IE8 installed. (And that's the one I'm using, if I may say so)

erick. A thought on your original post. Even if your windows are 2D flat squares make them coponents. That way you will be able to edit an entire buildings windows (or any other repetivly used geometry) by changing only one. Also, you can use simply constructed components as placemarkers for more elaboratly modeled versions. You can reload the fancy version when they are needed. This will save your CPU for zoom/pan/orbit while modeling the rest of your city. Always always always model on layer0. Move only entire groups to a diferent layer. If you come from AutoCad forget everything you know about layers.

Good work, thanks

@gaieus said: At least we only have "simple" rain here. So much about global warming. No, Gaieus Here in the north it goes: Higher temperatures in the Arctic> more evaporation, more winds> more rain As to importing DWG files, a valid file should import OK, but SU ignores many object types, especially those created by AEC applications like AutoCad Architecture. Those should be "Exported to AutoCad" prior to sending you the file. Cleaning the file of unnecessary geometry makes it import faster, but should otherwise not be necessary. There seems to be some limit to file size, though, I have read somewhere that at somewhere bigger than 10 Mb the importer begins to choke. Note too that the new AutoCad 2010 version that came out this spring has a new file format that is not yet readable by SU. So if the person who is sending you files uses that, they should save the file in the 2007 format or older. An intermittent problem with the same file might indicate some other problem, like a problem with a removable disk/memory stick or a network glitch, if the file resides on a server. Anssi

Problem solved. I just dragged the piece I'm working on in a new drawing and voila! Thanks for the help!

Is this being rendered? Is there any particular reason you want to do this w/ geometry vs. textures? With pits and hairline cracks I can't see not using a texture. If it's being rendered a decent bump map will help you there. If you really want to get fancy or if you want to show some more depth from larger cracks and deformation then you're probably looking at more of a displacement map situation. -Brodie

Cool, Jason, and thanks for coming back with the good news. Now get your students to model the whole town and soon you all will be famous! (At least we would do our best )

Thanks for the heads up Mike. I'm assuming it's all live in person training....are there webcasts also? Personally, they seem like another company who started doing vis-work, mediocre vis work at that, then the recession hit and they decided to go to plan B. I'm not that impressed by their portfolio and I doubt spending $500 would teach me more than 2 or 3 hours on youtube could. Just my opinion.

i am a regular user of these texture program...

OK, so now that I got that looking pretty ok, anyone have good snow materials in vray?

Hi, You have already asked this here: http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=19553&p=161757#p161757 please, don't double post. If there's a solution, it should go into the same topic.

SketchUp (Pro) already has a 3ds exporter built in. With the free version, you can have different workarounds like exporting to kmz and then (in a 3rd party app like the free Blender for instance) convert the kimz into something else etc...

Well you can change the position of the texture and stretch it a bit, but not proper UVing. to do the moving/stretching thing: right click on a single face with applied texture->texture->position then click the little handles on the texture.

Hi Majid, for shape bender, you need the road direction line from the first step. This i forget to mention. Sorry that i answered a little late. Karlheinz [image: C0cy_Roadtutorial.jpg]

Yeah, it definitely seems to be a (maybe just "almost") coplanar z-fighting issue. Do those lamp shades have "thickness"? Or are they just single faced? (painting on the front and back faces - even if you paint different materials on them - shouldn't cause this problem). Such a z-fighting can occur with even not entirely coplanar but very close faces like EscapeArtist says. It happens when the "physical" distance of two faces - viewing from far enough - is already foreshortened enough to be less than 1 pixel on screen; the limit OpanGL can display. In your 2D export that distance must be very very small however (if that's the case) since it's not a very far away shot OR I'd still suggest there are exactly coplanar faces there.

Right after SU is started, I cannot snap my cursor to anything but after a while it is fine again. I guess all resources are used to get SU on its feet and cannot do much of anything else? I cannot properly navigate complex models right after I start SU either (it's locked).

Thank you to all who answered, today i tried it again with a copy of the line and it worked. this step belongs to a quick tutorial for road design. If you are interested have a look here: http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=19578 Comments are welcome Karlheinz