+1 Pete.

Are those chipped tiles a texture, modelled, or is it a displacement?

Adam

Beautiful. You really are getting the hang of this modelling thing, aren't you.

Pete, what does Glare actually do? Its a blending function, or a lighting function?

Thank you!

Here a link to a tutorial I put together on the process of rigging the model.

http://www.light-up.co.uk/index.php?t=story&p=94

Adam

Great stuff, Sepo.

Those blue tinted panes cleverly break it up visually. Inspired.

Great look.

Is Citizen Extras Female the right scale? She looks a little off (small).

I was needing something like this last week..

And while thinking how it might be done, it would seem an elegant way might be to write it so an arbitrary fragment of Ruby is evaluated with known arguments. You could have some "presets" - as you do - but they would simply be preset Ruby fragments that are eval-ed on the arguments.

Users could add any Ruby fragment they liked to extend it.

two cents worth and all that..

Adam

@chris fullmer said:

Hi, we've been working on this for the last few days with no luck yet.

Just the line

require 'test4dll.dll' bugsplats SketchUp on loading. So I'm not even getting ruby to let me load the dll. Does that mean the .dll is compiled incorrectly?

I do have the source code for this test dll I could PM if someone has the ability to look it over and see what it needs to make it more ruby friendly.

Chris,

If you've compiled this DLL, why not launch Sketchup from VisualC and look where it crashes?
And what flags are you using to compile this DLL?

Adam

Given lots of underlying technology has changed in Lion, are the messages when SketchUp launches (which most users won't see unless they are developers) benign anymore?

Previously its just a bit sloppy that the same function if defined twice. But now, picking up something from an installed Framework vs SketchUp could cause problems, no?

Adam

[floatl:33cjkhwe]objc[78103]: Class SKTextPath is implemented in both /Applications/Google SketchUp 8/SketchUp.app/Contents/MacOS/SketchUp and /Applications/Google SketchUp 8/SketchUp.app/Contents/MacOS/../Frameworks/SAPI.framework/Versions/A/SAPI. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.
objc[78103]: Class SKTextPath is implemented in both /Applications/Google SketchUp 8/SketchUp.app/Contents/MacOS/SketchUp and /Applications/Google SketchUp 8/SketchUp.app/Contents/MacOS/../Frameworks/slapi.framework/Versions/A/slapi. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.
objc[78103]: Class CocoaReadOnlyFileBuf is implemented in both /Applications/Google SketchUp 8/SketchUp.app/Contents/MacOS/SketchUp and /Applications/Google SketchUp 8/SketchUp.app/Contents/PlugIns/Skp2Acad.plugin/Contents/MacOS/Skp2Acad. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.
objc[78103]: Class CocoaReadWriteFileBuf is implemented in both /Applications/Google SketchUp 8/SketchUp.app/Contents/MacOS/SketchUp and /Applications/Google SketchUp 8/SketchUp.app/Contents/PlugIns/Skp2Acad.plugin/Contents/MacOS/Skp2Acad. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.
objc[78103]: Class CocoaBaseFileBuf is implemented in both /Applications/Google SketchUp 8/SketchUp.app/Contents/MacOS/SketchUp and /Applications/Google SketchUp 8/SketchUp.app/Contents/PlugIns/Skp2Acad.plugin/Contents/MacOS/Skp2Acad. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.
objc[78103]: Class CocoaReadOnlyFileBuf is implemented in both /Applications/Google SketchUp 8/SketchUp.app/Contents/MacOS/SketchUp and /Applications/Google SketchUp 8/SketchUp.app/Contents/PlugIns/Skp2AcadHlr.plugin/Contents/MacOS/Skp2AcadHlr. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.
objc[78103]: Class CocoaReadWriteFileBuf is implemented in both /Applications/Google SketchUp 8/SketchUp.app/Contents/MacOS/SketchUp and /Applications/Google SketchUp 8/SketchUp.app/Contents/PlugIns/Skp2AcadHlr.plugin/Contents/MacOS/Skp2AcadHlr. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.
objc[78103]: Class CocoaBaseFileBuf is implemented in both /Applications/Google SketchUp 8/SketchUp.app/Contents/MacOS/SketchUp and /Applications/Google SketchUp 8/SketchUp.app/Contents/PlugIns/Skp2AcadHlr.plugin/Contents/MacOS/Skp2AcadHlr. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.
objc[78103]: Class HLRExporterBase is implemented in both /Applications/Google SketchUp 8/SketchUp.app/Contents/PlugIns/Skp2AcadHlr.plugin/Contents/MacOS/Skp2AcadHlr and /Applications/Google SketchUp 8/SketchUp.app/Contents/PlugIns/Skp2AcadSection.plugin/Contents/MacOS/Skp2AcadSection. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.
objc[78103]: Class CocoaReadOnlyFileBuf is implemented in both /Applications/Google SketchUp 8/SketchUp.app/Contents/MacOS/SketchUp and /Applications/Google SketchUp 8/SketchUp.app/Contents/PlugIns/Skp2AcadSection.plugin/Contents/MacOS/Skp2AcadSection. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.
objc[78103]: Class CocoaReadWriteFileBuf is implemented in both /Applications/Google SketchUp 8/SketchUp.app/Contents/MacOS/SketchUp and /Applications/Google SketchUp 8/SketchUp.app/Contents/PlugIns/Skp2AcadSection.plugin/Contents/MacOS/Skp2AcadSection. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.
objc[78103]: Class CocoaBaseFileBuf is implemented in both /Applications/Google SketchUp 8/SketchUp.app/Contents/MacOS/SketchUp and /Applications/Google SketchUp 8/SketchUp.app/Contents/PlugIns/Skp2AcadSection.plugin/Contents/MacOS/Skp2AcadSection. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.[/floatl:33cjkhwe]

This is a model I found used often on an Italian 3dsmax/vray site. So I thought I'd run it through LightUp for some realtime goodness. I plan on posting some steps on how I rigged this interior in the near future.

[flash=720,480:17cy8nxh]http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=29490454[/flash:17cy8nxh]

And here's a still view using the diffuse lights in the ceiling:

Found this model from an old render challenge.

Modelled by David Vacek. Textured, lit and rendered in SketchUp with LightUp.
This is a snapshot from the realtime.

@dsarchs said:

Adam,

Sorry about the lack of clarity. I understand it is triangles at the core, but practically blender will still show a quad even if one of the vertices is slightly non-planar. I rarely use blender so I have no idea what best practices are, I just meant to say that that situation can exist. Thanks for the correction.

Understood. Not to be pedantic, but Sketchup also has a planarity epsilon (error term) below which it will consider triangles coplanar. All CAD packages do, because they all use floating point which has finite precision.

@thomthom said:

@adamb said:

degenerate quads
Not familiar with this definition. What is it?

A degenerate quad is one with 1 or more zero length edges. Its topologically a four-sided shape, but may look like a triangle.

Quads can be useful but you often need triangles to close a surface, so having your Tools being able to handle Quads where 1 edge has been degenerated to make a "triangle shape" while still being a quad will be essential.

Basically, does your tool explode if I give it a degenerate quad.

@artysmedia: Yes the wall was dizzy. Changed it for this - though it changes the tone of the pic in not a great way.

@earthmover/@richard: As you know, I'm a technologist, not an artist. Love to hear your thoughts on how to make the composition better - obviously I'll be crushed and upset but it will make me "a better person".

I replaced the "nice poster". Just thought it was a bit pervy having a bath in front of her!

Here's an evening clip using a few lights. The candles are all dynamic realtime lights with animated textures for the flames.

(No idea why youtube makes it so much darker as you miss a lot of nice little details.)
EDIT: swapped it for a Vimeo one which has retained more details.

[flash=640,480:1lvf0fp2]http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=29064537[/flash:1lvf0fp2]

Oh, and I was wrong. Lighting time is 52 seconds.

@mitcorb said:

Hi, AdamB:
The image is great. The luxurious space allotment is interesting. I am as dazzled as everyone else. But the emperor has no toilet paper.

Its one of those Japanese ones..

@thomthom said:

As Adam mentions, Quads are an abstraction of geometry which many modellers include. Everything is built up of triangles at the core, but abstracting them into Quads (that can be non-planar) allows you to create a regular predictable topology which is much easier to work with and create tools for.

SketchUp does not have such support natively, you can only have a planar Quad - if you try to make it non-planar SketchUp Auto-Folds it into two separate triangles.

However, it is possible to work with Quads in SketchUp as long as the plugins do the abstraction themselves. A little bit more work, but not that hard. I've recently started a project, QuadFace Tools, where I'm building a set of tools for creating and manipulating quad based geometry in SketchUp and I try to encourage other developers to make their plugins quad-friendly.

Sounds cool. Will you be supporting degenerate quads?
And what about tools for stitching triangles into quads? Its fiddly to do it well.

Adam

@dsarchs said:

Blender can use quads that are mostly coplanar and still work. The advantage is that quads allow for/are better at advanced (compared to SU) modeling like edgeloops and subdivision.

Thats quite a misleading statement. No software can deal with surfaces "that are mostly (sic) coplanar" quads. If they aren't planar, then you will get a "bow tie" projection from certain angles. The only practical way is to break the quads into triangles - which by definition are always planar.

All graphics hardware requires triangles. No PC hardware natively supports 3D quads. You may give it quads, but they're simply turned into triangles.

So Sketchup internally stores geometry as a very generally purpose, multi-boundary representation - NB not triangles.
It, like every single CAD package on Earth, turns them into triangles for rendering.

Hi,

What package / workflow do Sketchup designers use for revision control? Sure, there are "big iron" solutions such as Alien Brain for backing up, versioning and generally looking after art assets. But I always found them pretty clunky - particularly compared the tools we use for software revision control (such as Subversion, Git, Perforce) which allows you to quickly move back and forth in time to narrow down to a particular revision (that you liked, had bugs, customer wants, whatever).

I've been saved so many times by being able to roll back to a previous version.

But with .skp files, I find myself doing scummy stuff like making Copy 1, Copy 2, Copy 3 etc.

Any top tips / recommendations from the power users out there?

Adam

Pierre,

Computers are commodity items - so you get what you pay for. However, my 2 tips would be:

1. Make sure it isn't low priced because it has an Intel graphics chip (GPU). They are uniformly bug-ridden and slow.
2. Don't underestimate the importance of a FAST hard disk nowadays with large images and models. You'll thank me later!

Adam

SketchUp + LightUp. Lighting time <2minutes with Philips Colorburst lighting.

@thomthom said:

@adamb said:

But if you like, I've got code that handles quads

Quads? Whatcha mean?

You give me a four-sided polygon (quadrilateral) , and I'm sure I can stretch to writing code to break it into triangles.