Question - what are the metal structures filled with rocks?

Understood. As you say, it's the quality of the previous drawing that determines. Architects in NYC often have a kind of disdain for competent AutoCAD drafting conventions - I think it's because they're trained to think of themselves as artists, not technicians. As a result there's an awful lot of correction that I have to do - even using MakeFaces. Clearly it's the same or similar wherever you are.

But you're right, MakeFaces is a necessary ruby for this work and it's good that you mention it for anyone who's following this thread..

Could you elaborate a bit on what part of the process you find to be frustrating?

I have to input architect's drawings into SketchUp to position my stairs in (or I did before the Collapse - hope you're right about the Recovery) and I find it tedious, but not difficult. Maybe that's what you're saying - tracing over all those lines and then pulling them upwards is tedious?

I watched a video showing someone doing this in Modo (I'm doing a trial of Modo right now) and it was kind of interesting. They were clicking on every corner (vertex) and thus creating polygons of the wall shapes in plan and then pulling it up into elevation. I'm not sure if this would be much faster than drawing over the lines in SketchUp but maybe it would be. Let me know if you think this would be worth looking at and I'll dig up the link.

As to where you can get the most recent User Manual - go to the thread in this forum called ASGVIS Question (right before this one) and scroll down to the links CurryPork provided. The first link is to the Manual.

Kind of confusing to say the least - a new version of V-Ray? SketchUp materials and Vray materials are linked?

Hopefully there will be something on your new site soon to explain all this in more detail.

When I open any of the SketchUp Scene Files (CurryPork's link above) I get a splash screen that says something like We Have Made Some Changes to the Way V-Ray Handles SketchUp Materials. Would You Like to Upgrade Now? Or something like that.

When I click Yes, the file creates a backup of the original and then upgrades itself. But then when I go to render the scene (this is the 3 chairs in the tutorial) the program hangs, the render screen doesn't appear and I have to force shut it down. I deleted all of the Scenes, redownloaded them and now I click No when that splash screen appears and everything seems okay.

Doe this suggest I should download V-Ray again? Uninstall and download? Do nothing? I'm using a trial version.

Any input about this would be appreciated.

CurryPork -

Thanks for those links. I did download both the manual and the files from your link. I looked over them quickly last night and I think they're just what I'm looking for. I have a trial version of V-Ray and I'd like to get a good grasp of it before my 30 days is up. This will help a lot.

Thanks again.

There doesn't seem to be any links on the new site to reference materials, user manuals, tutorials, etc. I'm doing a 30 day trial and it's frustrating to not even be able to access the user manual.

I found it difficult to find things on the old site - now there's nothing to find.

Not sure how this is an improvement.

Thanks.

I purged components and that got rid of a lot of material and then I purged materials and I'm down to 3 mystery items - which is better than 12.

I do wish that I could do this in reverse - click on an item in the material library and have SketchUp highlight all instances of the material in the model.

So in other words explode and regroup? Or explode and don't group? Sorry but I'm still a little in the dark.

Is there a way to select a material in the In the Model library and be able to see where it is in the model?
I downloaded a mattress and pillows from 3D Warehouse and now I have a dozen or so materials that I'm not sure where they are. Clicking on Area shows them all to have 0 sq ft of area but they won't purge.

TIA

Struggling with V-Ray -

Can someone tell me why the pillows and sheet aren't smoothed in V-Ray. They are in SketchUp.
I didn't model them - I pulled all the beddding off 3D Warehouse.

TIA

I share your frustration.

I make stairs and making changes to the design inevitably screws up the grain direction. I find the Texture / Position tool to be very difficult to use without a lot of concentration. Rotating the texture map without also enlarging or reducing the tile size is very difficult.

I really wish there was a better way to do this.

I'm teaching myself some basic rendering and I'm hoping that textures could be applied in the rendering package in a better way than this.

Hope you find an answer

$300! Ouch! My eye saw the phrase Volume Discounts and assumed the price for one license of CrazyBump was $99. $300 takes it off the list! That's just silly for a minor application like this. You can get Photoshop on eBay for $379.

Yes, $20 seems to be a very reasonable price.

I've got a free day (that's my new term for being unemployed) on Wed or Thurs so I'm going to commit a day to getting up to speed on maps. I'll try both of them then.

There doesn't seem to be any difference between the Pro Demo and the licensed version of ShaderMap.

I'm just beginning to explore things like bump maps and specular maps. Has anyone here tried either CrazyBump or ShaderMap?

TIA

I like the original image with the train. The surface looks like galvanized tin. But when is this train from? I've been here since the late 70s and I don't recognize the design.

I do think a bit more contrast in the lights would be helpful. The improvement by Andyc is great but it seems to me to be a bit too much. It looks like either daylight coming in or a train headlight much more powerful than we actually have in NYC. But I do think it points to the direction you should take.

Good luck.

It makes me wonder if any artists are using SU to layout their work. Your first image, were it expanded to around 8' or 10' on canvas would get you into a NY gallery.

rabbit -

Could you expand a bit on your comment about not wanting to ever model in Modo?

Thanks

Alex

A little confused - bear with me, I'm just learning about the difference between nurbs and polys and all the rest of it. One suggestion was MOI + Modo + Sketchup. What would you get with MOI that you wouldn't get with Modo? Or is it just that MOI is a fast and agile little program and at $200 bucks it might be the 1st choice to model something organic very quickly?

Maybe what I want is MOI + SketchUp + Vray.

Now I have a lot to think about.

Maybe I'll download a trial of Rhino to my laptop and take it with me for the weekend.

I really wish all these companies would take SketchUp's lead and offer 8 hr trials. I downloaded the trial to Bonzai and have been too busy to open the program since. The trial will probably expire and I'll have used it for one or two hours at the most - not nearly enough to get a good sense of it.

My gut instincts have suggested Modo and Vray as next purchases when (and if) I have the money. This thread more or less confirms that but Rhino is a new idea.

I ran into the website of a French woman who makes stairs out of rough planks and tree trunks. http://www.lozere.net/escaliers-bois Quite interesting. It made me want to go outside the purely architectural structures I'm used to.