I need to build this.

thomthom

Really depends how it will be presented. If you are making close up illustrations you'll need more details and a different approach than if you where to only view it from afar.

Also - are you going to make illustrations from SketchUp directly? Is it for drawing plans? Is it for realistic rendering?

Krisidious

all of the above. plans will be made from it. it will be rendered from sketchup and perhaps someone might want photo quality, but not very often from me. and I would say medium/close distance.

Krisidious

wow that looks pretty good. I suppose one could take that and then shape bend it or fredo scale it.

Thom has a bmp depth map plugin. I wonder if something like that might work also.

baz

I was having a play with this myself a while ago to get a low poly drystone wall.
This is as far as I got.
Drawn with 'Freehand Line' and 'Round Corner. I think I started playing with scaling the tops too.
Looks OK I think for middle distance.

stone wall.jpg

baz

Bending would send the polys thru the roof. Scaling would be ok I guess.
I think my approach would be to draw the 'Skin' of the walls and then draw the individual stone outlines. Then either pushpull or vector pushpull. For the corners? Probly' have to stitch them. But artisan with poly reduce might work.

Here's a stone bitmap to try with the ThomThom plugin

Krisidious

got some good results from it, but really high poly. need to simplify and perhaps make a custom bmp that is more precise and will create less polys.

thomthom

To create less polys, use a smaller bitmap. Very small.

baz

I like that mesh from the bitmap. But yes, too much detail. There are a couple of things that come to mind to make it more manageable... poly reduce and/or selectively make planar the tops in artisan?

But I think designing a specific bitmap,(as you say) would give the most natural result. Then you could isolate individual 'stones', de-poly them, (is that a word? it is now:) and component them.

In my attempt, most of the entities are copied, scaled and rotated from perhaps 3 or 4 base entities.The smaller stones are literally quick fill ins and need no detail.

Go for it Kristoff, model one good patch of stones and you are good to go for many projects.
(You will share, won't you?:)

Baz.
PS: you can have my skp. for what it's worth if ya want.

Krisidious

Here is my attempt at free hand. it turns out well and is fairly low poly. but not in the shape I need.

Stone low poly3.JPG

Stone low poly2.JPG

thomthom

ShapeBender?

Krisidious

used that Rocksolver stones to build start a corner by hand. high poly and very time consuming.

Stone low poly4.JPG

Stone low poly5.JPG

next going to try shapebender on the triangular shape drawn in 2D and then bent afterwards...

Krisidious

architecturally, what would you call this feature?

lapx

Chris,

It's called random stacked stone. Looks like some kinda of false buttress.
I don't think you need to go through that much effort with 3d. I would model the basic shape and texture it as you desire. Anything like this can be handle with a good "character refence guide" indicating color,pattern, texture and dimension you require. I good mason should be able to build this with a little art direction in the field. ofcurse the traditional cross section showing construction elements is necessary.

Krisidious

Lapx,

That's probably the closest thing I've heard to describe it. however what I'm looking for is more natural and random than ordered like buttresses. I know my shape shown in the screenies is rather perfect, but the randomness is what I'm after, I was using that buttress shape as a guide.

I call it a spilling stone corner or a spread stone corner. but searches give me no examples. this is one I happened across on the net and it's close to what I want except it's too narrow through it's length. I would like it to be wider and seem to come up from the ground instead of down into it.

here's one of our sketches.

imagine this wrapping a corner and coming up higher.

[xxl-img:23d2t063]http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rZ--zwlBk3A/T72Zb1hwU8I/AAAAAAAAB-o/UnPpkFqbmsM/s1600/Retaining+wall+falling+WM.jpg[/xxl-img:23d2t063]