Vidy , yes! Thank you! Change the default values of the Spread from "0" to "1" and it works like a charm.

Hello all,

Installed yesterday and was working now i cant get leaves to grow with final shift click

The curve disappears after picking points or entering 2 points. Not working for me

Thanks Chris

This is a very useful tool. Perhaps would could be improved by using su's dialogue color picker which I know you have probably thought of already.

You ruby God's are fantastic!

Mark,

You have "The Gift" and you know it Great Job!
I find sometimes the thing that takes the longest is finding the right textures and colors that work with the model.
Do you do your own texturing our do you have access to interior designers.
Again excellent job!

Lapx

Chris,

Thank you so much for an excellent program. I have trees as images to be exported as proxy's or instances for Kerkythea. Is there a way to random rotate images? Perjaps not if they are faceme objects which they are. Would like to know how others deal with this delima.

Lapx

Thanks Gaieus, Srx!

honoluludesktop, can you give a screen shot of your photoshop layers?

Is there any way to compare the cameras position and FOV in kerkythea and sketchup?
I noted on the kerkythea forum that I was mistaken and upon closer review i didnt get a perfect match.
havent dicovered what is going wrong.

Got it ot work for a single exported render image in kerky. Did not work for batch render images for some reason.

@unknownuser said:

It's very simple to do actually...
As you may know, the scenes you create in SU will get exported as camera positions in KT...
So if you export a 2D graphic from SU and you render the same scene in KT, you'll get identical images, which you can merge in a post pro

Im having trouble getting identical images. I exported with same camera. Overlay in photoshop should be the same but not.
What could be wrong?

Is there a plug in that will allow you to do random scaling of selected objects after the location of the objects are already placed. For instance, I have trees already placed in model and I want to select the trees and have them scaled within a certain range and keep their current location. Sort of like a grow tool or fur tool but works on existing selected objects but objects keeps its original location.

No problem Dave,
I was hoping to get ideas as well. Thanks for opening the dicussion as its relavent for many of us who no little about the guts of these things today. Let us know what you come up with.

Thanks!

See this from Fletch....
I too am in the market for a new machine.
Hope this enlightens.

This is what I meant to link to...
EDIT:

Hi Lap!
A dual core is the equivalent of today's netbook... not a render machine.

Short answer: buy this! http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883227325&cm_re=core_i7-2600k--83-227-325--ProductA laptop is not a render beast - it's ok, but not a render machine. Still, corei7 laptop, while half the speed of a corei7 desktop, will still kick the stuffing out of your current machine.

Long answer...
You want as many cores and threads as possible and they need to be as fast and running as COOL as possible. So you need to start with a good motherboard and good processor.

The "best value" - that is - a great render machine for under $1000USD would include the 2600k Currently i7-2600k retails at around $314USD (at NewEgg as of end of May 2011) and runs at 3.4Ghz out of the box.

The i7 has 4 cores, but each core runs 2 threads (this is called hyperthreading) - so you are running now 8 threads on your rendering at 3.4Ghz out of the box - no clock tweaking required for under $300!

This is approx. twice as fast as the laptop version of the currently available i7 CPU.
This is also approximately 1.27x faster than the i7 920 stock speed of 2.66Ghz from 2-3 years ago. (which sold for about the same price at the time it was released)
This is also faster than the Core i7-980X Extreme 3.33GHz which is still retailing for over $1000.

Next - make sure it stays cool, and it will last years. So invest in a good - not cheap - cooling system. The NoctuaD14 is the best air cooler on the market at least it was 10 mths ago... and it's nice and quiet. Liquid cooling is not necessary, but is silent.

The 2600k can be overclocked very easily, and can be rendering at something like 4.2Ghz without much effort.

Make sure you get Good and Fast RAM - at least 6Gb in sticks of 2Gb each. (this will be ddr3 and 1600 min.)

A good and silent power supply like the Corsair 650w will be plenty for most any computer, and is over the required power so that it will run cool and quiet.

After that, everything else is gravy. A nice graphics card will be important - get a good one!

If budget is not a concern, and you're a mac person I saw this setup recently:
Quote:
Mac Pro. The spec is dual 6 core 2.93 Westmere Intel Xeon, 32 Gig RAM , 2 x 2Tbyte HD, 1 ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB GPU + 1 NVIDIA Quadro 4000.
I did not go for any SSD HD as they are way too expensive at moment. For rendering I will have 24 threads @ 2.93<Hz . It should be fast. Also CS5 will be accelerated with CUDA and any other software like Octane could use NVIDIA. Oh forgot to say I will have dual boot.

My computer is 2 years old, and is a corei7920. I paid $980 fully assembled with operating system, everything. (no monitor). I overclocked it easily to 3.62Ghz. So my computer is less than $1000, over 2 years old, and is still equal to half the speed of the Mac the guy lists above. It's also still faster than the out-of-the-box Sandy Bridge - so yes, I'd say it's a good value machine for the price.

My advice is NOT to go for the most expensive machine - because in 2-3 years you could buy a better machine that your "expensive" beast for less than half the price. For $1000 or $1500(top end) you can get a great value render machine that will keep up with most of the "pack" for the next 2 years. expecially if you overclock)

Mark, very nice work as usual. Where can I find the texture used on the chair.

Thanks,

Durant,

Is a hall-of-famer for sure! When I go over your work its not easy to appreciate it all in one look. Your work is so dynamic,unique and mysterious. When are you opening your art gallery! It would make for a great collection.

lapx

Just last friday as I was taking the scenic route home I drove into one of the ravage neighborhoods in St. Louis where the tornado just missed my house by about 5 blocks. You really have to see this stuff in person to really get a good sense of the awful destruction. They are still cleaning up even after a month of ongoing work. Sadly, we may be in for some rough times ahead as the peak of the tornado season approaches.

Thanks Mistroll,

The camera angle was set to 60 degrees in sketchup and exported from there.
You can set the camera angle in sketchup to your taste. I usually set to 60 degrees to see more of interior.
There are sveral ways you can change, but I normally use the vcb box in lower right hand corner.

Lapx

Updated Kerkythea rendering...

Thanks! I look at them. At first glance gantter seems like it will do the job. The project schedule is 1 year for design and engineering and 1 year for construction for an 11 acre zoo.