I don't know of any shortcut atm... there should be one, I see what you're saying, as sketchup has one so why wouldn't a 1500 euro program such as Lumion?
But in this case, after that last snapshot at the top of the tower I just flew way into the sky, spun the camera around and took another snapshot when I thought it was pretty well centered in the frame (I was actually a little off if you see the fade at the end into the "lethos" symbol), but it seems I should have used my tape measure on the screen first, lol.

I know this reply may have still not been very helpful, but I do implore you to spend time simply flying around your models. It was a pure joy for me zooming around that (empty) city for the first time at that speed as if I was an eagle on loads of caffeine . Just a wonderfully ambient environment, it was a good half hour before I started finding all the snapshots I wanted in the video....

Oh, and also to anyone who may be interested, this "Lethos Uber Project" currently has 5 other cities, an entire original rune system, 20 pages typed on lore and character development, several landscapes, world and region maps, several unique bridges, and about 12 settlements currently in the works. BIG project, lmao.

No tricks Pilou, just got to top view, held down shift, zoomed waaaaaaay out then took another snapshot as is how we take video in Lumion .

I am updating the city for the first time in almost a year, reworking the whole grounds, but not the layout of the walls as they are the icon for the whole project. However I will be adding a bit more detail to those walls in time. Here's how I'm transforming the grounds right now...

I'll start at the top and work down, and I'll be adding all the flora within Lumion. This area up top will be quite lush with trees and plants when I finally get around to making the next video .

Thank you

I always try to stay reserved when I try out a new rendering program, but holy cow this one blew my socks off! It makes easy and relatively short work of tremendous projects, and does so also in a fun and easy environment to get used to quickly. Okay enough of me being silly, here's a video I just got done with:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76I7Lsle1aU

What do ya think?
I definitely have a lot to do yet with the model, but I just had to get something made and this one is the most epic project I have in the works right now

P.S. Actual time working with Lumion itself was only like 12 hours, which includes rendering and saving the video clips, building terrains, changing textures, weather, and all that good stuff

Wow! Lumion is amazing. I wish I had the money to buy it, so bad

I think I'll start up a kickstart page or something, lol.
thank you for the point to Twilight Render, i'll get that as a nice temporary till I can find the money for lumion.

Thank you, Downloading now, have about an hour left till it's done downloading. From the descriptions I read when I was checking out the page it looks fantastic, although I'm not sure yet if it lets me animate my own model's objects (aka water wheels, moving carts, moving bridges etc.) or just the items they provide with the program...? Still very much looking forward to using it for a while to see how I like it though .

Does anyone else have any ideas or suggestions? Are there in existence any animation programs that are actually $100 USD or close to that which work with SU? Or is that impossible without watermark?

I appreciate anything that anyone has to add, thank you .

Hello there,
Long time reader, occasional poster .

I find myself now at a crossroads. My massive project is going to hit rough times soon if I don't find a reasonably priced animation and presentation software program to display my year (thus far) of work. My previous attempts on animation have been shotty digital stop animation which takes.. sooo.... long to do.
http://youtu.be/ZL-HvrLU-OM
The link above takes you to my youtube channel, which atm is exclusively sketchup presentations of mine. That video is one example showing how so very limited one person can be using my current method. That video took me nearly 3 days to take all the still pictures and then run them in fast succession via windows movie maker... Yes, I am extremely outdated and thus I am pleading with this community to give me some actually good recommendations: as all the suggestions I got via youtube are either ferociously expensive or no better than what I'm currently doing

So please help me decide on what my next purchases will be.

I need a good, cheap rendering program, and a good, cheap sketchup animator.

By cheap, I mean no more than $100 USD.

Thank you very much for viewing.

Always nice to see another person getting started on drawing ships and boats. I don't know why but I always end up eventually working on at least on giant ship a year in spare time Good job.

I realized today that it has been entirely too long since I uploaded anything here, it is time to correct this. I had to create a rendered (i used Kerkythea) portfolio recently of my "best" SketchUp models of the past couple years. I am certainly still a novice at rendering, although I did take some significant strides forward whilst doing this project

Anyways, here we go...

An older model indeed, a cliff-side town of sorts, although it has come into use again recently with a worldspace project I'm working on with a few friends.

Here's perhaps my most prized recent accomplishment. The finished exterior (40% of the interior is done too) of my "Coastal Cruiser" concept ship. Been working on this one off and on for the past two years almost. Quite extensive when a yacht turns into a cruiser, then into a ship with grand staircases and glass elevators, decktop pools and onboard tenders, a helipad and theater, restaurants...: Crazy Awesome.

Here's another building from that worldspace I mentioned earlier. This one is a town center of sorts (roof removed), also functioning as a throne room, Jarl's 'palace,' and community center. The only interior room completed is the main hall though, yet still looking great so far.

A workstation I have yet to actually physically build, but very much intend to once I can get a good place to build and use it (waiting on my next raise at work next month ).

Well that wraps up this post, I'll be sure to check in more frequently now that I'm getting my business back up and running (design oriented, going to be spending a lot more time on my computer) Please comment with any critiques or suggestions, I love learning anything new from my mistakes from the wonderful collective community here. Thank you for viewing, I love this forum

Thank you very much everyone and Daniel, I'll get on it with moving things around a bit and adding some more storage in certain spots-- I was meaning to use those empty wall spots for some, but the bathroom completely eluded me so thank you kindly for that note.

As far as the cramped areas, my goal here (aside from making a nice looking home without any formal design education ) was to make a villa which was very small and yet quite nice.. the second floor was not in my orriginal plan believe it or not.

One of these days I'll get my Gondolin project a bit further along, but alas, my current real-work load is a bit intrusive to my SU hobby. Some day I'll have time again. Have a good one y'all.