Absolutely Fabulous, Mike
Al Klagge
Teton Timberframe

x-ray viewvector view[quote="jolran"]Interresting topic.

I noticed something perculiar last week.
I got the impression LO is slow when number of objects increase, regardless of meshdensity.
quote]

I have found the same result ... when I delete multiple copies of the model (or duplicate portions of it that were set up separately just for clarity or convience) Layout speed increases, but as Sonder has noted going to 1 page per file really speeds up the processing and updating.
Also the clearest results are definitely with vector graphics, but I have to use raster if x-ray is a part of the scene (i.e., joinery within a timber). I will see if I can find some examples and attach to a following email. See also this topic for other examples of my recreational work: http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=81&t=39961.

Thanks Peter. I would be honored to make the "best" list ...

To Sonder: I second Pbacot's request for some examples of detail and Tell me, do you experience any glacially slow periods at the Laying-out stage with Layout? I have found that with very large files I need to break them into parts to keep from bogging down in Layout ...
Thanks

My God! Did you model the whole city? This is quite nice modeling work and inspires me to seek the next goal. How large is your file? Or is it several files? I wanted to do Mount Saint Michelle, but thought the level of detail needed would prohibit it. No? I did a Gothic cathedral - see: http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=81&t=39961 and that file ended up about 60 MB - interior and exterior combined. So if you have suggestions to reduce file size, I am interested in them, please.
Thanks for sharing ...

"...in honor of you. can you please make one choice. we will name it Author Al Klagge's choice. so please tell me which one you like most.

Nomer"

This is very difficult as so many are deserving of special note: but I choose this imaginative rendering by Mendra Ha:

@nomeradona said:

TOP 12 for our Sketchup Vray artists October Challenge using this GOthic Cathedral

http://sketchupvrayresources.blogspot.com/2011/11/sva-october-challenge-top-12. html

Nomer these are just fantastic and I would like to ask permission to upload all 50 to the Picassa web site I used for my renderings in a folder "Renderings by Others" and give credit to each (and the link as well). Is this OK?
Good work everyone.

@tomislavm said:

My God,how long did You need to render this movie?
Is there any suggestion for that render?

First answer: set it up and go on vacation while it renders. Actually took about 2-1/2 days because it hung about 2/3 of the way through and I had to start and splice from there to finish.
Second answer: I deffinitely suggest not using approximation of "tween" frames, which is one of the options of Kerky animation - while it probably saves time, you get that blinking of transmitted light on and off seen in the video. I used PM medium AA for the renderings which seems good enough for the video mode. Used Virtual Dub (free) for the assembly and recommend you study the "frame ripping" info to avoid the horizontal tearing of image frames I sometimes got. It is a conflict between the different scan rates (I think) of the movie and crt/computer/other devices).There are also plug-ins you can activate as filters on the raw images and advise figuring out how to activate them as one of them allows contrast/brightness adjustment and many others I know nothing about.
I know this sure as hell beats Sketchup's native animation feature for smoothness and AA function. And lastly the use of key-frames is useful for editing out stuff. I didn't use it and got the frame jumps twice when I removed unwanted frames and spliced.
Like I said before, this is my first real attempt at movie making and may we all learn from it.
Thanks for the input.

Massimo
Thanks for the heads-up. The URL has been corrected as has the version (I checked this time in the "Model info" dialog). Good rendering to you ...

Recently I realized that not everyone uses version 8 Sketchup and could not use the available downloading option. I have corrected the omission and here is the link to download a version 7 .skp file of the complete cathedral. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/40864073/v7%20Gothic%20Cathedral%20clean.skp Also Nomeradona informs me he is using this model for the October Challenge of his Sketchup-Vray Facebook group and we shall post the "winners and runners-up" here as well.

EDIT:10/20/11
the above link IS NOW version 7.skp

I have just created my first video of the Interior of this cathedral and it very clearly shows that is is the first. Created from Kerkythea in 600x800 format (thanks ) and is posted at Yutube site: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8COiJmGZCk . I have a lot to learn about movie making so any comments for improvement to that end are very welcome. View the Youtube video in FULL screen format or you miss half of it ...

Very nice Fletch. I would have fone more of this myself, but I have trouble knowing i9f my (digitasl) computer screen is "telling me the truth" because if I move out of NORMAL to the screen it changes the contrasts. Some earlier ones came out too dark ...
Is it the thin glass that gets so much more light into the building or is it the Gamma?
Thanks and do a lot more

@MrWip --
@unknownuser said:

By the way, some remarks: the covering of the pillars looks a big large to me, and not so realistic in term of proportions, and their texture is lacking of precision... but this are small problems regarding to the amount of work you put in this cathedral !
First, these are great "prelimenary" renders. Can't wait to see the results of your tweaking/changing the shaders in the future. Show me your stuff! Yes I too thought the pillars were too large and so they are now 75% of the original and could be smaller yet. And I ran up against the limits of 2GB pagefile for Kerkythea, even with some of the tricks I learned; so I reduced the resolution of all the shaders and chopped avout 15MB out of the source file. Even then I could only render the inside by stripping off the north and south porches, gutting the Royal entry towers, and stripping nearly all the flying buttresses as well as the terraine and exterior shaders. That got it to ~50MB and then Kerkythea could handle the interior with my machine. So I think higher resolution is for someone else to do for this project. Have at it. Thanks for your excitement about this.

@Artysmedia -- Thanks for your enthusiasm on this too; show us some re-renders from you, too.
Klog

Snippit is available on Windows 7 and thanks for pointing it out. I also use Picasa site to store my photos and seems to work fine, but haven't tried to link to it for the purposes of upload. Thanks for this thread, too.
Klog

And last a fly-by: but go here for the rest please;
https://picasaweb.google.com/103014864480561473398

thanks for the interest everyone.
Klog

and another one

And another one

Steelers005
OK so here are a couple more renders (if the process works, that is)

For everyone:
Here are two more Drop Box links for interior only
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/40864073/small8%20Gothic%20nave%20and%20choir.skp
and the whole cathedral without materials (about 5.5MB)
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/40864073/8%20Gothic%20Cathedral.skp
Maybe this will make it more available to all and get more great renderings and ideas going.

Klog

I spent my layoff time designing a Gothic cathedral because I read Ken Follet's "Pillars of the Earth". So here is a preview and the other 80+ renderings are at the picasa site:https://picasaweb.google.com/103014864480561473398 and the model (70MB) is available for download from http://dl.dropbox.com/u/40864073/8%20Gothic%20Cathedral%20clean.skpand anyone is welcome to "remodel" it to their heart's content and improve on it; just keep me in the loop for fun. I want to see what others will do with it.
The model is loosely based on the Chartres cathedral with elements taken from many other 11-12 & 1300's cathedrals. Rendering done with Kerkythea and a lot of patience. I had to gut the interior just to render the exterior and vice-versa.
Using a Precision 4500 4GB ram 2.93 gig processor and quadro (xx) graphics card.
Comments welcome
Al Klagge