Hey Alan thanks so much mate for the informations there! I'll definately try them out! I worked out a very simple way to run a texture up a trunk or branch using a few projections, which would have eased so much post work on a unfolded map - though each is exported to any render app as a separate material GRRR! I so much wish for the day SU supports better mapping options! Thanks again!

Maybe the sky scrapers will sit on elevators. So you can sink it down by one floor. In the cellar, there are people (or elephants?) who push out the lowest floor. Then the building sinks for the next floor... Interesting that most high sky scraper will be built in the new industrialised countries. For us they would not be profitable.

Thanks Alan

A great find, thanks for highlighting it.

Thanks Kim. Well, the school board aren't particularly design savvy, so they just wanted it to look real...hence the render. Actually, it was quite a useful exercise as it made me realise just how few large trees I'd made that were render-ready. So I've started on a new series I call Geometrees. These are the latest ones...about 45' /15 metres high. They look a little like Onyx or XFrog, but are actually hand-built in SU and weigh in at only 1 MB each which is higher than I would normally like, but worth it for the ability to render in just about anything you can throw at them. No transparency maps at all, just geometry. An overhead SU render and a V-Ray render straight out of SU on default settings. [image: vWy3_all4.jpg] [image: kO1F_g4.jpg]

@unknownuser said: Amazing stuff i'd love to see a video of it in action. In action - like Remus said, its boring: [flash=340,285:5qmvgu9r]http://www.youtube.com/v/6qqMywvcpNk&hl[/flash:5qmvgu9r] Some of the possibilities [flash=500,315:5qmvgu9r]http://www.youtube.com/v/PDLOmoQj4H0&hl[/flash:5qmvgu9r]

I they've all been out fishing for years now...

Wow, that was brilliant! The script was perfect, but the delivery and comedic timing was astonishing- they made Monty Python look like am-dram understudies (Blasphemy, I know). Must remember that line for next client meeting: Client: "And will this building be friendly to the environment?" Architect: "Oh, yes..... we've designed it to that it won't even be in the environment so there's nothing to worry about in that respect!"

You got it, Jim. It's good up to about 60°...perhaps a little higher, but can't go all the way to plan view. If you try to angle independent Face Me components, they start to corkscrew as you orbit the tree...very disconcerting. There are 3 shadow casters in there to cope with longer shadows, but if you're happy enough to keep within a couple of hours either side of noon, you can delete the top and bottom ones. You'll only delete 2 faces but over half the edges in the model. Edges eat memory too.

Reading between the lines I think it was the BBC who came up with the "bereavement" tag- it sounds to me like "The Rubble Club" (the name is a giveaway) has got less to do with helping architects cope with the loss of their buildings (they're too busy mourning the loss of their jobs anyway) as it is a tongue-in-cheek poke at the effects modern political wrangling and economic forces have on the increasingly disposable built environment. On the other hand, maybe I should apply for membership on the grounds that in my 2nd year at university I spent a week building a physical model of that term's project, well ahead of schedule.... then came home drunk from a night out and stood right on it. The sad thing about the demolition of the Forth Road Bridge toll gantries was that for 40 or so years they were just ugly engineer-designed (sorry) grey columns and beams with no aesthetic consideration evident whatsoever in the design. Finally, when this mundane structure, which is driven through by tens of thousands of commuters and Highland-bound tourists every day came to the end of it's life somone decided that its replacement ought to be elegant, interesting and given a little more thought than is normally afforded to scaffolding. Reich & Hall Architects delivered the goods and everyone who I heard comment on them (mostly non-architects) liked them and then 1 year later they were demolished... it just feels wrong.

Ah, so... Sorry then; from the website I thought the plugin itself will do the job "for free" and their additional services are the paid things.

Jim you are absolutely correct preset cannot change softness of omni lights.

Interesting Alan (and of course, thanks for the link). In fact, we have similar relics here, in my home town (and what's left can only be compared to those Roman catacombs) the only difference is that at that time, these things were not a connected, underground structure but individual buildings with separate crypts. Today however, they are all underground so the whole can be visited somewhat similarly to the catacombs in Rome. Here is one of the most beautifully painted burial chambers: http://www.h2g2.hu/peregrinus/gb/3.1.4.html I am really so eager to build everything here - it's just too big of a project to do it by myself as a "hobby" (without having another job to live on).

Walkabout3D: http://www.walkabout3d.com/ (GBP 79) and Simmetry3D: http://www.simmetry3d.com/ (GBP 300) I don't really know if this latter one (beside the ability to manipulate things by clicking) knows so much more. There also sems to be some relation between the two.

@unknownuser said: lol. This one's for Jeff Hammond: YAY! there are a few F.L.W.'s in there

@solo said: ...unfortunately I do not have a project yet for me to need it. I hope you will...

Had some problems with Cooliris when browsing various forums. It seems to create too many "hits" when I load a forum, even if Cooliris isn't being used, and the forum locks me out. I had to disable the plugin. Don't know if it's just me, Cooliris interacting with some of the other plugins I have, or Cooliris itself. If I do any serious image searching, I enable it. It's way better than using a standard Google or Yahoo image search.

We had a couple of old sewing machines as well, but I gave them to an exiled Nigerian Finance Minister.

...You saw it here. http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=179&t=17668