Spiral Staircase with Hanging Flowers Tuesday, Apr 1 2008

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A report on how I made my recent Spiral Staircase with Hanging Flowers for MiniLife, which I’m pretty proud of. (This is also my first blog report ever, so I hope it’s ok and would love to hear from you)

First, I used these programs in Mac OS 10:
1. Google Image Search
2. Google SketchUp v.6 (Google SketchUp is free and a great resource for un-copyrighted 3D models!)
3. Adobe Photoshop CS2 (Tools: Magic Wand, Image Size, Layer Editing, Layer Style: Stroke and Save For Web)

Ok, so I want a spiral staircase in my home. I start by searching the existing ML marketplace cause I don’t really want to spend a half hour of my life making an object… but none of the staircases fit my space (1×1 please!), style or standards (is it too much to ask that objects to fit to scale and rotate correctly?).

With nothing pre-made in the MiniLife Object Marketplace, I start by doing a Google Image Search for ’spiral staircase’ because I don’t have a model Spiral Staircase to photograph. (I heart Google) Almost immediately I see something that looks like a digital architectural drawing of a spiral staircase (always avoid photos if possible), luckily it brings me to a Google SketchUp 3D warehouse collection of … ta da, spiral staircases! I scroll through and find an object I can work with, download the file to my desktop and open SketchUp. (object credit to camcad)
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A note about SketchUp: I’ve never used this program before, but I work in digital image editing professionally (and have experimented with 3D modeling in Second Life) so I assume if I stab away at the tools I’ll get what I want out if it, which is to rotate the model four times and save them as jpgs.

A note about my work habit: I make sure I have my MiniHome open in a window on my desktop so I can see the environment I want to place the stairs in. This helps to visualize the colors, scale and perspective.

A note about me: I got my BFA in Fine Arts and am a working visual artist/self taught professional designer, I may not be explaining my techniques or terms clearly (or in a way that makes any sense) and invite you to ask questions or share constructive criticism.

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Google SketchUp:

Two things I notice about Google SketchUp is that there is a Horizon line in the background and an Axes View which I can use to orient my perspective of the staircase (don’t know if there is a mathematical way to rotate objects in SketchUp, anyone?). For this project I decide the Horizon line should be just outside the top of my work window (ie, you can’t see it.), this allows me to check that I’m always looking down at the same perspective. I choose the red Axes line to represent the ‘front’ of my stairs and while rotating I use that line to align the four views needed for the MiniLife Item Creation.

here’s an example:

this screen shot shows the Red Axes view and the Horizon Line

I also decide to play with the Paint Bucket and am thrilled to discover colors & textures (some of which look suspiciously like styles already in ML) to redesign the look of the stairs.

this screen shot shows the Paint Bucket Tool and Color/Style window

I personalize the look of my staircase by clicking on shapes I want ‘painted’ different colors (I never figured out why I couldn’t ‘paint’ the steps though).

Then I decide I want a flowering plant to hang from the railing cause things need to be home-y! I go back into Google SketchUp’s 3D warehouse, search and find a “Impatiens (sic) Hanging Basket Plant” (object credit to Google). I download this file to my desktop, and File -> Import the Hanging Basket object into my Spiral Staircase object. I can’t figure out how to resize the Hanging Basket (I would have liked to have made it bigger) but by using the ‘Move/Copy’ and ‘Rotate’ tool I pretty easily get the Hanging Basket aligned correctly and placed on the Spiral Staircase (sooo much easier than Second Life!).

Google SketchUp objects seem to come with a dark outline by default. I’ve found some great objects in MiniLife that fit really well into my homes but look cartooney with the dark outline. I also want to give my final object more dimension, it’s colors looks kind of flat. Here’s a shot of the default Google SketchUp appearance:

this is the flat/cartooney Google SketchUp object appearance

with a little exploring I soon discover how to change this object to look more ‘realistic’. I use these Google SketchUp features:

View -> Edge Style (unselect ALL removes black outline)
View -> Face Style -> Shaded with Texture (adds texture and some shading to the surfaces)
View -> Shadows (gives the entire object a cohesive 3D shadow/highlight appearance. this features is so awesome I have to include a screen shot of it’s options below)

a screen shot of Google SketchUp’s shadow features**. Which are awesome.

Now my Spiral Staircase with Hanging Plant is styled and ready to go! Using the ‘Orbit’ tool I rotate the object four times, remembering to use the red line in the Axes view & the Horizon line to check my perspective each time. File -> Export -> 2D Graphic (with jpg options at 300 dpi)

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Photoshop:

I have a few items on MyMiniLife wishlist: one is the ability to delete all those items people create using jpgs. You know the ones: the beds, the tables… FLAT WHITE SQUARES that don’t even serve as interesting artwork for your walls. (MML Inc. why can’t we delete our mistakes?) Yeah, for those people, here’s a lesson in masking out backgrounds and saving transparent gif files in Photoshop.

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Note to yourselves: as you upload files into ML Item Creation you can SEE if your file is working out, stop the process if your image does not look right or rotate correctly before it’s too late!!

Note about these Photoshop Instructions: Since software tools are pretty universalized I’m betting you can apply these techniques to Gimp, Photopaint, Corel Photo or whatever other image editing software you use. (programs which allow you to save transparent gif files!)

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That felt like a Public Service Announcement.

Ok, back to Photoshop:

I open four jpgs (four different views) of Spiral Staircase in Photoshop and am happy to notice the red Axes line didn’t export with the object (thanks Goog, u the bestest). I use the Magic Wand (at a Tolerance of 30) to Select the background and Add Selection (by holding down the Shift key while clicking) the small areas of background. This allows me to mask the entire beige Google SketchUp background.**This is why I didn’t keep the Drop Down (or Ground) Shadow in Google SketchUp, imagine the time it would take me to mask that too, also, I don’t think it would look right in ML for all the effort**

Before I hit DELETE, I’m going to change the background to a Layer. This will allow the deleted areas to become transparent. Here’s a screen shot of the pre (with Background to Layer transform) and post deleted jpg.

pre DELETE with Mask Selections & Background to Layer transform

post DELETE with Mask Selections in transparent Layer

Since my original Google SketchUp Export was 300dpi, my Photoshop file is too big to Save for Web. So, I resize my file to 500 points at 72dpi. 500 points is just a guess. But I’m glad I exported at 300dpi cause now I have all those lovely texture details and my masking working was really simple. Also, I’m going to Crop my image file right to the edges of my object.

Now I could File -> Save for Web as a Transparent Gif, but then I notice the edges of my object have a weird chunky white outline that looks uncool in ML Item Creation. Why? Transparencies either need a strong graphic edge (like a vector file) or a Dither. I hate Dithering cause I can’t figure out how to control it on small files (it makes the edges look jumpy and uneven). So I’m going to create a Layer -> Layer Style -> Stroke around my Object (ie. a vector edge) before I Save for Web. I’m going to set the Stroke Structure at ‘Size: 1′, ‘Position: outside’, ‘Blend: normal’, ‘Opacity:100%’ and set the Color at something neutral like #757575 (mid-tone gray) because my environment is mainly gray (if I was doing an under water world I might make it blue).

Now my Object looks just a little sharper, the 1point stroke outline is unobtrusive to my eye but the program can create a clean mask when I create a Transparent gif. File -> Save For Web!

To be absolutely sure my obect will have a nice sharp edge I’m going to set my gif with a Matte at the same color as the stroke. Here’s a screen shot of my Transparent Gif, at 256 colors, #757575 Matte and no dithering!

whew* almost done, just have to repeat those steps four more times (fortunately Photoshop remembers my gif settings). Upload the gifs to ML Item Creation, Create the Item and THE END.

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