I too have been plagued by the black screen just recently.
Downloaded new drivers and followed all the advice from google as above to no avail.
Then scotts post reminded me that Id installed a new m/soft mouse months ago.
The task manager showed that ipoint loaded at start up, I've disabled it and http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/posting.php?mode=reply&f=72&t=5418#
voila!
No change to mouse behaviour either.
Thanks, and thank god for the forum.
baz
interesting thread, (I did manage to load the whole thing.)
As a render it was very impressive, but as an example of animation or what I see at the movies, it was ordinary. (Im not saying I could do it.)
Which is my point, Su is a design tool and renders are artist visualizations, how real do we need to be?
'Real' is whats happening around us right now, and time is running out so quickly if you want to make a difference.
Oh boy, now I have to say it: I think a lot of time and intelligence is being wasted making stuff look good, when imho, the time would be better spent 'designing'.
But, please remember, most of us are dealing with those wondrous beings called 'clients'.
I bet ya that a hypothetical client in that vis for 'falling waters' would have several 'issues'.
ie; you didnt show how the water would be so loud, I cant sleep', 
etc.
is this a hijack and am i out of my depth here?
if so, sorry, but feeling frustrated, we've just had apec here, ie: 9 major leaders of the free world and they just woossied around the important things, as we have come to expect.
I've always believed that good design could change the world, oh well, never mind.
baz
ps: can anybody come up with more 'client issues' re 'falling water'
I have a small wacom and my use of it lies somewhere between James' and monsterzeros'.
Im a mouseman for su mostly but I find the pen very handy for fiddly cleanup jobs especially with sandbox or soapskinbubble entities when they need to be intersected with other geometry. For zooming I mouse scroll with the other hand.
Re size: for su the smallest seems to be quite fine.
baz
I don't know if this version of the classic airondack chair is different enough to have it's own name unless it could be the 'Aussie sloucher' or perhaps the 'Lizard chair', as in 'flat out like a lizard'
Had a look at your website, an impressive body of work.
baz
@roger said:
Modelhead is right to suggest moving out and narrowing. the angle of vision. You can also use a view camera and use the swings and tilts to modify the perspective. However perfect orthographic projection would require an infinite distance from the object which is just not practical.
As in not traveling ftl?
http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/posting.php?f=70&t=5112&mode=reply&d=61#
However you can also jimmy the perspective in photoshop. ]
now that is a good idea. I presume you're talkin about the perspective gizmo, which for me is a matter of taste, ie does it look right? But...
In the attached render I photographed one screw head and one each of two types of holes and then used photoshop to twist the perspective for each screw and hole on the mechanism.
Ive no idea how you did that, but its a beautiful thing.
If I had set my SU drawing to an othographic perspective I would only have had to do that once instead of hundreds of times, but in this case I wanted some perspective.
http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/posting.php?mode=quote&f=70&p=29809#
later.
again ?When I think adirondack chair and components I think individual flat boards or collections of boards on a plane. I would just shoot the the chair square on for each flat surface, give the surfaces some thickness in SU and then assemble. It seems very straight forward to me. But then everything does until I get into trouble.
well, there ya go, because there are a few angles as well as curves on several planes to deal with,
and part of the deal with the client was I would provide templates for future incarnations of future generations(if there are any, but I don't labor on that with the client.)
And they are good chairs, so why not?
Hope to load up the skippy when i'm happy with it, with permissione.
baz
i think i stuffed up on the quote thing.
"In a perfect world, you would'nt need a word like utopia."
thanks for reply modelhead, it wasnt going to work accurately enough for me, so I ended up tracing the components in a4 sections and scanning. bit laborious but a good result.
baz
interesting thread, (I did manage to load the whole thing.)
As a render it was very impressive, but as an example of animation or what I see at the movies, it was ordinary. (Im not saying I could do it.)
Which is my point, Su is a design tool and renders are artist visualizations, how real do we need to be?
'Real' is whats happening around us right now, and time is running out so quickly if you want to make a difference.
Oh boy, now I have to say it: I think a lot of time and intelligence is being wasted making stuff look good, when imho, the time would be better spent 'designing'.
But, please remember, most of us are dealing with those wondrous beings called 'clients'.
I bet ya that a hypothetical client in that vis for 'falling waters' would have several 'issues'.
ie; you didnt show how the water would be so loud, I cant sleep', Smile etc.
is this a hijack and am i out of my depth here?
if so, sorry, but feeling frustrated, we've just had apec here, ie: 9 major leaders of the free world and they just woossied around the important things, as we have come to expect.
I've always believed that good design could change the world, oh well, never mind.
baz
ps: can anybody come up with more 'client issues' re 'falling water'
I'm about to start making half a dozen chairs for a client soon, the only caveat on the brief is they are to be exactly like his old ones, because he finds them perfect ergonomically.(I have to agree
Its an aussie version of the airondack with lots of curves.
Of course I'm modeling it and I've been able to scan the smaller components for accurate tracing in su. The larger pieces could be 'lofted' as in boatbuilding but "ho hum".
My question is: can I get a spot on othographic view of the larger components with my camera?
I think I understand the various parallax and perspective issues, but say i used full zoom and got far enough away, would that 'flatten' the image?
I wonder whether anybody has any experience with this?
Baz.
ps: I've cut 3mm mdf templates already, I have'nt even tried scanning the large ones in sections, t'would be a nightmare, but they should be better to shoot than the actual pieces.
granted, the animation now lives with you, (its a big hairy dog with incontinence), it will live with you until you find the correct codec which is somewhere in the m/soft data base.
good luck and be careful what you wish for.
I wish that, tomorrow morning, everybody on the planet woke up honest. I really do.
Granted, not granted.
I wish I could stop spending hours designing things and then have the client change their minds at the last minute.
Granted, Hugh Hefner has just bought Sketchup. He plans to release SU version 6.9 very soon, probably prematurely.
I wish my back would stop hurting.
shaun and alan, belated happy birthdays.
thank you both for your generosities of spirit, and your willingness to engage.
baz
ps: and everyone else.
Im not having too much trouble with v6, although it does seem to crash more often, and the new styles panel makes me irritable.
But I am finding photomatch incredibly useful.
Now that Ive got the hang of it (and thats mostly about taking the right photos from the right angle),I can do a pretty accurate model from the photo without all the usual on-site measuring. It is saving me heaps of time.
baz
thanks coen, I was almost in shock yesterday, I'm feeling better now I'm here.
baz
Takuji, brilliant as always, thanks very much.
I especially like the steam rising from the food.
Lili looks a bit glum and thoughtful though, has she received bad news or is she contemplating her future sitting in strange su models around the globe.
Baz...if you insert the tree file into another model it becomes a "follow-me" component, so always faces the camera.
aha, Ive been doing that with 'save as'. thanks tom.
baz
Great tom, I love this tree.(and all the others)
Are you sure you shouldnt be selling them? I feel guilty using them for nix.
baz
ps I'm not clear about the 'follow me' you were discussing, could one of you explain? Ta.
thanks yet again tom. I almost use your trees exclusively now.
Ive just planted 100 of these as an experiment and with shadows off no problem at all.
I am impressed.
baz