Would it be possible to create a script in ruby that would allow for inverse selection and/or polyline or freehand selection?

Inverse Selection - This would select the inverse of all faces contained within a larger plane. Say for example you have a large plane and you array copy 50 retangles that represent bricks and you want to select and extrude all the bricks at once. With an inverse selection, you could select the space in between and then select inverse without having to select all the bricks individually. (I know this is better accomplished by copying components, but I'm just saying for example's sake.) Is this possible, or is there something out there that does this?

Polyline or Freehand selection - This would allow you to select an area by means other than a rectangle. Similar to the selection tools in Photoshop. Also....would this be possible?

I'm sure maybe some others have suggestions for a more powerful set of select tools as well.

Looks good. I would use more of a velvet texture on the red box lining to soften it up. Try the glass lense with the cubic bump for the diamond.

Again, Hypershot is not $10K. It was a rumor. Read the last sentence of this webpost and you'll see. http://www.develop3d.com/2008/07/hypershot-v-15-is-ready-to-rock.html Also, Hypershot HD is all most of us would really need as it will render up to 4.1 Megapix. At $995, it puts it in the same league as Vray, Artlantis R & Maxwell. I'm just trying to set the record straight as Hypershot has been getting a bad wrap about cost, when it's not true.

Pete,

How did you go about making the low lying vegetation? Is that all done with instancing / terrain brush?

Here's a neat render of a nicely modeled desk from the 3DW.

I'm sure it may be written somewhere, but it's not true. Hypershot Pro v1.5 is retailing at $3495. The $2500 I was quoted was for the upgrade.

Here's some proof.

http://www.develop3d.com/2008/07/hypershot-v-15-is-ready-to-rock.html - Read the last sentence.

More proof.

http://www.escapestudios.com/en_GB/tools/rendering/rendering-hypershot.html
http://www10.mcadcafe.com/nbc/articles/view_article.php?articleid=552555

That's exciting! I was reading about the cloud and water enhancements in Vue 7 as well. It should be a real treat!

Where did the $10K pricetag come from? I was told $2500 for Pro. Funny how rumors spread.

Thanks! I'll check those out. It sounds like a really neat project to be involved with. It's almost like you have to show what the construction won't look like. I would love to see you do an animation in Vue of what it would be like to drive down the street and passed the utility building. (maybe even from inside of a car!) That would be amazing!

Amazing work Pete! The fact that you used the actual tree species blows my mind. Which solid growth pack did you use for the trees?

Thanks for the kind words! It means a lot. I was just thinking today how nice it would be to have some of my sketchup tools out on the jobsite! We are in the process of building render #7 at the moment. I will try to post some pics as we get closer to finished.

Hypershot Pro has what they call turntable rendering. It allows you to pick a start and finish angle and it will render multiple frames that rotate around the objects axis.

I'm in agreement with Kwistenbiebel, the pricing levels make no sense for this program. The only notable difference between the Pro and HD versions, from what I can tell, is the ability to do these turntable renders and the ability to render at an unlimited output size. I can't see how that justifies a $1500 price jump. (HD - $995 & Pro - $2500)

Prince D., like HFM said....adjutsting your FOV is done with Alt & Mouse wheel. It confused me at first too. What helped me was not using the mouse wheel to zoom, but rather use Alt + the right mouse button while moving left to right and using the mouse wheel only to set my FOV. You can't, for example, use the mouse wheel to go through walls, but the Alt+RMB will give you that ability. (also pressing "K" will bring up all the hotkeys) Hope that helps.

Very Cool! I love how easy DOF is in hypershot. Great stuff Prince D.!

Hello all!

I just wanted to post a few examples of my work. I've been modeling for about 10 months and rendering for about 5 mo.....and I'll be the first to admit I have a long way to go. (Especially after seeing some of the genius here!) I own a small landscape/hardscape design and build company and we specialize in outdoor living spaces. (Patios, Outdoor Kitchens, Pool decks, etc.) I use sketchup exclusively in my designing and it's probably becoming the most important tool my company owns. Every time I walk into a potential customers home with a plan and pile of sketchup renders, I can usually close a good number of my estimates. (Even when I'm the most expensive) The great part is then getting to see the project through and building & installing it. I absolutely love sketchup and owe a huge part of my companies recent success to it and the various sketchup communities.

Here are some of my recent project renders. I usually only have between 7-10 hours to spend on any given project, from initial concept to final render, so I generally focus less on the existing home and more on what we will be building. Suggestions and Critiques welcomed.

#1

Rendered in Podium

#2

Vue 6

#3

Vray

#4

Podium

#5

Podium

#6

Vray

#7

Vray

#8

Vray

Here's a quick render of wedding rings I found in the warehouse. Took about 5 minutes. The modeling is a little choppy, but you can see the great job it did on the diamond.

Or, you can use the newest line2cylinders ruby and change the precision to 4. This will give you a square along a path.

Great thread!

My name is Adam and I've been addicted to SU for the past 10 months and I rarely ever save .skm materials, but would rather rummage through a cluster of 15 different material folders all in different places to find the material I want. I also must admit that I cannot stay faithful to any one render programs, but rather sleep with a different renderer running for every night of the week.

I would just draw a square that touches the circle on all four sides using the line tool and inference. Then use the tape measure tool and pull reference lines to the center of the opposing lines. Do this on two sides and where they meet is the center of your circle. Make sure to group the original circle so that the center points on the sides of the square are retained.

I generally use the "point at center" ruby as the easy way to find the radius point of any circle or arc.

Dave's suggestion would be the only way to do it. I don't believe that the developers of SU have allowed access to the dimension tools through ruby programming.

@geh4evr - Sorry to hear you spent your shopping money! I think you'll find it was worth it.....eating is overrated anyway. Which version did you pick up?

@Huggkruka - No worries. Good job on the quick render. Perhaps try turning on the studio lighting option or use an HDRI...it will bring your reflections to life

@Remus - Materials are very simple to setup. I'm a big VRay and Kerky user, so Hypershot is almost frustratingly simple. But I guess that's the beauty. As Ibon pointed out, some of the options for certain material types seem to defy logic, but in the end, there is no denying the stunning results.

@pbacot - Thanks! There is a button to go from soft to sharp shadows. All sun shading is based on a HDRI input, that is separate from the background image. You can easily change the direction of the lighting to match the background image, by holding down the CTRL key and moving left to right with the mouse and left mouse button. What's cool is that you can see the lighting change in real time.

Here's a quick Architectural render. Model was taken from 3DWH (VaSt Architecture). I downloaded model...exploded...exported as .obj file....opened in Hypershot.....dropped in a few textures and rendered. (I also added a high pass layer and soft shadow in PS) Total time from start to finish....25 min. Tree was also added in SU and ibon's clipmap suggestions worked well. All in all, not perfectly photoreal, as this is a biased raytrace engine, but it does have a nice look and a soft feel. I'll try out some more architecture later.