It's My Room!

Getting a Model

Once I have drawn my room in Live Interior 3D, I'm going to put wallpaper onto the walls and add some furniture and decoration to reproduce furnishing of the actual room.

So, let's try to personalize the 3D space.

Hopefully, the program comes with a library of 3D models: doors, windows, tables, chairs, kitchens, etc. The library of materials has a lot of color templates for walls, floors and ceilings, as well as patterns of stones, bricks, wood, etc.

But what if none of library chairs looks like mine? What if I want to apply some specific wallpaper pattern that cannot be found in the library? Sure, I don't want to have “just an armchair” or “just a green wallpaper” in the 3D model of my room. I wish to see “my armchair” and “my green wallpaper” there. The article describes how to get personalized designs.

My Armchair

For the beginning, it is worth to search in the built-in library of models. If you are lucky, the needed things will be found in a couple minutes. You could use the search tool, but I feel it's better to look through the library by yourself. The Window > Library > Furnishing menu opens the library. Drag the separator bar of the library to the right to extend the thumbnail area. This will save you from repeated scrolling up and down – some categories in the library (like Tables or Kitchens) have a pretty large collection of 3D models.

While looking through the models, try to abstract yourself from colors. At this stage only the shape is important. The color (also called “material”) can be chosen later (we'll describe this below when changing the color of the curtain).

To get a better view of the model, click its thumbnail — the model will be shown in the 3D Preview below object thumbnails. You can preview the model from all the sides. For this, drag it with the mouse in the preview. If the preview is not shown, click the triangle next to “3D Preview” in the bottom left corner of the Library panel.

If you feel that some model could pass your project, but you cannot decide right now, drag the model from the library into the project. This will help you not to loose the found models. Then continue your search. When you have run through all the library items, go back to your project and revise what has been found. Probably you have found even several variants to choose from. Models you cast away, can be simply removed from your project.

If this time nothing from the library passes your design, then it's time to check alternatives. If you are not a guru in 3D modeling, or if you don't have time or proper software for this, let's look for ready-made models on the Internet.

Live Interior 3D can import 3DS and Google SketchUp™ models. 3DS models are made in Autodesk® 3DS Max® software. This type of models is usually commercial and made by professionals. SketchUp (*.skp) models are made in Google SketchUp software (I guess, mostly by amateurs).

Live Interior 3D is integrated with Google 3D Warehouse™ — online collection of SketchUp™ models. Integration means that after you pick a model, it will be imported directly into your project. You can also download the model by using an ordinary web browser, and then import the model into your project.

Let's use the “integration” feature (direct import). For this, click the Google 3D Warehouse™ tab on the Library panel (or choose Window > Library > Google 3D Warehouse™ in the menu). The 3D Warehouse window will open. It appears to be a simplified web browser that displays the Google 3D Warehouse web page. In the toolbar of the browser, you will find customary navigation buttons to the previous page, next page, home page (of the Warehouse, of course). The Import Settings button stays apart from others in the right upper corner. There you can adjust the import options.
Make all surfaces double-sided... — select it to avoid problems with import. The consequences — your project will be of larger size with the option selected.
Split object instances — when a model is made of several components, they turn to independent objects. Don't select the option without necessity. Otherwise, the imported object may brake into pieces (components) when you are moving it. Anyway, you can re-import it again.

The home page shows several categories of models, and it is only the top of the iceberg. You can browse through Google's collection for ages. Let's test their legendary search engine. Type the name of the model you want to find and click Search. Note that the Models/Collections option gives different results (leave the default). Don't pay too much attention to colors (materials). You will be able to change them after importing.

Once you have found a model you like, click its thumbnail to open the model's page. There is a bigger picture of the 3D object. Click the Download button (it can be named Get Model as well). During the download process, the object is shown in 3D as a dummy object (cube).

A 3D model, that is imported directly, will be saved in the project. To use it in another project, copy and paste it, or add into the library. For this, open an appropriate object category in the library (use the drop-down menu). Then move to 2D view, press the Alt key and drag the model onto the Library panel. Using a separate category seems to be more useful as it's easier to distinguish custom and built-in objects.

Changing materials (colors) of an object is discussed below.

My Green Wallpaper

The built-in library of materials in Live Interior 3D lets you change color/material of objects. To access the library, choose Window > Inspector > Materials in the menu. The amount of glossy and matt paint colors must satisfy your needs. These materials don't have textures. If you want, you can add even more colors.

Another matter is textured materials. Any library can't cover the diversity of textures. Multiply this by variety of colors... Collection of textured materials in Live Interior 3D is good for most common tasks. Before you decide that none of built-in materials can be used for your project, browse the library of materials once more. The material editor in Live Interior 3D lets you create a copy of the existing material and edit it. You can change colors (not radically), rotate and scale the texture. The change may look like below (texture size and color were changed).

Well, but I don't want bricks, I want a green wallpaper. I like hieroglyphs on “40_Chineese_Light” wallpaper, and will use this material as a start point.

Live Interior doesn't let changing built-in materials, so I should create a copy for modification. For this, I select the material and click the “wheel” button to access the actions menu (it an be found in the Inspector > Materials tab). “New From Selected” is what I need to choose in the menu.

This command duplicates the selected material and opens it in the material editor — everything is ready to play with colors.

I changed the ambient and diffuse colors. The final look of my wallpaper is below.

The process of a new material creation may consist of several iterations. You change the settings of the material, check how it looks in the project, and if necessary, go back to the material editor. This happens because the lighting in your project may differ from the one in the material editor.

My wallpaper is fine now and I'm adding curtains to the project. Let's use the internal collection of materials to match the color of the curtain to the wall. The picture below shows the curtain color, as it is in the library.

I'd like to have the curtains darker. To get the colors (materials) of the curtain displayed in the Inspector (Materials tab), I click on the curtain. The Inspector shows two materials in the upper box: one, used for the curtain, and another - for the curtain rod. Once a passing material is found in the Matte paint category, I select the existing curtain material (lower one), then I click the new material (“1024 ochre yellow”). For the wooden rod, I choose “019 Natural Alder” from the Wood category. Here is the final appearance of the window with curtains.

Nick Shubin
Published: October 2007
Last reviewed: April 2008

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