Thanks Eric, The best thing about it (if I may say so ) is setting it going using the SketchyPhysics plugin- it's great fun watching it slowly start moving before getting up to full speed. The blur is done using Lewis' brilliant SU Fog/Styles trick to create a depth map from SU and then copying that to the alpha channel in PhotoshopCS3 and applying the "Lens Blur" filter to select the focal distance and depth of field. http://www.sketchucation.com/scf/viewtopic.php?f=71&t=1156&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=depth+depth+map

Hi Sawduster, I noticed another posting of your on this site and its interesting to see the Fine Woodworking are now using sketchup. I think its a great idea. cheers Alan.

Nice work Eric. I enjoyed viewing the pics. BTW, you have a ringer over here ! When I saw your pic first I thought this guy (a son of a business partner) was leading a double life Mike

Have a look at Ross' notes about styles here: http://www.sketchucation.com/scf/viewtopic.php?f=154&t=2628 According to them, you are not even supposed to be able to export all the edges all the time. But a nice concept!

@cheffey said: nah, i'm just kidding. i was actually trying to set you up for those Chuck Norris jokes. like "There is no chin under Chuck Norris' Beard. There is only another fist." Did you watch that ep of Family Guy?

I think your first image was closer to being real. In an urban area the ground snow and the snowing sky and clouds reflect the light equally, This is how it is so bright in/during a snowstorm. Now if you are in the country, deep forest in the pitch black of night, when it is snowing sideways and visibility is zilch, the windows will have a amber glow, and shadows will emanate from that source. I think that light source on the left is confusing the issue.

Looking forward to it.

Do I love it? No. Does it look like a good start? Yes. Your walls need thickness but all in all a good start. Keep it up and keep us posted

does not work for me john, it keeps buffering all the time

yes congratulations and happy sketching

Unbelievable... I thought they were hand painted... I can't tell the difference!

bautiful rendering. would you mind if you can post the rendering time.

Nice... but go easy on the bumps.

@anssi said: What is meant by "thick glass"? Must it be two parallel faces close to each other, or must the sides be modelled too? If you have a couple of minutes, you should check out the SkIndigo tutorials for version 0.9: http://www.indigorenderer.com/joomla/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2317 They are interactive skippies. 'Thick Glass' would be glass that is modeled as a closed volume. I think for windows, you would not have to model the sides to get the correct result (not sure though). It is pretty easy just to push/pull your windows 1/2" in order model the window correctly. However, you can also avoid this step by using the 'Thin Glass' material. It works pretty well for windows but I would not use it for glassware. If you use 'Thin Glass' make sure the exponent (glossiness) is set to 1 million so you get near-perfect reflections. Lower values will result in a glossy appearance. If you use the 'Glass' material preset, you will get perfect realistic glass, but the glass must have thickness. I think your render was slow because of the high resolution and the large amount of windows that cause the light rays to keep bouncing back and forth. This is also the reason why materials that are completely white tend to stay noisy much longer (lots of light bouncing)

Very nice Ross!

Thanks for your comments. You're right about the DOF but..i liked the resault. Maybe i need to scale down the wood planks a bit? They are already about 20cm wide

@unknownuser said: Thanks Dylan, Probably the the reflections are the only bonus achieved by running the image through Kerkythea but I feel that, just maybe, it adds some richness that wouldn't be achieved with a straight WC render. You are right stu, the reflection definately gives it something extra and I guess the bonus is with kerk you could do this so easily

Yeah, perfect. Well, it's time for me to go into post processing, too. These plants!

@unknownuser said: Gaieus, if I add 2D plant entourage [Tiffs] I would normally do it post SU and Kerkythea in PhotoShop [or in my case PhotoImpact]. Stu Sure there is the post process (that I'm always just too lazy to do ) Anyway, nice scene as it can be with the given material!

my apology for not mentioning. i used vray for sketchup and use Photomatch in Sketchup in setting up the background image and the foreground model. then after rendering i reinserted the image one more time in Photoshop. the advantage of photomatch in SU is to set up your camera model to match with the image, so that when post processing it's easy to match them together.