Posts made by chippwalters

@pbacot said:

Nice box, whatever it is. This uses flowify? That's with the AO renderer? Wow!

The details on the round corners are done with Flowify.
No, that's KeyShot. I use AO while modeling to check out the form and proportions.

Does anyone know if there's a tool which can trim the BLUE cube with the RED surface?
It would be great if it created 2 boolean solids from the BLUE cube.

Working with SU and more box models as they help me figure out workflows for details. Still hoping for a better filleting tool sometime in the future.

I have to say, Booltools 2 is way, WAY better than PRO booleans. Definitely worth the money.
A few other products I rely on when making these models:

1. Artisan KNIFE tool (or ZORRO also by Whaat)
2. SU4YOU / Slice / Detach. Does a great job cutting up solids and keeping them booleans (thanks Pilou!)
3. Ambient Occlusion Renderer. This one is rather expensive, but I use the $89 version

Onto the boxes.

@jonfar said:

1. I know it all depends on the quality and personal preferences but, once you learn how to work with it, is it easy/quick to set up scenes? or is it complex (like rendering in VRay) and requires you to tweak a lot of options and test the lighting and stuff until you reach the desired results?

Yes and no. The application of materials is pretty straightforward. Lighting is too, if you're outside. If inside, you'll need to add different lights such as light portals around windows (see my videos). Unity 5.6 has a new progressive lightmapper which makes it faster to set up lighting as you get a pretty fast read. The most cumbersome part is doing the final 'bake' for lighting, which can take up to several hours, once everything is set up.

@jonfar said:

2. Unity can export animations like walk around 2 minute movies, right? But what about interactive animations, the ones where the client can walk around using WASD and mouse. Does "the client" have to have a powerful GPU/CPU/RAM/etc to run it?

Of course. Once you bake your lighting, it's easy to navigate and should not take any special computer to be able to navigate WASD your scene.

@garry k said:

Here is a curved and flared tread.

I'm not sure I understand your point. Can't Fredo's plugin already do all that? It works on coplanar faces, just not non-coplanar faces (ones with hidden triangles).

@jql said:

complexify geometry.

THAT, I like.

Certainly Whaat and others have had the idea of creating a proxy group for the 'edited' mesh. In the case of Artisan, you can continue to edit the base mesh and see the changes in the proxy mesh. Seems simple enough in concept.

Sorry Pilou, that doesn't work for me for three reasons:

1. The workflow is too long. It takes multiple steps with multiple plugins just to achieve.

2. It's terribly inaccurate having to scale down, then add bevel, then scale up. How to be accurate with such a workflow without having to do algebra?

3. It won't work on complex and concave mesh surfaces.

Not to mention you show it creates tiny fillet problems generating holes on even the most simple of use cases.

This appears to be a problem that has been solved fairly well as a standard feature in every polygon modeler that I know of which has been updated in the last couple of years. For most it was created as a standard feature long ago. Not sure why SketchUp refuses to add this most standard modeling feature. It certainly resonates as a clear point the Trimble developers either don't care, or aren't as smart as others in this industry.

@hieru said:

If you do find anyone willing to take Round Corners to the next level, how about starting a Kickstarter campaign to fund the exercise? I'd happily contribute to something like that.

Yep, that's the issue...trying to find a developer willing to take this on. I've asked quite a few and no one seems interested. Bummer.

@pilou said:

Round corners then Fredo Scale don't make the trick ?
Before a new plugin...

[attachment=0:23j1hon7]<!-- ia0 -->not_the_trick.jpg<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:23j1hon7]

Hi Frenchy, I don't understand your point about fredoscale.

@rich o brien said:

Modifier stacks in other apps are what make these operations both non-destructive and easier.

SketchUp would need a mode in which the object you see is not the same as the object you edit. Similar to Blender Object Mode and Edit Mode.

I can't see that happening though. Adds another layer of Feature Creep to SketchUp.

Modifier stacks may make them non-destructive but they all can create superb filleting without modifiers. The example I showed in Blender does not use a modifier. Lightwave doesn't use a modifier, nor does Modo have to use modifiers.

No feature creep. Not asking for a modifier stack, just decent bevelling and filleting. Seems reasonable in 2017.

The problem with SubD or Artisan for round corners, is it ends up creating way too many polys for what should be a simple filleting operation. Furthermore, if you try to use Booleans on a heavily subdivided mesh, things can go pretty bad pretty fast.

That said, if you haven't tried Whaat's new BoolTools2, you should. It's WAY better that Pro's booleans (WAY BETTER) and doesn't require Pro either. Good stuff. I'd sure like him or TIG or Thomas take on this!

Ugh. The state of filleting in SketchUp is pretty sad compared to other poly modelers. In particular, if there are any non planar surfaces (forced triangulation), then Fredo's Round Corners plugin won't work. He knows this and we've chatted privately about it. I'm not singling him or his plugin out, as we all know the GREAT job he does for our community, but the fact is, Round Corners just doesn't work that well.

Let me show you.

https://youtu.be/MDLYu9vuJGU

Fredo says he knows how to fix, but doesn't have the time to do it. He also said he'd be happy to share his thinking on how best to fix it. So, I'm looking for a developer who might be interested in creating a new fillet plugin for a fee. I'm happy to pay if anyone is interested. Please PM me.

OR... if anyone knows of an existing plugin which can do this easily, then please let me know! Thanks!

Thanks Fredo.

Do you think it possible to technically achieve this? In particular, I'm interested in a workflow where all hard edges are rounded for a given object at once. Even better if it can be proxied, so one could continue working in the non-rounded version, then update the proxy.
Blender has a great set of plugins called hard ops, which does this. This plugin is amazing, and I think this can be done even better in SU if there's a good enough fillet algorithm.

https://youtu.be/MOr0RBraRaI

See below

I want to select THROUGH the triangle. Is this possible? Is there a way to have round corners fillet this edge? Is there a way to modify the mesh so that it works?

Other 3D programs (Blender, Lightwave, Modo) allow for non-planar quads, which allows for much better filleting. I'm hoping I'm just missing something here...

Link to file:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3788438/3D/suFilletIssue.skp

Good tip. Thanks for sharing.

Here's a quick Flowify tute which helps me to remember EXACTLY how to set it up.

https://youtu.be/STDljROiq1k

Here's a quick box model I made with it using a few of my kitbash components. Notice how nicely the components wrap around the corners.

Thanks for the tip!

I know Fredo has a tool for this, but I sometimes find it's more of a hassle, especially when it's trying to snap to other geometry. I just learned this recently (after many,many years of SU) showing even an old old dog can get lucky and find a bone sometime

Interested if anyone else has a better way...

Thanks, Rich. I'll check it out.