I tried Zorro on a higher poly model (the naked man I posted earlier) but Sketchup crashes .
It's not the ruby's fault (great coding whaat !) ...it's just sketchup I guess

@alan fraser said:

Ho-hum.
As Mark Twain once said "The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated."

Some people only need one sentence to make themself clear.
Great post Alan ...and hopefully true.

Solo,
I agree that SU users form a coherent community and that SU momentarily survives on the great efforts the script coding people make.

However, SU won't survive just by Ruby scripts imho.
Yes, maybe for one more year....but you must agree that Sketchup will need some development (and I mean some hard coded changes to the core) to keep up with a changing hardware and software world.
It is not a question of bashing sketchup...it is a question of users being concerned about the future of their beloved Sketchup.

Really cool whaat !
By the looks of it, you are making a whole 'organic modeling' module
And knowing you, things will really be designed from the users viewpoint.

Loving every bit of the things you are producing lately.
Keep up the great work

Autocad, 3dsmax and any CAD software that uses BIM.
I just hate complex software that lets you focus on the tool instead of on the subject of your design.
Instead I love vectorworks for 2D and off course Sketchup for 3D.
Vectorworks also has a BIM fuctionality...but I never touch that as I try to avoid an allergic reaction

Thank you all for the kind remarks.
Indeed, I missed the handrail in the Kzrkythea export.
The vegetation is partially Evermotion, and partially 3Dwarhouse which I adapted to my taste.

I finally got the chance to render the scene with Podium.
So this is a little update.

PODIUM RENDER 1.5.1

he he ....great movie Chris

Very cool Pete
I love both the modeling as the render job.
Has it been already that long since that series hit the telly?
I still like Jean Luc Picard over Janeway though....

Nowadays I have the same feeling with Sketchup I had in the nineties with the Commodore Amiga.
The Amiga was wonderful hardware back then (definitely compared to the PC's )...but that wasn't enough to keep development going.
I would hate seeing Sketchup die a slow death like that.

@masta squidge said:

I even went so far as to make another attempt at learning how to use Blender but it goes so against the way I do things on SU that I think I need a living instructor to learn it now.

I believe I will not be the only one who thinks :'Hey,I have been there'.

The whole movie shows the 'real time' viewport rendering.
Only at the last minute, a fully photoreal rendering (animation) is shown.
Both the 'real time' as the actual renderings are superb.

Hi people,

Autodesk presented their latest technology preview : "Newport".
I have a hate relationship with everything Autodesk produces, but this knocks me off my feet.

In this link there is a video (halfway the page) you must see.
Mostly the last few minutes are amazing.
This should have been Sketchup!
The link: http://revit-up.blogspot.com/2008/02/more-revit-2009-news.html

Cheers,
kwistenbiebel

@unknownuser said:

I am still a bit confused however as to the license difference. How on earth would they be able to know if it was used for commercial or personal use? I mean I don't plan on cheating the system but honestly, how could they know?

The pro version comes with phone support when something goes wrong.
The student/personal version doesn't provide this personal service and sends you to their website in case of trouble.
I don't think they care what purpose you use it for....there's just an extra service in case you go Pro.
At least that is how I understand it.

Thanks for the comments.

I didn't forget about RC4, but I am not sure what exactly will be the concept of that.
It's quite difficult to understand how it will work and what it will do by reading the little info that is available on the Fry render forum...

Just for fun and to illustrate the power of Lat/Long backgrounds, I made this NPR rendering of a car interior:

SU screen:

Low res version of the 'equirectangular' background used:

Thanks Stinkie and scottpara ,

By the way, the background is no post editing.
It's a 'equirectangular' panoramic image (so called 'lat-long image') used as environment light/background in Fry.

I replaced it with another lat-long for next rendering of the same view:

I think Deep exploration can convert a .wrl to SU....

That's true Tavi....but Make3D is really much more easy.
Just upload an image and it makes a 3D VRML out of it which can be converted to SU.

By the way,
thanks for that link Notareal

Ok...I guess I lost this challenge

Ouch

This one any better? It's tonemapped a bit different.
(couldn't change the trees and frame anymore though):