projects.
But it turned out that there was an easy way around:
Make a group of the whole thing - scale it down a lot before copying, and paste it into any project. Rescale – and voila!
Of course walls and rooms are not group-able and scalable, so they have to be copy/pasted separately.
But I didn't have any walls or rooms, and my entire fake city is only 60Mb – textured.
A wide shot:
Zoom in...:
A city with a church, a park, a Kyrgyzian street food kitchen, a bus stop and a dumpster.
And Snällan's Car Service overlooking The Dick van Dyke Park - a popular place for the LGBT-people to gather – after dark.
The front, seen from the park - at night...
and at daytime.
A shot from the side.
That should cover the exterior.
Time to redecorate.
I have decided that I will go for white.
Two white leather sofas, a black glass table and the black window frames,
a contrast against the ruff walls and the old floor.
The entrance has gotten a wardrobe where the toilet used to be, and the floor tiles have been polished.
The fireplace.
Yes, I know – it's quite ugly, but notice how nicely the light is falling on my 3D stone wall.
The kitchen, black and white - and shiny.
Again a nice contrast to walls and floors – in my opinion.
A closer view of the kitchen.
The dining table
I think I could live here...
The laundry room is the only room I have finished.
A night-shot, with the moonlight shining through the windows.
... and I've finally got my outdoor café.
That's it for now.
Cec
