Thanks Boofredlay! You really helped me to help someone else with the model you made. I took your shape and traced the bottom form with some follow me bristles. It's not truly optimized, I should have only made one bristol and deformed all the other copies to keep file size down. But it did not dawn on me to do so until I was almost done. Oh well another drawing for another day! Anyway Thanks again! Matte (Present Progress Attached)
Not sure if this helps, but I have been using SU on an external hard drive for a few years now. When I reconnect the drive, I often have to go into the drive directory to use the application (as opposed to the start menu) but otherwise it works just fine.
Matte
If you are thinking about using SU for modeling here are a couple of good links I use. Sure there are many more http://www.finewoodworking.com/blog/design-click-build/page/4. this is a blog an has many short How -to's posted http://www.srww.com. For this one look for the SU link Joe has an 8 part series on the design of a bed side table that will get you up to speed quickly
Good Luck
Matt, There is no "best inside SU renderer under $200". IMO, aside from "features", most rendering applications use the same math, and primarily differentiate themselves by their interface. Each of us are vested in a application by some form of ownership. After you have spent some time with a particular application, it is unlikely that you will attempt to learn something new unless the return is justified.
Perhaps you can take a look at the set of videos I made explaining some of my workflow from Sketchup to Max/Vray. It may be helpful as a place to start as I tried to keep it as simple as possible. - http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=80&t=21825
Hi. Kerkythea has options to make flythru animations. You can setup a lot of things directly inside Sketchup, and if you need some others in Kerkythea itself. Imho its verey a verey interesting option. I would recomend give it another try.
Indigo its an interesting option too, and its tuned inside Sketchup.
(And if cash its not an issue consider donate a little to the free render engine you choose π )
Thanks Jon,
Actually there was one on the warehouse that should work for now, thanks for the directions to the other sites, if the boss wants to buy one I know where to go
Matte