While I am fervently opposed to the Bush doctrines, the thought occurs to me that if this man threw a shoe at the leader of his own country, CNN would be showing footage of them playing soccer with his head right now.
DE

Cool model...
My guess is SU solar orientation. You can change this in Window/Model Info along with the Country/Location that is set at default Colorado. You might also try changing the BG to a darker neutral gray color. There are Podium issues with the background going blue at certain time of day shadow settings.
There is info about this on the Podium forum? They are very helpful.
DE.

@lilleskut said:

I just started playing around with sketchup and made a house with a gabled roof like here: http://www.et.byu.edu/groups/cmfac/fenn/CM210/notes/Roof%20Systems/roof%20types.jpg.
What I want to achieve now is the following:

• make the roof to extend beyond the walls on all sides (overhanging)
• add equally spaced columns at the end of the roof on all four sides of the house. The columns should extend from the ground to the roof and connect to it smoothly.
  How do I do this? Another, general question I have is: "How do you create a set of objects equally spaced?" Is there a tutorial explaining this?

Check this out.
Aidan Chopra has a complete set of tuts on YouTube... everything you asked and more!
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=sketchup&search=Search

[quote="bigstick"]
Regarding OpenGL, I always have the updater running and the latest versions are always installed. Actually I suspect this might be a bit stupid, because I suffer from all the glitches that each new update introduces. I really do think that part of the problem is with the NVidia OpenGL implementation. I am having the problem with slow screen refresh and update that kanonbal has though.

I used to allow MAC auto updates, but I got fed up with having to re-jig a lot of progs the next morning. Now I just check update every week and choose what I need. As far as SU7 goes I'm running a couple of MacBook Pros and they are rockin'.
DE.

I was wondering how long it would take before this stuff started again.

@remus said:

DE, im not entirely sure, but i think a lot of cad models/photographs can be considered artistic works, and so can be used.

It is certainly quite a grey area though, so worth erring on the side of caution where possible.

Artistic works? No such thing, my friend. Lets say you want to use a poster of Jimi Hendrix you found on the web in a room you are designing and that room then appears in an architectural magazine. You need to get permission from the poster company, possibly the photographer and for sure the estate of Jimi Hendrix. Next time you are watching a reality-type tv show, something like where cops are arresting gang members, pay attention to designs on shirts and jackets that have been blurred in post production. No can show without permission. If you design a street scene and include a Starbucks, then put it on public display, by the letter of the law you need their permission. It is a tangled and dangerous web to enter.
DE.

@decipher said:

DE:

It's a difficult one definitely, and we have already had a share of issues in terms of copyrighted content ending up on the site. The short answer, as with anything user contributed is that its difficult to ever be 100% sure, and we take uploads on good faith that the file is the users work and that the user has the right to grant a public domain / cc license for the work.

So, if its a big public rendering for a high profile client or something then that is where a bit of money spent on 3d models from the many sites that offer them for a fee is probably a good idea.

Would it be useful to add a contact function so that you can email the model owner through the website, so you can double check this kind of thing should you want to use one of the files in a commercial environment?

Cheers

Your issues are if you post an image on your site and it is of a recognizable person, copyrighted product or logo etc., you can be sued. This is rare, unless it's a celebrity or well known product etc. The risk you run, is that someone downloads an image and uses it as part of a commercial venture, or perhaps, in some disparaging way. If I was you, I would definitely include some kind of disclaimer. I don't want to blow this out of proportion, but I assume this a test run and you are looking at the commercial potential of this venture... so why not cover yourself.
Good luck.
DE

[quote="solo"]Kevin here are a few images of one way of doing it.

Great tutorial... too bad it's wasted here when there are many others who appreciate it.
I know the stock answer is 'if you don't want to involve yourself don't read this thread' but it truly does demean the integrity of the forum to let someone like this little troll get away with his nonsense.
Time for Mike to step up to the plate.

DE

Sketchup is perfect for this type of modelling. Something to remember is every element you create is 'sticky' so get into the habit of 'grouping' them or later mods will be a nightmare. You should also familiarize yourself with how layers work... very different from Illustrator/Photoshop.
Tape measure is also a great tool for creating grids.
Good luck, you will catch on quickly and never go back to Illustrator.
DE

Nice model...
You might want to soften the edges. You can find the tool in the Window dropdown. There are also 'smooth - type' plugins available if you check the other threads.
Also, you can try using other materials like a darker burled wood that gives the illusion of leather.
On a tech note the curve of the front leg extensions appear to be off center as they move up the arm fronts.

Go here and download the trial of Podium if you want to see what it looks like rendered.
http://www.suplugins.com/
DE

@jackson said:

Sorry for the flippant topic title, but we were seriously shaken up this morning here in Malmö, Sweden! I'm sure Japanese, Pakistani and Californian members (and maybe everyone else too) will dismiss an earthquake registering 4.7 on the the MMS/Richter Scale as barely newsworthy, but at 6:20am it was bloody terrifying, I thought our apartment building was collapsing! Strongest earthquake in Sweden since 1904.

http://www.thelocal.se/16390/20081216/

Bizarrely we were on holiday in Kobe, Japan just a few weeks ago, but didn't get a chance to visit the Kobe Earthquake Disaster Reduction and Human Renovation Institution (yes that's it's real name).
Anyone had similar or worse experiences? Would be interesting to hear about them.

Glad you are ok. I've been through two biggies in Los Angeles when I was a kid. I remember getting tossed out of bed and when I looked down at the pool the water was swirling like a blender. My sister lost everything in the big one in 1998. You could walk through the openings in walls between rooms.
DE

@remus said:

Double espresso, when i was trying out uploading stuff to the site it gave a choice of licenses for the content. The default is a cc attribution, so i imagine the majority of models will be under that license. If in doubt there is licensing info on the left of every component.

Thx,remus. I go through the copyright/public domain legal rangling all the time and never use anything except bona fide cleared images where they might wind up in public view. There is no such thing as public domain where a recognizable image is posted unless all the rights are solely owned.
DE

Did you hear about the Hungarian Archeologist who went to a bar and left the place in ruins.

Thanks, it's always great to have another resource.
Question: Are your people downloads copyright free?

DE.

@solo said:

And here's the lead character.

Good one...

@film842 said:

I think we would be better off by by using a live person. We would establish the scene by both medium overhead shots of a drafting table with someone working on the drawing/blueprint. Picture a single drafting table in a pool of light (obviously shot in a studio) then cut to extreme closeups of a hand and pencil moving across the paper, closeups of some of the drafting tools, maybe a shot of a close by computer monitor with a drawing on it, then an extreme closeup of the head of the pencil finishing a line, then tilt up to reveal the drawing itself which would then go into a simple animation.
The whole idea is to provide an intro to the viewer of what is coming, i.e., the animation and that the animation of this piece of equipment is the result of an engineers design. The other reason is that we would return to this "frame of reference" at other points in the program.

I agree the use of Live Action and Animation makes for an more engaging segue. You may want to think of morphing the live action into an animated form, think A Scanner Darkly - Keanu Reeves. Now it gets interesting if you greenscreen the actor into the Sketchup model. BTW - they are remaking Tron.

@dmatho said:

I'd like to share three cents. First, C-A-D, whatever you choose "D" to mean, has not been the same for every one. In my opinion actually, CAD or CADD has always been about "Design Documentation".

Second, at the heart of it computers actually do not yet Assist design. The act of design (the verb) as well as the product (design as a noun), again IMO, still happens and is mostly produced between the ears.

You are right. Whether it is a paintbrush, pencil, musical instrument or a computer program the essence begins and evolves in the mind of the creator. That said, and sequing back to 'CAD', what I have found invaluable is the 'freedom to explore' a CAD program or any of the other progs I use, provides. Where a table drafting designer cringed when he/she was asked to make changes on the board, or to a hand built model, thoses changes and explorations are now far less daunting. (I love the sound of electric erasers in the morning) Of course the downside is, the more opportunity there is to make change the more chance there is of procrastination.
DE

@film842 said:

Well, it's all about the "look." It seems like we two choices: one is to use sketchup as is with no other rendering done anywhere else in order to preserve the "sketchy/hand design" aspect. I like this idea if we can pull it off because I like the look of hand design. I'm a sketch artist myself and I can visualize a clip in which one would start with a closeup(s) on an artists hands pencilling up the final lines on a drawing and then closing in on the drawing and watching it go into an animation.

The second is to render with some other program and try to match the "cleanliness" of line that the more sophisticated programs can achieve. If that's the look I wanted, we would just get the software that could do that in the first place.

The sketchup animations that we've done so far out of SU 7 Pro are not bad at all with the exception of some line flickering because of thin lines.

However, having said all that, we are still definitely on the learning/testing curve and some things could change. But of course, that's what makes this business so much fun.

And yes, it's a go.

Would you model the hand in Sketchup or are you talking about filming a real person's hand then pushing in and animating the drawing.

@mike lucey said:

Guys,

I am old enough to remember how a fresh chicken really tasted. Roast chicken was on the Sunday Dinner Menu most of the time when I was young and I looked forward to it. The taste of what passes for chicken these days is just rubbish.

I wonder if some local 'home grown' companies started REAL fried chicken outlets. Of course they would have to charge more for the chicken but it would be worth it. I imagine they could offer lesser amounts of fresh chicken for the same prices. This could work as we (Western World) all eat too much!

Mike

Better living through chemistry...