I would not use sky with camera view like that. It would be better using background colour. To avoid bright spot like that try to move the origin.

For all those thinking to buy Modo they are running $200 price reduction over festive season.

Ahhhhhhh now it makes sense. Thank you!

Too late! Already got it myself. As always, the solution was right under my nose. Thanks anyway.

@kwistenbiebel said: They might as well go fully open source with Sketchup, so really funky coding stuff can happen. Amen to that! I was really hoping Google would step up to the plate with this release and show that they had some vision for the software, but version 7, although improved, is not a step towards something better. Google is content with having sketchup be purely a surface modeler with poor integration and inefficient load handling. I was hoping to see an indication with this release, that sketchup would move more towards a quad modeler or at least start to offer things like direct vertex manipulation and subdivision. There are so many great ruby scripts and ideas that could've been taken on by Google's development team and integrated into the software as standard tools, but in the end, there were no new tools whatsoever. Except for automatic line intersecting, which I'd imagine wouldn't take more than a few lines of code to add. So, in the end, the only real solution to the inefficiency dilemma is to have solid third party application that can be strong in the areas that Sketchup is weak. I wouldn't count on Google to provide this solution.

artlantis is a very good app, very easy to learn and use. its problem is, like others, its price tag.

I once read a post on this forum that points to a plugin that fools SU into believing that SU free is SU pro in a limited range of situations. If however this is a Boo Hoo, please forget I mentioned it.

Hey, just found on maxwell forum: Pelias say's: "There is one very important change which is not directly visible though. The handling of transformation matrices was overwritten to solve the issues of Studio compatibility for groups/components. This is a big one - I believe this fixes the issues of objects misplaced in Studio or Studio crashes when loading SU generated MXS files for good." Yeah!

Thanks big for the detailed answer, Solo, I will try to bypass this problem somehow. Though all the same does not converge, put pictures: [image: 3934eb43074ct.jpg] [image: e6c22994f56bt.jpg] Vue simple polygons splits up not for two, and on many triangles, them in 40 it turns out times more (see arrows)....

I've seen anim8or... but is there ANYTHING like it for macs?

I think that I got it all sorted out. I have put it onto the Gallery. http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=81&t=14123

Craig, thanks for replying. I've downloaded the latest version via the link you gave but still the same problem. I've posted it to your forum. I did find that if I temporarily moved all my plug ins out it did install so there must be a conflict with other plug ins. This issue has been reported on your forum which the new version was intended to fix. One thing however, what is the new version number? I still get VE-Ware59 as the installer the same as before. Kenny

Another heads up. A few people were asking if it was possible to use Al Hart's plugin to generate actual 3D trees in addition to the billboards. I'm not sure whether that is possible, because of the Terms of Use of the original tree generator. However there is a little freebie called Arbaro that runs entirely in Java....so it runs from a folder on your desktop (any OS) by double clicking the arbaro.jar file. The results, though, are worthy of anything produced by XFrog or Onyx. It outputs in Pov and Obj formats. Here is a link to a gallery page showing the results...the download link is near the top of the page. And attached is a render of a model converted to 3ds, imported into SU (agonisingly slowly) and rendered in VRay. I needed to reverse the normals on the leaves prior to import, for some reason, but the whole model is separate groups, so that was no big deal. [image: k8Gl_blacktupelo.jpg]

holgster- that seems to fix the problem. "texture anti-aliasing" was unchecked for the "final" settings thanks! [image: SSSP_buildingonly.jpg]

clarification: @unknownuser said: Antics Technologies will no longer be offering Antics3D for purchase or download, and subscriptions can no longer be renewed after 28th November 2008. We will continue to support existing customers, and allow access to content until at least June 2009. For more information please visit

Burkhard, It's the other way round - there is a SKP Importer for Archicad that can be downloaded from the Graphisoft site. The version I have tested is meant for version 11, I don't know if it works with 12. Models imported with it needed quite a lot of cleanup, but it is a nice way of creating custom doors and windows as SU hole-cutting components are imported as windows or doors (if they touch an edge) into Archicad. Anssi

Which OS are you on harry? IF its vista, try running sketchup as an administrator (right click the SU icon->run as admin)

I am not sure what you mean with the first part about shadows. I did understand the second part. Podium comes with presets. There are more on the Podium forum. Soon we will have even more.

'fraid not. Still on XP at the moment. I'm going to be working on the problem today. I'll try and report back if/when I find the issue. What frustration I'm having w/ Maxwell early on is that the error messages are pretty unsatisfactory. Might as well be "Render Failed: Guess again" -Brodie

Oh, well here's a couple thread about that.. http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=11338 http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=4845 I don't know if they have what you need.