@fletch said:

is there a Ruby wish list somewhere solely for Ruby coders to ask for things? 😕

Oh yes, they keep wishing and requesting and whining all the time (especially between two betas as there nothing else to do then)
😄

i am aware that tools on surface will do this, but i don't know how to do it with tools on surface? reading the manual now.

@unknownuser said:

i should also add that while i fully understand what's going on here and this isn't a SU measurement bug, i'm not the best at typing/verbally communicating what my brain sees. 😄

maybe another forum member could explain what's happening in a better way than i have?
i tried the precision thing and your were right. putting it back to 1/16th repeats the chosen measurements. would appreciate that very much if somebody did, but you have been more then helpful 👍

@gaieus said:

Textures (especially high resolution ones) always affect SU performance but you can always go on modelling in monochrome mode (even better because then you can see if incidentally you have some back faces outside).

As for what is the better strategy, it all depends on the model as well as the user/taste. I personally tend to get to a phase where my model is "almost" ready before I start texturing.

thanx man 👍 you probably saved me from a future performance headache 😉

Talking of Precision Measurement!

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number.

Why was that gauge used?

Because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates designed the US railroads.

Why did the English build them like that?

Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.

Why did 'they' use that gauge then?

Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they had used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing?

Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.

So who built those old rutted roads?

Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (including England ) for their legions. Those roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts in the roads?

Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot.

Bureaucracies live forever.

So the next time you are handed a specification/procedure/process and wonder 'What horse's ass came up with this?', you may be exactly right. Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses. (Two horses' asses.)

Now, the twist to the story:

When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRB’s.
The SRB’s are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah

The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRB’s had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRB’s had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.

So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass.

And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't important?
Ancient horse's asses control almost everything... and

CURRENT Horses Asses are controlling everything else

align,

it depends a lot on what your intentions and occupation are. if you are an architect or designer, hence the focus of your work is the design, you would be better off with one of the applications that demand a short learning curve and that are easy to operate. i am talking of podium, twilight, irender, kerkythea, idx renditioner, indigo, pov-ray, etc. however, if you are an ilustrator or work in the visualization field, you might want more control to achieve super-hyper-realism. then it is probably worth – i say probably as you can achieve exceptional results with any of the apps i just mentioned – having a go at the likes of vray, maxwell, modo and others of the same caliber.

but never forget solo's wise warning: rendering is at best 50% to do with the app you use. the rest is up to the artist in charge.