First of all, I'm not a rendering guru somy thoughts on the differences between bump and displacement maps may not be relevant. So if you understand the difference a rendering engine is using them for, you'll realize that a bump map will only affect the way (and "imitate") the shadows cast on a rough surface. Therefore (if both maps are used), a bump map should include the finer surface details rather than big, elevation differences (think of "spanish" roof tiles for instance). The displacement map then should include these "big" surface differences instead. Certainly you could achieve everything combining the two maps and only using it for displacement but I suspect that it would considerably raise rendering time.

And if you need to select all DC's of one type, you can use my Selection Toys plugin.

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/search?q=earth&styp=m

@barry gray said: So...Gee thanks for the help. Welcome

Have you looked at Model Info> Rendering> Anit-Aliased Textures, uncheck the box to see if that makes any difference, just a thought

Wrong sort of 3d i think pilou.

Also, probably notable that the free version of SU 6 (for some reason Windows only) doesn't have the Location tab at all in Model info.

Yes that makes sens 1/4 of sphere is logical and simple but in fact you can take any variation of that, depending of what you want as angle for your cut out A middle of a line? there is an hot point of the middle of a line, so redraw over start to hot point and kill the bigger

@solo said: Another example of how I do it [image: terrainpasting.jpg] hi!..a have a little question. The top view of the mountain, that texture, you did´t all whit Photoshop? Tks for the help!

Ok, that link you posted had what I needed. I guess I have to drop the materials into the library outside the program. You can't just import from the Painter window while in SU. Thanks!

@jean-franco said: you have to clic first on "User control panel" then "user group" and there select the french forum. Il te faut sélectionner User control panel" puis l'onglet "User group" et là cocher "français". A partir de là tu pourras systématiquement accéder à ce sous forum. merci de ton aide, sa marche

Nice textures You are pretty good at making these Bruce.

There is a (commercial, $ 5) plugin called PageExIm (i.e. export/import "pages" how scenes used to be called in SU prior to version 6) at Smustard's.

Just to verify, are you trying to make the cabinet so that you can scale it on all 3 axis? - make it taller, deeper, wider? The "groove" in the side walls is the "dado", right? So it seems like the side walls are set up correctly so that they don't get any thicker as you scale the cabient wider. But if you scale it to be deeper, then yes the dado stretches. So you will need to make the last few inches into their own component with a fixed dimension, then have the rest of the walls scale. So that way the dado will not stretch. Does that make sense? If not, I can try to mock up a model based on your model a little later tonight. Its a good looking model! Chris

you could make them they are just photoreal images trimmed and placed at 90 degrees to each other with the trunk being the ceter of the two images.

Oh, good to hear this. I guess they both hang on the memory too much (but I'm not a very technically educated person to tell it sure).

Cool,Mary. You only need to grasp the concept once and from then on, it will seem to be easy. Such "layered and scened" animations are always a bit of a hasle however so once you understand the logic, you may really wish to look into plugins that automate and make this process easier.

Does anybody know how to create an exact sun tracker? I mean, I saw the DC by google, but the problem is that that DC has the center of the coordinates system in the bottom line of the panel, while, actually, the center of real trackers is in the center of the platform containing the panels. I tried to make a DC by playing with sunangle and sunelevation and putting the axis orientation of the DC yet in the center of a rectangle. But no success! Does anybody know how to set RotX RotZ RotY and the axis ref.? Thank you

Thanks - already had a look round the galleries here and there is some great stuff.

Hey - I just thought of something... Instead of making the image transparent for sketchy edges, I could cut it away. I'd have to cut the image around the solid shape. Here's what I mean: I am putting images of 2D people into a 3D model. The area in the image that's around the person is transparent. The sketchy edges do not show through. How about if I cut away all the transparent areas? Is there a way to follow the outline of an object in an image and cut around it? (A way that does not make me want to pull out my hair. And quick, too. I have lots of images.) By the way, this is for a scene from the movie I'm making. I am creating a series of short movies using SU animation. You can see the first one, Plain Sight, at TreasureInside.net The next movie has a party scene with many images of people. --- Joel