@ross macintosh said:

Jeff - unfortunately that tea-related link is dead.

It is the tannins in regular black tea that have been linked with interference with iron absorption. Rooibos and the other South African tea called Honeybush both feature extremely low levels of tannins and so should have no negative impact on iron absorption. By the way coffee is also known to interfere with iron absorption.

Regards, Ross

I brought it up because my Mother is getting a knee replacement in a week. Her iron is low anyway, but the doctors told her during "knee camp" that she should avoid tea with her meals because of this issue. They told her all teas caused this problem.

Tea can block the bodies ability to absorb iron.

http://health.ivillage.com/eating/evita ... x1,00.html

It's always something.

Nice work. Very nice. I like all of the results shown at the SketchCrawl forum too. I really wish I could draw like that. It's been so long.

Hacking off your arm may give you that tortured artist angle. Before you feed it to the werewolves, sketch it. Heck . . . look what it did for Van Gogh!

Remember– you can tune a piano, but you can't tuna fish.

@gaieus said:

This guy is awsome! He decided to reconstruct the city centre of the ancient Rome. Have a look at this thread here from the "Old Forums"!

Pretty darn nice work.

I wonder how long it took him to build it. That was a joke.

@kwistenbiebel said:

Jeff,
I think most people would be interested about the workflow to get a Sketchup model into Modo.
Which export settings etc...
Could you shine a light on that?

Thanks....and again: the renderings are just beautiful.

Cheers,
Kwistenbiebel

I export as an obj's. I divide my model up into logical pieces that I think will probably undergo quite a few changes in the design process. That way I do not have to reimport everything, just the stuff that changes.

Open a Modo scene and then one at a time open these .obj meshes and drag them into the current scene. As i import them I label the object mesh carefully and the corresponding materials folder accordingly. If changes to a certain mesh occur then I trash the old .obj mesh reimport the new one and then trash the new materials folder. The new .obj's materials will assume the old meshes material if none of them have changed. If a few have changes I will drag them to the old materials file with the others.

Group all object and lights into logical folders so they can be easily turned on or off.

There are better ways to do it, but I find this works best when I have a lot of changes coming at me 4-5 times an hour.

What Modo needs is a smart folder system like Cheetah3d's. Once a folder of objects are linked to a scene in Cheetah, any changes made to that object are reflected in the Modo scene when updated. The object dragging in Modo gets kind of clunky at times.

Rumor has it that the SketchUp to Modo workflow will be improved soon.

@unknownuser said:

Wow! That is so good!
I was thinking of getting Artlantis.
But do you think Modo is better
value?

Thanks for the info.

Artlantis is a 100 bucks or so cheaper and a lot easier to use. The setup is faster too, but Modo gives better results with greater control over materials. That's a tough call. I've been able to get good results with Artantis, but it takes a little work.

Modo is also a great modeler, although I use it mainly for rendering and do most of my work in SketchUp. The next release of Modo will also have animation features. It all depends on your needs. What kind of work will you be doing?

Any of the newer stuff with Modo 301 only took 25 minutes tops. A couple of the older images at the same resolution would have taken 4-5 hours with 201. The difference is a new new Intel 8-core machine and 301, which uses all 8 cores.

@firkins said:

Jeff,

These renders are just incredible. You achieve a level of reality in the quality of light that I just haven't been able to achieve. Do you attribute that to the quality of materials that you use or the render settings you use, or is it just the Modo app itself that creates such realism? I'm stumped and stupified! 8O

Regards,

Thanks Michael and Jackson,

I don't know. Lots of experimenting with light colors and ambient light. I also make my own HDRI's. While not true HDRI's they work fairly well for lighting . I adjust these quite a bit depending on a scene's needs.

Some of the materials are made from the free Arroway textures. These are low-rez so there is nothing special there.

I try to keep the compositions interesting and the lighting always errs on the warm side. There is some post processing in Photoshop involved. Sharpening, duplicating and adjusting layers, some attempts at tone-mapping etc. Probably more luck than skill.

Rob,
Nice chair.

I'll give the emboss trick a try. I did a simple single layer emboss before I saw your latest response. That gives me a clearer picture of your technique. Very cool.

I could try a video sometime. I'm really pretty new to it. Probably not doing it right.

Here is another view I did yesterday. Starting to add some "stuff" here and there.

That looks good Rob. I've been trying different tricks in photoshop. This looks like another good one. You do both the highlights and the shadows?

What object in the scene yours? I always try to give credit whwn it's not a formfonts and I know the source.

@robmoors said:

Hey I recognise those chairs in the last image, Compasso d'Oro Sidechairs right?

Yea, I think you're right. They won't be the final chair, I just need something light that looks stackable for this early rendering. They will probably end up being some sort of clunky sled base chair that can stand up to a lot of abuse. We haven't spec'd the exact furniture yet.

Thanks Mayor. I'm trying. I know there is some dispute regarding too much realism (it's like the sheep farmers battling the cattle ranchers ), but my clients demand my images be as realistic as possible. They are spoiled!

Here's another I did today. It was to test a few materials. It's a combination of my work and components from all sorts of sources. I was really focusing on getting the light and floor materials right. Ignore the repeating texture on the stone wall. I'll fix that later!

Switching to the new intel macs really made a big difference in the complexity if the material that i can use. The speed is really unbelievable.

This image also uses a trick that I picked up at from Yazan at the Modo forum. Duplicate your image in another layer in Photoshop and then use the "high pass" filter on it. Then switch it to overlay and adjust the percentage of opacity to the level or look you desire. Really adds a nice high-key sharpness to the image. This is similar to other techniques you have seen before but is a little different look.

@unknownuser said:

Jeff,

Really lovely images. Mondo certainly looks the goods. [But then I'm sure you could make something look pretty good using Bryce 2 ]
Those pavilion shots are stunning......and not a dog's head in sight

Stu

Alan,

Thanks. I'll help whenever I can. Just ask. I may not always know the answer, but I can probably point you in the right direction if I don't.

Stu,

I got rid of the dog heads just for you Stu! It is amazing how long you can look at something and still not really see it. Thanks for that one. I still look at that image and shake my head.

Ron,
I like Maxwell's images better, but Modo is so much easier and quicker to work with that it really can't be beat for 99 percent of our clients. Plus, Modo will soon have animation capabilities which will be REAL nice.

This is a series of images of a pavilion we are designing on Lake Michigan. Green roof, grey water, etc. LEED stuff. I tried to match the SketchUp/Modo renders to the actual site.

View toward lake.

View from lake.

View in traning/meeting room.

Just adding a few things to the gallery. It seemed so empty!

This is a parking garage entrance in front of the Art Institute in Chicago. Created in SketchUp using Photo Match for the basic bones. The trees were made with Onyx and the whole thing was textured and rendered with Modo. I also used an panoramic HDRI to help light the scene. I made it from a sky I bought from http://www.1000skies.com

I'm sorry, I'm not convinced. I see some potential for Podium and the interior work that Kwisty has done is outstanding. The contest is essentially an Art 101 type of exercise that I had in highschool back in 1972. It seems counterproductive to the professional appearance and forward direction that work like Kwisty's has taken Podium.

Quote by bigstick:
"So, the software tries to make the most likely assumptions about most things and lets people concentrate on the design"

The design of what, the texture maps? Why do I say that? Item 5 is why.

Item 5 says the entries are assessed principally on the basis of render quality.

Item 5 in the rules:
5. Entries are assessed principally on the basis of render quality, however consideration will be paid to 'artistic interpretation'.

It would seem, based on item 5 that the creativity and design have little to do with with winning but "render quality" does. Can one of you please define "render quality" for me so I can understand.

Again, I have to add, I'm not trying to be antagonistic or a hardcase about this. I think Podium looks like it has a lot of potential or I wouldn't even bother with this thread.

I must also add that I use six of those "crappy macs" and won't be entering the contest anyway. Maybe I will load up Parallels and give Podium a shot since your website says there is not performance hit. I would like to at least give it a try to have an basic understanding of the software.

@solo said:

The above is achieved with just one of the primitives (a work in progress)
I hope this helps in understanding

Brilliant work.

@lrsuser said:

I would suggest looking at the first contest.

chk out the model provided (skippy file in the first post) here
http://www.websitetoolbox.com/tool/post/supodiumforum/vpost?id=1743294

and then chk out the winners' take on it..here
http://www.websitetoolbox.com/tool/post/supodiumforum/vpost?id=1786065

I didnt participate last time. but followed through it...some really amazing interpretations and results!

I guess I should ask this then– what level of user are you aiming Podium? Do you have a profile in mind of what you hope the power Podium user will be in the future?

@solo said:

LMAO

The theme is "Experiance" and for those that are rendering in this medium has the Sketchup part licked, so using this restrictictive model with the exterior criterea, one needs to assemble the scene of one's imagination by rescalling, moving, texturing etc to create a scene. It is challenging for sure and should yield some surprising results and expose some imaginative artists. As crazy, chalenging and difficult as it may seem, I am sure we will see many amazing works from many individual thinkers (I suppose that is in essence what the Experiance theme is intending)

Step up and be amazing.

Your're too kind Cheffey.

Solo,
I guess my point is that the whole point of this contest is to highlight the capabilities of Podium. Why put ANY limitations on it. I don't see this as a benchmarking process, it's a push-it-till-it-breaks process. Why put any limitations on the creativity. I would think that you want Podium to look as good as it can.

I think Cheffey and I are on the same page–I see tinker toys happening. I don't think that's not the image supporters are looking for from Podium.

I'll guess I'll shut my big yap and see what happens. I hope it works out.

Edit:

This is rule number five that would seem to indicate that clever use of the shapes is secondary to render quality. Creative use of these shapes is REALLY not the point according to the rules so why bother with is at all.

5. Entries are assessed principally on the basis of render quality, however consideration will be paid to 'artistic interpretation'.

One last thing regarding this rul. What do you mean by "render quality"? So many render folks get caught up in making flawless renders instead up creative a an image with evokes an emotion of solves the problem at hand–convincing the client that you are providing them with the correct solution. As far as I'm concerned an image could have grain the size of billard balls so long as it is a good interpretation of the emotion of the space. People lose sight of this quite often and spend their time and computer power making sure you can count every stitch in the arm of a sofa twenty feet away. I get the feeling this contest is pushing people toward the technical end of the spectrum instead of the artistic end where it should be.

OK, now I'll shut my yap.

I guess my questions is nice rendering of what? You cannot modify a lot of the geometry and you cannot add addition geometry? I re-read the rules, so I think I guess the idea is to take the geometry provided and reassemble it into something, then texture and render it? I guess I don't get the "why part" for the restrictions on the geometry. I'm not trying to be a jerk here, just curious to what that adds to the final product.