Is that the sky you see in the window? You should get an alpha channel you can use if you have it enabled in the VFB section of V-Ray.

Henry, one thing you always need to keep in mind; layers don't separate geometry in SU at all - they just control visibility. Therefore if you have basic ("primitive", "raw" - i.e. ungrouped) geometry within your model, you shouldn't put different parts of it on different layers because these parts - though on different (sometimes hidden) layers - still interact with each other. See this video for basic ideas and mistakes to avoid: [flash=425,344:3m1el3he]http://www.youtube.com/v/fBdP499iw0Y&hl=en&fs=1[/flash:3m1el3he]

The one thing that will stop Makefaces dead in its tracks is if there are any stubs of lines inside the overall outline shape. (Think of a simple case like a circular outline with a tiny stub of a "spoke" heading from one of the nodes on the edge towards the centre). If you are sure the outline is compltely closed and planar, then that's the most likely reason. You may need to fill it in by progressively drawing lines across the shape between obvious points...then delete them once the complete shape is filled.

so that hasn't done the trick, the attachment here shows its in. Also on the left I've included your pic your plugin folder. I may just highlighting my lack of knowledge on the subject here, but an icon seems different to yours - see freescale.plugin. would that be it? I also get please install progressbar.rb from smustard which you can see i have. [image: fWNV_screengrabpluginfolder2.jpg]

So I have it working now!!!! - I have icons and evertyhing its fine!! thank you!!! I bet you where going to tell me to put a file called DEFPARAM_Dir in there, well I have, i read that else where, maybe TBD actually told me. so its working ok. Is Putting plugins in the Users/Library/Application Support/SketchUp7/Sketchup/Plugins something new to look out for?? - so once it doesn't work in usual place put it here?? see if it works fantastic plugin by the way I'm using it already and its only 10 minutes old. get in.

Welcome, rejdavid. I think makehuman is what you're looking for: http://www.makehuman.org/blog/index.php When you're finished configurating your model, save it as OBJ (click the OBJ disk icon, hit Enter to save in the default path) and then import it into SketchUp using the OBJ importer: http://www.scriptspot.com/sketchup/script/obj-importer

Thanks a lot! Now it works. Best regards higgins

If you have access to Adobe Illustrator, you can use the customise brush tool to create the slat profiles along a curve, and then import the results into SU.

Id say have a play around with the sandbox tools. You need to turn them on first: window->preferences->extensions. Of specific interest to you is the smoove tool.

Hi Roy, If your problem (after placing the moved item) is that it is still selected and whatever further thing you do with the Move tool will still move (and distort) objects,just press Esc(ape) to get rid of the next move and select the Select tool to click somewhere else so that you deselect what you have just moved.

Question, in my maya list of meshes, i have like 99999 meshes.. each building FLOOR is seperate to another, i.e it is not grouped as one building object meaning that each FLOOR is one mesh..which creates a whole lot of hassle for me. if i group each building and then export it from sketchup as a 3ds (which works fine for me now on maya for some reason..its just slow though :/) will that mean that maya will regognise each building as one mesh? including the wireframe skin? thanks for your help guys as far as the FBX thing im not bothered much as i got a 3ds plugin for maya and its ok now, even took the colour by layer from sketchup

I don't know anything about the inner workings of SU either, but I would guess that to display a shadow from an edge, the app has to treat it like a thin face, about similar as when exporting a model with the "export standalone edges" enabled. So I would use it only when absolutely necessary. Anssi

Wow! foot in mouth Fooled me!

If you give us examples of what you try to achieve and tells us a bit about your background in computer graphics, we could help you better. Being myself a bit of a computer geek, my recommendation goes to Kerkythea, as all you learn with it will serve you as a foundation for learning other rendering engines. And it's free.

If you have a look at morisdovs proper animation plugin, it sounds like it should help with what you want.

@kustura said: WD is fine I second that. I've already killed three Maxtor hard drives, and a Samsung one, but Western Digital hasn't failed me. That's what happens when you work with 3D Walkthroughs and often move/edit Gigas of data. I agree that the Core 2 Quad Q6600 and the Core i7 920 are the two best "bang-for-your-buck" CPUs right now. If you check the charts at TomsHardware.com, you'll see that the Core i7 920 is 54% faster than the Q6600 in 3D rendering. Since the difference in price between the two is only $82, I'd highly recommend you buy the Core i7 920. Compared to CPUs in that price range just a couple of years ago, it's like having a small render farm at home. In fact, your programs will see the Core i7 920 as having 8 logical cores, not 4, as each physical core can handle two threads. It also consumes less power than the Q6600, according to an Amazon review. If you're going to skimp on something, that should be the graphics card, as it is not used during rendering. Even navigation within SketchUp and 3dsMAX seems to be far more CPU intensive than graphics card intensive. Just make sure the card you buy is HDCP compliant, as at some point you'll want to watch Blu-rays on your PC.

Great Thanks Chris

@jcarchitecture said: When you say make sure the front faces out, how do I determine that?? Oh and by the way thanks alot for responding so fast, it's really appreciated....I'm trying out the render click the icon circled in red. your front faces will show in white and backfaces will show blueish purple. you can select a face then right click and choose reverse faces. it is generally considered good practice to never have backfaces facing you. sooner or later you will run into problems when rendering with most renderers, they will either render white or black no matter how you texture them. [image: yZI8_Capture.JPG]

an example file would be very helpful Intersecting grouped geometry will behave differently from simply intersecting ungrouped geometry. Try experimenting. The behavior of lines "just being on top" usually happens when you deal with grouped geometry.

hint: [image: VwXO_Capture.jpg]