Awesome plugin... will definitely try out for some organic modeling

Great idea... Photoshop can be used extremely well in this situation.
If he wants to do different angles, that is a whole other story.
I modeled a whole pirate ship in Sketchup and rendered it in Kerkythea, but needed many different angles of the ship.
So I used photoshop for the sky and water, but still had to render all the angles/lighting for each shot.
Pirate Ship1
Pirate Ship2

Exactly!
some stores have trees, but they are so few and spread apart... it doesn't really do any good.
I wonder if shade sails would pay off in the long run instead of irrigating all those trees?

I know shade sails are expensive, but sometimes I wish there were more of them in parking lots these days.
The hottest place in Phoenix is always your car when come out of the store/theatre/etc

keep us updated. I would love to hear what you end up doing with adding background and surrounding softscape

I am all over it... that is GREAT, I have been doing it manually, thanks for the plugin Tig!

Let me just say... Awesome Job!
What program are you using for the rendering?
I was asking if the second image was an actual photo because it looks a little different from the Sketchup photo and it looks so REAL.
By the way, I was looking at your website and I definitely see some "Game Design" inspiration there.
Your warehouse with all the debris and graffiti looks like an Unreal Tournament level.
Cool stuff

WHAT! Image Trimmer tool?
Where where where?

Wow, had no idea! so its an existing building in Tempe?
Looks like a Red Robin.

wait a second, is the second image an actual photo?
are you modeling that entire room?
Great job modeling all those object... thats a lot of work

Not sure about a plugin that deals with quads in sketchup, but there is a plugin that triangulates everything for you.
Tgi3D

that is a great question. I would like to know too because if I could animated something in Sketchup then export it for a game engine (UDK, Unity) that would be extremely helpful.
I know FBX and PSK supports bones, but not sure if Sketchy Physics does...

Very interesting. I can tell you put a lot of work into these movies. I can't imagine how many scenes you use...
I can see how these movies could be used as a commercial for tv...
Cool stuff

Are you planning to model the shrubbery yourself or are you looking for some pre-made models?
I have tried using the 3D trees/bushes from the google warehouse and then render them in Kerkythea, but they still came out kind of cartoony.
A quicker way is to find high quality pictures of the trees/bushes you want and then cut out the background with photoshop. There are plenty of assets like these online, but not always high quality. Then you can create components that always face the camera. They work well because these will cast shadows too.

Very cool, I love the softness of the shade nets/sails over the windows.
Is the border a sketchup style or did you use a photo editor for the effect?

@unknownuser said:

Gaieus you were right because they all show the 3D option now....

Did it just take a day to finalize or something?

great description Tig.
I have created hundreds of softscape symbols that way... Shrubs, Trees, Palms, Cactus and more
Just import the JPG/PNG as an image which will result as a single face.
Then explode and cut out the background with lines.
Select it all and right-click to create a component.
There are some cool options for components like follow camera.
From there you can put all of you custom components into the components folder so you can drag-n-drop them into your design.

it may have to do with the complexity of the model too. google warehouse limits all uploaded models to 10 Megabytes, but you can still have a very complex model with a lot of faces/polygons and be 10 Megs.
I have tried to upload models with high quality materials that were under 10 Megabytes and the warehouse would error each time

I remember reading the entire license agreement for Sketchup free since we use it commercially in landscaping. I'm pretty sure sketchup 7 is allowed in a commercial (for profit) business. sketchup is also open source because programmers can can write their own plugins for use in sketchup. Hence the 400 free plugins. At the same time, programmers can create plugins for purchase too.
this is one of the reason I love sketchup free!
I have not read the license agreement for sketchup 8.

I keep getting that pop up too.
I have been assuming its because I am still running Sketchup 7.1 on the same computer as Sketchup 8.
I have not tried updating, but if you click the link, it takes you to the Sketchup 8 download, which is what I already have