Me too Will, I make a lot of trees I'll never get to use...except in my dreams (which I maybe too often post here :`). Thanks, Tom.

I guess it goes like this [image: xxRO_kids.jpg]

Thanks Michael - beautifully modeled and textured.

Now that I look at it again, it's a zero edge sink! Who'd a thunk it. Nice. poster-Jeff Jacobs

Guys, Thanks a bunch for your helpful responses. My attitude has always been pretty much exactly as Anssi stated. The hitch being the view for the LA's is more often from above like shown. But it dawned on me reading all this: when a shadow casts on a wall it really is just as simple as a flat horizontal...so there's the rub. A second plus for me is in hidden line and shaded modes, the cut up faces look much better too. So I've decided to pursue the nice shadow by first seeing if I can develope some sort of pinking shear template so making the shadow doesn't take longer than making the tree (and so I don't fall into using the same shadow for all). Then seeing how much I can cut down the edges and still have something nice. Then, if it isn't small enough still, I will add a simpler shadow component for alternate use...though I do always put the shadows on a separate layer too. Whadaya think? Any other hints? (Wish me luck driving around today...I'll be looking at tree shadows to distraction :`) Best, Tom.

Adding another small lot massing model. Enjoy and have a great weekend! Morrison-Fite Plan 2B.skp

hahaha, good one (I reckon the image should have read @last or SU, but just as funny just the same). yup, works fine...

Thanks for the link Michael. Yes Pepe does nice work. I gave him a 5 start vote and send him a message suggesting that he should drop in here for a visit. Mike

@craigd said: It scares me Tom! No matter where I orbit...IT'S STILL WATCHING ME!! - CraigD That gives me an idea- has anyone done a fly-through animation of an interior space where the eyes on the paintings follow you? That'd be pretty darn cool! Dave

¡Fine in deed! Thanks a lot, Kris!! Regards form Spain: el.antuan

thank RickW for the script, I've found it quite valuable too...

Oh, yeah, sorry Ron - actually I expect to be quite free with my stuff - I had planned to post it all to the old forum once I had the job finished - some might actually remember my toaster with the render and toast that I posted as a teaser a couple of months ago. I am not concerned about giving and not getting, I'm not concerned about my stuff being used willy-nilly - I would be pleased as punch to see that my stuff was good enough to be used in some of anyone's work in here... i guess I'm just concerned about bandwidth and storage. I had 198 things posted on the old forum and never blinked an eye - but If we all post our crap right away - how terrible if we crashed Coen's site - and being so conciensous, I could think that he would pay out of his own pocket to continue for this month if we made the traffic too high. I will post when we are sure that we aren't going to hurt Coen - but till then - email me or pm me and I will email the parts to you.. probably wouldn't hurt to post an image at least though I guess - maybe tomorrow.. <anyone else notice that I use too many hyphens and triple-periods instead of forming proper sentances..? - guess i should work on that> poster-Shaun Tennant

I am afraid it just might be so. A 23 Mb file can be enormous, especially if it has lots of component instances. The graphics card is just one part of SU:s display performance. It takes care of mostly the textures and shadows in the model, and the "geometry" (faces and edges) is handled by the CPU (or half of modern dual-core CPUs, as SU is single threaded like most modeling software). So an older 2.8 GHz CPU might even be faster in CAD than new sub-2GHz dualcores. SU uses OpenGL, not DirectX. I think that Nvidia Quadro GPU:s are generally OK, but I have been a bit underwhelmed by the SU performance of the lower end of the price range (I have used the 550 and 1400 cards), and I think the high-end is overpriced. I see no big difference with the performance of the GeForce FX 5700 Go in my luggable, and the QuadroFX 1400 in my computer at work. However, you should check that the graphics driver software is up to date and the correct version OpenGL Hardware Acceleration is enabled in the Window menu>Preferences>OpenGL dialog Antialiasing is set to Application-controlled in your graphics card settings To make SU go faster you can, for instance turn off textures and shadows hide parts of your model that you are currently not working with use 2D cutouts (with alpha-channel transparency) for trees and people instead of 3D components replace taxing 3D components with simple placeholder objects, and reload them when your model is finished. Anssi

bump

Well that clears up alot for me, I was wondering if there was something wrong withe the way i had been exporting images. Thanks for that Ross. poster-archtech

hidden and unhidden in right clicks.

I am pretty sure it's a tool state that cannot be relied upon. I discussed this with Google some time ago. While it does seem to work for some tools, it completely doesn't for others. For instance, the line tool. State 1 might be a down and release of the LMB, and state 2 might be the second click to complete the line after you've moved the mouse. However, you can also down left click, move the mouse, and release the mouse to draw the line, in which case, the (hypothetical) state rule above does not apply. The net of it all is that right now, we cannot depend on the tool state flag for anything, either because we don't have enough additional information to go along with it (like how the line tool is being used), or, it's simply residual information that is being push over through the API and is meaningless. (And that fact that "we're not supposed to be using it - it wasn't put in for us mere mortals") Perhaps in the future it can be relied upon. Todd

did I not put 3ds in there sorry... I thought I put all 3 extensions in there... thanks Mateo, for the catch...