We must understand that SU was primarily developed as a design tool rather than a 3d modeling package. There's just so much SU can do when it comes to high poly count. A number of rendering plugins from respective third party developers have appeared over the past four years, but advancements from the SU side has been minimal. There are users that are pushing for an SU CAD while others are waiting to see if someday SU can go head to head with 3ds Max. IMO Google only sees SU as a low polygon modeling tool for Google Earth. And the new 'styles' were just added to make the architects happy. Maybe SU is not just fit for modeling Renaissance villas with 3d plants. Maybe we are pushing it too hard. I've heard someone working on 100 MB skp models, and it makes me wonder how can my computer handle that as I can hardly navigate with less than 20000 polygons.

@qwerter said:

Hello,

I exported a epixfile for use in piranesi but am running into a problem.
When I select a different style in sketchup then the ones that come with the program I end up with a bad epixfile.
The styles I would like to use are the Sketch styles by spdesign (http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=9749&hilit=styles), but as you can see none of them result in a good epixfile.

Im using Sketchup 6 and piranesi 5.1 the sketchupfile is a urban planning map and in 2d, totally flat.

anybody any suggestions?

Thanks

Bad epix export? Could you describe it further?

Arjun,

I like you arguments, but I think you missed a very important concept that is ownership. When you go to a library you don't have the sole right to a book. You have to share it with a thousand other users and mostly have to wait if another person is reading it. When you are in a library you are actually in a 'socialist' environment where everybody has access but not exclusive right to every book.

But the Shakira song is another matter. Songs were copied from the time of FM radios and cassettes. In some time you even have to give your girlfriend a mixed tape as a gift... as long as she doesn't pay for it.

What you are suggesting is truly revolutionary if not anti-capitalist. Without proper compensation you'll get the ire of authors, moreso the entrepreneurs. It is just sad that 'sharing' is frowned upon by our consumerist society. In real life there can never be a level playing field. On the contrary the Internet offers equal chances. A guy in Manila shantytown can download the same binary as a guy in a Manhattan loft. Thank God the Web is free. Actually thank Tim Berners-Lee.

Keith

My understanding of LWF is that it is comprised of calibrating your monitor, color correcting images to be used in the 3d scenes (usually in Max, don't know about the other 3d packages), and adjusting the gamma. The objective is a color correct rendered image.

There is a new tut about LWF in Ronen Bekerman's Blog, originally authored by Matt Gorner. http://www.ronenbekerman.com/linear-workflow-made-simple/

BTW I was just wondering--is LWF built-in in VRay for SketchUp?

My laptop has an ATI card and i have not been using hardware acceleration inside SkethUp for more than two years now. With Nvidia before i never had the same problem.

My two cents.

I meant the ASGVIS manual. Too bad I can't afford that Legrenzi manual. But I have had accumulated a collection of pdf tuts from the Web.

Francois,

My suggestion is to keep your VRay. If you hate it now just put it in the shelf in the mean time. I am sure those bugs can be fixed by ASGVIS. Btw, I am using an old VfSU and have not experienced crashing every 30 minutes. But I tell you that material panel can be a real pain.

Learning VRay is not really a walk in the park. You have to learn through tutorials in the Web as its manual is practically useless. Put a little more time in it. I am sure users that are happy with the product have put hundreds if not thousands of hours testing it. It took me months before I was satisfied with my output.

You say that you work faster with Maxwell but I think VRay users out there will agree with me that VRay is way way faster. Maybe your problem is you got comfortable with the Maxwell workflow that you think you can do the same with VfSU. VfSU is a totally different environment, and you must realize that if you want to learn VfSU.

I can actually relate to your frustration because I have tested VfSU in 2008 and I was not really impressed with its output. Aside from being cranky at the time, concepts like VRay Sun, Sky and Camera are alien to me. And there's just to many buttons. So I just quit and focused on Kerkythea, which in my opinion is easier to learn.

But I picked up VfSU a few months back as I had issues with the rendering time of the unbiased calculation. And the forums really helped a lot. Still learning it as I have hopes for the future of VRay.

I hope you'd reconsider.

Keith

Thanks again, TIG. Can't wait to use it.

Couldn't thank you enough, TIG.

Thanks for the reply, TIG.

In Blender it seems to orbit around the origin. I was just playing around with Blender when I wondered if this is possible in SketchUp too. I can't seem to find a ruby for it that's why I asked here.