Thanks Thom and Chris, that is exactly what I was looking for. It seems to be a little slow and Im having a bit of a time getting it to work efficiently in a large model but it will save me a ton of time once I work it out. Davide, I am on a mac, I dont see a version for the mac of this software, not that I really need another learning curve right now, Edit: Actually after working with this I'm not very happy with it, maybe its just what Im trying to do but I fine the way it distributes stuff is very uneven. It requres so much screwin around to get it right I find myself spending so much time setting up to get the right density and then cleaning up afterwards that It is easier to make a bunch of copies then use drop.rb and randor to get the effect I want, I was hoping for soemthing faster to use. Thanks though for the help Thanks all -Andrew

Thanks for that tidbit. That'll get the dimension above the arrows. One could also type \n<> or \n\n<> to put the dimension on the other side of the arrows. I learned about that once but didn't use it and thus forgot. thanks for the reminder.

Chris, The attached is a example of a "just in time" render for a client meeting. The house was designed and modeled by my production cad system, ported into SU for materials, then IDX for a preview render. The time spent in SU, and IDX was under 30 minuets. The render is not great, but good enough for that meeting. The status of the project that the render represents is the second schematic design meeting. [image: nCmg_RenderMakai02.jpg]

Hi Cassie, Who could help if not the KT Team members? (Actually since many of them are members here, we always ask them here, too). Have you shared your kzx file with them to have a look? That's the best and easiest way to do I'm afraid.

@thomthom said: There is a solar panel Dynamic Component that orient itself towards the sun. Have you seen that? No, i have not seen that component. I have read that there is a sun component that is able to cast shadows from roof overhangs, trees and such. That is why i thought it would be cool to add a reflective feature. Seems that the tough hurdles have already been done if it calculates sun position, latitude and longitude at any given time of the year. That is pretty amazing in itself. Can someone explain the function a bit and maybe do a quick tut on how it works? Thanks a whole bunch thomthom.

When asking rendering questions it'd make it a lot easier to answer if you mention which render engine you use...

Two suggestions that sometimes work for Mac users: Delete, move or rename the SU Preferences file so that it creates a new, clean one. Repair your disk permissions. Anssi

Welcome and thank you. These will be nice on small projects and I have a few in mind.

@wo3dan said: Hans, Remus, @remus said: ....As for a solution, im not really sure. Ive never notice this problem before. Perhaps a bug report is in order. It's not a bug and the result is completely predictable. The 'Follow Me' tool PROJECTS the face to be used on a plane perpendicular to the beginning of the path. From there on it starts using the projected face which isn't even half a circle anymore!!! %(#FF0000)[To avoid (if you need 1/4 of the sphere) you either create the sphere first and then delete 3/4 OR as a path you use [1/4 of a circle +1segment] in a way that first segment and end segment start perpendicular to resp. run parallel to the face to be used.] (of course for this you need to start with a 'path'-circle that has 4n segments i.e. 4, 8, 12, 16 segmemts etc. using 2,3,4,5 segments as the actual path). I noticed another little bug just now that I think wasn't there in SU6 but that has nothing to do with getting a correct 1/4 sphere. I hope I can pinpoint it to report. Hans, look at your result(s) in plan view (Top+Parallel) to better understand what SU does. And check the radius which is not constant anymore for different endpoints, top to bottom. Wo3Dan Thanks Wo3Dan, If I start and end the path at a midpoint of a segment it works "comme il faut" Of course the face had to be perpendicular. Thanks for the class. Hans

@3rd stone said: Is it look like this pic? Yes, exactly.

Search for a sky dome in the warehouse, there are lots of them. You will need to fiddle with the transparency to let the sun in. Have fun, they work great

@valerostudio said: I always just exported my shadows by themselves and changed the color in PS and multiplied them on. Exactly what I do.

@moghamdi said: ...please can you explain how you made the last step?? Mohammed, Draw new diagonal line entities from the bottom corner of each step, to the next bottom corner. When done, you can select the new lines, and copy them downward by your desired amount. This will provide the bottom curved line, from the first floor to the second. Note that I used groups. If you employ the above description while 'inside' the edit of the group, you have to use the copy feature of the move tool, then delete the original curve. If, however, you keep the group closed, and draw your new diagonals on the 'outside' of the group, the lines won't 'stick' to the group geometry (but inferencing still works.) You can then move the new curved line downwards, without distorting (dragging) the geometry within the group. Once you have the diagonal curve in the new position, select the complete curve and use <ctrl-x> to delete it. This will delete and copy the entities onto the clipboard. Immediately open the group for editing, and use "Paste-in-place" (Edit menu) to insert the 'deleted' curve into the group's geometry. The rest is cleanup and hand-stitching the underside. (You can use the 'Skin' plugin instead of hand-stitching.) EDIT: See several posts down, for clarification regarding the rounded steps having two lines defining the outer edge. To draw the diagonals, this middle point has to be included, as well. xrok1 describes one method. [Sun Feb 15, 2009 5:20 pm] Taff

MuseumMaker, i would love to see some of your projects. do you have a website? or maybe you could post some.

Skinning is making a mesh sort of pliable, like skin. It involves taking the skin and matching the vertices to bones and giving them weight. So each and every vertex of the skin mesh is associated with a bone object. And even associated certain percents to different bones. So that way when you animate the bones of the model, the skin knows how to follow and bend and shrink and stretch, and still look like the original shape. SU can't make a true skin. The best you could probably do is make the geometry and export that to a separate program that could then turn it into a skin. So at least you could model it in SU. Chris

It works and looks pretty fine! Thanks a lot! (unfortunatly I need to redraw window and door, because entity info wont change, if there are attached elements, but now I Know, where is the secret (smile))

Thansk Remus, but no that doesnt work. Here is the complete problem: I have some terrain I mapped manually by tracing topographic contours and offsetting them in altitude and then used the from contours tool to make a surface. I then took a sattelite photo, placed it on a rectangle above the topography. I exploded the rectangle then sampled it with the eye dropper and painted the topography with the photo. So now I have the photo on the topography. For the animation I want to use the picture. For the renderings I want to not show the textures (the photo) and just use the colored surface, but the colored surface when in the shaded view is very dark, a dark grey. Probably something Sketchup is doing, maybe as pmiller says, taking the average luminosity of the whole photo and extrapolating a surface color. If I follow what you are saying remus nothing happens. Although the one thing I dont know how to do that you said: "Click the front face colour box, change the colour, click ok. Go view->face style->shaded" ....there is no "ok" to click. But the color sticks in the little box anyway so I think I am doing what you intend me to do correctly. It does work on new stuff, any new face that I create will be that color, but it doesn't change the existing selected face on the topography. I have another problem pmiller, if I edit the texture in the materials window, I can only edit the original texture, I cant edit a copy. If I duplicate the texture and edit that there is no picture, its just becomes the solid color in the materials window. So I am limited to editing the original one and if I wanna change it back I would have to reimport the picture I project from. Forgive me if I am misunderstanding you guys and just missing something stupid, I really appreciate the help. Probably the easiest work around would be just paint the surface the color I want to do the renderings and then paint the photo back on to do the animation. It wouldnt be that hard. I was just wondering if there was some little simple thing I was missing. My hope was that I could quickly toggle back and forth between the surface color I want and the photo texture while I am working because I am using the photo on the topo as a guide to help position the plants and trees accurately. Thanks again -Andrew

The whole OpenGL dialog box belongs IMO to the "if it works OK, don't touch it" category. OK, the different Antialiasing options might have an influence on how your SU screen looks like, but even with them it is mostly best to stick with what works. Anssi

thanks xrok1 !!!! I often export the file in 3ds too, but with some minor software (for example argile) export only in obj format! I feel bad opening, perhaps with blender, and export them again .... say that there is an alternative method? Some good soul has a brilliant solution? CIASO, davide

Gai, you have a good point on the HW acceleration. Reminds me I ought to check for an update on mine. And thanks for keeping the secret.