Guys, I'm sorry I should've mentioned earlier that I'm using version 1.48.89. Andybot's suggestion worked Thank you all for your input. Problem solved thank you very much

Don't know what I'd do without this forum lol.

I'd quite like to try this......."use the original png images to produce separate diffuse and transparency maps". Can anyone point me in the direction of a tutorial on how to do this or is it pretty straight forward?

Thanks everyone for their suggestions and advice so far

Ok so I upgraded to sketchup 8 (from 7) because I couldn't open Andre's file. This seemed to cure the white bits inbetween the branches whilst in the model. However, Even the tree model Andre sent me is rendering the white around the branches..... see below:

What would you guys suggest I do to get around this problem. I'd really like to use Andre's tree or the first trees I was using in my Vray renders but I'm not sure how to lose the white bits.

I found some pine trees on 3D warehouse that i thought would look nice in my model. However, when I copied and pasted them into 'my model' they appear to have white bits in-between the leaves which they didnt show in the original 3D warehouse model. see below

original 3D warehouse model:

My model:

Also, when I hit render(Vray) the appearance of the trees shows the leaves in their full jpeg format:

Is there a workaround for this?

Cheers

ExtrudeEdgesbyFace has worked perfectly...... it took much longer to process the geometry than lattice maker but still 1 million times quicker than it would take to model the damn thing!! One minor hitch is that the timber battens on the axis don't rotate with the structure..... this is such a minor thing tho that is barely noticeable until you get really really close to the structure. So all in all i'm as pleased as punch - thank you very much for your time and patience gentlemen.

Tig as soon as my next student loan arrives I will be sure to make a donation to you (that is a promise) because you have saved me ALOT of blood sweat and tears.

@solo said:

Jim,

You are correct, I was a Podium user and was able to create some great images at the time. The reason for moving on to Thea, Vue and even a stint of Vray was that I out grew Podium, Podium IMO is an entry level renderer, simple to learn with minimal bells and whistles, so as I progressed I had the need to up my game and required features that Podium never had and after requesting the features was informed that they probably will never have, so I really never had a choice.
I really enjoy Thea, it has everything I need and more, I still learn new things and being a part of the beta team I can assure you that this software is a living beast, growing with you, the developers are constantly adding new features, streamlining and listening to users.

Hmmm i'll second that - I still use podium occasionally but for most things i do (especially internal architectural renders) podium can frustrate sometimes. I get some nice results with Vray but there are far too many 'bells and whistles' for my liking lol.

I am certainly keen on giving the Thea renderer a try and being a student I notice the price is very appealing too. One quick question I have is do you need to purchase the sketchup plug-in as well as the Thea renderer for it to work?

@olishea said:

jim_tim its really not that hard.....if you have a nice model the render will always look good. well most of the time. It's just a glass material lit by a HDRI.

I stayed away from vray cos it seems very overbearing and has too many options for me to care about! Although it seems to be the best. I like the KT family of render apps personally.

I like the white one pete

Yes I've been using Vray for a while now and I'm still struggling to come to terms with many things. I believe the interface to be quite intimidating and very user-unfriendly, not to mention hundreds of pages to get your head around in the manual - perhaps i'm just lazy. Having said that I did go from using podium to Vray so there was quite a jump. I really just want a rendering package that has a quick learning curve and lets me concentrate on design rather than the laws of physics. The results shown here with these playful images are very impressive. I may give Thea a go but the fear is that I'm starting from scratch again. I haven't tried podium v2 yet but I'm thinking I'd prefer to learn one or the other so one gets my full attention. I dont want to turn this into a debate about the merits of each rendering package - just a bit of advice really.

I seem to remember yourself and Solo producing some nice stuff in the podium forums. Do you still play with podium or has Thea become the renderer of choice? Sorry for the long winded reply

Wow guys.... thanks for your rapid suggestions. The lattice maker plugin is fantastic (it's so quick at processing the geometry). The only problem I have is that it makes a lattice out of the hidden geometry between the individual squares of the grid - is there a possible workaround this without having to delete every single diagonal brace individually

Wow these are fantastic images..... I've not heard of Thea before. I think it gives very similar results to Vray from those images you have been producing. In fact if I was going to take a guess at what rendering package you were using I would've guessed Vray lol. Very very impressive though - I wish I had an ounce of these skills

Hi, I have been trying to model a timber gridshell roof. First I modelled a curvey form using the sandbox tool, then I exploded the shape and used the 'lines to cylinders plug-in to turn it into a grid (image 1). I didnt want the triangular cross-bracing in between the grid so rather than simply exploding the undulating shape I re-selected it so that the hidden geometry wasn't highlighted - then I repeated the process (lines into cylinder) and got the result in image 2. I got the grid i'm after but obviously because I want a timber gridshell i want a square edge rather than a cylinder.

I'm just wondering if anybody knows of a plug-in that will do the same job as the 'line to cylinder' plugin but leave a square edge. If not is there an alternative technique? Preferably as straight forward as the one i've used.