very nice render!!!
Only a couple of observations: I see better use of dirty textures at the point where the building meets the ground, also, I noticed that in all yours renders the glasses are always coplanar whereas, in my opinion, you may give more realistic by windows not coplanar, or perhaps maybe even the shader should be reviewed becouse we are talking about windows maked at times when the windows were nn perfect but very often slightly curved.

nice stuff! would you tell us something about times renderings and the shaders ??

Sincerely I believe that you are an alien ............... but where do you find time to do such modeling?.....

helloooo Tridem!!! amazing stuff by thearender!

Amazing! Which Blender release did you use for these renderings?

just yesterday I discovered this feature of cycles ......
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6Wm4r_FsrU&feature=player_embedded

@unknownuser said:

Understood although free does not always equate to best. I was just trying to show a low cost ($995) solution for great quality rendering with a built in real time solution that works.

Scott believe me, no one doubts about the ability to Showcase but if you take a look around the net to looking for cycles tutorials you will be amazed!

scottpara,
thanks for the advice and compliments for the works, but there is a fundamental difference between showcases and cycles: you buy the first but the second .....................is freeeeeeeeeeeee!!

@michaliszissiou said:

Exporting using what?

1. you own the pro version
2. you use the free ruby obj exporter.
3. a third party on line method.

In any case vertices aren't welded. You can't apply smoothing.

I use free ruby obj exporter and I can smooth the geometry!......sometimes I get the impression that we are talking about different software....

@michaliszissiou said:

Something like this?
http://blenderartists.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=159702&d=1320515852
It was some fast render, just experimental.
I can't search for what you're asking now, there lot of fine examples. Not possible for blender internal engine anyway.
Neither your car image is archivis scene so, here's mine, using cycles.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/24090090/Vol3Nep.jpg

But my question is this.
Do we have a decent way to export SU projects to blender? With textures or without them.
I know much about it but 'decent' means something else

the sense of this post is not to wish to demonstrate that the internal blender render engine is better than cycles ;on the contrary, just because I know the enormous potential of the cycles I wanted to test the good old internal engine blender for fun.
with regard to decent export from SketchUp,I have always exported obj format model textured without problems

@michaliszissiou said:

@unknownuser said:

Yes I know the potential of cycles which is essentially a rendering in real time

Not exactly. Developers of cycles are sitting on a goldmine software. Cycles is a real time preview renderer but it's also a physically correct engine (essential for animation). On extreme settings is not fast either. But can handle cuda (GPU) and is fast enough. Much faster than kerky based solutions.
Blender internal isn't fast at all, neither supports GI. Not good for archi vis, maybe some exteriors and still not great.

BTW shinny materials in cycles are superior. The best around.

I fully agree with you, however, perhaps because cycles is still in alpha release, I haven't seen impressive archiviz examples around the net.Do you know some goods examples to show me?

hdri lighting up

@michaliszissiou said:

Very nice. Indeed.
So, you're following blender development. But you didn't try cycles?
Cycles is what you're asking and go for this. My advice.
Now, you may think that it's still alpha and you can't combine a hdri this way. It's possible though. Have a look here.
http://visfxblender.wordpress.com/2011/12/26/project-6-beep-boop-bop-a-love-story/
A very nice animation/test and an excellent video tut.
cheers.

BTW if you're facing problems on how to export SKP to blender, please fill free to ask me.

Yes I know the potential of cycles which is essentially a rendering in real time; blender currently has some of the most powerful rendering engines including internal engine implemented especially in the speed; so it isn't a real time but it's possible to try different settings in a short time

@tadema said:

Stranton Signal Box, demolished last year in the name of progress.
john

very nice! I noticed that you've rebuilt the whole context!
I often ask me what the real progress when to built the new the old must disappear

@unknownuser said:

The HDRI looks nice as does the lighting. I am not sure if you did anything to the materials but they need some tweaking to really show off the ability of the render engine. The shadow is quite a bit off as well.

Scott

It's true, the materials aren't the best; the materials are that the library has by default by engine blender ;it's possible to improve them

@jo-ke said:

is this rendererd with blender?

very good result!

yes, it's blender 2.61

I follow with great attention the development of Blender, in particular as regards the rendering engine that this program take advantage, so I tested this model of Audi R8 captured and assembled with parts from the warehouse by Google, then I exported from Sketchup8 the obj model, the engine used is the internal, and the lighting hdri, since "cooking" 1 minute

this is the setting

@tadema said:

Hello fabiorossi, I'm using V-ray but I just cannot combine the HDR and SU sun
Thanks John

I'm not sure about the setting but a few time ago I used this type of combination and this is the result by v-ray 1.5

@tadema said:

Hello fabiorossi, I used a HDR for lighting and it's terrible again! I stopped using them for this very reason, if only shadows and HDR's worked together. I need to stop rushing the PP too!
Thanks John

on my experience, you can not light a scene only with hdri, when you add an hdri map the sun should contribute to lighting, hdri makes glasses more real and the shaders looks better; what's about your render engine?