Nice work. Looks great!

This is geared toward those that do pre-vis for a living.

I'm wondering what kind of materials you are usually provided with by the Architect or the Builder or the Marketing people in order to create your models? Are they turning over big 'ol paper plans? PDFs? .DWGs? .DWFs?

I have a background in Construction and know that in my city the architects all seem to be a bit behind the times and to get any kind of computer file from them is like pulling teeth. The one time I saw an architect turn over a DWG file containing elevations the file was a MESS. I had hoped that faces could be added, elevations rotated, and connected, etc. but 90% of the lines were broken or not connected making it impossible to work from.

Do you work from paper drawings? If so what process do you use to build upon it? Do you scan the drawings and import them as a texture that you trace over and push pull from?

You are officially my idol. 7 hours?!
Was that just for the modeling? How long did the renders take?

May I ask what the bill came to for this project? (PM if to private.)

And your hardware stats?

Sorry for all the questions but you got me kinda star struck.

@pmiller said:

Masta, I believe he was referring to the mac with onboard video....

Note that Jason took the photomatch pictures on an overcast day -- great trick since it means that shadows on in SU will work for any time of day.

I wish I could take credit for such foresight but the fact is I live in the Pacific Northwest and I went out to take the pics because it just happened to not be raining that day. lol

And yes I was referring to the onboard video.

@unknownuser said:

Although this may seem too simple...I have run accross a few new SU users who are not aware how to set up their mouse to use the scroll wheel. The ability to zoom and orbit with the wheel makes navigating very quick and intuitive.

I'm on a Mac now and used to use a PC. On the PC I had the scroll wheel set to zoom and orbit but on the Mac it doesn't seem possible. Care to enlighten me?

Hands down... Vista.
Check out my blog. http://vistasucks.wordpress.com

@tim danaher said:

Anyone gone down this route, got any tips/advice, etc?

I've visited a physical model shop before and observed the process they used. They were working from paper drawings, recreating elements in AutoCAD, then feeding the file to a laser cutter which did most of the work.

I used to be on the old board but I tended to lurk more than post. Now I'm back.
I am an intermediate level SketchUp user, a former PC Guy who switched to Mac thanks to Microsoft's great advertising campaign for Apple called Windows Vista.

My 3.0Ghz Single Core PC with 2GB RAM & x2 Nvidia 7900s in SLI has been replaced by a 2.0Ghz Mac Mini with Core 2 Duo Intel CPU, 2 GB RAM, and onboard video. (Yes it does suck for SketchUp)

I'm soon to be the owner of a MacBook Pro 2.6+GHz computer which I hope will serve me much better for SketchUp.

I'm the proud owner of a 3DConnexion Space Navigator which I also fondly refer to as "The best $60 I ever spent"
Let me tell you, using one of these with SketchUp is like gaining a mouse after working "keyboard only" for years. I seriously recommend to everyone here go out and buy one yesterday. (No I do not work for them.)

I use SketchUp in a hobby capacity right now although I hope to turn it into a business in the future doing pre-vis renders for the Construction industry. (Which is an insanely booming business in my neck of the woods.)
I smell big money doing something I love. (Or maybe it's just an excuse to get a 8 core Mac Pro with 32Gb RAM?)

I also have a strong interest in modeling for Google Earth although I seem to have a problem with keeping the detail level down. Gonna have to work on my moderation skills.

I'm a PhotoMatch junkie and am hoping to start learning more about Rendering and Post-Processing.

I obsess with learning the most efficient techniques for modeling quickly and want to be able to churn out quality models as fast as possible.

Here are some sample things I have done...

Wow. Just Wow! I honestly thought that this would be something in SU7 but I'm ecstatic to see what you've done. I stumbled upon this thread totally by accident/coincidence and my day has just been made. Dare I say week? Month? Year?

Subscribing to the thread. Looking forward to updates. Any kind of (even rough guesstimate) ETA on release?