@unknownuser said:

Check these out as well, especially the 'Dennis Technique'
http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?p=52668#p52668
May be of some help to you.

Fabulous link James. Now I'll never get back to work feeling the sudden urge to try some of these techniques.

rshafersr,

For the example you attached you might want to try this:

**1. Create the airfoil profile.

2. Pull that profile out (using the push/pull tool) to your desired length.

3. Click on the end of the wing and scale from the center node at the trailing edge and push that forward to attain the desired taper.

4. Then, scale from a midpoint node while holding down the control key to reduce the thickness of the profile.**

The same would be true with a tapered leading edge or both. For both just scale the tip while holding down ctl + shift.

There, clear as mud.

Al,

Thank you very much for this application. Works great and the trees and the options all work like a charm. Even tested it with other leaves as someone suggested -- having converted them to PNGs.

Thanks again.

Gus

Msm,

Well, since I have been trying to do the same thing since I started using SU here's what I've learned so far.

A rough outline towards that end would be:

1. Styles

2. Background Image

3. Photoshop Effects

4. Scene Setup and Shadows

5. Styles

With regards to the first item you can find some pretty good styles here at Sketchucation in the “Components, Materials, and Styles” section. You’ll have to poke around and see if there’s something you like. A quick link would be to grab some here:

http://sketchupdate.blogspot.com/2008/04/and-winning-styles-are.html

My favorite of these being by “Mark Pachke of Milwaukee, Wisconsin , Pencil edges with whiteout border.” I do a variation of that using a straight edge line. You can also replace the watermark background image.

Follow the instructions there regarding saving this model to save those styles:

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=99bb0bf50b952c17acb3f41cdf8b819a

2. Background Image

As I mentioned in the first section you can replace the background image with a “backdrop” image such as a city, country, or suburban style.

3. Xero has some free and really good Photoshop effects available at:

http://www.xero-graphics.co.uk/downloads.htm

Scroll down and grab all of the plugin sets. Try using ArtGrain, Artifax, or Tekstya. You can also use the built in color pencil effect or watercolor. One thing I like to do is “fade” the effect after applying it since it tones down the effect creating a more pleasant mood. You can also overlay a copied layer of your rendering and manipulate the blending change and vary the fill percentage.

4. Lastly, scene set-up is important as well as your shadow settings. Best times are after sunrise or before sunset.

Gus

Superb work Silver Shadow.

I'm wondering now if anyone has ever done the work from Sketchup to Flight Simulator. Would take a few imports at the modeling stage prior to setting up any flight dynamics. Would have to cut down on the LOD for it I'm sure.

@pbacot said:

that's a great rendering.

So this is a direct export of an image from SU?

Thanks.

Yep, it's a jpg export from SU. I did it at max quality and 3200 pixels wide. Takes about 45 minutes to generate. The model itself is a bloated 20 MB so it can only really be worked on in what I named a "Work" scene with no color and the landscaping hidden. The trees I use are what basically stops SU given the size of the model.

Then I added a color pencil effect in PS and faded it by down to 23 percent and increased the contrast by about 12 percent. The brick textures are from Acme brick that has an application which can create a good deal of bricks and mortar colors. They also have CMU (concrete block) textures you can generate. Both of these can vary the course types.

I'm in the process of learning Kerkythea which may take some time. At this point however using SU to generate these renderings is more cost effective. Of course there are workarounds to this like render farms and sleeping while it renders.

First post here.

This is a final rendering I did for Chalet Development here in Denver, Colorado. The house was designed by John Mattingly. It’s a straight ahead SU rendering with some post rendering effects added: faded color pencil effect with some contrast adjustment.

Other than the landscape objects and the metal fence I did all of the modeling work in SU.

Thanks,

Gus