Thanks Marked001 and Frederick.

Frederick,
In reality, the tiles are really as reflective as in the rendering.
On the site images, however, the tiling caught some dust because of the work going on there so the reflection is less visible there.
I discussed the risks of that type of tiles being slippery with the client in design phase, and he decided it was best choice to use.

Indeed caustics (=light patterns on objects caused by refraction of light in the water)would enhance the realism, but in my experience (other render engines),using caustics shoots render time through the roof. (Podium doesn't support caustics in current version).

a fragment of that latest image to show the detailing:

Cheers and thanks for watching...

Kwistenbiebel

A screen shot of the Sketchup setup:
The scene is entirely lit by 'LEMs' (= light emitting surfaces).

A screenshot of the water tap:
To model the water I started with a tube. I selected the lowest circle and rotated it horizontally around its center, thus creating the twisted form. Then I applied a water texture with according bump map and added reflection of about 50.

A close-up on the water tap:

Hi SU'ppers,

I am re-rendering an older design using Podium v1.5, to see how that bathroom would look with bump maps applied (tiles,plaster and water).
Also a little experiment on visualising an open water tap.

The model is all sketchup, except for the rose which is .3ds 'entourage' import.

Link to bigger resolution:
http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r3/kwistenbiebel1/bathroomwithbump1.jpg

A more general view:

Comments are welcome.
Cheers,
Kwistenbiebel

Oh yeah....
Useless and senseless doodling rules.
I couldn't live without it.

@unknownuser said:

Whether the proof of the pudding is in the eating, however, also depends on the pudding.

I agree
One will expect some good looking tasty pudding (=a lot of photorealism) for that kind of money...

Stinkie,
take in consideration that Render Plus has the expenses of buying the Accurender engine license wich possibly can make the end-users product more expensive.

I haven't tried Irender yet, so I am in no position to decide if the product is worth the 600 dollars.

Vray is an expensive product too, and I reckon that the vray-core license wasn't sold cheaply by Chaosgroup to Asgvis for developing VrayforSU.

On the other hand, from the users point of view, 600 dollars isn't spent by hobbyist hands, so I guess Irender isn't aimed at the 'occasional render user' but at a Pro render customer . That customer will expect quality for his bucks.
As in all, the proof of the pudding is in the eating....that's why demos are invented so we can test software and see if the product is worth the price.

Thanks for the compliments (I see my name mentioned some times).Too much credit for me . I am pretty sure that a lot of people are capable of producing good output with different render engines. I believe it's a matter of a little persistence and being prepared to invest (sometimes a lot ) time in it.

AdamB,

I uploaded a video on youtube of a texture baked (including light/shadow) model I made, just to show what can be the benefit of using a photoreal render engine for your project.

Click the link to see the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnR0Okfaz4c

The method I used isn't as great as the thing you possibly have in your hand, but it's a good example of how baked textures can look like in SU when animated.

How I got the 'baked in light' on the textures?
I rendered my model using Podium,used the rendering as a photomatch background in SU and push-pulled some faces.
The new model is pan-able/rotatable and has a more photoreal appeal than ordinary SU.
Photomatch has the downside that things behind an object appear duplicated on the walls, limiting the rotation range (10 to 15 °)...

Your method however, combined with a render engine, would provide a full 360 VR manipulation . Bloody awesome

Personally I think the AO (ambient occlusion) image is too sloppy to be used for presentations.

AdamB,
Why can't your plugin be combined with an (existing?)photoreal render engine so we can get super real results? That would be awesome.

I personally wouldn't mind having to wait for some hours to get the light calculation done, because from that point on, I know I will be able to make animations in a blink of an eye, because the light solution is 'baked' in the textures....

That kind of VR technology with baked in light solution is kind of cutting edge.
Feversoft (Fryrender) is currently coding a similar feature for their render engine (it's called RC4).

Combine this with a good animation/walkthrough technique and I know what I will be nagging for 'til christmas

Correction Stinkie,
Podium doesn't support MLT (Metropolitan Light Transport), but it does support PT (Path Tracing). Both are unbiased methods. MLT is effective on scenes with a lot of indirect light, while PT is master in scenes that contain a lot of direct lit objects (e.g sun lit exteriors).

@Jenujacob,
Indeed I like to play with different render engines, although that doesn't make me a master.

@Rob D,
As Jenujacob and Solo pointed out, comparisons are difficult to do correctly.
In fact, I tried it before , but in the end, I found out that in some way, the comparison always fails as each render engine uses a different approach (on materials, physical sky,camera,tonemapping, etc..), making it comparing apples and pears.

Instead, I like to render a particular scene using different render apps, and just post the results for all to see, together with some info on the settings used (render time etc...).
I have posted gallery threads like that earlier on sketchucation gallery section (the old forum), but I stopped doing that because the scenes contained too much geometry (.3ds imports) that wasn't native Sketchup.

@unknownuser said:

To some extent these kind of comparisons seems to derive from the need to find the 'ultimate renderer' -a thing that does not exist.

That would be my conclusion as well
...It all depends on the kind of scene you want to see rendered.
What seems to be the ultimate render engine for scene A, is often the worst solution for scene B and vice versa.

Hi,

Since rumour has it that the next release is in the make, I just had to add three wishes which would make live easier for me using Sketchup.

1. MODELING: Soft selection tool
   : just like the smoove tool for sandbox, a soft selection tool (at all axes and perpendicular/tangent to objects) would really make all organic work possible.

2. MODELING: subdivision tool
   :This one doesn't need explaining I guess...

3. TEXTURING: wrap texture around object
   : the ability to 'project' textures is a real good one, but it's only good to texture one half (or even quarter) of an organic form. If we had the option to wrap a texture completely around an object, the distorted appearance at tangential angles would be solved.

Thanks for watching....

Kwistenbiebel

Nice renderings Stinkie.
I love the way you used emitting materials as light source.
The indigo version has the benefit of better looking phongs (mostly the wood), but 24 hours render time compared to 2 hours in Podium...mmm...tough call

Indeed the title should say Ballroom instead of bathroom.

Nice work overall.

Cheers,
Kwistenbiebel

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

Jeff,

Off course you are right.
There is a bit of difference between how the contest is 'meant to be' and how it really profilates.
As much as the Contest holder (Podium team) wants it to be just a render competition, it is actually more of a modeling competition too.
'there is no good rendering without a good model', right?

I think the 'intentions' here aren't the most important thing . don't see it as a 3dallusions/cgarchitect or whatever competition.
This competition should be just big fun. And I think it is!
And besides, it's the second Podium contest and there will probably follow more...maybe some pure architectural who knows.

Here is a quick 'doodle' I did just as an experiment using one of the primitives of the contest SU file. This will off course not be a contest entry.
(both images rendered within 5 minutes.original size: 2048 X 1536 )

Thanks for clarifying this Bigstick.
Looks like a great contest.

I think Solo just rescued the concept of the Contest!
Count me in!

Jeff, you were straightforward in your replies (I was sharing your concerns). I think you will reconsider after seeing Solos image, right? In the end, the creative possibilities are endless....

This is going to be a nice competition.
I hope you will enter the game as well.

Regards,
Kwistenbiebel.

@unknownuser said:

We've started a Post Processing section in the tutorial section, is this what you had in mind? I know it is a bit thin at the moment, but it will grow as time goes by and people post some tutorials.

That's great Juju. IMHO the post tonemapping of the render output is primordial.
Sometimes bad renderings can be 'saved' by using the right Pshop tricks.
Alternatively, sometimes bad pshopping screws up a rendering that basically was pretty good to start from.

Looking forward to see some good tuts in that new section.

Thanks

Thanks for those links. that's great stuff.
It would be great if there was a special 'post process' section in the gallery forum.

Cheers,
Kwistenbiebel