@unknownuser said:
@bunnyack said:
I'm not blaming curviloft, I suspect its me doing something wrong while creating the ribs
how & with what tools are you using to create the profiles?
.
I simply create square planes in the right dimensions (just like done in the tutorial I linked above) and then use the arc tool to round them off on the corners.
@unknownuser said:
Normally curviloft must gives you the good result!
Post your file save as V6 for a more large audiance!
I'm not blaming curviloft, I suspect its me doing something wrong while creating the ribs 
Heres the V6:
Hey forum,
I have a question for those of you, who have experience with the kind of techniques used in this tutorial. Rounding off the ribs correctly in order to archieve flawless results is killing me. I am currently working on my second project using this technique (after giving up on the first one) and I am not getting anywhere. I try to round the ribs by using the standard curve tool and then simplyfying the contours with Curvizard. But I find it almost impossible to get the shape and number of edges on every rib right... there allways is a difference in edge count between two ribs, and the shapes themselves are also hard to get right. This later irritates Curviloft during lofting and causes it to produce faulty results, such as bumpy surfaces, holes in the model and lines going all over the place.
I have searched the internet for infos and tutorials on this technique, but it seems Jaques Cleghorn is the only one who has a semi-tutorial out there, which isn't detailled enough to help me.
Am I missing something, is there an easier way, some kind of trick? I have spent weeks trying to figure out how people like Jaques Cleghorn peroduce such clean results with this type of modeling, mine look more like a play-doh model made by a 3-year old.
Here are some screenshots of my current model, in case they help explain.
This is what my model looks like so far.
And this is what I get from Curviloft
Does anybody have any experience with this technique and is there anything (besides practicing) I can do to finally get this helicopter body to look right?
You cannot imagine how grateful I would be for just the smallest useful advice 
Kevin
170 MB is pretty large. Depending on your computer, it could make SU crash, especially when autosaving. Try purging the model and using components as often as you can.
@wtrouser said:
Still working on a model I'd be proud enough (or not ashamed enough) to post for crit, but this will have to do in the meantime. I went the hard way on this one... all of the key 'decals' are intersected shapes. I didn't want to mess with draping materials on the curved key faces. Ugh.
That is awesome! One suggestion though, try out Fredo6's Round Corner on the upper edges of the keys, it would make them look even better.
@ken28875 said:
**My favorite projects are two of my most detailed Sketchup models:
My Eve Online starship (for Sci-Fi category)
Care Mathos Keep from MMO Rift (for Fantasy Category)
Have a great day!
_KN**
How long did that spaceship take you? I can hardly imagine the pacience it must take to do such detail... 
How the hell did you install a plugin by trying to open the .rb file and restarting sketchup? Teach me, master!
@dave r said:
If I had to explode all the components in my models before rendering, I would use a different rendering application.
I know. But I'm used to Keyshot and at the moment I just don't feel like learning to use another. Plus, my models usually don't contain too many components 
What renderer do you use? I use Keyshot and it sometimes has problems rendering groups & components correctly, which is why I Bomb all groups & components before rendering. It can greatly increase your model size, but its the only way I've found so far...
...and I didn't even know you can import a material outside of vray. I guess we've both learned something
Install? All you need to do is drop whatever you downloaded (If zipped, unzip first) into the Plugins folder in your Sketchup directory. Next time you fire up SU, it will be there. Make sure to read the plugins description, some are not simply displayed in the Plugins or Tools menu and have to be used with SUs Ruby Console.
I'm pretty sure that it renders in greyscale because it is, for some reason, only using the bumpmap. I have close to no experience with Vray, but doesn't it run on .vismat materials? the brown leather is a .mat file. I'm not sure about this, but when I try to import a material in vray, it only gives me the option to import .vismat files. I cannot even see the .mat file. Have you tried any other materials from that website?
@hieru said:
Tig's Splidonut is needed in this situation. You should apply it to all the flat donut-shaped surfaces.
You could also benefit from using a simpler proxy - see here.
Thank you so much, this did the trick.
@dukejazz said:
Do you have a example jpg you working from
Here one I found
Nah, I was just playing around, no reference images
Hey forum,
I was playing around with artisan trying to create the shape of a water drop. When using Artisans "Subdivide and Smooth" tool, I noticed it was causing a weird deformation in the results it gave me. I'll let the screenshots explain:
This is the basic shape I was using.
And this is what Artisan gives me, when finished.
Does anybody have an idea as to what could be causing this? I'm a complete newbie to artisan, using it for the first time today.
Thanks in advance,
Kevin
Well spoken, i feel exactly the same way about this forum. You wanna learn Sketchup, you come here 
Yes, please post your model, or at least some adequate screenshots. Have you checked if Edges are activated in your View menu?
You could also take a look at the plugin Artisan. It has a poly reduction tool (and lots more).
Thats weird... I'm assuming you use SU 8? I had something similar to this happen with LibFredo once, I had upgraded from 4.6 to 4.7, deleted the 4.6 files in the plugins directory, but SU told me I still was using 4.6. I fixed it by simply deleting ALL Fredo6 .rb's and folders from my plugins directory and reinstalling them. You might want to try that, its all I can think of.
