Hi @renderiza, So I downloaded a trial and I'm checking out how CompoScene works. It's actually way more than what I initially asked for, and even better. It might actually make me stay in Sketchup for final rendering rather than moving everything to blender. I'm still considering my options. The challenge I have with the way CompoScene works is that I have a lot of scenes in a file and I'd like to render out (with various layer options) and I could do without the step of creating each layer into individual scenes. I'd like to just go straight to exporting the render layers as PNGs. In my SU projects, I can have anywhere from 5 to 50 scenes that I might want to export as PNGs. Plus, they would all need multiple layer options (line, shadow, clay etc). Any way to do that? Also any way to export a set of selected scenes? These are the limits I am hitting as I dig deeper into the prototyping stages of my interactive graphic novel. I will have thousands of renders to make. Thanks for any and all answers and help! Justin

Awesome modeling monsterzero !

Nice! I've used one of those dollies several times in the past. Also, an acquaintance of mine has a Red.

A friend of mine has 2 of the originals. One amazing camera. Good model.

Hey Justin, Google still hosts the plugin for download here: http://sketchup.google.com/download/previousplugins.html Its in the "Functionality Enhancement" section. But yeah, it does not include the Red One camera. And the ruby script is encoded, so its not possible to add cameras to it. Chris

Hi Buzzer, I've seen some of Cully's work, but I don't read any of the books he as worked on. His style sits pretty squarely in the "old/new school" of animation artist I like i.e. David Johnson (aka DevilPig). Bart Sears is the same story, seen his work over the years with JL and Dark Knight. Geoff Darrow on the other hand has been firmly in my "must list" I own most all of his books, own some of his originals, and had the pleasure of meeting and hanging out with him (probably more like stalking), Frank Miller and Mike Allred at Comic Con. All the detail I put into my models might be his "influence", however subconscious. For this project I'd point to; Ron Cobb, Ashley Wood, Bill Barnes, Keith Weesner, Alex Toth, Francois Schuiten, and my good friend John Bell as influences. I certainly have more artist that I love, but those are the ones I point to with regards to Fuel & Fire.

Brothers, and Sisters, MS is pure inspiration. I've got this whole awesome deal -- time consuming, and of course powerful, but what the Jack bird is new about that? Durant "I'll draw your mutant little kids then" Hapke

Futhermore, you can remove hidden faces from the tube in various ways. Your method is probably one of the fastest, but there is a faster way even: select the top and bottom Faces and Control/Option+Click the segments (not the connecting Edges) and Group them, Hide the Group. Triple-Click the geometry (which sits in the same position) and Erase it. Bring up Hidden Geometry (powerusers have a shortcut key for this) and UnHide the Group. Explode the Group. This may seem as more steps but believe me it will speed things up even more. Alternatively you can select the to-be-Erased Faces and then Group the selected Faces and Erase the group, as demonstrated in this video (skim the timeline to about 80% into the movie). [/quote] Holey Toledo Coen! That is the single most useful tip I've gotten. It has knocked the current #1 off it's perch - eraser+crl+click. Am I a power user yet?

There are a lot of costs associated with a project like this. If I self publish the printing will set me back ~10 grand. Shipping books, promotional costs, shows, and PR all cost something. That's not including my time to make the book. I do well in my career, so I'll cover those costs. I'm perfectly willing to pay for all it because that will give me the most flexibility and control. When it's close to done, I'm going to pitch it to some comic publishers. If I can get a good deal, and still retain the overall rights I'll do that. The benefit of that, of course, would be that they would absorb the cost of printing, but more importantly they would have major distribution. I don't have that ability myself. The more shops stock the book the more potential for sales of course. There's a saying in Hollywood that I love, "Never spend your own money."

I didn't seem to refer to a video I made with regards to this character. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vU2MMc-woM I also made the this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJn-y8UMer8

Outstanding as always MZ!!! I've been busy lately but alway glad to see your new pieces. I've been playing with Kerkythea and love it. Have you tried rendering any of you pieces with Kerkythea? Monster Rocks

Nice work. Very nice. I like all of the results shown at the SketchCrawl forum too. I really wish I could draw like that. It's been so long. Hacking off your arm may give you that tortured artist angle. Before you feed it to the werewolves, sketch it. Heck . . . look what it did for Van Gogh!

Shaun, that's a Yellowfin Tuna. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowfin_tuna I just looked online and found a current world record of 311 pounds. Wow. That was caught with a spear gun. Now that's a manly way to catch a fish.

Hey Guys! Thanks for all the great comments! Yeah, I really need to get this thing in gear. Heh. No pun intended. Jason! Those Australian rigs were one of the inspirations for this truck. In fact my sister lives in Australia and I remember seeing lots of cool stuff when I visited Ularu.

I have skype and until I dropped my webcam I used to fool around with video calls, too. Definitely a bandwidth-hog but can be a lot of fun.

jbacus, strange that shortcut (edit/context menu flyout/zoom extents) doesn't work for me. I just get the mac error sound when I hit the key. Strange. The menu itself works.

Ah! Thanks for taking the time to explain, it's one heck of a workflow that must have taken time to get comfortable with. Your work is mind blowing in it's detail, thanks once again for sharing...

I just saw the film, great work Justin and wellcome back. Ok we have seen it now we can delete it. Just kidding.