Oh, wow... Those are paintings? Amazing.

Hope you have a great "working" holiday. Wish I could go to Dubrovnik again, that was a great place to see.

Neat. Now if I could just find a few hundred dollars buried in my backyard...

Good to know. Thanks for the reply.

Another "gee whiz!" post:

Gotta say thanks to the creator of SP. I'm amazed. I certainly didn't expect it to be such a well thought out program, and as soon as I played with the realtime simulator I was hooked. Fantastic. Now I get to spend even more time banging my head on the keyboard using sketchup while trying to learn a new, complex tool. My wife won't be as thrilled about the plugin as I am...

EDIT:

Heh, Just got playing with it and already have a question. I created a static ground and a cylinder object, made an end of the cylinder a "thruster" and "launched" it from the ground. After I let off the thrust to let the object fall to the ground, it fell right the ground. Reapplying thrust to arrest the fall bringing it back up to the level of the ground and allowing the object to settle gently onto the plane worked fine.

Did I run up against a limit for object interaction/collision?

You baked the textures in an app outside of SU and then imported it into SU? Did I follow that right?

@gaieus said:

Oh yeah. Let's dump Albrecht Dürer's wood cuts then because they can (or at least could at that time) be reproduced in prints.

OR can't I reproduce prints of a photo negative as many times as I wish?

The application by hand of colors and inks to a woodcut and the wear of the woodcut itself can cause variation in in the output, plus the woodcut eventually wears out. Photography also has the difficulty of capturing the scene in the first place; but yes, once the scene is on film it can be reproduced at will.

But, I see where you are going with this argument. I'm on your side. CGI is not yet accepted widely as an art form, it'll get there eventually.

The are many things out there that the art community calls "art" that I think deserve to be in the bin, but the black-turtleneck crowd says it's art. I'm not sure if getting their approval would be so great!

I gotta agree that co-planar faces might be the issue, that's what usually gives me the same problem. Usually from re-extruding over the same face or using a plugin that copy/pastes/groups the geometry that I'm working on, like Soap Bubble. OR, it just occurred to me - sometimes when attempting to create surfaces that have very little thickness i.e. a sheet of plywood 1/4" thick, when viewed up close it looks fine; but when you zoom out to view the scene SU has a hard time displaying the faces without having the same issues as co-planar faces. I've not had a GPU driver issue before, so I've no knowledge of how that looks.

There is a "zoom to selected" plugin you can get it here in the downloads area: http://www.pixero.com/

Don't know if that's exactly what you wanted, but hope it helps.

Ditto. Drives me crazy to move from SU to Kerkythea or Blender and the selection of objects and manipulation of the scene is completely different.

Ah, this is a debate I've seen many times at other 3d art boards. Does the digital creation of a scene still feel like and qualify as art? What's the difference? The only difference is that the 3d render can be reproduced over and over with exactly the same results, and this is most often what I've heard traditional artists sneer at CGI for - the lack of "uniqueness" in the output. A hand painted (or suculpture, etc...) scene is unique each and every time. Both CGI and manual arts require years of training, and a good grasp of artistic concepts and skill to create good art, in that sense they are exactly the same.

IMO a good CGI is every bit as impressive as a good hand-made piece of art. Both can make me go "WOW", and both can be appreciated for skill and artistry that has gone into them. Frankly, I'd love to see what Bosch, Dali, or the Pre-Raphaelites could have done with CGI.

Yep, absolutely picking something. I know the plugin works because I drew two other curves and tested it, the loft worked just fine; so it must be a problem with the curve set I was initially using. Maybe it doesn't work on curves that were part of a face. I had to draw faces to get the curves to lay flat on specific axes and then deleted the faces, leaving the curves behind. I'm probably missing knowledge about a change that happens to edges that were part of a face and how it affects the plugin.

edit:

Solved:

That was the problem, edges/curves that were part of a face will not loft. I worked around the problem by grouping the planes, exiting the group, and then drawing the curves on the faces. The lines went where I wanted and the integrity of the curve was preserved in order for loft to work.

Hey Chris, I just started having some trouble with this plugin. Maybe you can decipher what I'm doing wrong; I know the plugin works so it must be something that I'm doing. Here's the console output:

Error; #<NoMethodError; undefined method `all_connected' for nil;NilClass>
L;/Modeling/Sketchup Google/Plugins/clf_simple_loft/clf_simple_loft.rb;61;in `onLButtonUp'
L;/Modeling/Sketchup Google/Plugins/clf_simple_loft/clf_simple_loft.rb;186
Error; #<ArgumentError; Cannot convert argument to Sketchup;;Point3d>
L;/Modeling/Sketchup Google/Plugins/clf_simple_loft/clf_simple_loft.rb;189;in `add_cpoint'
L;/Modeling/Sketchup Google/Plugins/clf_simple_loft/clf_simple_loft.rb;189;in `end_handles'
L;/Modeling/Sketchup Google/Plugins/clf_simple_loft/clf_simple_loft.rb;186;in `each_index'
L;/Modeling/Sketchup Google/Plugins/clf_simple_loft/clf_simple_loft.rb;186;in `end_handles'
L;/Modeling/Sketchup Google/Plugins/clf_simple_loft/clf_simple_loft.rb;94;in `onReturn'
L;/Modeling/Sketchup Google/Plugins/clf_simple_loft/clf_simple_loft.rb;61

I'm applying the plugin to 3 bezier curves, the plugin generates construction points and then stops.

I wonder if polarized glasses might allow more view into that last one than you bargain for...

Don't know about a tutorial for a model exactly like that. Whatever was used to model that appears to be quad oriented rather than triangle. The only thing that I could add that might be useful is that maybe the "Soap Skin" and definitely "Subdivide and Smooth" SU plugins would be necessary for the model.

@unknownuser said:

I used to live in Reading, PA. I have never been to Pittsburgh but had heard it had recently cleaned up it's rust belt image and it was undergoing a renaissance of sort.

How's things out there? It seems like my whole state of Michigan is tanking.

Was out there a couple of times last year. Looks pretty nice now.

Ah, the curse of the 3d modeler when thrown back into the real world! LOL.

After using SU for a full day I try to use my MMB to tilt my screen so I can see further down the web page without scrolling.

Wow.

Want.

Yes, what was it before Açaí? Pomegranate? And what was the super food before that? I've forgotten already.

I need to come up some bizarre extract of skunk cabbage and sell it for $10 an ounce while extolling the magical health virtues of this concoction. Man, people will buy anything...

If anyone wants the apple pie recipe, I'll be happy to send it via PM until the US cuisine thread shows up .

One thing comes to mind when you mention the cuisine of Louisiana: Crawfish etouffee and dirty rice. Some of my favorites.

Very nice! All in SU?