I dont come to the corner bar often but I thought I might ask this question:how many hours do you work a day?
Myself and my brother have a small business,started 6 years ago.Prior to that we worked for over 10 years for a large international company.

Times have been tough over the last 4 years,but for the last 6 months,we have been rediculously busy.
At one stage we were working on fit-out jobs in moscow,co-inciding with 3d modelling in the eastern USA.
The result was,being based in Ireland,I was in my office at 5am to conference call our clients in Moscow,working on that job,then working an 8 hour day from 9am for our Irish clients,and following that,a conference call with our USA clients,and then finding time to deal with the moscow work.18 hours would be average.

Please dont get me wrong,Im not complaining,we will take all work available,and as any self employed person would know,time off dosen't exist,but I would be very intersted in finding out how other people do it.

All of my render work is post processed,it helps particularly when a client wants to change things,even if the model/building needs to be revised.Post means that you can not only change the environment,but because sketchup is so easy to use,the turn around is much faster than programs i previously used.

Ive just recently seen that Trimble is taking over sketchup.My viewpoint is that with the plugins and rubys available to me at the moment,it dosent make a difference to what happens to sketchup as it stands.I have worked with sketchup4,5,6(skipped 7)and now 8.Right now I can build models with sketchup and have a final product I can be proud of - I dont need a new version.

I guess we will have to wait and see what exactly happens with sketchup but its not like they can delete the program from our hardrives...(or can they...)

(The paragraphs above are available in dusk,sunset,storm and summers-day)

A night time shot processed from the daytime shot using the method I uploaded last year in post processing tips("Changing day to night")

A softer NPR scene.I have added some red overlays to parts of the image which helps to warm it up.These overlays were primarily added to the left hand side by the trees to suggest a warmer sun.I then added the same colour overlays to part of the water and parts of the stonework to try and pull the scene together.

The original render was maxwell,but I primarliy use either maxwell or vray.

My main decision is usally based on how many trees,vegetaion etc I can render without overloading sketchup.Most of my renders are based on getting the correct lighting,after that,as all my images are post processed to such a degree,it usually dosent matter what I use for rendering,so long as I get the correct light.

I have built up a huge library of elements i.e. trees,plants,cars,people etc so I can ultimatley take a
render and drop it into a "location" - and thats when the fun starts.

The track was done by the same method I do most of my post processing and that is primarily by masking.
My techniques are very very simple and I am working on putting together a tutorial/book on how to not only copy it,but also explaining the tought process behind it- Stay tuned...

2 more of the country house.

Roger,Yeah,that licence plate was pretty glaring!I decided to crop the original image as I felt there were 2 many trees on the right hand side.I also revised the foreground and added the track in place of the grass,with the additional foreground tree shadow also added.
The track adds a bit more character to the scene but also helps create a more dynamic image as it introduces another diagonal to the scene.

The foreground flowers were added to try and bring some different colour into the image as it was too green.The hope is that the flowers at bottom right pick up the colours of the flowers in the shade at the left.There is still some noise/grain on this image but
I can live with that.

The second scene is a more painterly NPR image.The car works better in this image as the metalwork helps to pick up the reflecting sun.
The birds on the extreme right were added so there is some bit of focus/attention at the image edge and they help to add a sense of movement in what is primarily a very still scene.

Attached is a country house scene,rendered in maxwell.The background trees are Xfrog trees and all foreground and flowers to the left in the shade are photoshop.

This is most definetly the last image for this building.I was playing around with some overlays on a blue sky and by one of those happy accidents that frequently occur in photoshop,I ended up with a sky I quite liked.Rather than rerender the building, I used the original raw render that I used on the view at lake scene with some colour toning.Then the trees,both middle and foreground were added and at the last moment I decided to add the stone walls.

And the final image of this building.I wanted to make the image more organic and reduce the amount of straight lines and added the path instead of the road,with the additional foreground tree.

Very nice and very clean.
The sky might work better if it was flipped horizontally,that way you would have the dark clouds accentuated against the 2 outside lights.It would also pick up the reflected light on the right hand gable which seems to suggest the brightest part of the sky is to the right.

A revised version of the previous image.I felt the warm evening sun needed to be reflected more in the trees and vegetation,so the overall tone is that of a golden brown.
I also added the road to the front which as its darker,helps to accentuate the light on the middle ground and the T junction also helps with the dynamic lines of the overall image.

Hello again.Its been a while since I uploaded any new tips.
Here is one similar to one of the first tips uploaded but with a small addition that helps to add some realism.

1.Open your render or your finished post processed image.Increase the size of the canvas to allow for flipping the reflection.

2.Flip render and add small amount of motion blur downwards.

3.Add a dark band along the bottom of the image,a dark blue works best.

4.Create a layer mask on this band and drag downwards using the gradient tool.
The effect is that of the water getting darker as it approaches the viewer,which is how water acts(its what is called the fresnel effect)You can see the difference between steps 2 and steps 4.

Extra tip:
If you have a particular strong colour at the top of your sky,sample this with the eyedropper tool and use this to create the dark band.Note that it must be quite dark,no matter what colour you use.

Thats it.Simple but effective.You can see a big difference between steps 2 and steps 4.

Reflection is Photoshop,building and sky actual render.I've been playing around with reflections particularly faking fresnel effect(very basic but more than just flipping and blurring as per my post processing tip)

A view as if the building is located by a lake.I went for a very still,late evening feel to this image,with no foreground planting and minimum middleground landscape,as if the building is nearly sitting on the lake.

A simpler foreground with the low evening sun.I sometimes use lens flares in photoshop but usually only on the very edge,suggesting the sun.Its a little bit overdone here,but I wanted the effect of a bright,warm summer sun burning thru the tree.The sun is actually more to the right in the render but I guess you can call this artistic licence!

I felt the foreground rocks in the previous image were a bit too strong so I added some additional grass to soften it.This was then colour toned to try and match the grass behind.

The second image is a wide shot of the building,again with a low angled sun.I noticed after rendering that the bump map for the standing seam on the copper roof is inverted and consequently the ridges are now indentations,I'll have to fix that later.

Regarding low angle sunlight,one of the things it does is pick up texture/bump maps very well if the light is coming at an angle to the bumped map surface.It also creates,in my opinion much better moods for rendering.
(there is a slight texture on the second image as there was a fair bit of grain in the render.By adding a small amount of texture it helps to hide these artifacts and also helps to tie the whole image together.

A low evening sun shot with a much more detailed foreground.Again this foreground is made up of numerous layers overlayed and blended together.I removed the cloudy sky and preplaced it with a more clear sky as I felt the image needed a peaceful/blank area to offset the foreground detail.It also helps to accentuate the building.

Pbacot,
This is what I would refer to as more photo-realistic than the previous images,although it does have some "artistic flurishes".
The main difference between what I call Photorealistic and non-photorealistic with my images is that in the non photorealistic images I dont spend as much time adding shadows to the vegetation.While I try and use entourage that reflects the lighting of the original render,its not that important for me in NPR ,except if there was a large element such as a foreground where it would look odd if it didnt cast a shadow.

With the image below I spent a while adding highlights to try and match the low evening sun which would be to the left in this image.
I burnt in some additional highlights to the main rocks at front and a couple of areas of grass that popped up in the middle ground.

The easiest way to use masking is to copy in some planting on a new layer and add a layer mask.
Then using the gradient tool drag where you want the planting to start fading.then apply the layer mask.I would usually do this a couple of times for each piece of planting until I feel it sits well enough with the surrounding plants.This Technique can help to fill in the foreground with a lot of detail very ,very quickly.

2 more versions with different vegetation.

A more foreground oriented version.I quite like the effect of darkening the foreground to accentuate the main image.This can be dome witha vignette but I much prefer to add the extra detail of planting,just to make things more interesting.