Thank you sid.
3 mins isn't great, it's a CPU render, using NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti, CUDA render, 56 seconds!

@Pilou
This is an obj importer, right?
Tig's exporter is very fast and works beautifully on very dense and complicated models.
For importing to SU, 3ds format, despite its limitations, works fine.
(max single mesh 64 K faces, max texture name 8 digits, it is also broken in latest SU build. I use SU 7 for importing)
Why to import? Using SU just as a modeler and export, is more interesting after all.

@Ecuadorian
Have you tried to import collada to latest blender 2.62? You'll get an empty space.

Wonderful images.

No, sapling is the name of the addon.
Curves have to be converted to real geometry before unwrapping. Watch the tutorial! It's a good one.
Go to prefs first and enable it.

@unknownuser said:

I think I have a decent understanding regarding texture links, etc.

This "decent" is what fears me
Cycles isn't that decent, you see.
Use the official blender 2.62
http://www.blender.org/download/get-blender/
Download it before it's too late, newer builds made things upside down
Watched the tutorial? http://vimeo.com/27668302
Here a blender tree (blend file, link the textures)
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/24090090/testBlendtree.zip
In recent builds, r45308 from http://www.graphicall.org/ , you don't need separate masks, a transparent png works fine. But, tree generator is broken.

About UV maps on foliage. Tree generator, when using rectangular leaves, has automatically generated them. Apply a shader in cycles node system, image (link it) and that's all.

Thank you pilou, andybot.
Of course, what file do you need? A tree?
Are you familiar with how to relink textures? Cycles is still under development.
Why don't you register in http://blenderartists.org/forum/index.php?
Not very polite blenderheads , but you may find lot of help.

Another one,
Using particles/weight painting. A better technic and a bit time consuming.
But, render time ~2 mins

Very nice render.

Increasing transparent bounces in cycles.
It took 1:50 hour to render. A cycles render, right? Monet's paintings?

Thanks for the kind comments.
About the skp file:
It looks heavy ~15Mb for downloading. It's not that huge though, I just don't use components.
I tested another skp tree, full of components ~400kb downloading. It behaves heavily in SU making rather impossible to load 10-20 such trees. It won't happen with the one a shared.
@andybot
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=33448&p=372812#p372812
TIG's obj exporter thread.

1. SU exports non welded vertices as obj. Import in blender/edit mode, select all, delete double verts (under the [W] menu). This welds all verts.
2. The ruby addon, remove inner faces. Very useful to kill non manifolds at once.
3. be aware of the inverted faces in SU (the blue ones), you may fix it in blender but will mess the exported SU UVs.
4. SU uses ngons internally and exports triangulated meshes. Terrible topology for subdivisions, displacements etc. The funny thing is that new builds of blender 2.62/bmesh implemented these ngons too. You have knifes, push pulls, insets (SU F tool), arcs etc . And some terrible topology in the end. If you're going for displacements, subdivisions, sculpting.
   So, don't subdivide SU meshes. Just render them, apply better textures, unwrapping, materials for rendering (cycles), bumps. But never subdivide, it's logically impossible. You may retopo all these but not practical for archi vis projects.
5. Components: Explode them before it's too late

Testing this interesting blender 2.62 addon.
Here a tutorial on the older version.
http://vimeo.com/27668302

Trees, randomly generated. High or low poly trees are possible.
A good reason to import SU files (tig's excellent obj exporter) to blender and render in cycles. Another reason is the ability of blender cycles to render instances, billions or hundreds of billions polys. Have a look, ~17 billions faces, rendered ~3 mins.

Here my tests, still a WIP. Cycles renders of course.

What all these have to do with SU? Except of using it as a modeler exporter to blender.
Here, imported in SU ~50K, a podium render.

And feel free to use it if you like. The SKP file.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/24090090/treeTestBlend.skp.zip

Beautiful album

@unknownuser said:

I am guessing you are going to try that gnarly old tree in a Sketchup model

he he, is this a challenge?

Cnd +- doesn't work?
Please I need some more information.

@unknownuser said:

When you come to think of it, all dogs are only a step away from the wild.

Eh, a step maybe, but what a step!
We, humans, how many steps away?

@unknownuser said:

Mike, My wife was the one that suggested getting a dog, her thinking was that I needed to get out of my chair and get some sun and exercise. Now I cannot imagine life without my dog, he is next to me at all times, from sitting on my lap while I work to riding shotgun whenever I go out on an errand. I have become that crazy dog guy that I laughed at in the past.

Did he eat your rooter's cables? Mine did so.

LOL.
Good for you. I love dogs. And cats. Individual creatures, never forgotten.
Here's mine. A ~8 years old stray became my friend. The most clever dog I had.

Reminds me this one

@ Boofredlay
Don't be , it happens to everyone. You may delete my thread, we don't need it anymore.

Here some WIP
http://forums.luxology.com/discussion/topic.aspx?id=58738

Technically speaking it's a great short, camera is excellent as the whole setup.
However, the story is ridiculous, predictable and boring. (resident evil like, though Milla isn't exactly so )

Incredible indeed.
I just posted it a few days earlier but you didn't notice.
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=179&t=44015

@unknownuser said:

And finally seems Blender or Sculptris has Vertex Paint mode for 0 $

Blender has vertex painting ... somehow LOL. Sculptris no vertex painting at all. It automatically unwraps UVs, it's direct texture painting method.
3dcoat implemented vertex painting recently (directly on voxel meshes) and costs ~$350 , educational version at ~$99 ( it does a lot more things than just painting)

Yeah, direct vertex painting. Quality depends on the resolution of mesh. For a equivalent to a 2024x2024 pix map, a ~4M mesh is needed. A ~8M is even better. Here, zbrush is the winner. Millions of poly running on a cheap hardware. In any case, for exporting all these, you have to retopo-decimate the mesh, make UVs, bake on textures.

Technically speaking, at least.
Made with Lightwave, Modo, After Effects and some plugins.
Have fun
http://vimeo.com/38591304