Higher res! Go to something like 7000 pixels and let the thing cook overnight. I find its better to have a very high res and use the default Image Sampling of .01 than to descrease that number to something like .005 or less and render at 2000 pixels. Then run a unsharp mask filter in Photoshop and reduce the size down to what you want. That's my opinion.

Okay, here is my entry. I love cartoons so why not a chameleon cartoon render. Made with Artisan sculpt tools [image: chameleonlines1.jpg] And a simple render. [image: chameleonthea.jpg]

I probably wouldn't trust a generically created sketchup camera too much. If you were in ortho mode or 2 point perspective that could certainly throw things way off. Even if not, though, there's nothing native within SU to determine where the focus point should be. And even if you find a way to get a focus point, will that translate through a .3ds file? I don't know. SU's ACT camera plugin doesn't have an option for focal distance. I can set a focal distance with my Maxwell render plugin but it doesn't translate through .3ds. -Brodie Edit: I agree wholeheartedly with Earthmover. You should be using perspective to navigate. And 3ds Max's SU importer is quite nice. It preserves all of your components as 3ds Max instances and textures translate very well. There was a SU importer for 2010 but I think it had to be downloaded separately whereas it's integrated into 2011.

Hi Dave, have a look here http://www.vray.com/vray_for_sketchup/ Charly [image: BQS8_2011-08-27_144601.jpg]

I've had trouble (on two computers) with Camstudio not recording audio from the speakers. I now use Debut Webcam/Desktop Recorder when I need to capture sound. http://www.nchsoftware.com/software/video.html

I tried making something simple. And lo and behold, 100% cpu usage was reached! There must have been something dodgy with that previous file. This was the bugged, final render that took 3 days to output. [image: Zn4T_hesus_9_hard.jpg] This is a just for fun SU output render [image: XqrV_jesushouse_resive.jpg] This proves that the previous file was bugged and that everything is working back to usual. [image: vssu_100.png]

It's blue because your sunlight GI is going to be bluish in color, especially on white faces. See this video which explains how to reduce the bluish toning. http://youtu.be/cPxtadpyM20

have you seen this tutorial http://www.nomeradona.blogspot.com/2011/09/tutorial-how-to-create-pool-water-in.html

Try first to disable "Refractive GI Caustics" under indirect illumination roll-out. Looks like caustic artifacts. Cheers!

I couldn't find that tutorial I was thinking of but here is one that's a bit of a 'cheat'. http://www.sketchupartists.org/tutorials/sketchup-and-v-ray/glass-reflection-effect-sketchup-and-v-ray/

Use the standard material then there is no problem

The other thing I was able to determine was that my edge length was set very low (4) for the resolution I was rendering (4k pixel wide render). As soon as I turned it up to 10 it was much faster calculating. Can you guys share what settings you typically use in order to get the best speed and best looking displacement. I know its all dependant on the map and what you are looking to get from it, but in general for a high res image. Is it something as high as 10 or higher?

@vidy said: hello ray, maybe you can check this one out: http://alexhogrefe.squarespace.com/photoshop-landscape-tutorial/ regards, That is a really good link! thanks alot! I'm still curious about making this water in vray. Anyone?

@vidy said: @junior_architect said: Use classes (cant believe I didnt use this before!). can you be more specific on this step.. what is exactly "classes".. is it a code?? like ruby? thanks I am the last person to speak to about programming, but I will give it a try. The concept of classes in programing is to organize things by shared characteristics. For instance all lumber is rectangular and long. So you can define a class called lumber. Now each time you want a board in your drawing you refer back to your class definition and just add the unique elements like length and type of wood. By storing that in the class and not in each individual instance of a board your code become much shorter and more concise. This decreases the program overhead that has to be handled by your computer. If your not a coder, then just remember class is an inherited characteristic that can be used by subclasses.

I would use pipe along pathhttp://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=1709 and give the line a very small outer dia and 0 inner dia. Then apply a dark gray or black material to it. The other way would be to mess around with a toon material, but you still need a face of some sort to apply the texture to.

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Thank you!

Thanks for the replys guys. Exactly what I was hoping to hear A.