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Keef’s IMVU > Developing Tutorials > Lab Study

Develop

Lab Study Class
Tips Tricks for Furniture and Room Deriving

Week 1, Design Concepts

 

About the Class

This course is being taught 'live' in the Developers University Group starting the end of May 2009,

If you would like to participate in the back and forth aspects of this course feel welcome to join the group and participate. I am duplicating the course here to my site so that those who cant join the group can also follow along as well as to keep it available for latter self study but it will not include the interactive class sharing components that will be happing during the course.

Overview:

This is an open attendance Lab study course based on my 'Tips on How to Texture a Kick A$$ Room' guide, but instead of just a guide I will be slowly take the attendees through exercises to learn these techniques over several weekly installments. When applicable there will be take home assignments for self practice and study. I will be encouraging participants to share their work along they way, while this will not be mandatory, sharing helps everyone learn from other’s successes as well as their woopsies.

The timeline for the Lab will be left open ended so it can be paced as needed. I imagine the whole thing will take at the least a couple months to get through but I will not be staying to any strict schedule in case we need to slow down in some areas.


Who this class is for:

-The newer developer who has a basic understanding of developing, knows how to use their image making program and who wants to texture furniture and rooms.
-The established clothing texturer who is tentative about making the switch to furniture and rooms
-The room texturer who wants to learn texture creation techniques.
-The furniture and room mesher who wants to better understand the needs of those who make their own textures for products.


Prerequisites for the course:

-Must own name, be a registered dev, and have submitted at least a few items to the catalog using the Previewer.
-Must have an understanding of the deriving process
-Must have installed as well as have a basic understanding of Photoshop (PS7-CS4) and its tools, inducing Toolbars, Layers and Filters. (non Photoshop users are welcome to join but they must have enough knowledge of their graphics program to be able to improvise as I will not be able to help them)
-Must have a digital camera, no fear of going out and looking foolish taking weird pictures, and a way to import those images into their computer.
-Must have an image hosting account such as imagshack or photobucket for sharing work. (and know how to use it)

Please be up to speed on these prerequisites. Due to the number of topics being covered and the number of folks interested in the course I will not be able to backtrack over basics. Please use the normal DU course threads or the IMVU public forums to resolve any basic issues.


Outline of topics that will be covered
(subject to change to the needs of those taking the course)

Introduction to furniture and room retexturing:

Design Concepts:
-Theme
-Mood
-Color Choices
-Developing in Sets

Mesh Selection:
-Being aware of UV mapping
-What makes a good mesh
-What makes a bad mesh

Texture Making:
Photosourcing
Seamless Texturing
Baked Lighting
Opacity Issues
Using UV Maps

Room Lighting and Fog: How all those settings work

Final Project: Putting it all together

Class Structure:

I will open each session with a lecture on the topic. When applicable I will give examples and/or tutorial(s) to further explain the topic and techniques. Take home self study suggestions/projects will be provided at the end of each session.

For the week following that session the thread will be open to discussion and sharing of assignments between participants.

All questions asked and comments in this thread may be reprinted in part or in whole (names omitted) in the off site Lab/Lecture materials that will accompany this coarse to answer questions and clarify issues that may come up.

This thread will be occasionally purged of any superfluous and/or off topic conversations to keep the course on track and easer to follow along.

The ‘week’ structure will be loose as it will need to be flexible to my availability (so don’t shoot me if I’m not positing on the dot, lol.) I will try to maintain some sort of regularity but there will be times when I simply can’t.

   
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